Issue 111, November 2007
JT's new book - extract
©Jane Teresa Anderson, November 2007
Here are two extracts from my new book, 101 DREAM INTERPRETATION TIPS, which is released this month.
INTRODUCTION
When I was a small child, I used to dream of a lake. It was quite an ordinary looking lake on the surface, but if I lay down on the grass and focussed on the edge of the water, something magical happened. I could see inside the lake, from the glistening underbelly of the surface all the way down to the sandy bottom miles below, a breathtaking universe teeming with colourful, tropical fish, quite different from the sombre aquatic life inhabiting the English lakes of my childhood.
Today I live in Australia, a tropical, multicoloured land, where I practise daily the art and science of looking below the surface of the everyday to discover life’s deeper wonders revealed in our dreams.
The meaning of my childhood dream was as multilayered as the lake. Was it a glimpse of my future in Australia, or did it inspire me to explore below the surface of the seemingly ordinary to discover the extraordinary power and beauty of life’s deeper truths, truths that led me to this place and this work?
In my work as a dream analyst, I invite people to look below the surface of how life seems to be, to discover what colours their view of the world and their place in it. In my work as a dream alchemist, I then invite them to work a little magic with those colours, to blend or transform them to create new views of their world, and new ways of being in it.
I have condensed the essence of my dream interpretation and dream alchemy techniques into these 101 tips for you to follow. Each tip may look simple on the surface, yet each is multilayered. The more you learn about dream interpretation, the deeper you will see into each tip. At first, you will see simple tips, and for beginners this is perfect. You will learn fast, and be astounded at what you learn about yourself and your life along the way. As you become more advanced in your dream interpretation skills and revisit the same tips over the years, you’ll discover gems between the lines – or the tropical fish you didn’t see the first times through – and you’ll smile, and add another ‘Aha’ to your wisdom.
Dip into the book at random, use the index to look up what you want to know, or simply start at Tip 1 and read straight through. Enjoy!
TIP 55
Crying and grief
When you wake up crying real tears, or simply feeling profoundly sad for no apparent reason, it’s because you have finally touched upon some buried grief through a dream. You may have released it all, or there may be more to come. Either way, this is good and healing. (Don’t you always feel much better after a cry?) Even if you don’t remember the dream, rest assured that tears are better out than in, and although you may become more aware in the next few days of a past event that caused you grief, you are well on the way to finally letting it go and moving on.
There will be times in your past where you were unable to express your grief, or where you felt you should try to hide it. Perhaps ‘boys don’t cry’, or you were advised to ‘keep a stiff upper lip’, or you accepted a hurtful situation as normal or something to be endured, so you packed grief away, out of sight. Or perhaps the only way to get through a situation was to pretend to yourself that it wasn’t happening, or wasn’t important, or that you were coping wonderfully, or needed to smile for others, or that you had already healed.
These, and other forms of denial, are like bandaids. They work on the surface, but the deeper wound still hurts, affecting how you live your life. One day the grief finally breaks through – perhaps accompanied by a dream of a dam bursting, or a tsunami breaking – and you wake up crying.
If you can remember your dream, look for clues about your grief; understanding the past will help you to accelerate your healing. Look for a young child or younger person who seems sad, or hurt, or trying to cover up his or her feelings. What age is the child? Ask what happened for you at that age, or that number of years ago. It doesn’t matter whether the child or person looks like you. He or she most likely symbolises the event or your hurt.
Also look for historical markers in your dream: perhaps cars, houses, clothes, or numbers that help to give you a time period to explore.
When you have found the source of your grief, do this dream alchemy practice. Close your eyes, and visualise hugging and comforting yourself as you were back then, or hugging and comforting the child in the dream. Let her cry all her tears dry, then let her smile and laugh and grow strong and happy. Tell her how wonderful her life will be now that her tears have washed it all away, and see her growing before your eyes, changing and becoming a strong, happy, powerful, and relieved new you. Merge with her in your mind’s eye, and take her, fully healed, into your heart.
When you cry away grief, rainbows appear.
Jane Teresa Anderson
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