Collect Collecting

We can dream of collecting evidence, or for research, collecting money, facts, dreams or almost anything – collection of memories. But whatever it is you are collecting it points to something that has special relevance to you or your innermost feelings. So look it up in the dictionary, and also see what the Plot of the Dream adds to your understanding.

Collecting has to do with the things, ideas, beliefs, we carry about with us, or the way we collect things in a psychological way. For instance one might ‘carry’ a grudge or a feeling of inferiority for years, and it is just as much of a burden as carrying a loaded shopping bag. We might also collect or carry information or ideas. It also shows how it is common to associate other things with the idea of collecting or holding onto things that are valuable.  Or even a  morbid collection of memories, emotions, energies, that are not harmonising or adding to your life in general.

Something like rust or dirt that has collected around, or overlaid whatever the symbol represents, would suggest the age or misuse or lack of  use of the thing.

Example: I start looking in the cupboards and find lots of large bags and boxes full of seeds. I start to think that these seeds are very important – that these seeds were what the angels had used, and perhaps if the people here grew these seeds, ate the food they produced, perhaps this had something to do with the evolution of the people into angels. Perhaps the food was what gave the people the angels powers, their wisdom, and helped them grow their wings. I try to tell the teacher and the class, but although they show a mild interest. I collect up the seeds and go to the cliff. I see one angel there, he is sad and lonely, the sole remaining guardian. I ask what I should do with the seeds. He says no words aloud, but the knowledge is placed in my head that I should trust my instincts – that I am right about the seeds, and that I will know what to do when the time is right. He points, and I travel across the cliffs in that direction and out onto a plain. I can see forests in the distance. I am careful to throw the seeds in such a way that I throw the hunters food to the hunters and throw the preys’ food in another direction, as once they eat the seeds their true appetites will be stimulated and this understanding that they have between them will be over and the true, natural order will be restored.

Here is the dreamer’s insights into her dream: “For most people their awareness is only of the earth — the body — that they live within. They base their sense of themselves on what they are aware of through the physical senses.” This for me correlated with how, in the dream, the angels never set foot on the earth; they ‘live in the sea and in the air’. I suddenly understood more fully what that meant, and that in turn gave me a bit more insight into what the angels are.  Since reading Tony’s notes and going through the dream again this morning everything is falling into place – everything I have been reading about and discovering and talking about over the past – lifetime (!) suddenly makes sense as a whole. It’s like all the jigsaw pieces have arranged themselves into a big picture.

When I read the tale of the 2 dimensional goose, and Tony said – imagine losing an arm, then legs, body and head – I remembered that I have experienced this before, many years ago I felt my whole body vibrating (not shaking or shuddering, vibrating) – every cell, every molecule of my being was vibrating. All of life looked to me like a giant, glistening, shining web, and I lived at the centre of that web, and everyone else lived at the centre of their own web, and all of the webs were interlinked. Like a spider I could feel every tremor in the web; everything that happened in the world, every footfall, every mind waking up and going to sleep… I felt it and knew of it all…  I lived outside of time. The past, present and future were all one, and I always knew what was coming next. I saw how all of our yesterdays and tomorrows affected our now’s and next year’s… I lived in the pure present, and yet my consciousness spanned across all of time.

Example: As I do this, Ernie laughs and says, “He even managed to talk about ‘A Horse Sex’ from a Christian point of view.” That was the name of a book the man was talking about. I see a book about Robinson Caruso or someone like that and comment that the woman gave it to me. I have one just like it in my collection of books from my childhood. It was an old favorite of mine.

Example: On my left, I have a box full of credit cards that I collected over the years. They are still in their envelopes. I notice that I have some of Merle’s that had been sent to my address and I never forwarded them on. The typewriter crumbles a card and I have some trouble but finally make it work and admire the look of the type. I decide to keep the old, outdated cards so I can refer to their various layout designs.

Example: All I can remember though is someone, perhaps a woman in a mackintosh, coming in with a tray full of people’s arm cut off at the shoulder. Just as some people collect stamps, she collected famous people’s arms. One might have been David Niven’s. They all looked very colourful, the skin tones were not at all lifeless, and there were drops of  blood here and there. My own thoughts were that if I were dead I wasn’t sure whether I would want an arm missing.

Idioms: collect my thoughts; collecting dust.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was it that was being collected?

Does what was collected or being collected associate with anthing?

What was the themer or plot of the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Characters and People in Dreams