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Dreams => Dream Interpretation => Topic started by: Midlander on October 02, 2010, 04:11:29 PM

Title: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 02, 2010, 04:11:29 PM
 ::) Before I went to bed, I asked to be given a dream that would tell me 'what to do'! This is what happened and it's left me feeling confused and unsatisfied.

In my dream there were 3 people; me, a man in his 70s whom I know and a young girl (early 20s) I don't know.

The girl was confiding in me; telling me she'd met the man of her dreams and she was so happy. The man turned out the be a married man in his 70s whom I would probably characterise as being a good, kind person but who is also rather bound up with getting things 'right' - he likes loads of meetings and organisation. The young girl was naive, bubbly and not particularly bright.

I went along with it; I said I would cook them a meal, which I did and the three of us sat down at the table to eat in her upstairs flat (not a place known to me). However, I decided to call a halt to the situation and challenged the man, saying 'did he not think his place was with his wife (whose name is Mary - might symbolise something?) who is recovering from cancer treatment?' He came to a sudden realisation, agreed with me and left. The young girl followed him downstairs to kiss him goodbye, I began to clear the table and do the washing up.

OK; so if these two other people represent different aspects of me; they might signal that I'm trying to unite a 'boring old guy' and a 'naive, soppy girl' within my personality. Both of these notions I need to stop feeding, clear up and cleanse. Or could they be a reflection of what my working life entails; trying to 'marry' the old and the new, the young and the elderly? Trying to cobble together things that don't belong together and won't work?

But there's more; the old guy is going against his normal behaviour. Also, I'm upstairs in a flat; there's nothing 'beneath' no downstairs/foundations? I'm feeding this inappropriate miss-match and adultery/hypocrisy? The meal also doesn't actually get properly eaten.

Could the 'relationship' I need to cleanse from my life be my work environment/attitude to my work? (Given that the people involved are the kind I have to deal with in my work). Is the coffin and funeral family (in the previous dream) linked to my work? Is this the thing that is dead but not resolved? Is this actually the 'third person' between me and the man in dream b in the previous thread? Although, in the dream he is with someone else and not me.  ???
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Tony Crisp on October 04, 2010, 01:29:32 PM
Hi Midlander – This is a difficult one, but it is obviously about relationship that you could recognise would not work.

Maybe there is a clue in the name Mary. The old guy, Joseph married the young girl Mary and couldn’t or didn’t father the child. So she had a virgin birth. But such stories are actually fables, that need to be understood. Joseph worked with wood, the already grown – the intellect. As your dream suggests, more interested in organising and getting things right, all typical of an intellectual approach. Mary, as a young girl represents someone who is not conditioned by pre-conceived ideas. In effect she is a virgin ready to receive something special.

So if we consider that your dream has a little of that in, it certainly doesn’t suggest the old man and the young girl getting together. Also I think you may be looking at this from an intellectually analytical viewpoint. And maybe the young girl has a lot of possibilities that you could mature with some patience. Maybe even to a virgin birth of wonderful new possibilities, when you let go of preconceived ideas.

As I said, this is a difficult one, so what I have said is more of me trusting my feelings than having a clear insight.

Tony
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 04, 2010, 09:55:30 PM
Thanks Tony; that's very helpful - lots of food for thought. Someone suggested that I let the two characters have a conversation.........later, I realised that I didn't  have a clue how to do that but your comments have made sense of which parts of me they refer to and how they might 'dialogue' or work together and so become integrated.

The intellect has been a big part of my life and work but in the last couple of years, I have started to work in the theatre realm and the need to release the other side of my nature has been part of that process.
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Tony Crisp on October 06, 2010, 12:49:28 PM
Hi Midlander - There is a small explanation about having a dialogue with different dream characters.

See Peer Dream Group (http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/peer-dream-group/) and scroll down ot the heading Have a dialogue between two characters or objects.

I hope this helps, but if not tell me as I always want to improve the site and I will write a longer piece.

Tony
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 06, 2010, 05:04:48 PM
Thanks Tony - that's really helpful!
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Tony Crisp on October 07, 2010, 10:13:58 AM
Thanks - And the baby in the example was me.

Tony
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 09, 2010, 11:09:17 PM
The themes of an old man and wood returned last night. They were part of a series of four dreams that seemed to be two pairs of dreams.

I was in my garage and I caught an old man who had a young boy with him and I challenged the old man and told him that I knew he'd stolen some of my firewood but that, if he chopped up my logs for me, he could keep the wood he'd stolen.

It feels as though this might carry on the dialogue a bit - if the wood is attitudes, beliefs etc that are old and rigid (as your dictionary suggests) and he is re-using them and I am getting him to adapt them ..... or I am going to get rid of them by burning them.......
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Tony Crisp on October 17, 2010, 11:32:41 AM
Midlander - I don't suppose there is a correct answer or direction we should take - ie the wood and burning. When I have travelled deep in myself I have always found that ultimately we are in a universe that while it  has rules, there is an aspect of it allowing experiment. Also I have never found there is any condemnation except what we put on ourselves through the moral codes we have picked up from our culture.

I had a wonderful example of this when using LifeStream. I had been crushed by a world I had been carrying on my shoulders - dreams use such imagery to illustrate how we feel. Eventually the strength came to me to stand up again, and in doing so managed to lift the world off of my shoulders and swing it away. But then, standing before a Light that was pouring down onto me I realised that my wrists were chained together and I wanted to be free. Now I stood facing the Light, hands together at the level. I felt my wrists were chained, and I held them up to God, the Light, to be freed.

It was then as if God said, “Tony, you hold up your arms to be freed, but you have never been chained - only by yourself.”

Tony
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 18, 2010, 10:13:45 AM
Thanks Tony - that's beautiful! Itis incredible how the unconscious mind uses these symbols and images to communicate. I have felt for a while that the unconscious is our link with God - the means through which we can communicate with the Divine and that when we are awake, our brain interprets the communications into something that our 5 senses can understand.
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Tony Crisp on October 20, 2010, 10:55:59 AM
Midlander - I appreciate your being a part of what happens on the site.

I see from what I have written in the last few years, that I gradually realised that God - or as I call it now Life, because people often do not have any background in real religious theory so Life does not hook them into difficult associations - is at the core of our being. I also saw that it is at the core or beginning of the universe, and in fact it is all the same thing. Unfortunately we have been educated to have such a tiny view of what we are.

Tony
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 22, 2010, 03:16:52 PM
Yes indeed. What is sad, is that choosing to believe ourselves to be smaller and less is often more palatable than reaching our potential which can be scary for some people.

I think it was Jung who said something along the lines of, 'We're all God but we've forgotten and when we die we remember'. Instead of the Divine being a foreign entity that 'does' stuff to us, we have the choice to accept that we are colaborators, co-operators with the Divine and that we can be and do this in the context of a joyful intimacy.

Thank you for allowing me to be part of this site - it is of great interest and blessing to me.

I have now found my dreams taking a similar but different angle. As though I'm searching for the way to move to less icing and more cake.

Last night I dreamt that I was trying to develop tasty and nutritious non alcoholic drinks. I was putting oats into one smoothie, I remember. The mix needed working on. Then I was outside a locked office and found a key - so I let myself in because I knew there was a recipe book inside. I found the book and the recipe I wanted and left the office, locking the door behind me.........I had a brief dilemma as I couldn't remember exactly where I'd found the key, in order to put it back, to hide that I'd been there. I guessed and placed it on a dado rail by the door and next to the photocopier.

oats, keys (sexual images?).......... but also recipes and nutritious drinks to feed me? Doing things in a hidden way? Finding the recipe in an office?
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 23, 2010, 12:54:10 PM
 ??? :( A quite bizarre dream about a muslim woman giving me a tiny container and explaining 'it's the ark of the covenant' and asking me to gather some ground spices from my table and fill it with them. This seemed to involve a long and protracted journey around some countryside and outwitting a couple of fundamentalist guerillas by being friendly and sparing with information.  

I would see the woman as someone who is intelligent and informed but constrained (possibly oppressed) by religious convention. The ark of the covenant holds the law; it is holy but not holistic. She asks me to 'spice it up' from my nourishing resources. The task of doing this, is complicated; to achieve it successfully, I must skirt around and outwit the fundamentalists who wish to remain in control.

An inner battle mirrorred in my outer life? Spiritually I am a radical; I tread spiritual landscape that is usually out of bounds to those in the mainstream church. I bring this richness to the table to offer but there will always be those who are threatened by my lack of orthodoxy.

In my inner life, well maybe this battle is about something different from religion; maybe it's about freeing my femininity and womanliness, against the backdrop of an oppressive (male) attitude - that I experience in waking but has in some way occupied a place in my own psyche - an area that I need to acknowledge, befriend and not allow to defeat me in my quest.

Or is that off beam, I wonder? I know these last two dreams are linked because of the themes of secretiveness and breaking rules - going 'out of bounds' in order to find what it is that nourishes me. In the dreams, I am prepared to be secretive, break the law and use trickery. Not traits that comes easily in waking life.
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Christine on October 25, 2010, 01:02:31 AM
Your interpretations both makes sense to me, especially if you think of the gift the muslim women gave you being "your" ark of the covenant.  I believe, but may be incorrect, that muslim women wear scarves to cover their faces...their faces are secret...so too the tiny container is designed with a lid designed to hide something.

My impression is that your dream is telling you to nourish and protect your own ark of the covenant...make it what nourishes you...not to be concerned with whether it is holy according to someone else's definition and/or whether or not it nourishes or changes others.

I hope you will share if you have a related dream...this ones seems to be lovely and affirming. :)
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 25, 2010, 09:49:24 AM
Thanks Christine - it's helpful to see your interpretation; it's hard to get a distance and different perspective on my own dreams. I suspect that there are loads of different angles in there and that all of them are right and bring something to the dream's wisdom - which is exciting.
I had a bizarre dream last night which i need to untangle and get in order - then if there's enough of it I remember, I'll share it in case it is related.

Editing to say that I couldn't remember very much. The only thing I can remember is walking around a town - a sort of western style town in the US; wooden structures and looking to buy a souvenir shirt. I try on a garish shirt with panels of different colour and patterns but I am wearing/buying it to please someone else.
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 26, 2010, 10:16:41 AM
So, two doves burrowing into the earth together while a gardener is working beside them???
When someone says to the gardener that he needs to be careful of the doves, he says, 'Yes I know - I once cut one in half with my spade because I hadn't seen it.'
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Tony Crisp on October 26, 2010, 01:43:46 PM
Hi Midlander - I am still pondering upon the Ark of the Covenant. It seems from researching it that it is a promise made between Life and a people who we are the descendants of. And it is a opening to the power which is resident in all of us.

So  wonder if you have taken to time to imagine yourself as it and seeing what you feel.

Also I find it interesting that an Arabic women is involved. History says they carried of the Ark, and its resting place is now seen as holy. By holy I mean it has more than wider significance - as Mary has significance because she represents motherhood - a universal truth of Life.

Tony
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 26, 2010, 02:08:26 PM
Thank you Tony - that is interesting!!! It did feel as though the dream had a level that was not simply about my personal, present situation but a wider significance in my role and pilgrimage. I will try your suggestion and let you know.

Just adding; there was definitely something significant about the woman being muslim - although I think she was of some sort of arabic descent. She had a traditional black headress, although not a face veil. I have a vague recollection of brown skin.

From my theology days; the ark contained the covenant (or promise) as symbolised by the tablets of stone - it is not the actual covenant; although later legend has embued it with more mystery. It could not be touched; it had to be carried on poles. It was the priestly Levites who carried the ark because of its holiness. There is a horrible story about the ark nearly toppling while it was being carried and a man reaching out to save it with his arm and being 'struck dead' for touching it. Women would not have been allowed near it - in hebrew law they were unclean. There are very precise design instructions in the Old Testament for the ark of the covnenant - as there are for Noah's Ark.

It is interesting that, knowing all this, in my dream it should be portrayed as a tiny container, held in the hands of a  (unclean) woman - and a muslim, arabic woman at that.
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on October 28, 2010, 11:37:46 AM
Am still pondering about why doves would burrow in the earth - presuming this is about nurture and mother earth and finding succour and comfort there. God as the gardener is an old theme but at the same time myself as the gardener having accidentally cut half myself in half? The two doves could be two parts of me - or they could represent an external relationship - a pair of doves being associated with love.

Last night I dreamt I was staying at a hotel and ordered room service - a snack. I informed the two women that the young man (in his early twenties) had said he would bring the snack up to my room. (The young man in the dream is someone I know in the context that he works at my local gym). The women were amazed that he would deliver room service because he never did that. The inference was that I was special to him and/or there was a romantic interest (not so in real life).

In my room, I found some clothes belonging to the previous occupant; clearly a middle aged male businessman. Shoes and a pair of suit trousers, folded and on the floor with the shoes on top of them, as though ready to pack but forgotten. The young man arrived with my snack, he was nervous and held the plate at an angle and a scotch pancake covered in honey slid off and fell on the carpet, there was honey on the carpet. I said it didn't matter. I walked over to the clothes and shoe and told him that someone had left their clothes in room.

It feels as though this dream is saying something about me being on a journey of letting go of the tired, middle aged male aspect of myself and uniting with a younger, fitter, more vibrant maleness, maybe. There's also something erotic about the honey and it spilling onto the carpet. Honey as rich, sweet, indulgent, nutritious....
Yet, the clothes being left - trousers and shoes, very specifically. Someone has left but has left something of himself behind; hasn't truly gone. Like the end of a relationship where he's left bits of his possessions around so somehow still claiming space.

Except, in the dream I didn't know him - he was a stranger who left before I arrived. This could refer to my father; he left when I was a small baby and I never got to meet him. Of course, he still 'left something' in my life, part of himself in me - unfinished business, luggage, baggage. So I'm asking the nervous young man, with his overflowing honey, to deal with/sort out the debris left behind by my father.


Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Tony Crisp on November 09, 2010, 10:28:44 AM
Hi Midlander – I am having trouble keeping up with the many posts, so thus this late response. Also I lost the thing I was replying too, so this is out of sequence. It was the garage dream.

“Do the attributes of the animal pertain to the other person?” I know I use this example a lot, but it might answer your question: “I was recently asked by a man who had given no thought to dreams how on earth you could extract any meaning from them. He was wearing a fairly old T-shirt, so I said, "OK, let’s imagine you dreamt of your T-shirt, what would you make of that?"

After a while he said, "I don't know that I would make anything of it."

My response was to say, "Right, but now tell me where you bought the T-shirt, and what memories it has for you." Whereupon he told me, with some hesitation his memories of being abroad, and that the shirt was part of memories that he didn't want to talk about. Not only did he realise he had very powerful associations with the T-Shirt, but he wanted to hide them.

Obviously you have associated feelings, hopes etc for the man, and his dog. So what are they?

I would guess they are something to do with your own natural feelings. After all you like the feeling of the dog on your lap. I would guess again that the connection and associations are ones that relax you and make you feel easy with the relaxtionship.

Tony
Title: Re: More cake without icing?
Post by: Midlander on November 09, 2010, 10:56:46 AM
Thanks Tony. If I think about the relationship I have with both the dog and her owner, I guess it's this: even though they disrupt and make untidy my normal world, I like them to visit - I can be myself with them so I let the other things of my life be dishevelled by them because I enjoy them being here. They stopped coming when he got sick and I've missed them.