Dream Work
- Thread starter theos
- Start date
ana
The Living Force
I am rereading a book I have read before with little interest, now beginning to have more sense, it is The message of dreams by Gayle M. V. Delaney, the original English version is Living your dreams.
It is precisely a book on dreamwork, as anart pointed out, She says that most of our dreams can only be interpreted by ourselves, as we are the real productors, well not exactly us, a higher part wich remains unconscious for us but that is constantly trying to comunicate with us using the whole symbology available based on our own perceptions of reality to help us SEE and act accordingly.
Nightmares can be warning of danger, and also a call to return to pay attention to our dreams.
Recurring dreams seems to be lessons about our interactions with others, behavior patterns, etc we are avoiding to face.
It also says that there are two forms of interpreting dreams:
Subjective interpretation, were each character is seeing as an aspect of our personality, hopes, fears, efforts, achievements.
And an objective interpretation that involves treating the characters that appear as representations of characteristic features that belong to someone or something in the dreamer's life.
Here you are a translated quote of the book I find interesting:
and then:
It is precisely a book on dreamwork, as anart pointed out, She says that most of our dreams can only be interpreted by ourselves, as we are the real productors, well not exactly us, a higher part wich remains unconscious for us but that is constantly trying to comunicate with us using the whole symbology available based on our own perceptions of reality to help us SEE and act accordingly.
Nightmares can be warning of danger, and also a call to return to pay attention to our dreams.
Recurring dreams seems to be lessons about our interactions with others, behavior patterns, etc we are avoiding to face.
It also says that there are two forms of interpreting dreams:
Subjective interpretation, were each character is seeing as an aspect of our personality, hopes, fears, efforts, achievements.
And an objective interpretation that involves treating the characters that appear as representations of characteristic features that belong to someone or something in the dreamer's life.
Here you are a translated quote of the book I find interesting:
and then:
Mona
Jedi Master
Oh thank you so much for this thread. I was wondering about what was being said in regards to Ark's journals. I got some ideas how to go about doing this, doing this dream work, from some of the members here so I finally tried it last night. And what a mistake I made. I woke up in the middle of the night and I had this sensation of something being around me, it being long and moving physically, and it had a weird effect on me, but you know what mistake I made, I did not record the dream and I went back to sleep because I thought I was going to remember it in the morning. ANd I did not.
Thanks Myrddin Awyr and Psyche for giving us more details on how to do the dreaming. I use 3 mg of elatonin every night and that seems to do wonders for me. I cannot wait to go to sleep tonight.
Thanks Myrddin Awyr and Psyche for giving us more details on how to do the dreaming. I use 3 mg of elatonin every night and that seems to do wonders for me. I cannot wait to go to sleep tonight.
Ana said:
sounds like a interesting book to read. Thank you for mentioning Ana. 7 years back I read the book "exploring the world of Lucid Dreaming" by stephen Laberge and Howard Rheingold and I tried to recognize the dreams to play with it. Later I Stopped it as it is useless. I never tried this deeper meaning of it. objective and subjective interpretations. Most of the dreams I get is the extension of waking state. This is some thing I need to work on it.
Thank you Ark for your suggestion of writing the journal before going to sleep.
cagoule
Padawan Learner
Has anyone heard of sleeptracker watches?
Basically it is a watch that monitors your sleep patters and will only wake you when you are in an "almost awake" state.
From the website,
"HOW DOES SLEEPTRACKER® WORK?
SLEEPTRACKER® continuously monitors signals from your body that indicate whether you are asleep or awake. Because you wear SLEEPTRACKER® on your wrist like a watch, its internal sensors can detect even the most subtle physical signals from your body. SLEEPTRACKER® finds your best waking moments, so that waking up has never been easier.
When you sleep, your body goes through a series of sleep cycles. The average adult experiences 4-5 full sleep cycles over an 8-hour period. Each cycle lasts about 90-110 minutes and comprises five different stages, as illustrated by this chart.
No two people have the same sleep cycles, and nobody has the same cycle twice. Many factors can influence sleep cycles, including diet, exercise, medications, drugs or alcohol, stress, sleep disorders, and sleep deprivation. Age and gender can play a role, too: women tend to sleep more soundly than men, and as we age, we sleep more restlessly.
A typical sleep cycle has five stages and takes 90-110 minutes. During Stage 1 of your sleep cycle, you sleep lightly. At Stage 2, your sleep gets progressively deeper. At Stages 3 and 4, also known as "Delta Sleep," you sleep most heavily; this is when your body rebuilds itself.
Stage 5 of sleep, also known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, is marked by extensive physiological changes, such as accelerated respiration, increased brain activity, rapid eye movement, and muscle relaxation. People dream during REM sleep.
In the first third of the night, Delta sleep stages last longer than REM stages. As the night progresses, Delta sleep diminishes in length. By the last third of the night, Delta sleep usually ceases, while REM stages lengthen.
SLEEPTRACKER® may find multiple almost-awake moments within the sleep cycle. Almost-awake moments may also vary in frequency throughout the night.
By monitoring your sleep cycles for optimal waking moments during the preset ALARM WINDOW, SLEEPTRACKER® finds those almost awake-moments and gently wakes you when you're most alert. The result? You wake up refreshed instead of groggy. Waking up has never been easier."
I was wondering if this technique may be particularly good for dream work? The only downside is that the watch costs around $179 (or £135 UK sterling) which is quite pricey. Still it may be a good technique for feeling better in the morning and writing down dreams.
Basically it is a watch that monitors your sleep patters and will only wake you when you are in an "almost awake" state.
From the website,
"HOW DOES SLEEPTRACKER® WORK?
SLEEPTRACKER® continuously monitors signals from your body that indicate whether you are asleep or awake. Because you wear SLEEPTRACKER® on your wrist like a watch, its internal sensors can detect even the most subtle physical signals from your body. SLEEPTRACKER® finds your best waking moments, so that waking up has never been easier.
When you sleep, your body goes through a series of sleep cycles. The average adult experiences 4-5 full sleep cycles over an 8-hour period. Each cycle lasts about 90-110 minutes and comprises five different stages, as illustrated by this chart.
No two people have the same sleep cycles, and nobody has the same cycle twice. Many factors can influence sleep cycles, including diet, exercise, medications, drugs or alcohol, stress, sleep disorders, and sleep deprivation. Age and gender can play a role, too: women tend to sleep more soundly than men, and as we age, we sleep more restlessly.
A typical sleep cycle has five stages and takes 90-110 minutes. During Stage 1 of your sleep cycle, you sleep lightly. At Stage 2, your sleep gets progressively deeper. At Stages 3 and 4, also known as "Delta Sleep," you sleep most heavily; this is when your body rebuilds itself.
Stage 5 of sleep, also known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, is marked by extensive physiological changes, such as accelerated respiration, increased brain activity, rapid eye movement, and muscle relaxation. People dream during REM sleep.
In the first third of the night, Delta sleep stages last longer than REM stages. As the night progresses, Delta sleep diminishes in length. By the last third of the night, Delta sleep usually ceases, while REM stages lengthen.
SLEEPTRACKER® may find multiple almost-awake moments within the sleep cycle. Almost-awake moments may also vary in frequency throughout the night.
By monitoring your sleep cycles for optimal waking moments during the preset ALARM WINDOW, SLEEPTRACKER® finds those almost awake-moments and gently wakes you when you're most alert. The result? You wake up refreshed instead of groggy. Waking up has never been easier."
I was wondering if this technique may be particularly good for dream work? The only downside is that the watch costs around $179 (or £135 UK sterling) which is quite pricey. Still it may be a good technique for feeling better in the morning and writing down dreams.
Mona
Jedi Master
ark said:
That is interesting, I have to start writing in my journal before going to bed. I have started to use the journal for the past two nights and oh boy, did I have a strange dream last night. First of all I went for a haircut and was planning on getting a color done as well, but that did not happen as I forgot to tell my hairstylist to do the color as well in my dream. Then with my new haircut I decided to go to the movies by myself, I actually decided to go see 'Avatar' (I still have not seen it in real life). I went to the basement where the room, where the movie was supposed to be shown, was located but 'Avatar' was not being shown there, so I was told to take an elevator upstairs to a different room. I entered the elevator with a few people, but what was unusual was that inside the elevator there was a room and there was a man who seemed like a scientist. His 'smart car' was parked inside this elevator-room, but the car seemed smaller as if it was designed for one person only. He told me that the car looked like something, that something I cannot remember, but I remember telling him that it did not look like what he said it looked like, but instead it looked like a 'gorilla'. Hmmm...... Oh boy, yes, I think I lost it in my dream. The funny thing is that it kind of looked like a gorilla when I looked at it but it was actually a car. And then I woke up. So, I wrote this story in my journal, and I will start writing in it also before going to sleep. I cannot wait where this story will lead me to. I hope not the asylum.
I must say that this dream work is really exciting to me. I hope people will start sharing their dreams as well in this thread. I cannot wait to read them.
Just in the process of reading this book, thanks Ana. It does seem to fit with what Ark is saying, and there are lots of other good tips as well, including what I'd always been told - you are the best interpreter of your own dreams. The way to do this is explained very simply and yet, extensively by way of examples, in the book.
Well, FWIW, I’d like to share a journal entry and some details of a dream I had last night. I’d appreciate any feedback to see if I’m doing this right or not. If the mods find anything that violates the rules in this post, please edit or delete it (or whatever you see fit).
I wrote this before I did 3-stage breathing and, I think, six recitations of the POTS. I also took some melatonin before I wrote this. Went to bed at around nine, woke up at about five-thirty.
~~
5/5/10
Today was all right. It just didn’t seem like I got anything done… drifting from one distraction to the next, not really remembering my self, not really reading much either. Did I learn anything new? Maybe just refreshers, but no life-changing insight I can recall.
I did [speed] read about J’s experience with MMS, and how he had begun to doubt the group as well as himself. The question was [paraphrasing]: if they did not debunk MMS until recently, then what about gluten, the C’s, etc.? How do you know it’s true?
I know that nothing can be completely “true” in this reality – we all have our blindspots and sacred cows – but it really pointed out the fact that I have done little critical thinking or research of my own. I guess that makes me a “true believer”. I’m actually afraid of doing my own research; I keep fearing that I’ll believe something that’s not true, and I’ll make a mistake later … No, I’m lying. I think I’m just afraid of having to do actual work to prove something to be true, as true as something can be right now. I keep writing crap that takes hours of work for school, yet I don’t commit myself to researching gluten, channeling, psychopathy in the government… maybe I’m just afraid of not finding something, or that something I’ve known from SOTT could not be supported by whatever Google gives me.
Maybe I believe too much without question because of my gullibility; I used to be a new age freak on Crystalinks, after all. I just wanted to escape my family life… I still do, but what the group has taught me has kept my impulses under better control.
I hold an emotional attachment to the ideas there. After I discovered nihilism, I wondered, “What’s the point?” Then I found an answer that made sense: to learn. This idea has kept me from ending my life. After all: If your lessons carry on with you, why waste more time trying to realize that All is Lessons all over again? Why waste this opportunity where I actually know something?
I still don’t quite understand exactly what I should be learning now. How can I be a good STO Candidate? I keep thinking that the only reason I want to do this is because I want to escape the fate of 4D STS: recycling back to 1st Density. Then again, why would I want to become the things that cause so much misery?
It’s strange; whenever I think about things like this, my heartbeat goes up. It’s like I feel guilty, anxious, and stressed about something at the same time. Maybe it’s the melatonin.
All that said: What is it I must learn now? What am I doing wrong? Is there any specific subject I should try to gain knowledge in to enhance soul growth?
Do asking these questions make any difference at all? I keep feeling pressured by the “cutoff point” remark; I know that in this life, as in every, opportunities will cease (what with the government being insane and the ice age), yet they also said that one shouldn’t worry so much about time, and that we have eternity to learn… or some approximation of that. Perhaps I feel that way because I’ve been burdened by time; deadlines, if you don’t make it or turn it in on time, we will hate you and punish your lazy self, and other programs.
Maybe I expect too much of the Universe to have these questions answered all at once; some things you just need to experience for yourself.
M’kay, so what do I need to experience for soul growth? How about a few hints on what I should be focusing on now? You know I don’t mind repeated dreams if the content is important!
~~Dream
- In a fast food place, either working there or looking for a job
-My father came to take me back home while chatting on his cell phone, but I shouted obscenities at him and ran off to a freeway [no, I don’t like him in real life, either]
-Looking in a store window, wanting to buy something but not having the money? It looked like some vinyl record sleeve.
- Doing homework in class (it actually looked more like a lobby with some desks and a whiteboard), a girl (who looked a bit like my younger self, although with darker skin) asked how I got all my work done. I said, “I got it done early!”
- Sister and mother came to bring me home shortly after
- At a dental office, it was mentioned that free copies of some program from SOTT was given out as samples. People seemed to like it (I had a mini-flashback of pregnant women laughing), and I thought it might be a good place to distribute the EE program
- Looking something up on some computer-like device, it may have been the record sleeve or some constellation, I can’t remember
-There might have been some landscape map that took me from one scenario to another, but that may have been from another dream as well
~~
Yep, my dreams are weird, and I could barely remember this one when I woke up this morning. I also have a problem of confusing events in different dreams for real events, and vice versa.
I’m not quite sure how much of this relates to what I wrote about last night, though. I have been thinking about getting a job, or at least to volunteer somewhere in which I could directly distribute info about EE, since I haven’t found any people who couldn’t buy the program within walking distance. Laura said that we should wait until we get results from the teachers in NYC, and then we could use them as selling points on posters (so that they’re less likely to get ripped off from the walls). So, I feel a bit useless to the project until I can do this.
Any thoughts on this? Does it look like I’m doing dream work right? I can’t really afford to buy a new book (I still have loads of others to read, anyways), so I’m just getting advice from the internet. But if I can, I will order the book Ana suggested. :)
Thank you so much for starting this thread. :)
I wrote this before I did 3-stage breathing and, I think, six recitations of the POTS. I also took some melatonin before I wrote this. Went to bed at around nine, woke up at about five-thirty.
~~
5/5/10
Today was all right. It just didn’t seem like I got anything done… drifting from one distraction to the next, not really remembering my self, not really reading much either. Did I learn anything new? Maybe just refreshers, but no life-changing insight I can recall.
I did [speed] read about J’s experience with MMS, and how he had begun to doubt the group as well as himself. The question was [paraphrasing]: if they did not debunk MMS until recently, then what about gluten, the C’s, etc.? How do you know it’s true?
I know that nothing can be completely “true” in this reality – we all have our blindspots and sacred cows – but it really pointed out the fact that I have done little critical thinking or research of my own. I guess that makes me a “true believer”. I’m actually afraid of doing my own research; I keep fearing that I’ll believe something that’s not true, and I’ll make a mistake later … No, I’m lying. I think I’m just afraid of having to do actual work to prove something to be true, as true as something can be right now. I keep writing crap that takes hours of work for school, yet I don’t commit myself to researching gluten, channeling, psychopathy in the government… maybe I’m just afraid of not finding something, or that something I’ve known from SOTT could not be supported by whatever Google gives me.
Maybe I believe too much without question because of my gullibility; I used to be a new age freak on Crystalinks, after all. I just wanted to escape my family life… I still do, but what the group has taught me has kept my impulses under better control.
I hold an emotional attachment to the ideas there. After I discovered nihilism, I wondered, “What’s the point?” Then I found an answer that made sense: to learn. This idea has kept me from ending my life. After all: If your lessons carry on with you, why waste more time trying to realize that All is Lessons all over again? Why waste this opportunity where I actually know something?
I still don’t quite understand exactly what I should be learning now. How can I be a good STO Candidate? I keep thinking that the only reason I want to do this is because I want to escape the fate of 4D STS: recycling back to 1st Density. Then again, why would I want to become the things that cause so much misery?
It’s strange; whenever I think about things like this, my heartbeat goes up. It’s like I feel guilty, anxious, and stressed about something at the same time. Maybe it’s the melatonin.
All that said: What is it I must learn now? What am I doing wrong? Is there any specific subject I should try to gain knowledge in to enhance soul growth?
Do asking these questions make any difference at all? I keep feeling pressured by the “cutoff point” remark; I know that in this life, as in every, opportunities will cease (what with the government being insane and the ice age), yet they also said that one shouldn’t worry so much about time, and that we have eternity to learn… or some approximation of that. Perhaps I feel that way because I’ve been burdened by time; deadlines, if you don’t make it or turn it in on time, we will hate you and punish your lazy self, and other programs.
Maybe I expect too much of the Universe to have these questions answered all at once; some things you just need to experience for yourself.
M’kay, so what do I need to experience for soul growth? How about a few hints on what I should be focusing on now? You know I don’t mind repeated dreams if the content is important!
~~Dream
- In a fast food place, either working there or looking for a job
-My father came to take me back home while chatting on his cell phone, but I shouted obscenities at him and ran off to a freeway [no, I don’t like him in real life, either]
-Looking in a store window, wanting to buy something but not having the money? It looked like some vinyl record sleeve.
- Doing homework in class (it actually looked more like a lobby with some desks and a whiteboard), a girl (who looked a bit like my younger self, although with darker skin) asked how I got all my work done. I said, “I got it done early!”
- Sister and mother came to bring me home shortly after
- At a dental office, it was mentioned that free copies of some program from SOTT was given out as samples. People seemed to like it (I had a mini-flashback of pregnant women laughing), and I thought it might be a good place to distribute the EE program
- Looking something up on some computer-like device, it may have been the record sleeve or some constellation, I can’t remember
-There might have been some landscape map that took me from one scenario to another, but that may have been from another dream as well
~~
Yep, my dreams are weird, and I could barely remember this one when I woke up this morning. I also have a problem of confusing events in different dreams for real events, and vice versa.
I’m not quite sure how much of this relates to what I wrote about last night, though. I have been thinking about getting a job, or at least to volunteer somewhere in which I could directly distribute info about EE, since I haven’t found any people who couldn’t buy the program within walking distance. Laura said that we should wait until we get results from the teachers in NYC, and then we could use them as selling points on posters (so that they’re less likely to get ripped off from the walls). So, I feel a bit useless to the project until I can do this.
Any thoughts on this? Does it look like I’m doing dream work right? I can’t really afford to buy a new book (I still have loads of others to read, anyways), so I’m just getting advice from the internet. But if I can, I will order the book Ana suggested. :)
Thank you so much for starting this thread. :)
ana
The Living Force
Hi zlyja,
Don't worry for not remembering accurately your dreams now, it seems that as everything it needs attention so we can develop more and more each time.
What i am learning with this book is that in order to try to find the meaning of the dream we have to start by giving meaning to the places, persons, animals, objects and feelings we find there.
So maybe you can start by:
Is it possible that my father here is representing a part in me I don't want to see and I am projecting on to my father?
Imagine that your unconscious want you to understand that the way you are dealing with your life now is becoming unsuccessful and you have no control over it, that everything is beyond the reach of your will because you dont' want to acknowledge the negative aspects in order to confront them, what a better form of doing it than staging a somewhat chaotic scenario where you run from a negative aspect (you father) instead of stop, see, listen and confront the situation.
Now, the above is just and example, in order to make increasingly accurate interpretations, we need experience, and above all sincerity with ourselves so we can see in our dreams what we don't want or cant acknowledge in our "waking hours".
Hope it helps :)
Don't worry for not remembering accurately your dreams now, it seems that as everything it needs attention so we can develop more and more each time.
What i am learning with this book is that in order to try to find the meaning of the dream we have to start by giving meaning to the places, persons, animals, objects and feelings we find there.
So maybe you can start by:
What meaning does have a fast food place to me? Is it a place for stability and peace, a place where I feel comfortable,a place were I can make friends, your vision and feelings about a fast food place in your waking hours, as allegedly the unconscious borrows images of our reality in function of the cognitive and affective relationship that we have of it.
Same here, what does my father represent for me? How does he make me feel?
Is it possible that my father here is representing a part in me I don't want to see and I am projecting on to my father?
Imagine that your unconscious want you to understand that the way you are dealing with your life now is becoming unsuccessful and you have no control over it, that everything is beyond the reach of your will because you dont' want to acknowledge the negative aspects in order to confront them, what a better form of doing it than staging a somewhat chaotic scenario where you run from a negative aspect (you father) instead of stop, see, listen and confront the situation.
Now, the above is just and example, in order to make increasingly accurate interpretations, we need experience, and above all sincerity with ourselves so we can see in our dreams what we don't want or cant acknowledge in our "waking hours".
Hope it helps :)
Hi Ana,
Thank you for the advice. :) Okay, so I’ll try to assign some meaning to the parts of my dream.
Fast food place: In real life, I hate those places. I used to like them because of the food, but ever since I stopped eating gluten and refined sugar, I feel nauseated just walking by them. I’ve always disliked how crowded and dirty they were. Overall, I think that they are places where negativity is amplified.
Now that I think about it, in my dream it wasn’t really like a McDonalds or something. It was an empty room, maybe there was a cashier, and it was quiet and either hazy or dusty, like an old deli. But I couldn’t smell any food, and there was no food by the counter. Nobody was eating. It had a sort of grey, brown, and red, muted color scheme with artificial light. It was calm until I saw my father.
Father: I think he’s the typical narcissistic parent. Whenever he doesn’t get his way, he commands you while having some big temper tantrum, and always expects you to pay complete attention to him while he belittles any conflicting opinion. He usually makes me very angry. In previous dreams he has symbolized a monster, and I remember a recent dream where he punched me in the chest! It hurt a lot too! Perhaps he’s my unconscious mind’s symbol for the Predator. Then again, I may be describing myself! I need to do some self observation.
Actually, in a lot of my dreams I shout obscenities (all essentially meaning “Go away!”) at him and run away. Maybe there’s something within myself I have yet to confront?
Freeway: For me, a freeway is freedom, but only if you have a car. Walking on the freeway takes too long and is dangerous. I actually don’t remember any, or many, cars in the dream. Maybe it has to do with the phrase “Hit the highway”. I never actually reached the freeway, though; I moved on to a new scenario before I could. I didn't feel anything the whole time.
Store: A place to buy things. I normally don’t bother to go inside of these places because I’m usually broke. In many of my dreams, I want to buy stuff, but I never have the money. It’s kind of weird, though; usually I’m in the store instead of window-shopping. Maybe it has to do with paying all in advance, or there is no free lunch?
Vinyl record with sleeve: Beats me. It’s just something that stores data. I forgot what was printed on it, so I can’t really elaborate on this.
School: A place of learning. But it wasn’t really a school, more like a lobby with some desks and a whiteboard. A few students were doing their work. I actually like classrooms and going to school; I only dislike it if the homework is boring and the teacher is nasty. But I don’t recall a teacher, or even anything on the whiteboard.
Homework: For the mandatory education system? Busywork! But sometimes I do actually learn from it. I think in this case, it meant doing the Work, although in the dream I sort of “knew” I was doing English, which is not difficult for me. When the girl (younger me) asked me how I did all my work and I said that I just did it early, I got thinking that maybe it’s symbolic of some higher consciousness telling me that if I get started right now and don’t stop, I’ll go on to a new lesson earlier, or maybe “right on time”.
Mom and sister: In real life, sometimes I’m okay with them, sometimes I’m not, depending on whatever button gets pushed. There’s some nagging thought that I may not have wanted to leave the school. I don’t recall getting out of my chair or anything like that either.
Dental office: I don’t really like going to the dentist, because it's boring and I dislike having my oral hygiene criticized, but in the dream I was just in the waiting room. I was surprised to learn that they had some SOTT material in there, and I have no clue why.
SOTT / EE program: Very useful tools in my life! They’re essential to keeping me sane. :)
Laughing pregnant women: Um, I really don’t know about this one. New life? Creation? I’ve never given it much thought. Revitalizing feminine hemisphere (creative part of the brain)? I’ve never been comfortable with the subjects of pregnancy and motherhood, probably from the “Sex is bad” programming I’ve grown up with.
Computer-like device and Map: I’ve got nothing. The map is kind of self-explanatory (map of your life), but without enough detail, I can’t make a good interpretation from it.
Maybe the overall meaning is that I just need to put more sincere effort into the Work. I’ve been slacking off lately… I think I need to work on confronting the Predator by learning more about myself and others with the help of this network and EE.
There might be more to it than that, but that’s what I’ve got so far. Thank you so much Ana for your informative post! I’ll use it as a guideline for further dream work. :)
Thank you for the advice. :) Okay, so I’ll try to assign some meaning to the parts of my dream.
Fast food place: In real life, I hate those places. I used to like them because of the food, but ever since I stopped eating gluten and refined sugar, I feel nauseated just walking by them. I’ve always disliked how crowded and dirty they were. Overall, I think that they are places where negativity is amplified.
Now that I think about it, in my dream it wasn’t really like a McDonalds or something. It was an empty room, maybe there was a cashier, and it was quiet and either hazy or dusty, like an old deli. But I couldn’t smell any food, and there was no food by the counter. Nobody was eating. It had a sort of grey, brown, and red, muted color scheme with artificial light. It was calm until I saw my father.
Father: I think he’s the typical narcissistic parent. Whenever he doesn’t get his way, he commands you while having some big temper tantrum, and always expects you to pay complete attention to him while he belittles any conflicting opinion. He usually makes me very angry. In previous dreams he has symbolized a monster, and I remember a recent dream where he punched me in the chest! It hurt a lot too! Perhaps he’s my unconscious mind’s symbol for the Predator. Then again, I may be describing myself! I need to do some self observation.
Actually, in a lot of my dreams I shout obscenities (all essentially meaning “Go away!”) at him and run away. Maybe there’s something within myself I have yet to confront?
Freeway: For me, a freeway is freedom, but only if you have a car. Walking on the freeway takes too long and is dangerous. I actually don’t remember any, or many, cars in the dream. Maybe it has to do with the phrase “Hit the highway”. I never actually reached the freeway, though; I moved on to a new scenario before I could. I didn't feel anything the whole time.
Store: A place to buy things. I normally don’t bother to go inside of these places because I’m usually broke. In many of my dreams, I want to buy stuff, but I never have the money. It’s kind of weird, though; usually I’m in the store instead of window-shopping. Maybe it has to do with paying all in advance, or there is no free lunch?
Vinyl record with sleeve: Beats me. It’s just something that stores data. I forgot what was printed on it, so I can’t really elaborate on this.
School: A place of learning. But it wasn’t really a school, more like a lobby with some desks and a whiteboard. A few students were doing their work. I actually like classrooms and going to school; I only dislike it if the homework is boring and the teacher is nasty. But I don’t recall a teacher, or even anything on the whiteboard.
Homework: For the mandatory education system? Busywork! But sometimes I do actually learn from it. I think in this case, it meant doing the Work, although in the dream I sort of “knew” I was doing English, which is not difficult for me. When the girl (younger me) asked me how I did all my work and I said that I just did it early, I got thinking that maybe it’s symbolic of some higher consciousness telling me that if I get started right now and don’t stop, I’ll go on to a new lesson earlier, or maybe “right on time”.
Mom and sister: In real life, sometimes I’m okay with them, sometimes I’m not, depending on whatever button gets pushed. There’s some nagging thought that I may not have wanted to leave the school. I don’t recall getting out of my chair or anything like that either.
Dental office: I don’t really like going to the dentist, because it's boring and I dislike having my oral hygiene criticized, but in the dream I was just in the waiting room. I was surprised to learn that they had some SOTT material in there, and I have no clue why.
SOTT / EE program: Very useful tools in my life! They’re essential to keeping me sane. :)
Laughing pregnant women: Um, I really don’t know about this one. New life? Creation? I’ve never given it much thought. Revitalizing feminine hemisphere (creative part of the brain)? I’ve never been comfortable with the subjects of pregnancy and motherhood, probably from the “Sex is bad” programming I’ve grown up with.
Computer-like device and Map: I’ve got nothing. The map is kind of self-explanatory (map of your life), but without enough detail, I can’t make a good interpretation from it.
Maybe the overall meaning is that I just need to put more sincere effort into the Work. I’ve been slacking off lately… I think I need to work on confronting the Predator by learning more about myself and others with the help of this network and EE.
There might be more to it than that, but that’s what I’ve got so far. Thank you so much Ana for your informative post! I’ll use it as a guideline for further dream work. :)
Ana said:
Well it was put into practice last night, a specific titled topic written in a journal - two dreams and plenty of recall recorded in the journal with a title, which is excellent for one who, in the past, rarely dreams at all and recalls even less! :D
There is just the interpretation interview to do, and I think that I've got the main message already. :)
All in all, quite similar to Ark's ideas.
Thanks for the interesting topic!
I found this a very interesting remark, that I share ... clearly an indication that something is hidden away here. Why the reluctance to reread what you have written yourself?
I used to write down my dreams for a while too, but ended up with pages upon pages of notes which I didn't know what to do with. But once you do go back to read these it is quite interesting, because you read details and things on old dreams that you had totally forgotten. Some dreams that I have written down actually feel as if I hadn't dreamt them at all, they felt very alien!
So I think it is probably worthwile to occasionally go back and just browse through the journal and see what reaction the rereading of dreams evokes. To me this often proves to be quite interesting ...
I have had an increase in dream quality and intensity too, since regularly doing the EE breathing.
And thanks to Ark for the suggestion to write into the book BEFORE sleep, I'll try that.
rylek said:
I found this a very interesting remark, that I share ... clearly an indication that something is hidden away here. Why the reluctance to reread what you have written yourself?
I used to write down my dreams for a while too, but ended up with pages upon pages of notes which I didn't know what to do with. But once you do go back to read these it is quite interesting, because you read details and things on old dreams that you had totally forgotten. Some dreams that I have written down actually feel as if I hadn't dreamt them at all, they felt very alien!
So I think it is probably worthwile to occasionally go back and just browse through the journal and see what reaction the rereading of dreams evokes. To me this often proves to be quite interesting ...
I have had an increase in dream quality and intensity too, since regularly doing the EE breathing.
And thanks to Ark for the suggestion to write into the book BEFORE sleep, I'll try that.
