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In the dream, I’m a smoker, even though in real life I’m not. In the dream, I’m wearing a baggy jacket and have 1/2 dozen loose cigarette butts in each pocket but no full cigarette. I’m with a bunch of smokers and ask them for one and they all say they don’t have any. I say it’s okay, it doesn’t matter, I’m quitting anyways.
Then an ex-boyfriend arrives. In real life he’s an ex but in the dream I am still trying to salvage the relationship. I ask him if he wants to catch the ferry with me and go do something off the island. At first he disagrees but he concedes with my insistence and he even offers to pay.
I notice right away he starts taking photos with his phone which is a strange & uncharacteristic behaviour of his. He does it so much that he has no emotional connection or interaction with me at all as we wait in line for the ferry, board and start traveling. I see a huge piece of ice float down a river and point it out and he takes a photo and I hear him say, “This one is for you (meaning me)” and then he takes another one saying “And this second one is for you (meaning another woman)” and he sends the second pic to someone.
After seeing him do this 3 times I confront him with it. He doesn’t deny it. I say why didn’t he just tell me and we could have ended amicably. He said he couldn’t tell me. He didn’t want to hurt me.
So I tell him I’m not going on this trip with him and when the ferry stops I board a returning boat to go back home. He continues on.
I feel a mixture of sadness and relief.
When I get back, it’s too late to make it all the way home so I stay at an Air BnB which has a lot of others staying there too. Recollection of this part of the dream is foggy. It seems we were moving furniture around. There were a lot of people but I don’t recall more than that.
14 June 2017
I still remember the first time Richard Hastings from Dreams For Peace wrote to me that I had a dream with a mix of negatives and positives in it for “some reason.” He pointed out some of the positives and then explained how I could use those things I was already good at to help with the negatives in the dream.
After he wrote that, then this theme continued on for what seems like many months. After a while, as soon as I had a dream with any negative in it, like getting chased, or getting hurt physically, then I started looking right away for a positive. There always was one. At least one, but usually more.
Then one time he sort of freaked me out because he wrote, “the reason positives show up in a dream is to give the mind a lure, something good to go for, and also to give you a reminder of what you are good at because you will need that in order to face what is coming up.”
That freaked me out because it made me realize something negative was coming up and in order to best deal with it I had to really remember and exercise my positives.
Last night’s dream was like that – a mix of negatives and positives.
The positives were that I was hanging out with a black belt from the club and he had created a really safe place for us to just chill out and relax, to just watch movies and snack on chips. The problem was that after he put a blanket on me and I was really warm and cozy, then he got in next to me and I could see he thought maybe we would make out.
What is this “thing” which compels men to always end up thinking that a situation can lead to sex? It frustrated me in the dream. He’s a good looking guy, and great instructor in the club, and we have a lot in common in our personalities, but in the dream I just wanted to relax and watch movies and now I had to deal with him and his ego around whether or not we would get physical. So the warmth he gave me came with a price. I didn’t want to “pay” the price but I also didn’t want to give up the warmth. That sent my mind into high gear thinking of all the options and how this could turn out great for both of us.
In another part of the dream I am on a gymnastics floor training for Martial Arts. The instructor asks me to do something which she thinks will take a long time but I do it right away. This surprises her and then I explain that I was a competative gymnast until I was 14 and somethings just stuck with me. I saw the glimmer in her eye like she realized she found a gem and she was wondering how to work with what she had found. I was a bit apprehensive, not knowing if I could trust her motives but yet wanting to.
Lastly, there was a part in the dream sequence where I was a detective walking along a dark path by the river’s edge and I was following footsteps of a criminal. In the dream I knew everything – I knew who we were following, where we would find them and how we would stop them. But when I woke up it was really hard to put all those details into words.
The only thing I could consider is the great metaphor of a detective when it comes to changework because when we hunt out the negatives and transform them like a detective then life keeps getting better and better.
So – there were the positives and negatives of my recent dream. The solution now is for me to remember the positives of what I do well in my day to day life and to repeat them often and then I can get through any situation which anyone brings to me.
Anyone can do dreamwork. It just requires daily attention to the memory of the dream and the willingness to explore metaphors openly in order to learn more about the self and others. In my opinion, there is no better way to face fear and transform it than working through a dream.
In the dream, I learn a baby has been left in a car. Someone points out to me that a metal piece from one car has poked a hole in the car with the baby. The hole is near the gas tank. Just as I’m thinking to remove the baby then the owner gets in the car to drive away. The others tell him to stop but he doesn’t because he is like a mobster and thinks he can do anything he wants. So he turns the ignition again. From where I am I can see sparks begin to fly and yet he tries again. The others don’t know what to do to get him to stop but I have an idea.
As I go to the baby to remove her I also shout, “STOP! Fire!” and those words catch his attention. But it’s too late. He turns the ignition again and the car bursts into flames. Luckily I had very quickly untied the 6 month old baby and held her close to me as I ran a distance away. Not even the heat of the flames could reach me.
Later I did two things. I brought the baby to her parents and I told them what I did. I said it was good that I was able to remove her and I said if they hired me privately as a full time care-giver then I could have full rights to continue protecting her. I told them as a private arrangement we have more rights than if we don’t formalize it. They agreed.
Then I went back to the parking lot at the car dealership and found two police investigators checking out the remains of the burnt car. I approached them calmly and after a few attempts at starting I was able to tell them what I had seen and heard. They were grateful for my information because no one else survived and they had no idea what happened.
(Interestingly, because I explained the details to the investigators in the dream then when I woke up I could remember the details with more clarity.)
My input helped them figure out what happened.
I had two other dreams. One was a really awesome river dream in that I was flowing and floating down a peaceful river with friends and could easily kick and splash my feet. When I think of the action and the way I was swimming it was like I was a mermaid, although I wasn’t conscious of that in the dream. It was such a playful and carefree experience.
In another dream, I was in an apartment in a high sky-rise with Gracie and a friend or two. They were playing around and then something caught my attention that someone from far away in another high sky rise was monitoring us from a great distance with binoculars. I took action and closed the blinds. There was a bit of confusion and then we were outside. I saw one or two people in black and one person was very tall and in green. It was more like an intelligent creature, sent to scare me but I wasn’t scared.
I gave instructions to the girls and later when I was talking to those who hired me as a care-giver I mentioned this strange surveillance issue. They were not worried and basically told me to keep doing what I’m doing.
In the dream I’m watching myself talk with someone about alligators in the creek. There is a narration like National Geographic. There is clearly no threat. They are after one another. When they jump into the larger lake I say to the other, “those were alligators, right?” and made not of how their noses were different than crocodiles.
When I woke up I had the answer to a question I’d been thinking about: what is the difference between an alligator & a snake. Why is a snake worse? A snake is worse because of it’s poison for one thing and also because of its size. This dream also made me think how alligators & crocodiles take turns stunning & eating its prey which is more collective & cooperative while a snake is a solitary figure. Crocs also only attack for food I believe…and a snake will attack just because it’s frightened and protecting its position.
Then I dreamed of being on a trip of sorts with a large group of people, some from high school. I did not want to get involved in their foolishness & games and stayed on the grass while they swam.
But eventually I did. The images are blurry & miscellaneous. I swam. I waited in lines. I climbed stairs. The pool was crowded and uncomfortable. I couldn’t relax. When walking back to the car or bus I saw someone I care about getting his picture taken with friends. I noticed that even though he looked happy in every photo in-between he always did the same thing, so it was like he was putting on a happy face just for the photo. I realized I had nothing to be afraid of. There was nothing to be jealous about.
At one point, I wanted to rest & the busy-ness prevented me. A Persian friend I’ve known since childhood asked if he could help. I said there are times I did things differently just so you did not get angry. Now these people are doing things intentionally to try to get me angry. They should stop but they won’t so I have to take a lot of care. There’s really nothing you can do besides know that this is what is going on and respect my need for rest when I need it. He said, “Okay. Sure.”
This shows me that there was an issue which started in high school where I would see others interacting regularly. Sometimes they were kind to one another & sometimes they were cruel. So I wanted little to do with them. I chose a friend who didn’t ever hurt with her words or actions. She had no anger issues at all. With her, I never had to worry that she would say or so something to hurt me in anyway. She was a very good friend.Â
This dream is showing me that now this is the kind of friend I can be when others have alligators in their lives metaphorically.Â
The person in the dream who was getting his picture taken is the one surrounded by metaphoric alligators. By jumping, swimming, climbing I can help them stay more real and not just put on a happy face but really feel true joy in being connected with their True Self.
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