Jollybev – Walking along a corridor and past many doors, represent walking along in life and passing a lot of opportunities. Each door can be an entrance into a completely different environment. Each of us live in a world with many such opportunities, and our choices create the life we experience and call it our fate or bad luck. You walked past many but chose one that was open – a last chance?
A second-hand bookshop, well, to quote from the entry on book shop, “Your gathered experience, even from the long past. An attempt to find a solution to something, to find answers. It could also suggest a confrontation with the many and varied opinions and standpoints people have, or a search for who you are and what the meaning of your life is.”
The long past is important, because it is not only the helpful abilities you have but also the things leading to awful choices. See
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-conjuring-trick/Yes, the search for answers. What you confronted was a place you knew from the past with and old man with white hair and ruddy face. His purple face – purple has always been associated with royalty, with spirituality and the law. In terms of the personality it is seen as relating to the ability to deal with practical matters and with spiritual power. Also age and white hair was a sign of wisdom – especially as he ran a book shop – the collection of many people life experiences.
Something sinister was going on. Well sinister originally meant left handed, which in the past was seen to be very suspicious, because it was not ‘normal’. So the old man was leading you upwards. In many past cultural traditions ascent was associated with purification or refinement – as in the ascent to heaven, or a holy mountain. It also suggested becoming more detached, or finding a different perspective. We could see it also as evolution of ourselves to a newer level.
So you were led into a situation which was not ‘normal’ so what followed led to you feeling suspicious of his motives – and also you were being led to a new experience of yourself – you were in the dream world, your inner world, and so perhaps you were carrying fears and suspicions that were valuable in the waking world into this new experience. For in many forms of initiation into a wider experience, the initiate was blindfolded so they could not see.
Of course you cannot ‘see’ what you have never met before. In a real sense you are part creator of your dream, so you met a figure from your core self, and I feel you were led into a situation of great change – meeting your own hugeness. The human personality – the You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes. But we have to remember that having a personality with self-awareness is a very new thing and has only existed for a short time. Before that we were like animals that lived only in the Life Will – what we usually call instincts. So the development of self-awareness was an immense step, and left us very vulnerable, and still does. Many people as their awareness reaches beyond what they feel is their normal self feel scared. Such resistances cause us to create awful dreams and fears as a means of avoiding our own inner world and its wonders.
The trial is the response of the many parts of you seeking to understand, but with a feeling that you had been misled. “I asked if he knew how long I had coming to him for and he agreed it had been many years. He seemed contrite but offered me no answers.”
Obviously I am giving you my best – but in the end they are just my opinions. But it is worth trying to find your own insights by using
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson or
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/ Tony
