Thanks Tony. Maybe the blue room is about 'feeling blue' too; maybe I also need to spend time acknowledging feeling blue........

It's interesting that you say what you do about grief; I think my issue is really that I have not been grieving enough: I haven't allowed the space and time to acknowledge the loss in order to move on. Whilst I agree that death is a marvellous thing, the reality is that when someone physically dies, there is a loss (in all sorts of ways: relationally, socially, physically) and, for me, I know that loss has to be acnowledged, embraced and let go in order to move to the new relationship with the person who has died.

The irony is that I am working with the dying, death and bereavement all the time with other people and I discuss these things with them - I can support other people in their struggles, losses and grief but it's when it's personal that it becomes a whole new ballgame; I can't teach myself through my 'head' I have to learn it with all of me.

I have been spending some time with the blue room........the decoration needs repairing before I can really sit and enjoy it's peace and coolness.........you're right; it has its rewards.

Thank you!

Hi Tony

A few nights ago, I dreamt I was in my house (although it wasn't like my current house - similar but not this house) and I opened a door to a room I hadn't been in for a long time. It had been newly decorated and the workmen who had decorated the room (who are known to me in waking life) had spent time and care but I had left the door closed and the heating turned off and left it for a long time. The resulting condensation had made the painted lining paper peel from the walls and it was hanging off in large sheets. I felt sorry that I had neglected and not appreciated the room and had not visited it. I knew I needed to repair the damage and appreciate the room and use it.

This is from your dictionary page, Tony:

Light blues: Your sense of intuition, or achieving a wide awareness of life. Blue also links with religious feelings and experience of the holy – i.e. an awareness of those things that are universal – such as birth, caring relationship, parenthood – and so recognised as transcending ones own small life.

I was pondering about why I had let my meditation slip and had been less mindful of transcendence these last months..........looking back, I realised it began at the death of my friend. Grief is a hard thing and sometimes to preserve ourselves, we shut parts of ourselves down, I know. Time to turn back to the blue room.........

Do you have any other observations, Tony?

Thanks Tony, that is helpful - I started to go back into it but didn't finish the process. Yes; I hadn't thought about the action of the relatives!! Worth a good ponder and exploration! There was also the sense of being excluded by them, that was interesting.

Thanks again!

Thank you Tony. I just want to check that I have made it clear that this man hasn't actually died?
What you say makes absolute sense and something I encourage people with when someone dies and have had to encourage myself with of late over the death of a dear friend - not so easy to do as it has been to say, of course!

Do you think this dream is about the death of the relationship that hasn't been buried?
 The message from the I Ching seems to suggest something different..........
"Certainly persistence in this direction will bring great reward" makes me think of persevering through this sense of being outside, abandoned and alone .......

I dreamt I was sitting beside a freshly dug grave for the man I love but haven't seen for a long time, caused by him becoming severely depressed and backing away (true in waking life). I had things with me; pieces of work I was doing. I was alone beside this empty grave. His family and others were entering the little Church I could see across the Churchyard but I was excluded, invisible, alone. They were muttering things like 'how tragic, only 34!'
 
I realised that they would be coming to bury him and I didn't want them to find me there, beside the grave and so I gathered my things and moved them a short distance away but the ground was wet and boggy. I left the things there, thinking it'll do for now. Then I stood away from the grave.

I suppose this dream is telling me what is obvious; that I haven't been acknowledging the loss and grief of this situation and have been putting on a show and carrying on with life. It depicts the sense of isolation, too. The grave is empty because he's not dead - he's absent. I don't talk about it; I don't want to appear pathetic, so much time has passed and it feels as though I should have 'moved on' but the lack of resolution has been difficult to surmount.

But I wonder, Tony, whether you see anything else here? Also the number 34 is odd - he's not 34; I wonder whether the number means something?

Thank you Tony! I realise that I have wanted the crossing to be swift & complete at once and not a process. And yet, I know that I, 'me' as 'spirit', am unable to be constant in experiencing completeness whilst I'm living in this body; the distractions are too great and my identity is so tied up in being physically - so it becomes inevitable that there will be an adjustment process when the body is gone!

Last night, my dream self visited a range of mountains and the tallest, slenderest peak where an erie was circled by two eagles and I was anxious to protect the eggs in their nest from intruders.......... the landscape was another continent - or another world, even and yet I was there with the eagles.........

'Such stuff as dreams are made on'.............

Back after some reflection!
I thought that was what the lizard was about; I looked on your dictionary but thought it worth asking because sometimes you see things differently when they're in context. I think my 'lizard' is anxious about my basic needs being met if I change direction with my career and I need to listen to that!

With regard to Chris, it's really interesting; it's quite hard to see him as feeling lost or unsure in the other world and that's because he was such a guide to me and so many others in this world. He was sure of life after death and whilst he loved life so very much and lived it to the full (particularly after his cancer diagnosis) he didn't make death the enemy; I remember him saying he was determined not to do that but rather to live life in quality and not count length of days as what was significant. I think that, perhaps, I want to preserve him as that strong figure, even though I really know he could be vulnerable like all the rest of us! He died young - way too young - and what you say about his loss of his body, I can understand because he was someone who really did enjoy life and live it to the full and would have done so much more, had he not died too soon.

I have often said similar things about perceiving and communicating with those in different dimensions - that our brain has to interpret this into a format that our senses can understand but I've always thought of it from our dimension; that it's us who have to become accustomed to relating to the person who no longer has a physical body. I suppose my sense of death being the final healing and purifying, leads me to hope that the journey, the transition is easy - but what you're saying makes me ponder about the necessity to adjust; the retaining of an earthly sense of identity and the rehabilitation of the spirit to that life without a body. I wonder what it is, though, that leads you to think that some of this dream is definitely about Chris, rather than about the way I feel about Chris, if I may ask further clarification?

Thank you so much Tony - that's really helpful. I want to ponder it; let it sink in and then, perhaps I may come back and respond and if necessary, ask further questions?

I forgot to say it was his left hand - may be significant!

Hi Tony
I wonder whether you can help me with a dream I had a couple of nights ago which was about a very dear friend who died last August.

In my dream, we had all been told Chris was dead but, in fact, he was missing and had been in hospital after an accident in a vehicle. He came to my house and he had a prosthetic hand - which looked rather like a hand on a doll - it was joined to his arm in such a way that there was a join line above his wrist. He explained that he'd been in his car and there had been a crash.......as he explained the incident, it ran like a movie scene; some petrol had spilt on his arm and as the car engine caught fire, his arm was burnt - he quickly removed the petrol soaked clothes and got out of the car.
He then told me that he'd spent the months between last August and now in hospital but had returned to let people know he was still alive.
There was someone else in my living room with us and I as I brought cups of coffee into the room for us, this person (female but I'm not sure who) was sitting in my chair and I told her to move and sit in another chair. We all sat down and began to chat and drink our coffee.

Apart from expressing a wish that Chris weren't dead; there seem to be some strong images in there and I'd value your thoughts and insights.

The day before, I dreamt I had a little, sick lizard and I had entrusted some people to its care and they told me it was dead but when I looked in its box, it was alive and I became angry with them and took it away and nurtured it. The little lizard licked my face (like a little dog) gratefully and affectionately. It felt as though this was something to do with a part of myself needing nurture and I wonder whether I then dreamt about Chris because of his significance and loss...

Thanks in anticipation!!

Hi Tony - thanks for your thoughts!

Yes, the first dream does come at a time of change and growth and also a higher profile publicly as something I've been working on has begun to get recognition nationally. Although, this has really become clear more since the dream, it was so before, too.

The canal dream is strange and the whole thing of others emotions is a bit spooky because last week, I was 'plunged' into a brief situation where someone else's emotions splashed into my life in an out of the blue type of way.

The thing about not being aware of other people is difficult to quantify because, well, I'm probably not aware of it!

However, with big changes afoot, it could be that this dream does also signal anxiety and fear about the situation and the future.

Sorry - the post jumps about if I put too much text in it!

I wanted to say that the second dream came as I'm recovering from a horse riding injury and I wonder whether it's related to that. The whole fear thing playing out that what happened was a bit scary and also perhaps the car representing my body and taking care of it.........perhaps the fact that I had been overdoing things a bit when I needed to rest........

Thanks!

Hi Tony,
I haven't been around for a while - hope you're well. I haven't had any dreams that were exciting or puzzling enough to post for a while but I had a bizarre one last night and another the previous night that I thought you might find interesting and be able to shed some light on:

I was in a procession for some important occasion or other and my job was to be at the front and behind me was the big important car with whoever the bigwigs were in it. I had an elaborate costume on and someone asked me about it and I explained, 'You know how in the early days of the motor car someone had to walk in front with a flag? Well I'm the flag!' and I opened out the costume which sort of draped from my shoulder to reveal the flag and then I and everyone else could see it was the royal standard!


The previous night I dreamt I was driving someone else's car (borrowed) and wasn't paying enough attention to the fact that I didn't know the car and managed to scrape it. I just thought 'I'll have to get it fixed.' Then I drove across the road in preparation for a three point turn and found myself at the edge of a canal. I put the gear in what I thought was reverse and pressed the accelerator but I hadn't checked where the reverse was and  put it into 4th instead - I flew over the edge and into the canal. As the car sank I(as in waking me) was rehearsing how I had to open the windows and get out but me in the dream had the thought, 'Maybe I'm going to die now!' I wasn't doing anything to get out and woke up with a bit of a start.
I don't think I've ever dreamt about dying before, so that struck me as significant.

Thanks Tony - I think with this one, I need to keep letting it process. Sometimes I think I have a sort of psychological blind spot in that I don't 'get' something until I'm 'ready' for it. It'll arrive - and it will probably try to arrive in a different format, I suspect, until I understand the significance more fully.....bit by bit.

Thanks Tony - but to be fair to my friend I *asked* him for his take on this and as it wasn't a dream but something that happened during medidation, I think it was slightly different. My friend's response was to bring to the table what occurred to him after taking a couple of days to ponder the image/happening. He by no means suggested it as an 'answer'. His contribution/reflection on the happening and images within it were useful to add to my own experience of it and thoughts about what it might mean.

The truth is, I still don't know what it 'means' but that it was significant - possibly only to me but that's the real point. An opportunity to see through a door/gate/portal into a deeper/other consciousness or dimension and to meet *someone* there  but the full implications are yet to arrive for me. What I do still clearly re-experience is that I was being 'shown' something - or rather someone - behind that door.

Beyond that, I have no idea. Perhaps it was an image of 'God' but then in a real sense we all 'are' God - spirit is one, not divided, even if it might keep it's sense of identity whilst being united. Who knows!?! And yes, I agree: the point is about knowing God rather than believing - this is one I too have been talking about for a while - and hoping to encourage people to explore. Belief tends to lead to rules and rules tend to bind people. The root of the word 'religion' may well come from 'religare - to bind' ........although it may not, I conceed.