Posts Tagged ‘dream dictionary interpretation’
Loft
See: Attic.
Log
It can either be old opinions, or old habits of feeling, or it is something that was alive and growing in you at one time and has now become dead wood, fixed opinion. Sometimes it represents what you have inherited from the past, perhaps from your family or forebears. It might even suggest unresponsiveness. See: Wood.
Logs can appear in many ways in dreams:
Dream Log: See journal
Firewood: See firewood
Hiding behind logs: It may suggest you are feeling you are not one of the crowd and so hide so the ‘crowd’ will pass you by. Or if you are in natural surroundigs are you hiding from an animal? Are you hiding from an enemy, if so see enemy and animal
Huge logs: Represents a huge natural resource. Depending what your interests are it could be for building something, making something like furniture, or even for burning. See wood
Log bridge: Something that you have built out of your own natural resources that give you a link with others, provides a solution to a problem, or allows more ‘traffic’ through your life.
Log cabin: Usually represents a quiet and secluded state of mind and built of ones own thoughts, longings and effort. A natural environment to live in or to raise a child. A place you built with love and spirit. A place to make love in or have a honeymoon in – indicating thoughts and feelings about getting close to someone.
Log in: Represents an attempt to contact or influence or partake of or get something shown in the dream. It could be an introduction to a relationship, and attempt to ‘connect’ with them or communicate with them.
Example: I am currently unemployed and looking for work in my waking life. Last night, I had a dream that I had got off from work and I got my paycheck. My mom took me to the grocery store to use the ATM machine to get some money, while she buys something. I was trying to log in and to get some cash, but the machine never came on. Then, I read on the note on the side of the ATM, and it said that the machine was not working.
Log out: An attempt to not continue with whatever you were logged in to. A goodbye to someone, or an opportunity.
Log jams: This usually indicates something that is holding back your free flowing energy or motivation. It could mean blocked sexual feeling, emotions, ideas or plans
Example: I have two powerful dreams to solve: in one I meet a giant and his son. He is clearing a log jam in river I abruptly come to at the end of a long drive to find my way home (or to relatives).
Raft: See raft
Ships log: See ship
Weapon: A log can often be used as a weapon, so represents using an old an established way to hurt or even kill something within you, or venting aggressive feelings. See weapon
Example: We get into a van and drive up a freeway exit the wrong way and cut across wooded area to park next to the original campsite. Ginny has money in her hand. I say, “There isn’t any wood for the fire,” and then I see some split logs and sticks.
Example: I feel a bit odd not knowing exactly what is happening, so I decide to step off the road into a little gully and conceal myself behind a big fallen log to watch this massive migration of people. I don’t seem to belong with these people, although a few glance at me, no one takes any particular notice of me one way or another. A young man comes along, maybe in his late teens, and he sees me and chooses to step off the road as well, and joins me beside the log as an observer. I find that somewhat strange , but he is not threatening in any way. I don’t think we exchanged words, yet somehow we knew that we were not like those others, and we just sat together for awhile watching. the hoards slowly pass by.
Idioms: drop a log; log off; log on; saw logs; sleep like a log
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is the log being used for?
Do I use logs to heat my home or to build a fire?
What associations do I have with logs?
See Associations Working With – Being the Person or Thing – Clicking On
Long
See length; time; time of day
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Look Looked Looking
Searching for something; realising something, feeling impressions, or concentration.
See seeing – saw – sight; eyes
Lorry Truck Van
Like a car, it is your means of getting about in life, i.e. vehicle of expression such as music, drives, longings, ambitions, but the lorry connects more with commercial associations or projects. So it might link with feelings of major change, commercial ventures, of moving house.
Similar to car, but it indicates drives such as ambition, what motivates one – but usually your abilities, confidence and energy in connection with practical work, or getting things done in the outer world. It can be the inner qualities or strengths that support your outer activities. For instance ones personal motivations or activities meeting the influence of big unified groups such as the police or large businesses. But also your efforts to get something done, to get things moving. See: car.
A van can also be connected with work, but sometimes can indicate a family or group.
Example: ‘I was a passenger in a very large eight wheeled lorry, my husband being the driver. We stopped at a pedestrian crossing in our town and my husband got out of the driving seat and went into the local town hall near a crossing. I waited in the lorry for what in my dream seemed hours. The next thing I remember is that I was then riding a bicycle on the other side of the crossing and cycled away up the road.’ Diann R.
Her husband’s involvement with social and work activities – the lorry and hall – make Diann decide to become more independent rather than wait for her husband to be ‘with her’.
Example: Dreamt I was driving to work in my car. Just as I was opposite our house a lorry – bread – hurtled out past a parked car, it didn’t seem to see me, and smashed straight over me. I was left standing by the roadside, the car smashed away from me to about the size of a bike. My right leg was slightly encased in the smashed car. I thought I had lost my leg, but it was not smashed off, only bloody and perhaps broken.
I remained standing by the road and shouted for my wife to call the ambulance. I thought I would have to be in hospital for some time and quite liked the idea, and decided to meditate while there. I seemed to have an inner realisation about the crash. I knew that my karma had led me to death at that moment, but because of the work I had done over the past eight months, this had been escaped.
Using various methods I gradually worked out the dream as follows: “Going to work is the steady, persevering work on myself – the daily facing of difficulties and patiently pressing on.
The car is, because it keeps going wrong, my sense of failure (when I dreamt this the car was in the garage for repair). It is all the past things that have driven me, or carried me along out of my feeling that I was a failure.
The bread van was a connection with work. It was the great power which had been released by the persistent facing of myself, and which now smashed away the failure drives. This left me standing on my own feet, but outwardly insecure. The injured leg was the causes of the failure drives being revealed – my psychological inability to stand strongly on my own feet – my lack of confidence.
Going to hospital meant that in the healing of these causes or root problems, much more inner peace, or chance to enter deeply into self would arise. I would have died as a person, not being able to progress beyond this point, this problem, if it hadn’t been for the many things learned in giving myself to others at the place I worked. If I had not followed the inner drive to start activities that led me to give of myself, during which I learned to open up the whole inner mess of my life. I might not in this life have gained, developed or being given the necessary qualities and tools to melt and pass beyond the problem. Not going to work is not having to work any longer in that way. It was now my choice.
Example: Dreamt about being in a large removal van with a woman sat on my lap. I held her breasts with pleasure. Don.
In exploring his dream Don found that holding the woman’s breasts showed how he was holding onto and held by sexual pleasure. Holding the woman made him a passenger, and not directing his life. But when he let go he could be the driver. This led him to realise that he was tied to his sexual need like a dependency – a dependency that directed his life.
Being in the driving seat also means you can see all the instruments on the driving panel. This means being in an observing situation with yourself. You can if you wish, observe all the instruments of your being. You can watch and acknowledge what is happening to you sexually, what is happening with your fantasies, what is going on in your physical body – am I tired, am I relaxed, am I stressed, am I confident? You can observe all this in the driving seat and you can make changes. From the observations you can slightly shift, change, make adjustments, and so keep balance and direct the process of interaction and where you are aiming to go in life. This self observation also means you can more easily observe others and understand their needs.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Where you the driver or passenger?
What was the theme of the dream?
Was there any commercial side to the dream?
See Plot of the Dream – Being the Person or Thing – Life Changes
Loss or Losing Something or Someone
A lost opportunity; forgetting something which is important. Depending on the dream content might also suggest actual, or feelings about, loss of virginity; loss of health; losing a lover-partner, or whatever the lost thing depicts. If one dreams often about losing things, like handbag, car, children, it could show that the dreamer is deeply uncertain about themselves. In other words they are feeling a loss of identity, wondering where they are going in life, who they are in the present situation, or what value they have. Often such feelings often come about from losing contact with your deep feelings and passions. Without them we may feel we have no rudder, no place to head for. See: lost; lost husband
Dreaming about the loss of a child or partner can cause a lot of emotional pain. It helps if you can open to the emotions and feel their depth; for sometimes it feels as if a part of you has been torn out. Withholding the emotion doesn’t get rid of it; a woman in a therapy sessions burst into tears about a child she had lost 17 years previously. A neighbour hearing her cry at the time told her she should not cry and so it took 17 years to release it.
A dream of loss might also indicate being frightened of losing the control they thought they had over their life and the world. Such dreams are often about meeting some massive apparent threat, such a huge wave or creature. The dreams sometimes have great fear in them. Some dreams about losing control are about sexual relationships and how much control you have. See Meeting the Huge – Being in Control
Fear or experience of being left or losing someone? Fear of abandonment can lead to great feelings of jealousy, rage, withdrawal from everyday life and depression. The pain of losing a loved one is frequently a sign that our infant or child self is still wounded or hurt, and needs the healing of being allowed into consciousness and thereby integrated into the adult personality. See Beware of Love; Inner Baby and Child
Dreams about loss can arise through anxiety about losing friendship, or of illness creating a loss. It can also suggest that you feel unloved and unwanted. These hells and heavens we each carry within us in the form of fears such as losing the person we love are sometimes habitual attitudes such as that of feeling our partner is out to trick us; chips on our shoulder such as conflict with the society we live in or the authority figures we confront, and genuine childhood or birth traumas.
Many people have a real fear of losing their identity. People relate to this threat in two major ways. They either fight to keep control, and employ all manner of techniques such as keeping their attention focused outwardly by such things as talking, walking about, drawing, holding their breath or dancing – or they surrender to what is being experienced. To meet the parts of one’s nature that has previously been pushed into unconsciousness, one needs to surrender in some degree. If the person fights the loss of control as the new material from within is emerging, it sometimes feels as if they are disintegrating. Their body may feel as if it is changing or dying, and they are losing themselves. Such struggles arise out of the fear of losing oneself, or at least losing the sense of oneself connected with appearance, work, success, or financial standing – the loss of identity. See Identity and dreams; Identity and Sex; Stuck in life – unable to move or grow – How do we change?
Death is often felt as a losing. The change that takes place in this experience of an inwardly felt death, may at times feel like losing everything, shedding the past, becoming completely insecure. There is not in the end a loss of anything, only a gaining that requires one to let go of the dominance of what was previously important. From this arises a feeling of wholeness and connection with the world and self in a new way. See Dreaming of Death
Example: The other night I had a dream that my ex-boyfriend was killed in a car accident. I was mortified and became hysterical. I can only remember little bits of it now, but I do remember seeing him in his car, dead. I think I started crying in my sleep. I have been thinking a lot about him lately, before I had the dream. I’ve missed him so much and this worries me.
The woman in the example had actually parted with her boyfriend. The dream is therefore most likely an expression of her deep feelings about losing him.
Example: My husband died over a year ago, and I live alone, no pets. Yet I dreamt I opened my front door and there was a cat waiting to be let in. It was my cat, and I knew I hadn’t fed it for ages or looked after it. I felt awful that I had neglected it for so long. The strange thing was that the next day as I walked around the supermarket, I kept wanting to go to the cat-food section to buy food. – Winnie P. – Exeter
In losing her husband Winnie has lost her source of giving and receiving affection and is feeling her need for this.
Example: Suzanne told me my voice changed as I cried out again and again as I released the pain of losing all my children, my husband, even my parents. My hands were clawing my legs in an effort to express the misery, and I was screaming that I could not bear to live any longer with such pain. I cried out to God to take me, for there was nothing left for me to live for. “Why? Why did this happen to me? Why has everything I loved been taken from me?”
Such an awful feeling of loss can be caused by the person having no or little connection with their core self in which there is a feeling of connection even after death. See Touching Your Core Self
Being lost: This links with feelings of confusion, lack of direction or conflict, of not understanding what is involved in the present situation you are in. The dream environment you are lost in will define what the confusion or conflict connects with. Sometimes this lost feeling arises because there are issues or changes in your life you have not acknowledged or do not want to acknowledge.
Losing something or someone: This probably relates to feelings about a lost opportunity, something that you have forgotten that you need to remember, or the loss of an important personal quality like confidence or virginity.
Losing ones husband-wife: Often dreamt by people in middle age. It shows them fearing-exploring the possible death of their partner. It is not a prediction, only an awareness of a likely situation.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What did you feel was lost and what feelings were involved?
Have you recently experienced a loss in any way?
How do you deal with loss?
See Opening to Life – Self help – Martial Art of the Mind – Karma – Avoid Being Victims – Being the Person or Thing
Louse
See: Lice.
Lover
Your feelings, fears and hopes connected with the lover. Occasionally an intuition about them, or even an intuitive link. See: Love; Learning to Love; Growing up to Love; Beware of Love; Dream Lovers; Boyfriend; Girlfriend; Archetype of Lover.
Low Lowly
Something that has escaped notice, or that you have left behind at some time. Or something beneath you, morally unsound, cheap, vulgar, depressed, little awareness or understanding.
Something that is not very apparent, is not much of a hurdle or barrier, or is not of great impact. It may indicate that you have as low view of yourself or your abilities, but we all have fantastic potential, but it has to be worked at to make real.
Sometimes it can represent what Carl Jung wrote in the book Man and His Symbols, “Christians often ask why God does not speak to them, as he is believed to have done in former days. When I hear such questions, it always makes me think of the rabbi who was asked how it could be that God often showed himself to people in the olden days while nowadays nobody ever sees him. The rabbi replied, “Nowadays there is no longer anybody who can bow low enough.”
Low neck line dress: For a man it probably represents a desire to hold the breasts, or at least a temptation to unless he is very neurotic and wishes to harm the beauty. For a woman it is, despite her protestations either her desire to show how desirable she is or else difficult feelings about other women.
Flying low down: Possibly depicts difficult feelings about not being able to ascend higher. Or feelings about your own inability to feel good about yourself. It can also depict slight depression.
Low in life satisfaction: A drive in many people is in some way to actualise themselves, to express themselves in a satisfying way. If we use the analogy of a plant, it is as if they have grown and reached full stature, but for some reason have not flowered and spread seeds. They have not produced fruit. This lack of satisfaction is shown in that such people recorded more negative dreams in their diary.
Low power lines: It depends on how capable you are to deal with the enormous power we all have as a potential. Obviously it could burn out any problems you have, or it could give you a tremendous boost to attain wider awareness.
Example: We both noticed that the power lines were slung very low to the ground about chest height. I was feeling drawn towards touching them, knowing what would happen. Sure enough once I had hold of the power lines my body started to burn up. My body rose to the height of the house windows and I could hear the yells from my burning body, I thought it must be a hell of a shock for everyone looking on. H. C.
Example: I was down in a low bit of a village, was trying to get to a road high up on a hill where the sun was shining. I was walking through dark, empty houses that were something like a store house, not much light, a musty smell about the place.
Idioms: fly low; keep a low profile; lay low; look high and low; low on the totem pole; low-ball him; low-down; lowlife; the lowdown; ears lowered
Useful Questions and Hints:
When have I felt low, and is it reflected in the dream?
Have I ever been able to bow that low to touch the centre?
Has there been a time when I felt connected to the low-life?
Do I consider myself to be of low status?
See Avoid Being Victims – Martial Art of the Mind – Meditation with Seed – Life’s Little Secrets
Lucifer
See: Devil.
Luggage
The duties, religious or moral feelings or the emotional environment we have created in our life. It can represent the past we still carry with us, things we can’t let go of in life. Sometimes a baby is felt as something we can no longer lug around with us; or our feelings about being a parent.
The habits or attitude, duties, or the emotional environment we have created in our life. It can represent the past we still carry with us; things we can’t let go of in life. See: bag; knapsack
What we “have in hand” in ones life, and something you are carrying with you. Or it could connect with a holiday or getting away from work or home; freedom or the ability to move.
The womb or vagina. What one carries inside oneself, such as longings, attitudes, fears. How we see ourselves socially – the luggage might be a sign of status, how we rate oneself; also a symbol of independence or going somewhere. Sometimes what we are hiding from others, or what others cannot see; a secret and perhaps dangerous thing, but certainly often unknown.
The dream luggage might contain the personal skills or tools one has, or is carrying with you, such as a laptop, mobile/cell phone. Another possibility is the association with protective attitudes, as when one might carry something precious in a bag – such as a baby, small animal or objects; secrets or what is hidden, so unpacking it may bring revelations or the unexpected, so ones hopes or dreams.
Example: ‘In last nights dream the baby I dream about incessantly had been locked in a suitcase but was quite unscathed when taken out, except that it was very dirty, but still not crying. I do not have any memories in connection with these babies and the only feelings I have are those of remorse that I have neglected the baby. I have had four children of my own, none of whom were ever neglected in this way.’ Mrs C.
Mrs C. uses the suitcase in at least two ways. One is her womb, or reproductive ability. Although she has had four children, this does not stop her unconsciously desiring more. The second is what ‘luggage’ – emotional feelings, urges, thoughts – she carries.
Example: I am in the airport waiting for my luggage. And I are smuggling in a bunch of junk from the States. I am worried that I will be recognized, as it seems I have done this many times before. One of the things I have in my luggage is the manuscript of one of the books I am working on. I plan on telling them that I was doing research on this book in the States if I am stopped, questioned, etc. I spend a lot of time anxiously waiting in the airport.
Example: A female lover of mine is trying to get rid of my leather handcrafted luggage which costs thousands of dollars. The luggage was from my first marriage. It makes me so angry that I slap her. She is getting rid of a lot of old clothes, particularly socks with holes in them which I carefully go thru too, but agree to throw away.
The dreamer’s anger is because he still has feelings about his first wife, so feels a conflict.
Dragging heavy luggage: Problems we have that have not be dealt with and feel as if they are holding us back.
Finding lost luggage: A difficult feeling or loss is now overcome. Remembering memories and past events.
Getting rid of or sorting and throwing away luggage: Discarding or sorting through habits, memories or attitudes that you can see are no longer suitable to carry around.
Packing your bags: It may represent a desire to – or a need to – get out of some present situation or fear of having to do so. Perhaps your unconscious is hinting that it is time you ‘pack your bags’.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Does what you are doing with the luggage give any idea about its meaning?
Did you know where you were heading with your luggage?
Are there things in the luggage that connect with the past or another person?
See Being the Person or Thing – Plot of the Dream – Settings in Dreams – Because Factor
Lumber
See: Wood.
Luminous
It usually signifies that you are allowing a greater amount of your life energy to be expressed. It is expressed outwardly as a feeling of enormous pleasure, excitement or realisation, even enlightenment. So it is an expression of what was previously held back or your power and potential. Unity of many aspects of ones nature. See: holy; aura; light; Glow
It can also be a meeting with what is considered holy.
Example: This living bust of Jimi Hendrix shot out from my head, which now became the beautiful mother earth (the blue/green orb as seen from space) and his spirit/image flew off on a straight path with incredible speed (like a rocket being shot off the earth) and out of the solar system and on through the Milky way into the dark purple void. His (?) trajectory left a luminous trail of lightly glowing, softly twinkling tracers as he departed the planet/universe. It was startling and surprising, mesmerizing and intoxicating to see that vision and then as quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared, and I realized I was lying on my back in my bed in my own room and that I had been dreaming.
Example: I dreamed that I was in my house looking into a new mirror at my face. I reached up to rub the skin on the left side of my face and began to peel it off. It came off in one thick piece. There was neither blood nor pain and I seemed to be acting purposefully. The skin beneath was luminous, reminding me rather of something metamorphosing but not yet “ready.” There was a straight red line across the cheek, which reminded me of the red ochre used in ceremonies for the living and the dead among ancient peoples. I was awed but not afraid.
Example: In intense light, I was walking around my childhood playground. Whispering tender words, I carried in my arms a little boy. In the dream, I knew that this was my son. Two days later I met his future mother. The child from the dream looked identical to the boy who was born a year and a half later. Throughout the first few days after Lukasz’s birth, the doctors claimed that he had no chance of survival. Against this medical diagnosis, clear and luminous with every detail in my memory, that night vision was my assurance that my beloved dream child would survive.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it I see that shines?
Does the luminescence leave me feeling something?
Was I shining in some way?
See Interview with Jill Bolte Taylor – Jesse Watkins Enlightenment – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Lungs
This dream might relate to tension, feelings of being ‘suffocated’ in a relationship or situation, as one may have been with one’s mother or home life. Often to do with smoking or what you are taking in from others or the environment in a subtle way. The idioms linked with breathing explain other possible connections – Catch one’s breath; bated breath; hold one’s breath. See Breath Breathing
Example: I was in a hospital. Doctors and nurses were about. I was led to realise my lungs were filling up with mucous or phlegm. The doctor said to me it wouldn’t affect me in a short term, but if I kept on smoking I would feel the effect badly in later life. The dream was so vivid I decided then and there to give up smoking. B.K.
As can be seen B.K’s dream refers very directly to her smoking habit and was a strong enough experience for her to stop smoking.
Example: I heard someone say upon awakening, “Be careful of a lung infection.” Unfortunately, I ignored the warning, and after several late nights and cold weather, I ended up with double pneumonia.
Example: Jane S. had a series of frightful, recurring dreams. “I dreamed I was hemorrhaging from both lungs. As time went on, the dreams worsened; for I began coughing and choking, meanwhile bringing up increasing amounts of blood. I always awakened panicky.”
I learned Jane was going to a tuberculosis sanatorium daily, visiting a friend in a ward, where the active cases were housed. Jane admitted there were times when the coughing of her friend left sprays of sputum on Jane’s face. A suggestion was made that she go to a doctor for an X ray. The results of the X ray were negative for tuberculosis, but the doctor told her she had a case of bronchiectasis, which made her more susceptible to tuberculosis. Hence, the warnings were valid. From then on, she made infrequent visits to the hospital, and her nightmarish dreams ended.
Example: For nearly an hour, I laid on the floor while my pelvis rocked and bumped in different ways, my chest popping and rising. I asked what would help my breathing be more easy and free, and long, humming tones erupted from my body, I was making sounds I had never heard myself make before. I was slightly startled to feel some of the vibration resonating in my pelvis. I made gurgling sounds, and more and more long, humming, tones. Several times all of the breath squeezed out of my lungs which was really uncomfortable, but I trusted it and eventually the breath would always suck back in on it’s own. From a person practicing LifeStream –
Idioms as relate to breathing, such as: Catch one’s breath; bated breath; hold one’s breath.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is my dream suggesting about my lungs, and is this physical or symbolising something?
Do I feel suffocated in any way in my life?
Did I feel anxious in the dream, and if so what is this anxiety about in real life?
See Body and also Easy Dream Interpretation
Lure Lured
There is an aspect of the unconscious and dreams which can have the effect of luring one along a path of fantasy and illusion. Some of the ancient myths tell the story of the hero or heroine being lured into difficult situations – Odysseus for instance, lured by the sirens.
Many people who look to dreams for inspiration are actually walking this path of being lured along by a powerful imagined world of experience which does not validate itself. We have a friend who was deep into dream studies and meditation for many years. She went on vision quests and was a spiritual advisor to a tribe of Indians in the Northwest where she and her family lived. One day we heard that she was hospitalised with psychological problems. Many months later, she visited us. The subject of dreams came up and she said, ‘My dreams betrayed me.’ M.S.
Such situations arise from people intellectually interpreting their dreams, and doing so from a stand point of hope and fantastic ideals about who they are and what they believe in. If one actually explored their dreams by entering into them, not thinking about them, such ideals are knocked on the head and the real person revealed.
Example: Dreamt Pete Taylor was in my father’s shop in London. Someone had shot him in the bicep and I was trying to help him. I had a small box on the counter and there was antiseptic or blood in it, and I put the hurt muscle in it hoping to heal it. When the gunshot flesh was in the antiseptic the blood bubbled and effervesced, becoming hot. I felt the flesh would not be of any use now, but wasn’t sure. In the end though I was considering cleaning away the injured flesh from the arm (left arm I think). All I could see were the sinews with a small amount of flesh on them – no muscle in between. But I began to feel that gradually new cells might grow and develop into a new muscle – granulate.
Here the dreamer explored his dream, and as can be seen it does not deal with fantasy or idealism but the hard facts of life that needed to be felt and dealt with.
“I realised I had met Pete on a walk a few days before and heard him shouting out about, “The Lord Jesus Christ,” in a mocking voice. I was in a wood with my children and stood still waiting for Pete and his friends to pass by – Pete being outside of the wood in a field. As I was entering into these feelings from the dream point of view I realised I avoided Pete because of pride. I hadn’t wished to be associated with Pete. Pete, who had a lovely daughter but who had failed at marriage; was a good musician but had failed to do anything with his skill; started businesses but failed at working for himself – failed. Pete, I felt was a failure.
Suddenly I realised with shock that I had tried to avoid meeting Pete because pride was my defence against my own failure. I was hiding away from my own sense of failure.
But Pete had actually come into the wood so we met, and I saw he was keenly ‘chasing’ a young French woman, Katerine.
My wife came up and I explained this, and the talking helped it flow tremendously. Pete, who failed at marriage but was chasing after young girls, as I had seen him chasing Katerine. Yes, no wonder I didn’t want to associate with that part of me, who couldn’t make it in marriage but chased young women. Pete was living out all the things in me that I despised and tried to keep hidden, even from myself. But now they were out in the open and it was painful. Then a whole mass more came. I saw Katerine as a little pro who was holding herself back, but wanted to wag her fanny everywhere.
Pete, the one who was in battle with his father and who constantly fought authority tooth and nail. He had got to make it alone to prove how much better he was then father/authority. What a waste, when one could have worked together to accomplish more. Conflict wastes so much effort due to the countless retreats. Now it was coming thick and fast so I went down to my wife in the kitchen as it was so helpful to talk.
Yes, it was my father. The shop was the important point in the dream. It was in that shop our conflict had come to a head. It had been there always. The thing already seen about how he used to show me his school books. He didn’t praise what I did, just showed me how good his work was, how neat, how few blots. But in the shop he had set my pattern of behaviour, stamped it out. Because I had got no praise or support from him – my symbol of authority – I had pulled away and gone on along a path of life that he had no understanding of. I went on to my wife about how I had stacked the potatoes in the shop for him as well as I could, but never a word of encouragement – always wrong.
What a fucking waste. He was so desperate for success himself he was trying to squeeze out a few drops from me too for the sake of his pride, to prove to England how much better he was. He was still fighting the battle of the school room, because he was too scared to punch the kids on the nose, so he wanted me to be a success to prove his own value. So from then on I was in conflict with him, trying to prove how good I was, how much better than him, never able to co-operate at school, and work, or in my marriage. I had to keep on at my wife over nothing to prove how good we were. What I did for him was never good enough, never enough. What would get a word of praise? What would suffice? I didn’t understand what he wanted of me. So I kept on at my kids like he kept on at me. Trying to attain the unobtainable instead of a little warmth and love. Dad, you fucking killed me right back then. I sobbed uncontrollable with the pain of experiencing it.
What a waste. My schooling ruled by rebellion because I had to make it alone and “differently” not co-operatively. Anything to fight authority. And I had to fail too, even in my efforts to achieve, because if I succeeded dad would fall to pieces, feeling what a failure he was as a man and a father. I needed a Dad so I dared not succeed. I had to fail if I wanted love. And the reverse side of conflict with authority was the cringing underhand crawling to gain love and approval.
The damage to the bicep, to flesh was the whole area of my life that I was trying to save and heal, but which I needed to let go of, and wait for the new muscle tissue to grow. How does start again at 40? Is it with patience to let the new tissues and strength grow?
My left arm is my support system, my confidence to do things in the world. I am right handed so do things with my right hand, but support everything with my left – hold the paper as I write; hold the nail as I bang it in with my right. So the damage to the muscle was the injury to my supportive confidence through my relationship with my father. As all this was felt I sobbed uncontrollably. I wept for the lost years, the wasted years of my youth. I was convulsed with the pain of not having been loved by my father. Tears fell from me for the failure of my life. I would never have believed one could feel so much pain about something missing in ones life. I had always thought to feel that much pain you would have needed to be beaten or abused in childhood. My father was kind, but he showed no warmth. And that was as bad as being beaten, perhaps worse. I had been severely beaten at school, but it hadn’t scarred me like this.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What have I felt lured by in my dreams?
Can I recognise that lure is often used in a trap?
Do I really allow my feelings in exploring my dreams as in the example?
See Being the Person or Thing – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Context/Theme
Lynx
Keenness of perception – lynx eyed; vigilance; otherwise same as other large cats. See: leopard above.
Useful questions are:
What attitude or feelings is my dream lynx expressing, and how does that relate to me?
If I imagine myself as the lynx, do I feel anger, power or fear? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)
Is it a male or female lynx and what does that lead me to feel or associate with it?
What is my relationship with the lynx and what does that suggest?