Icamx - This is an unusual dream and presents me with something of a new situation. You see you dream places you in a very special state that I will try to explain.
In waking life to get from place to place you have to move and it takes effort and time. But in dreams we are in a very different environment, much like the mind where we can switch from thoughts about any number of things without moving. But usually with our conscious mind we often have a small range of possibilities. In dreams however we are capable of experiencing much more fully and widely. In fact we create a real virtual reality and full it with scenes, places, people and animals - all created out of our wonderful ability to dream. You travel and yet remain in the same place; you dream of men and women and are all of them, created out of your own experiences or imagination. Even the animals are often expressions of your own inner experience. See
http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/the-unconscious-2/ and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/So you walk into your church - again not like a waking church but like a dream church in which a real communication with the divine can take place. You meet people there, "I felt like I new all of them in some way". I hope you remember what was said in the link about the unconscious, because your awareness is widened when we sleep, we are aware of the subtle connection we have with others, so the feeling of knowing even the strangers is a part of a new awareness you have entered in the dream church. See
http://dreamhawk.com/news/there-is-a-huge-change-happening/ Going downstairs and taking off your shoes while walking down a red carpet is a really fancy way of saying - realising that all dream images are association - you are entering a holy place so no shoes on, and you are treated as special by the use of the red carpet - and going downstairs is a change in the level of your awareness. You are going into what was previously unconscious.
What entered was a representation of your sense of being in the world, the social scene, night life. But of course you are dreaming and so you are realising it from the dream world described above. Also you were intoxicated, which has the meaning of an influence which changes the way you feel, moving you toward negative or positive feelings. It is therefore often used to represent ‘the spirit’ or a power that changes ones heart and mind. In an inner sense - which is the world you entered by going down stairs - the wine or spirit represents a life changing influence, an influx of power or potential – i.e. a deep self acceptance allowing new and often life-changing experience and energy both from within and from other people and events. In this sense the alcohol or spirit is probably used by the unconscious because the conscious self often feels helpless, or has to surrender control, in order to allow the upflow of what is potential or innate within you to emerge. It therefore relates to drunkenness – drunk with the spirit.
The need for a partner is also a sign of meeting an old feeling in a new and awakened sense. It is built into us as an instinctive and also a social urge. In the dream you found a female partner through a social urge, "They all had a partner". But you realised from your wider awareness that you weren't attracted to her. I feel this occurred because from the world you were experiencing you were in touch with your core self, and from that you knew you were a dual being, male and female, but you had been led to feel and think you were a single gender so felt incomplete. See
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/core/It may mean you have been experiencing the desire to find your real partner. Until you do all others will seem unattractive.
Then you took the stairway up which was quick - You travel and yet remain in the same place. In dreams we usually create what we believe we would have to do in waking life - it all takes time. Most people are hesitant to take the stairway to a wider experience of themselves - and even you felt you had cheated - but of course your cousin was right behind you. And in travelling in this amazing inner world you met your grandmother - there is no such thing as death here so you conversed with her.
Your shoes show another aspect to the wonders of YOU. The pile of shoes are the many roles, abilities you have. You have seen how you can travel through the levels of yourself, talk with the dead, realise you are more than your body or your sex, know different aspects of your potentials and the shoes are in a special place, the place that you have yet to discover, the place of amazing abilities.
In fact, although this is a significant dream you are only at the very beginning of discovery. This is because a dream is something that comes from a deep part of you; it is something that is working upwards toward being conscious. As such it often, like a seed, takes time to break through to the surface, and then it has to grow. So often dreams are not recognised for their full meaning until later – sometimes months or even longer. The dream images are attempts to communicate something that has probably never been thought about or even been consciously thought about, so has never been put into common conscious thinking before. It is a communication from the depths, from beyond thought, and so any interpretations that are given by thinking may completely miss the point.
Tony
