Issue 141, May 2010
Charlie's bone
copyright Jane Teresa Anderson, May 2010
A dog, Charlie, sees a meaty bone tantalisingly just out of reach, on the grass, on the other side of a high wire fence. The aroma twitches his nose, moistens his mouth, and fixes his eyes to the tasty prize. The only problem is the fence between where he is now and where he wants to be. It’s too high to jump, too solid to squeeze through. What’s the solution?
Hours pass, and Charlie sits in his garden, totally focussed on the bone. You could say he spent the morning visualising gnawing the bone, imagining how it would taste, how happy he’d be. That’s true. But he was also focussed on that dratted fence, occasionally trying to burrow beneath it, lunge at it, poke his nose through it, each time feeling nothing but its unrelenting resistance barring his way to where he wanted to be.
What’s the tasty bone you’ve been visualising in your life recently? What’s the fence? Have you been spending as much time and energy visualising the fence as visualising the bone? Which do you think will manifest, getting the bone or strengthening the resistance of the fence?
Does this little story resonate with your heart (does it feel right, does it deliver an Aha?), or do you find your head analysing the analogy, picking holes in it?
Legends, myths, fairy tales and parables are lovingly passed through generations because they offer insights and solutions from the safety zone of a story. The story does not judge the listener or tell them what to do. If the listener resonates with the story, inner shifts begin. If she doesn’t, it isn’t the right story for her current predicament.
An analogy works best if it’s not too close to home, or even not close to species. Think Disney, Pixar, movies featuring animals, fables. Why is this?
You’re not a dog. You probably gag at the thought of eating a raw bone. Yet maybe you resonated at some level with my simple little story about Charlie. In fact, the story may have a deeper impact on you than a realistic story featuring someone like you in your exact predicament. The more the details resemble your life, the harder it is for you to see solutions because you start to lock into the way you see your life, with all your familiar fences, obstacles and problems included. Your blind spots engage. Comfort zone prevails. But when the story takes you away from the life you know and gets you to look through the eyes of, say, a dog, you are suspended from your attachment to your own situation for long enough to see new possibilities.
I might have told a different Charlie analogy. How about the one where Charlie focuses so intently on the fence that he realises it is nothing but a myriad atoms floating in space, giving the impression of solidity, so he just walks through it?
Or how about the one where Charlie’s frustration with the fence makes him bark louder than ever before so that a passing stranger hears his cry for help and tosses him the bone?
Analogies are full of holes. Mere atoms of storytelling breath suspended in voids big enough to step through. But isn’t that the point? Aren’t analogies simply vehicles to transport you to the next … ah, anyone spot an analogy coming?
Dreams can be seen as analogies. Dreams reflect the last 24-48 hours of your conscious and unconscious experiences, compare these to your past experiences, update your personal worldview, and project forward, based on this blueprint of your expectations. The resulting dream, encompassing all this stuff, is mostly a production of your creative right brain. Left brain logic doesn’t get a look in. Approach a dream as an analogy of your current mindset, and you’re well on the way to accurate interpretation.
For example, you dream of being lost, unable to find your way: where, in the last two days, did you feel lost at some level, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually? Or you dream of being bogged down in mud: where, in the last two days, did you feel, at some level, bogged down? Or you dream of seeing a tasty reward, out of reach on the other side of a tall fence: where, in the last two days, did you feel blocked from attaining something rewarding?
When you interpret a dream, identifying the analogy is a good starting point. It helps you to relate your dream to the waking life situation it applies to. Then you can bring in all the interpretation tools you’ve learned from me along the way (through my articles, books, podcasts and so on) to interpret the details, uncover how your mindset is affecting your life experience, and flesh out (oh, that bone again) personal meaning.
Just as analogies can be full of holes, dreams – being analogies - can reveal the holes in the way you look at your life. And just as analogies can inspire insights and solutions to problems, dreams – being analogies – can do this too.
And just as the best legends, myths, fairy tales and Disney productions are analogies whipped up into spellbinding stories, you can whip your dreams up into spellbinding dream alchemy practices. Simply write an inspirational dream as a children’s story, or rewrite a dream that reveals a personal limitation as a children’s story with a happy ending.
If you resonated with Charlie, spin some magic right now by writing a one page children’s story about how Charlie finally got his bone.
Jane Teresa Anderson
Prizes
FaceBook follower Angela won a prize (one of my eBooks) when she was the first to answer a question on our FaceBook Page. I’ll be offering prizes from time to time, so ‘like’ my page if you want to take part in future competitions!
Blog Highlights: April
29 Apr 10
That reminds me
27 Apr 10
Trash tells all
21 Apr 10
Reading your unconscious mind
15 Apr 10
Back seat driver
13 Apr 10
Put the baggage down
8 Apr 10
Out there: Jennifer’s update, ep 47
6 Apr 10
Comfortable exposure: Carla’s update, ep 44
5 Apr 10
Turning point: small shift, big change
The Dream Show - April episodes
You can listen to these online, free on iTunes, or download to your iPod.
Listen to all episodes
Or subscribe/download to your iPod
And I'd love to have more guests on the show, so if you're interested in having a dream interpreted on the show, please email me.
Enjoy and share these:
Episode 50:
Jeremy's dream: The beauty spot
Jeremy is my guest today with a dream he had on the eve of his 30th birthday. He was eager for an interpretation because he was anxious, in the dream, about being in the passenger seat of a Cadillac, unsure of where the driver was taking him. He felt the dream reflected his anxiety about where life was taking him.
During the podcast you'll hear Jeremy get really clear on where he wants to go, much to his surprise.
His dream presents him with a dilemma about a 'beauty shot', consisting of two painful needles - a long one and a short one. Will he face the pain to gain the beauty? And why does he look so goofy in those photos on the wall? Jeremy wondered whether his dream was about vanity on the eve of a new decade; far from it. Listen as we unfold the dream and create the alchemy.
Episode 50
Episode 51:
Tasha's dream: Fifteen gods
My guest today, Tasha, dreamed of a road trip taking in a tour of a Jehovah Witness school and a Scientology centre.
At the school she witnessed (ahem) the sudden integration of black and white children who had been segregated in the classroom. At the Scientology centre she was offered the gift of a stuffed dog if she signed up as a member. (Can you see any connections?)
Tasha imagined shocking the Scientologists: what if she belonged to a religion with 15 gods?
Here's the thing: this dream is not about religion, and the number 15 is stunningly significant, as you will hear when you listen to Tasha and I unearth the meaning of her dream and how it relates to her waking life.
Talking of waking life, Tasha had this dream after being woken by a fire alarm drill, and, as you listen, you'll discover how the symbolism of waking life events - such as fire alarms - reflects as surely as a dream the stuff of Tasha's unconscious mind. This one will set bells ringing for you. Enjoy.
Episode 51
Episode 52:
Moving forward
Today's episode is about moving forward, freed by alchemy.
When you do alchemy, your dreams reflect the deep changes. Of course, you'll notice changes in your waking life - some subtle, but hugely powerful, some more dramatic - but it's always exciting to see confirmation of the changes in your dreams.
One of the first changes you'll observe is that at least one recurring dream will present with a new and happy ending because you have broken through old conditioning that was keeping you locked in a recurring waking life issue. Sometimes this change literally happens overnight; at other times you'll experience a period of revisiting the old recurring dreams while the old beliefs are being chipped away and transformed at a slower pace. Either way, if the alchemy is right, it happens, and you'll see it in your dreams!
In today's show I bring updates from three recent podcast guests, Eve, Carla, and Jennifer, reporting on the changes they've experienced in their lives and in their old recurring dreams. And I share some of my dancing dreams and what I've learned from them about recurring situations in life and breaking free from them.
In my night dreams I am the most spectacular dancer, always harmoniously partnered, cheek to cheek, heart to heart, soul to soul. Our weightless dances defy the gravity and clumsiness of waking life, as we move into every dimension of space until the dance ends and I wake up still smiling from the touch of the light fantastic.
And from each dream dance, a great lesson is learned.
Join me for an exploration of Yin and Yang, and the balanced middle path between the two that leads to the way forward.
Episode 52
Episode 53:
Apples for apples
Is there a right interpretation to every dream? If you're interpreting your own dreams, might you sometimes interpret according to what you want to believe about yourself and your life?
Are you a stickler for seeing things the same way, doing things the same way, and is this seeing and doing taking you where you want to be? Where do you want to be? How tough does life have to get before you look for a new way forward?
Today's show offers some universal truths, insights and inspirations to get you moving ahead with ease when things seem a bit too tough. And plenty of dream interpretation tips as always, of course.
Episode 53
Episode 54 :
Angela's dream: Resurrection and birth
Angela is my guest today with a dream she had last week while her mother was receiving chemotherapy.
In the dream, her mother became well in a scene akin to a resurrection, and Angela gave birth to a baby but worried that she wasn't prepared emotionally for motherhood. The measurements of the baby were given: 19.5, 11 and 4.
Does Angela's dream throw light on her mother's health, or is this dream all about Angela?
Yes, the figures are accurate indicators of past experiences that help Angela to see things from a new and insightful perspective, as you will hear. Listen to Angela and I as we do the dream detective work and create some dream alchemy to light her path.
Episode 54
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