06 July 2017

In the dream, I am in a conference hall with thousands of others. There are university grads with their families, and there are agencies & organizations offering awards , scholarships and job opportunities. But in the dream there is nothing for me.

At one point I am challenged to jump in a deep pool against someone else. When we jump in she leaps in front of me kind of cutting me off and it takes my breath away. But I jump anyway. Even with half a breath I go much further than she does and while she jumps up to the surface in a few moments, I go down to the very bottom of the pool and I stay there for a few moments, enjoying the solitude, then I push myself back up and exhale as I sore torpedo-like back to the surface.

It seems to me I have accomplished something but no one notices.

I go back onto the pool side thinking how they don’t offer rewards, bursaries and job opportunities to people who are skilled at diving to the bottom of a pool.

In the dream, diving to the bottom of a pool is not note-worthy. But in real life, when I analyse this dream I realize this dream marks a gift I have developed which allows me to go deep into relationships. When I first started doing dreamwork I had many dreams about not being able to go far into water, or going into the depths but then bad things happening to me or others.

The issue which shows up in this dream has nothing to do with my performance. The issue is in the culture which rewards the wrong things. North American culture especially focuses on developing skills which keep people “working-hard” even if it goes against their unique gifts and talents. There’s really a lot to say here which I can’t go into greater depth about right now.

The solution to a dream like this is to turn it around by imagining 1000s of people being encouraging and welcoming. Then everything is different.

The reason the culture at large does not acknowledge or celebrate the skill of being able to go deep into relationships is because the general “norm” of day-to-day keeps people stuck in a rush-to-work mentality. Then they spend their days doing activities dictated by those who see themselves in power, and they rush home to try to fit some family time in and wind down at the end of the night with a TV show and maybe a beer.

Weekends are “family” time when all the things which were neglected during the week can get attention and there is just little room in this old out-dated model for a lot of time for an individual to reflect and develop in ways prompted by their unique gifts rather than directed by their pay cheque.

Why am I having this dream now?

Likely it is because the dream wants to show me that I have made progress in some areas and that I can remember how far I’ve come.

In the tasks which lay before me now I can use the skills I have developed even more.

Letting go of the want for acknowledgement is a big lesson which I am just at the beginning of learning. We live in an acknowledgement-hungry society which is nearly narcissistic in its set up of praise for one individual who beats out everyone else, like in award shows like American Idol or “reality show” challenges.

Those individuals who chose not to go for the top experience a different kind of life. That’s the kind of life I’m experiencing.

My intention is to not rise to the top but to go to deeper and deeper depths.

This dream is a good reminder of that.