May 24, 2018
In the dream, I am helping someone move. Their place is old, badly needing repair and not laid out in the structure that will be good for them in their future. The moving isn’t easy because there’s no order or organization to the place. Additionally, there seems to be some sort of time constraint. A moving deadline of sorts. There’s not a lot of stress around this though as it feels like everything that needs to be done can be done in time.
20 October 2017
In the strongest image from last night’s dream, I am sitting on a couch with a single mom who doesn’t have enough money to keep the house in good repair for her children. At first I think it’s no big deal but the closer I look I notice just how badly things have gotten for her. Even the couch we are sitting on is broken, missing cushions and badly worn & torn. The condition she’s in brings me to tears but then she looks at me questioning what has upset me. “Nothing,” I tell her. “I’m fine.” But I’m not fine. I’m horrified by what she’s going through and that no one has helped her.
That’s all I could remember when I woke up but once I started writing I also remembered that I dreamed of Pearl Jam’s lead singer Eddie Vedder.
In the dream, he was calling me and asking me to hang out. I am saying, “Yes,” and am figuring out how to hang out with him. It seems at first he’d be bored with the things I do in my day but he says he wants to and it would be fine. We have a lengthy conversation and he’s coming over. It’s exciting.
22 August 2017
Alright.
This has been a topic I’ve avoided writing about for some time.
I’ve written about the “mess” I inherited & learned in early childhood but I haven’t written directly about how messes show up with others and how to deal with it in a way which is long-lasting and permanent.
So messes can show up in a dream in a variety of ways.
If there is a mess in a house it means there is something happening with the ego which is affecting the positive development of the self.
If there is a mess in a yard it means there is something negative happening which influences or is influenced by others in a more public way.
If there is a mess in a building or in office place then it is about how the ego is affecting productive development between people who are working together, in a profession or in any type of agreement or working arrangement.
A MESS in a dream means someone clearly has an ISSUE around the area, be it the Self, or the Work, or the Social Setting.
When someone has an issue it means there has been an early experience of trauma in that area and the memory of it is still really strong in the mind and affects the person regularly. It means they have a negative part of themself which shows up when they are afraid of something and this negative part creates a so-called MESS of some sort which has the effect of slowing or stopping the relationship, the progress, the work, etc.
When this is understood, then it is easy to help people through their fear-based trauma reaction by offering encouragement, reassurance, patience, kindness, etc. When the trust is re-built and the fear dissolved then work can continue in whatever area needed.
So if you dream of a big mess, in your house, or your work space, or your neighbourhood then you can start asking yourself, “Where in my life is the biggest mess?” and try to discern “Who am I having the biggest challenge with right now?” What is someone doing that is causing a big mess and what does it lead you to do?
When you can start to understand their fear and their ego-mess you can have increased patience and loving-kindness towards them.
Incredible challenges can be overcome with this approach.
Go ahead. Give it a try. And feel free to write about the experience in the comments below.
23 August 2017
When I was young the house I lived in was always dirty. It was cluttered and furniture was in need of repair but it was also dusty and mouldy in some places. When I was about 8 years old I started wanting to live in a clean house and I took it on myself to clean a 3-bedroom, two-story home. The other two people I lived with were busy doing other things like reading novels & playing with barbies. There was a third person I lived with and he was usually outside working on something or other. He was doing his share the best he could.
So anyway, this “cleaning” part of myself showed up in my dream last night.
In the dream, I went over to MG’s place and found it was very filthy. The grim on the floor alone made my skin crawl and there was dust & dirt everywhere! At first I started to clean it myself but then I realized since she made the mess she should also help me to clean it.
But when I tried to talk about it with her she ran to the washroom, locked the door and told me she wanted privacy. After some time I just talked through the door telling her we should have a family meeting to discuss & plan some cleaning for the house. She didn’t want that.
So I went to my room and started cleaning.
Then she came out of the bathroom but was angry & embarrassed. She was behaving in a way to tease me, mock me, harm me and make me feel upset so I decided to leave. I could tell what she wanted was for me to leave and a part of me wished I could figure out how to stay and help but the hurtful words were too hurtful. I had to go.
When she saw me getting ready to leave she looked happy.
She had pushed me away and out and that meant she could keep her messy house.
I was okay with leaving. Afterall, it wasn’t even my mess to clean. My intention had been just to help.
My analysis of this dream is that it is showing me how ego works and that now I can see the extent to which other people go to in order to protect their own selves. Even if their “self” is messy & cluttered, it’s like they fall in love with the mess and they want to keep it that way.
The dream shows me there is a part of myself which loves to clean ego messes. That’s why I didn’t judge the dirty & grime and stepped in to help make it better. I’d likely make a really good PSW in real life with these types of skills.
In real life, there is a situation where someone invited me close to themselves and then got embarrassed and angry when I got a bit too close to their “inner & outer” MESS. What they don’t know is that I don’t judge and I wish them no ill-will. I truly do love cleaning houses. And I truly do love working with people to clean their inner ego messes.
In time, this will become more clear. The dream helps me to understand the process and helps me have some patience as I go through the work.
08 May 2017
A few days later I wrote about the metaphor of a Mess and how the dream showed some cultural challenges people have with dealing with messes. Basically, the big issue is that no one wants to step up to take responsibility for things so issues just get worse and lead to decay. Here is a link to the original Messy House Dream and my analysis.
Interestingly, on March 08, 2017 I was running out of money. I was waiting to hear back from EI about my claim and I couldn’t find employment anywhere. But on March 27th I started working full time for an employer I loved and there was no sign that anything negative could happen in the near future. But on April 30th I was informed that my store, as well as 4 or 5 others across Canada were closing.
Now it’s May 08th and I’m unemployed again and basically back in the same position I was in back in March. So I’m looking back at this Messy House Dream and thinking about how can I do things differently.
So now I’m going to take this metaphor deeper than before.
A house in a dream is a symbol for Self.
Mess is a symbol for ego.
Ego is the mind’s protection and it uses negative emotions or actions based on fear, anger, jealousy when there is a perceived threat, real or imagined.
In reality, there was a time when I did leave everything behind. When I left Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada on July 02, 2013, I thought I would be returning on August 02, 2013. But instead I accepted a teaching position at a private school and re-located with my daughter to Ontario.
At the time, I was being stalked by a family member who was doing really peculiar behaviour like breaking into my apartment and attacking me physically. I was also in the middle of an extremely complex divorce and dealing with a lot of negativity from the new partner of my ex. At the time I was earning more than $50,000 in my work as an Instrutor at the local college and as a freelance writer for the daily newspaper. However, my debts, and the negativity in my life, and the high cost of living in Fort McMurray, led me to experience conditions of poverty, even though it appeared things weren’t so bad.
At the same time as all that, I was researching child-trafficking in Alberta and interviewing people who had experienced mind-control torture among other things. I was learning about so many dark secrets about our society that are just under the surface of every day life and yet I was keeping all this confidential because it wasn’t time to expose any of it yet.
So when I decided to stay in London, Ontario I just abandoned everything I had been building up in Fort McMurray. Metaphorically, it’s like I did what I saw in the dream. Just left food on the counter, dishes in the sink, laundry in the washing machine, bikes in the basement. And I let other people deal with the aftermath.
At the time, I felt a bit proud of myself for having no attachments to anything in this world. But what I realize now is that because I didn’t talk with anyone about my move then I actually hurt and confused a lot of people. I lost precious friendships during that time.
It didn’t help of course, that someone was also targeting me on social media and saying horrifically negative and untrue things about me. That really made a bad situation worse.
If they were not doing their negative thing online, then for sure I would have hundreds of close friends right now and I would have been able to connect with people before, during and after my move.
But at the time, all I could think to do was to close down my social media accounts in order to stay out of the conflict they were trying to start with me.
Unfortunately, that apparently hurt people too which I did not realize would be an issue until it was too late. Some people followed up with me but some people didn’t. It seemed to leave a lot of people confused.
In the meantime, the job that I left my home for disappeared. The school I was working for was closing and the administration was giving more information to the teachers than they were to the parents. I tried to problem-solve with the school administration. I tried to have conversations with them about a crisis of epic purportions but they would not give me their time. So I had to give my notice. They were losing a teacher and yet not replacing her and the school was not set up to support proper education. My daughter and I could not have survived what was happening at the school from January 2013 – June 2013. I had to get her to a good and stable environment and I had to get myself into a good employment situation.
Who could have guessed that EI would make errors and delays in my claim leading me to not have any money until April? Who could have guess a bus would hit and total my car leaving me without transportation? Who could have guessed my ex would fill up with his own fears and take back his approval of my move and threaten to accuse me of kidnapping? Who could have guessed that the London economy had so much nepotism in it that it would take years before I found suitable employment in my field for a salary which allowed me to sustain myself and my daughter. Who could have guessed?
Who could have guessed that when I reached out for help because I was running out of money and was going hungry that my friends would turn their back on me? Who could have guessed that when others saw what I was going through they would not offer to help but instead called Children’s Aid Society to request I was investigated. (For your information, I had one phone call with an intake worker and she closed the case because she saw that I was a good parent in a very complicated financial situation…however, now that is on my record and the school is “keeping an eye” on me! How incredibly wrong, unlawful, inappropriate and disgusting…but that is a topic for another day!)
The horrors I saw in a “civilized” society which claim to be keeping up the “status quo” were so shocking that at times I felt so much hatred for my fellow human beings that I couldn’t bare to look or talk to a single soul. I didn’t even want to associate with anyone on this planet because I could see their atrocious injustice towards single women raising children without support from family or community.
Back in those days, 2013 – 2015 I just did not have enough strength, capacity or resources to deal with the enormous MESS that my employers, family members, and community were creating for me.
I have more resources now and things are quite different.
To begin with, I’ll publish this post as an Open Letter to anyone who ever wondered what happened in summer 2013 and what challenges were faced and overcome in the years that followed.
Dreams For Healing 
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