Space

When we dream of space we dream of opportunity, the opportunity to explore, to build in the space, to explore our imagination in creativity. There is so much opportunity in a large space some people might even be frightened of it.  It brings with it the feelings that here, in a large space, one can go beyond the present view of the world one has created. The realisation ones personal experience is not all there is. Perhaps this is why some churches are so huge and encompasses so many differences in size and surrounding – a real feast for ones mind and emotions. I remember once walking into a church in Paris and feeling that it must have been built for giants; the supporting columns were so immensely tall.

But there are spaces and spaces. Some are very small, even impoverished and some give flight to ones fancy. Dreams do all this through their wonderful imaginative use of settings and people. Here is a dream showing the poverty of mind of the dreamer and his eventually transcending it.

 “I dreamt I was watching a man who insisted on living in a small stable like room that was foul with his faeces and urine. He wouldn’t go out or clean it and his clothes too were filthy. He wouldn’t be helped by his friends, but blamed his condition on anything and anyone but himself. As I watched though, he came to the point of accepting responsibility for his own condition. He came out, and we then happily asked if we could put his clothes in the washing machine. He started a new life.

When the dreamer explored his dream he saw an attitude he had in which he loved to have problems or ‘shit’. He saw that again and again, when talking to people he would describe this shaky condition he was in, the problems he faced, the difficulties he had. For instance, he might say, “It’s OK for someone like you, you’re not so anxious. You didn’t have such a bad start. You have more money. You have more luck on your side, etc, etc.” He just revelled in the shit he was talking.

I saw how he used this defence because he was anxious life or people would ask something of him. If he had a nice problem, he could run back and hide in it. It helped him escape the necessity of saying, “What you are asking makes me feel anxious. I’m afraid I might fail. Don’t ask me for love or help, it frightens me.”

Here is another dream, showing how ever confinement in a small prison cell can be overcome.

 “I was in a prison cell with two other men. I felt it was in Spain somewhere. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression I had been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity.

One day as I stood raging at the bars I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of emotion and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.”

Something I realised deeply some years ago was that our homes, the space we live in, deeply influence our moods. I first realised this when witnessing an animal psychologist produce a change in a hamster who bit his keepers, to one easy with them and no viciousness. All he needed to produce this change was a house suited to its needs. In fact it needed a larger space with different ‘rooms’.

For instance it has also been revealed that the brains of mice can be profoundly affected by the kind of cages in which they’re kept, raising questions about some of the most fundamental experiments in biological science. This links in so deeply with dreams, and begins to show how our houses and of course our social environment deeply influences us. In fact it has been shown that the brain structure of children brought up in deprivation is changed for the worse.

Amazing how a space can be so suffused with dark feelings, and yet there is another side to that – you can feel wonder, excitement and longing too. Here is another dream illustrating it.

In the dream I am standing by a door pausing before I walk through it into a room. The room had about it the feeling of the room in the first house I owned. In it we had a room used for nothing else but meditation and study of ‘the inner life’. We called it the sanctum. So I am outside the sanctum. I know that I am going in to meet, or give myself or surrender to God. So as I pause before entering I let the sweet feeling of this surrender fill me. It feels like an opening to a wider life of experience. Suddenly the door opens and an intense wind enveloped me. It gripped me as with an invisible power and pulled me into the room. It felt to me as if the power I was surrendering to – God – wanted me as badly as I wanted to be filled, and had reached out and pulled me into itself. As this happened I cried out in surprise and with some shock, waking myself as I felt gripped by this great power.

Of course the great power was everything that one ever wanted – love, sex, being wanted, being treasured and held in a wondrous power and a relinquishment of all cares. It was an all at once feeling. The dreamer later commented on his dream:

So we use or see our space through the limitations or freedom of our mind and attitudes. A beautiful home can be a place of torture if it is as restrictive as a prison – or a damp cave can be a refuge if it has warmth and love in it.

Space in a building: Your potential or what has not been used up in activity yet. It therefore connects with opportunity, and possibly a sense of independence and freedom.

Awareness of space: Awareness of experience going beyond the present view of the world one has created. The realisation ones personal experience is not all there is.

Travelling through space: You are exploring what it is to be found in the depths of your mind – the unconscious. See Going Beyond

Cosmic space: Beyond thinking or limited concepts and ego boundaries; beyond what is established already; being out of touch with reality.

Someone or yourself in space: Depending on dream, it may suggest feeling out of touch with other people; introverted because of feeling ill at ease with yourself or daily physical life and sexual feelings. It can be awareness of spiritual life beyond the boundaries of the physical senses; expanded awareness.

Example: She began spilling tears which became a steady stream running down her cheeks. And she began to talk of the overwhelming love she was feeling, as she was sobbing. The people with her listened as she described the wonder of being in the presence of a warm Light where she felt so loved, so clean, so treasured. I remember the awe that all of us had in the room. She said I am in space and am filled with love.

Space station: Going into space in dreams shows a huge change in how you see the world, so the space station is the first step toward the changes in your perception. See Altered states of consciousness

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it the astronaut or I am doing in this dream, and how might that relate to my waking activities?

Am I learning anything from the astronaut?

If I stand in the role of the astronaut what is my view of life and the world.

See Being the Person or Thing – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Autonomous Complex