Topics

16

Dream Interpretation / The cat and the basket

« on: January 28, 2011, 02:07:45 PM »

  In your dictionary, it suggests replacing 'cat' with how I feel about the cat in the dream - I find that what I feel about the cat is so many words and so strong that I can't quite narrow it down. Maybe that's the point!

In the dream my cat (real in waking life) is in some way sick or injured - her back legs aren't working properly (some years ago, in waking life, I lost a cat through a thrombus that had this effect. He had to be euthanised after trying all options because his legs were 'dying'. It was really traumatic an devastating).
In the dream, I am trying to get my cat into her basket to get her to the vet. I put her in the basket but it is broken and she escapes through the bottom. I try with a different basket and the same happens. I am exacerbated and distraught; how am I going to get her help? She won't let me catch her again, that's for sure! someone - I can't see him/her in the dream - points out that the cat is walking well now. It's as though the problem comes and goes; even though it's something severe.

It's as though I fear that the 'secret', 'potent' 'cat like' part of me is still broken but it's not - that's just my perception. I try to keep it in the basket because I want it to be healed but it won't stay there. It insists on being free; my method of containing it no longer works. Maybe it can only be healed by being free. Letting the cat out of the basket is scary but I have to let her live and take her risks. I have to realise that 'she' will be fine. Living life is the thing; not preserving life while not living it. Well maybe that's what it's about. Maybe her woundedness frightens me when i reality, it's no longer there; I can be myself, be different and not answer anyone's questions and expectations; like the cat. Or maybe the broken basket indicates that  have to find a new way to access healing for the 'cat'.

17

Dream Interpretation / The curse

« on: January 21, 2011, 11:26:25 AM »

I was inside a medieval style fortress - it felt as though this was my family home dominated by a male, father-like figure. I couldn't get out; I desperately wanted to leave but he wouldn't let me. I was standing at the huge wooden gate trying to escape when he found me. My only hope of escape was to curse him, which I did and so he let me go. Once free and in a better world, I admitted to my friends that I had had to curse him and that I knew the curse would come back on me but I had no other way to escape.

Perhaps it's important to say that, in waking life, I had no relationship with my father as he left when I was a baby and never made contact. My mother was the dominating force; angry and unpredictable and I eventually ceased contact with her about 9 years ago.

18

Dream Interpretation / topic locked

« on: December 31, 2010, 12:55:18 PM »

Hi Tony - you appear to have locked my topic; not sure whether intentionally or accidentally. I've sent you a private message, when you have time.
Many thanks!!

19

Dream Interpretation / Beautiful gift

« on: December 30, 2010, 12:05:17 PM »

Last night I dreamt that I received a beautiful gift through the post from my friend (in waking life - the friend I love very much whom I haven't seen for a long time because he's been ill). The gift was held in a transparent wrap on which he'd written a lovely message but when I removed the wrap, I realised I could no longer read the message and would need to place it over the box again to see it. The box was a very beautiful, padded and embroidered work of art. The hinges were half way down so that, when I opened it, it had two sections of equal depth. In each section were lots of small, individually wrapped gifts. I picked one up and could feel that it was a small geod from the left hand section and instantly knew that all the gifts were crystals. (My friend knows I love crystals). I was very moved that he had taken the time to wrap each of these many small crystals. There was also an exquisite, hand stitched label, with my name and a message, made at a special shop where I knew the owners  (not in waking life); at first I thought the label was from them but realised that he'd got them to make the label.

Then I was temporarily staying in a dormitory with a number of people; almost as if there were a military connection. I realised that I hadn't brought the box with me and would have to wait until I returned home to look at it again.

20

Dream Interpretation / Full of symbols?

« on: November 29, 2010, 09:24:43 PM »

Hi Tony, last night I had a dream that was so full of symbols that I am tempted to read as classic but would like your view on it if you have time.

The setting: my church (a modern, warm building - not trad at all)
The characters: a man I know in waking life and with whom I would possibly be interested in having a relationship with. Three women. Me, a female friend (possibly about my own age) and a young girl/young woman - probably late teens or early twenties. (Immediately I can't help thinking female trinities and 3 stages of me).

The man has had a relationship with my friend - but she tells me about a conversation she started while they were having sex and he dropped out of the relationship. I can see why he did this - the conversation was completely inappropriate for the occasion. (In waking I can't remember the contents of the conversation). I want to be with him but his attention is elsewhere: he has brought this young girl back with him and clearly plans to sleep with her. It's as though the Church is in some way my home and he is using it like an apartment. I and my friend are supposed to leave and go to my house but when we get outside, I can't find my car keys. We are stranded. we creep back into the church and settle down in the chapel, thinking we will have to spend the night there.

The man has taken loads of candles and lit them in a pathway through the building. He lies down within them but the young girl remains standing and doesn't join him. He realises that we are there and both of them come over. I explain that I can't find my keys and the young girl asks whether I'd like her to look and I agree. I have two handbags with me and she goes through both; first the functional one and then the more delicate, gossamer light, thin drawstring one and there she finds the keys. I am very grateful to her (as much because I don't want to be their, seeing him with her as to get home) and I and my friend get up to leave. The man comments on how lovely the candles look and that he has them all over the vestry and above the headboard of the bed in there, too. I say that I will invoice him for the candles!

I got the impression that the really meaningful relationship in the dream was the one between 'me' and the man, yet I was leaving and he was staying with the young girl.

I'm presuming the three women are facets of me and that the dream is about how I feel about my relationship with this man  and maybe what my young self could teach me/show me; ie she finds the keys in the beautiful, delicate handbag.

21

Dream Interpretation / Hostage

« on: November 07, 2010, 01:40:26 PM »

I dreamt that I visited a house where a young, foreign artist was being held hostage by someone who was exploiting him. The house was like a squat - untidy, a matress on the floor, possessions scattered around. The man who was keeping the hostage captive was voilent and threatened him with exposing his illegal status.

In the dream I saw this but my response was to go away and get drunk; not to go to the police. I wandered the streets of a city in a drunken state, finally throwing up in a bin by a bus stop.

I sobered up and went back to the house to do something to help but it was empty; the hostage and captor were gone. The hostage's room was clean and tidy - the personal possessions were gone and the bed was made.

22

Dream Interpretation / Other people's animals

« on: October 09, 2010, 09:51:34 PM »

Hi Tony
If an animal in a dream is the pet of someone you know, do the attributes of the animal pertain to the other person?

I ask because I dreamt about my friend's dog last night (male friend). In the dream, I am relaxing on an old sofa in my garage (which is full of old stuff that's in storage (my actual garage isn't exactly like this) and I have an old blanket over me with some small objects on my lap (don't know what they were; coins/cards/bits and pieces) when his dog jumps up onto my lap and settles down there; snuggled up happily. I say, 'I was going to sort out these bits first' but give up and fuss the dog.

It does make sense if the dog represents his impact on my life; I suppose I can see that I was living what some might say was a bit of a fusty, cluttered way and was trying to sort through 'my stuff' when he jumped into my life with his not particularly conventionally social approach.

But why the garage? My own garage is used for my car and the things I store there tend to be boxes that might be useful, a bale of straw and my dustbins. I don't have a load of old furniture or the like in there.

Or am I missing something else?

23

Dream Interpretation / Avoiding water

« on: October 06, 2010, 06:09:30 PM »

Me again  I get a whole spate of dreams like this at significant times. I've been getting bouts of anxiety recently that I can't quite pin down; as in, I'm not entirely sure which area of my life they're related to.

I'm walking down a road but it's been raining heavily and the road is flooded on 'my' side. There is a large area covered in water and I don't want to walk through it, so I begin to walk round it but as I begin to do so, I am faced by traffic coming in the other direction which makes walking there dangerous and I'm scared.


Ok - so I'm avoiding some deep emotions? I'm 'stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea'?

24

Dream Interpretation / More cake without icing?

« 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. 

25

Dream Interpretation / Are these random or connected?

« on: September 30, 2010, 11:53:01 AM »

Dreamt over a series of nights, these all felt significant and I wonder whether they're connected and what the message really is.

a)I'm in a house (it's my house in the dream although not one I recognise) and I'm conducting a funeral (something I do in real life) for a family who are dressed and behaving in a very old fashioned manor. I ask whether there is a fee for the use of my house but am told t...here isn't because the family can't afford it -that's why they're using my house and not the Church. At the end of the funeral - which is in my sitting room - the family leaves but the coffin is still there - it's a very cheap coffin. I go into another reception room where my Churchwarden is waiting after helping with the funeral. I take a piece of cake from a plate but it is all icing and little cake. I see the family are still outside the front door and wonder why they haven't left....

b) I am in a cafe style restaurant. Across the room at a table is the man I want to be with but recent circumstances have kept us apart. He's having lunch with an Indian woman. I am on my own. I have a plate of curry - I go to the central island to get cutlery; the waiter is kind to me. The man and Indian woman leave the cafe via my table, although they don't have to. I stand and talk to him - at first he is distant but then we get into an involved conversation in which I tell him about his friend who is dating an Indian woman chef. We become very involved in conversation and the Indian woman with him is left waiting. When they leave, I see that she is really quite old. I know he is more interested in me.

c)I am with the man in dream b and we are with a few other people; we need to escape from this ruined building where some sort of monster is after us. We manage to get out and into a run down minibus. I am driving. The man and I are bickering about how to drive in front of the other people. There is a problem with the minibus and we pull into a service station. The man asks whether I have put salt in the petrol. I say that I didn't know that I had to. I realise that he is right.