|
|
| | |
| |
YOUR EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE
Dreams seem mysterious at first glance because of their tendency to deal with subjective experience, rather than the objective elements of life. Your dreams are vignettes that say: "Notice how current events are impacting you, your sense of security, your confidence, your personal evolution and your joy in living." By day, we are preoccupied with what happens, but by night, the dreaming mind creates works of art that explore how events are making you feel, what is coming up for you, and how possibilities and stresses fit with your destiny and life assignment.
THE EARTHQUAKE
One woman dreamed of such a colossal earthquake that she contacted me quickly the next day, worrying that the dream predicted a natural disaster about to occur. We processed the dream, and it soon came to light that her mother, (who was a foundational figure in her emotional world) had just been diagnosed with cancer with a very grim prognosis and a short time to live.
This sad story is a striking example of how the movies of our dreams often reflect the emotional landscape of our inner being. The dream reflected the upheaval she was experiencing as the foundational person in her life was being yanked out of the picture. When this happens, the fabric of our world view is altered, until we can adjust, grieve and make our world whole again. Not everyone who loses a loved one will dream of earthquakes, and the drama of our dreams is not a measure of our love or the grief we experience at a loss.
However, it is often the case that when we lose a foundational person (a person whose presence has served as an underpinning of many of our life assumptions, identity and choices), we not only grieve for a loved one, but our inner world is indeed shaken because one of the lynch pins of our world view is being taken away. There is a philosophical and spiritual ripple effect, not unlike an earthquake: We cope with the crisis, but all the while worrying, where will the damage end? What will be left intact? Will I be the same person? Will life still make sense? This woman found that her dream was oddly comforting because it illustrated the layers of meaning and vulnerability she experienced as she and her family prepared for her mother's transition into the next life. It was as if the dream articulated the complexity of her grief, the vastness of her loss, and the weird unreality that accompanied her anticipation of a world without this foundational figure as a bulwark of faith and meaning.
Part of the magic of dreams their articulation of personal truth: that we are more vast and multifaceted than we have time or space to appreciate by day; that paradox and contradiction are built into lives; and that the measures we apply to events are sometimes quite different from the relevance they have to our spirits. Much of the world's art arises from the aching hunger to articulate the complex richness of the subjective, and many of our dreams arise in exquisite response to that hunger.
MEETING THE MEANING OF YOUR DREAMS
Although I am known as an interpreter of dreams, I've come to understand that the processes of analysis and interpretation are actually just encounters with meaning. We grant ourselves permission to investigate the meaning of our wondrous visions and we move toward them as best we can. Accepting the awkwardness of these encounters, and operating from a place of hardiness allows us to recognize meaning and be less distracted by appearances.
Here are a few thoughts to keep in your pocket as you investigate your dreams:
1. Does the landscape reflect your internal climate and experience regarding current themes in your life?
2. Where are you being invited to comfort and reassure, love and validate aspects of yourself?
3. In light of what the dream suggests, what concrete steps can you take now to provide support for your needs, to feel nourished in spirit, and move toward wholeness?
4. Create an affirmation or prayer around the dream. Even if you do not intellectually understand all the aspects of the dream you would wish to know, you can still ask to draw upon the energy of the dream to heighten the potential for healing, to better love yourself, honor your truth, and treasure others. If you do this, you will almost certainly never go wrong, and you will throw open the door to greater understanding and richness to continue to emanate from the dream like water bubbling up from a ground spring.
Never consider meaning to be complete or incomplete. Never devalue meaning you discover simply because it feels there is more to come. Embrace what you find, celebrate it, apply it, and leave the invitation for more to reveal itself. All gifts of meaning and healing are immeasurable and as we apply them, we honor what lies ahead and within. | |
| | |
|
