Yoma – First of all, virtually all dream images symbolise and represent something other than the image itself. As an example I was recently asked by a man who had given no thought to dreams how on earth you could extract any meaning from them. He was wearing a fairly old T-shirt, so I said, “OK, let’s imagine you dreamt of your T-shirt, what would you make of that?”
After a while he said, “I don’t know that I would make anything of it.”
My response was to say, “Right, but now tell me where you bought the T-shirt, and what memories it has for you.” Whereupon he told me very full memories of being in the USA, and that the shirt was part of those memories, but he wasn’t prepared to say what the memories were as they were so personal. I felt he had had an affair while there and didn’t want to talk about it. So his T-shirt represented his hidden memories of his time in the USA – not a T-shirt at all. See
https://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/dreams-practical-techniques-for-understanding-them/ The important point is that everything we see and deal with, every person, every imagined scene, has such a background of feelings and perhaps memories. It is exactly this background of feelings and information that the dream weaves its story from. To understand it you need to become aware of the usually unconscious feeling responses you have in connection with every thing, place, person and animal you fill your dreams with.
The phantom ship and turquoise flame beings are imaginative parts that you have taken in at sometime. Flames may represent a living process that live on the material of your mind, as flames need wood or other fuel. This seems likely as you say the flame beings possess peoples mind. Turquoise as a jewel and colour may represent your mind as it goes beyond the boundaries of thought into intuition and wider awareness. This was represented by the hill from which you could see the whole city – truly and expanded mind view.
People’s mind being dominated is also a view many people have of the state of people in general – possessed and overwhelmed by consumerism or their instinctive urges such as sex, hunger, domination, etc. But you became aware of this because others were not aware of what was happening to them or to you. It wasn’t easy to rid yourself of such enormous social influence that most others are lost in, but the turning point was your widened awareness – the city view.
The air rifle-air-soft was your way of seeking a means of overcoming the influence of the huge public view. See
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-paradigm/ You found strength and because you relaxed you experienced deep inner peace. See
https://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/explorations-in-wonder/Tony