Are some dreams more literal than others?

[miemoo]

I know that it is important not to be so literal when we work with our dreams but sometimes I have a dream where it just seems so close to real-life and the meaning seems so literal that I can't help but think that way.

In my real life I am juggling full-time study with motherhood to realise my career dreams. I feel that I'm steering my life in a very positive direction. It's a time of great change and challenge as I am currently on my practicum and I deal with feelings of not being 'good enough'.
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In my dream, my clinical educator views a recording of me doing therapy in order to give me feedback. She is playing the tape in a room where my fellow students are, and they are half-watching too. The tape keeps rolling once the session has finished and there is footage of my partner, fully naked, shaking his penis in front of the camera. I am seen laughing on the footage. My heart absolutely sinks as I realise that I will be discredited and I see the look on my clinical educators face and I realise how serious the implications of this will be.

I try to talk to her about it but she starts to cry and says "On top of this disgrace, I received your letter yesterday". My heart sinks even further as I realise that I have accidentally sent her my journal entry which reveals my unflattering feelings about her instead of my clinical reflection document.

I feel so disappointed in myself. I feel that I have blown all my chances at succeeding at my practicum and I almost can't bear the shame. I go outside and just lose it, I feel that all is lost and I just lie on the ground crying. My classmates are all around me discussing my fate with my clinical educator. I don't want to talk to anyone.

I can't get the image of my partner's naked body out of my mind and it makes me feel sick with shame. I also keep thinking "what if" I didn't mail the wrong letter.
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OK, the events in the dream are not so literal as I doubt my partner would ever strip off in my workplace and have fun with the CCTV cameras. But, the meaning feels so literal. I feel like it is highlighting that part of myself that is deeply fearful of ruining everything, and not being good enough, and letting people down.

Any thoughts appreciated.

[- anna -]

sometimes I have a dream where it just seems so close to real-life

Miemoo 

That is quite a wonderful challenge indeed to juggle full-time study with motherhood  and I do feel too that this dream is so close to real-life:

See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-trickster-clown-and-the-fool/

The fool or clown is also about the ability to either laugh at the ridiculousness of life, or to cut through the social shams and reveal our hypocrisy in an acceptable way. This makes the fool or clown wise, because they can see through who we are and what people do. Their talent is to reveal such things to us.

He leads us to tears as often as he leads us to laughter. This is because the clown shows us the wonderful and tragic human feelings underlying the masks we might wear in daily life. Love, life, loss, success and failure, all have their deeply human side and the clown reveals such things to us.

But, the meaning feels so literal. I feel like it is highlighting that part of myself that is deeply fearful of ruining everything, and not being good enough, and letting people down.

I think it will be helpful to ask yourself what thoughts are behind these feelings.

Perhaps you can only allow yourself on a feeling level to spend less time with your daughter and partner when your "career dream" is succesful and with that thought you have put a huge burden on yourself.
See http://dreamhawk.com/news/avoiding-being-my-own-victim/

I try to talk to her about it but she starts to cry and says "On top of this disgrace, I received your letter yesterday". My heart sinks even further as I realise that I have accidentally sent her my journal entry which reveals my unflattering feelings about her instead of my clinical reflection document.

I see this part of the dream as coming from the Trickster as well - sending the "wrong" document to your
clinical educator.

When I look at it from another angle, I think it is worthwhile to become aware what it is you do not like in your clinical educator, because it reflects what you have not accepted inside yourself yet.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/love-of-self/

Anna :-)

[Tony Crisp]

Miemoo - I wanted to add to what Anna said. I want to give an example -

Lisa now lives in a state in which she is constantly tortured and put down by seeing that unlike her sisters she has never had a child, has not achieved any lasting success in her life and lives in a tiny bedsit which she might have to leave due to not being able to pay the rent. There is also an inner ghost haunting her through her feelings that she has not lived up to her father’s hopes. She longs to earn enough to own her own house, and to have a loving partner who closely shares her life. The lack of all of these pulls her down to frequent feelings of despair and hopelessness.

All of what Lisa feels about her life – no child – no external achievement – no partner – no house of her own – not measuring up to her family – are all true, but only in a certain way. What is devastating is that Lisa believes she is what she feels. It is this point that is the fulcrum, the lever that can shift defeat into release. And that lever has nothing to do with repeating positive affirmations to fight the gloom. It has nothing to do with meditating light flooding her being to dispel the darkness. It has nothing to do with taking a pill or injecting a chemical to deaden the pain. It has everything to do with recognising who we really are, and emerging from the locked cell we have been a prisoner in.

Miemoo, you have created a similar form of 'devastation' by creating such hopes for your future, by feeling embarrassed by your normal sexual feelings, you also have a terrible habit if wondering how fellow students see you. Perhaps the central secret you are missing is that what happens in life and in our dreams is that what we do tend to see as real what is created out of our own mind stuff. It is created out of our own emotions, our own fears and hopes. There is no way out of that unless we recognise the material it is made out of it is the energy of consciousness. You have unwittingly created the situation yourself because of your feelings and ambitions.

I know that we often see the world as right or wrong, good or bad and find it hard to understand paradoxes - but a little book of wisdom called Light on the Path by Mabel Collins is full of paradoxes - Kill out ambition - Work as those work who are ambitious.

Please read - http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/martial-art-of-the-mind/

Tony

[miemoo]

Hi Tony,
Thank you for your response. I read the link and I downloaded 'Light on the Path'.
I understand the need to recognise my limiting beliefs, and how these limiting beliefs can act as a prisoner in my life. I'm grateful that I can see a lot of them (especially as they are highlighted in my dreams) and I realise that there are probably a lot more in the shadows that I am unaware of.
I'm not integrating the comments on ambition. In a way are you assuming that the ultimate desired path for all beings is to ditch all career aspirations and worldly goods to pursue spiritual enlightenment? Or, am I perceiving this wrongly? 

[Tony Crisp]

No not at all - it says work as those work who are ambitious.

Ambitions by themselves can be awful, leading to the state we find ourselves in where most of the working populace earn thousands of time less that the really ambitious and often cannot afford health insurance or a decent way of life.

http://www.utrend.tv/v/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact/

9 Out Of 10 Americans Are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact
Prepare to have your mind blown.

Also the book was written in a different age. Enlightenment is not about being 'spiritual' but being a whole human being (in my book anyway) and coming to term with the real world in its many ways. Please see http://dreamhawk.com/news/who-are-you-really/

Tony