I know, I know, you totally saw it coming.
Last week, I dreamt that a little girl was dangling from a cliff. And that her life was in my hands.
Lately I have been working with this shadowey fear of getting into trouble. Or doing things wrong. Completely blind to the connection, I jotted down this Shiva Nata intention that morning:
Drop this little-girl-in-trouble gig already.
After Dance of Shiva I have a flash.
There’s a picture of me at about 2 1/2 looking incredibly sweet and scared with a certain doe-eyed vulnerability. I’m wearing lavender corduroy overalls and a turtleneck with a small print of kittens.
And the terror in my eyes is palpable. It makes me want to scoop little-girl-me up, and reassure her that, yes, we will always hate having our picture taken, And then take her out for an ice cream cone.
(Wait. If this is my time-travel fantasy, let’s choose a slightly more innocuous comfort. She’s going to have plenty of food and body struggles to contend with on her own without my little Back to the Future whirlydo screwing things up even further.)
Flash, take two.
There’s another photo of me at twenty standing in front of a painting at the Marc Chagall museum in Nice. Photography was forbidden in the museum, but my friend insisted on taking the photo. So I was nervous and uncomfortable and fully expecting to get in trouble. And when we get home and get our pictures back, I’m startled because I still have those wide, vulnerable, little girl eyes.
Confused?
Yeah. Me, too. I don’t really get the connection yet. But this fear of getting in trouble? It’s not a grown-up sense of trouble. It’s small and tender and childish. I’m ready to let it go. To let her go.
If you were looking for an epiphany tied up in a pretty bow, this is the part where I leave the audience completely unsatisfied with the movie’s ending. But I intend to keep working the scene.
My secret weapon.
Analyzing my own dreams is difficult. My left brain commandeers the process. (Shocking!) Which is why I’m scootching myself over for a dream investigation session with my favorite dreamweaver.
(Note: I’m on Eileen’s crazy super secret list so I kind of have a backstage pass. Word on the beat, though, is that she’s opening the doors for a few dream investigation clients soon. If you have vivid or recurring dreams or are looking to dance with your unconscious, I’d either beg her to get you on the list or start neurotically checking her site for the dream offering.)
Comments?
Any thoughts on dream analysis in general? Just a little note: I’m not into the idea that every symbol in every dream means the same thing for every person. So I would *love* to hear your experiences, but please no diagnostic theories on this particular dream.
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I had a dream last summer about getting it on with Bill (Martin Starr) from “Freaks and Geeks.” He was so sweet and awkward, gawky but eager, totally transparent. He’s my inner child, yup, afraid of being foolish and doing the wrong thing. But his youth, naivete and eagerness are exactly what make him attractive.
Thanks on two counts: Even though I have had no flashes on photographs you are reminding me that it could be very powerful to go back to old photographs of myself. I feel like I might be able to “see” myself in a new way looking back today.
And… thanks for the point of view that not EVERY thing in a dream has necessary meaning. There are some stubborn details that have been bugging me and I think you just gave me permission ot let them go!
I do think the symbols have meaning but they are not the same meaning for everyone. I have done a lot of dream work in therapy and just finished a 4-week dream group. It was way cool. Our coach asked us to name our dream and give it a ‘moral’ of the story. Also, we took the people or objects in the dream and asked 2 questions. What do you most like about this person and what do you most dislike. Often those 2 answers can give you a lot of clues. We also drew some of our dreams and that was also every enlightening. Thanks for sharing yours.
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing part 2!
In the past many weeks, I have been dreaming about being in really sweet loving relationships with all of the really great guys that I have ever known. To the point where it was starting to get ridiculous. So, I finally did the “I am x .. and I represent ..” for the guy in the dream one morning to see what came up. As it turned out, he represented the love and support and connection that I have in my life and was reminding me of it. Which makes sense .. it’s just kind of funny.
Hey, I just stumbled here and am quite tired so i only read about half of dream saga 1/2. But if you want to a public school chances are you read Catcher in the Rye? Holden talks about similiar visions where he’s stopping kids from running of the edge of a cliff. Just interesting I thought, and I love that book.
@Alison – Wow! That is some powerful interpretation… and so funny, because without understanding the whole idea that every symbol is part of you, it would be so hard to get the message
@Pearl – Yeah, you have my permission to let them go. And if they’re important, they’ll probably come up again. And for some reason, seeing pictures of myself as a kid can be oddly comforting. And I love the idea that looking through your own could spark some epiphanies.
@Sherrie – Thanks for the idea about drawing the scenes… sometimes the imagery is so vivid, and I like the idea of being able to see it again in a more tangible way.
@Elizabeth – Wow, the loving theme in those dreams is incredible. Connection = yay! Funny that you kept having them until you finally decided to “figure it out.” Have you had any more since? I wonder if once the message made it into the light, your psyche moved onto other things… So fascinating.
@Kyle – Thanks for stopping by and mentioning that connection – super interesting and now I’m even more curious about meaning or archtypal meaning or something.