Keep Them Separate!!!

[horizen]

I dreamt my family's house was full of cats.  Big cats (lions) and domestic cats.  The entirety of the dream has me desperately trying to care for them all whilst keeping them totally separate from one another.  I walk downstairs with the old lion.  Carefully.  It needs my attention.  As we descend the stairs, it turns itself upside down, sort of sliding down, so the palm of its paws are exposed.  Stretching its claws..I'd like to put my palm in its palm, but I see the claws, its huge size, and unpredictable nature, and decide not to risk it.  I continue to walk about the house with this lion.  Spending time with it.  The big cats require my attention and time otherwise they get jealous and can become dangerous.  There are other cats milling about the house.  Whenever I see a domestic cat I panic and quickly move to pick them up and shut them in another room.  I am so worried that the wild cats will kill the domestic cats.  I am constantly trying to keep them separate. Meanwhile, my siblings are hanging around the house, not a care in the world.  Socializing, focused on themselves.  Oblivious.  Not caring about the lives of the small cats which are in constant jeopardy with the big wild cats roaming free inside the house.  I am constantly working to spend time with all the cats, constantly trying to keep them happy, constantly trying to keep them separate, so their paths will never cross (for their own safety).  Yet my siblings undo my work and just let the little cats out.  So that the big and little can mix company.  Wild and tamed in the same rooms.  I am annoyed with them.  They could be helping, instead of making it worse, making the environment less safe.  I see that my brother just let in a cat I'd previously secluded out on the back porch.  This little black cat was now in the kitchen with us.  And with the lions.  I quickly scoop up the black cat.  He was all black, except for a touch of silver on a few hairs on one side.  I roughly open the porch door and put him back out there and shut the door.  I didn't want him to get mauled or killed, so I did it quickly and ungracefully.  My brother turns to me and says "He was crying to come in."  by way of excuse for letting him in the house.  I feel badly for the cat, alone on the outside.   So I look in the kitchen cupboards for a vessel in which to feed him milk.  The first one I chose, I realized, was too small; he wouldn't be able to fit his head in and lap up the milk.  I keep looking for a vessel just big enough to allow him to get some nourishment, not too much.  I find a similar tiny teacup or bowl, small like a shot glass, but adequate to drink from.  I have every intention of providing him a little bit of milk and some undivided attention.  I just hope it is enough.  I am exhausted from spending every waking moment making sure the others are content, and separate ( they must NEVER come in direct contact with each other), and no one dies.  As I continue to do this pattern, I realize I am a slave to it.  I can't not do it, or disaster and violence will ensue.   I contemplate what it would be like if I had a little help.  If my family, instead of enabling this chaos, would help to change it.  Why for example, are the lions allowed free reign in the house?  Shouldn't they be kept outdoors?  Why won't my siblings help me build an enclosure for them outside?  Why does it have to be this way?  I ask myself these questions while I continue to do what I must to "keep the peace."  I can't bear the sight of a defenseless cat being killed, I would never get over it.  I am their protector.  I must protect them from predators.  Yet, I also have to care for the predators.  So not maintaining the system is not an option.  My thoughts are filled with questions like these:  How can I care for all of them in a way that works for all involved?  How can I keep them both happy and separate and give them both my attention?  I don't want anyone to suffer or get hurt. 

The cats symbolize both real people in my life, as well as different facets of my life.  Which I have needed to keep separate.  You can see I am grappling with how to integrate separate factions/aspects of my life.  Instinctively, I still feel it is not safe to integrate them.  Yet, I care about them all.  It is a struggle to balance.

[horizen]

This reminds me of my previous "Kittens" dream.  There's a recurring theme- with wild cats, and a separate black kitten of some vulnerability. 

[Tony Crisp]

Horizen – Wow, you are coming thick and fast.

My impression is that although you are dreaming, and so in much freer dimension of dreams, you struggle with rules and regulations that apply to waking life. I am not saying there should be a big divide between common human experience and the inner life, because I see they complement each other, but I am still trying to define the subject. I tried to do this in http://dreamhawk.com/interesting-people/wonders-of-your-mind-superminds-16/

But it is still a working investigation, but I ended by saying, “Now, the grand finale is that you cannot get beyond your beliefs unless you can dare to question the inconceivable. You need to have a virgin mind that is free from all preconceptions – I believe that is why the image of the virgin was worshipped in many ancient cultures.

If you can stand and look at yourself and say, “What the hell do I actually KNOW?” and if you can put it all to one side and ask – What else is there waiting to be known? Then you can begin the journey of going BEYOND.”

“Then it came to me that I had to listen in deep stillness – not think, not seek to understand, not struggle, just listen. My whole being entered into silence, gently listening as one might listen to the rain falling on a lake. Then suddenly it was known – the feather blowing in the wind – the sound of one hand clapping – the essence of human existence. Open against the sky – emptiness – enormity.

Sorry, I am wandering amongst experiences.

The black kitten seems to involve feelings of vulnerability, of something small and barely conscious that is like something you care for.

You struggle with the difference between the instinctive (wild) in you and what you consider to be ‘tame’. I believe it is a struggle between control and letting go of control, and you are having a hard time of it. But the Bible, which is actually a great describer if the dream world says, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”

It shows a possibility in dreams. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/control-controlled-not-controlling/

The level after level of safety factors built into our system is nothing short of incredible. For adequate functioning our blood pressure needs to be at about 110 to 120 (i.e. it displaces 110 millimeters of mercury). It can drop to 70-80 before a critical situation arises in which tissue may die because blood is not reaching it. If we lose a lot of blood, even as much as 30 or 40 percent, the self-regulatory process maintains adequate blood pressure by constricting the blood vessels. This action is controlled by a part of the brain, and if that brain area is injured or destroyed, other centres take control. If they are eliminated, ganglia in the sympathetic nervous system direct the action. If they too are eliminated the walls of the arteries and veins themselves regulate their own activity.

As is so clearly expressed in that description, control centres are capable of acting at every level of our being, not just the brain or nervous system. In fact, what is slowly coming to be realised, but has been said already by people who have explored their inner life, each cell has a level of intelligence. But its intelligence and agency only become conscious to us if we are able to touch it by entering its world with focussed self-awareness or the dimension experienced in dreams.

"I felt we are all in that ancient room. We are all in this moment now. In this moment everything is happening. Nothing could be stranger than that. I mean everything in terms of what is happening in the world – murder, love, birth death, huge heroism, cowardice, and on and on. I felt very moved by the sense that I had touched something wonderful – the great love, Christ, the universe. I recalled the part of the earlier experience where I had gone into the ‘dungeon’ to recover the small ‘dangerous’ me, and had felt I was bringing light to countless other aspects of self that had got trapped in darkness. It seemed to me I was bringing the gospel to them, and the gospel is the experience of this immense love. As I felt this it seemed to me there was nothing outside of that love. Nothing was beyond redemption, nothing was beneath its attention or forgotten by it. Even if one shut oneself away as my little ‘dangerous’ person had, it will come and seek one out to bring light and love. Even if, as part of me had done, one says ‘get away. I don’t want anybody near me’ that love comes and finds you. Eventually it finds you and draws you back in."

Tony