Dream Series: Dark Night of the Soul; the Death of the Animus
Dream took place on January 09, 2021
1st Dream - Spinning and Unraveling - The Deconstruction Phase
I’m under an oak tree. The ground is covered in autumn; dead, brown, a variety of colors - the ground is layered in fallen leaves. There is still green on the oak trees. It’s misty out, a big branch of the oak tree hangs over my head. I’m dancing below, starting to move. I spin around a few times and I can see to my right that ground slopes up.
There’s a man watching me; he’s wearing a red sweater. It doesn’t really bother me that he’s watching me, I just notice it.
I look down at my feet because I am starting to spin on my tip toes of my right foot. Trying to get my bearings I stop a few times and try to get a good momentum going again. I notice I am wearing white vans with no laces. They are snug on my feet, like ballet shoes. Once I notice my feet and shows and what I am doing, I look up and start to spin with more control towards the right. I spin faster, on the tips of my right toes. It feels so good. I spin for awhile, dancing freely and with good form, and all of a sudden I trip a little and stumble. I feel a little embarrassed, but I try again. I can’t seem to get going and try my other foot. No luck.
The man walks down the hill and approaches me. His eyes are watery and I notice he is crying, not hard, but he is visibly choked up. He tells me how beautiful my dancing was. He cries and I can feel his authenticity. He walks off into the woods and I stand there, letting his words reverberate through me.
2nd Dream - Reunited with the Wounded
All of a sudden I remember that I have a child. I pull up to Aunt Veronica’s house. It’s daylight out and no one is home so I don’t wear a mask as I walk through the front door. Barbara is with me too and she is also not wearing a mask. She goes to take a seat on the living room couch which is positioned to the left when you walk in through the front door. I walk into the kitchen and find a child, my child, crawling around on the kitchen floor. He has blond hair and seems to be disheveled and dirty. He’s wearing a diaper, that needs to be badly changed, as well as a light blue shirt/onesie. He is crawling around on the floor, facing the cabinets where the coffee pot is now.
I pick him up and hold him close to me. I feel instant love with him. I turn him towards me and apologize for neglecting him. I feel really bad that I left him but he’s so forgiving. He holds me back in affirmation that I am forgiven and we can move forward. He’s about 3 years old, but also seems around 4 or 5 sometimes. I hold him now, facing out towards the kitchen table.
He looks up at me a little, and we both start to laugh together - I feel bonded, reunited.
I start to walk out the front door with Barbara - the front door swings open and it’s Mandy and some of her extended family (i.e. other cousins, Joey’s family, etc). Everyone has masks on and start to barge through the front door. I turn around and place my shirt over my face because I don’t have a mask, and we head through the garage door but the door swings open and more family come through. Mandy and her family were wearing shades of red ; the family coming through the garage - I notice Bobby’s face and other cousins/family but their faces are distorted and unclear. They are all wearing masks too; but this time we push through them. The garage door is still open so we make our way through and head out to meet my mom.
She is driving a large, black truck with huge wheels. I start to hand her my child but realize he still needs to be changed, and I forgot his diapers inside as well as my mask.
I hand my child to my mom and head back inside through the front door to retrieve these items.
3rd Dream - The Descent of the Sacred White
I’m with a man my age and we are walking through a beautiful village/town together. I notice that he is walking on my right side and he is wearing white. To my right, I notice 2-3 story buildings, beautifully decorated with flowers and ivy. The buildings seem to be made out of some sort of sandstone, the same color of terra cotta pots. It’s a holiday, I think, as I see that the balcony’s that the ivy crosses over has decorations, like Christmas ornaments, just the simple dark red balls. The road is slightly paves with large cobble stones. I can’t really see what is on our left side - it could be the forest, but I’m aware that it is not the same, there is asymmetry with the energy and basic landscape.
There are trees in the center of of the walking path, still on our right side. I notice the man I'm with walk up to one of the trees and place a piece of paper currency in the tree. I can tell that it’s money but not US dollars - different colors, some more vibrant but the color I notice most is burnt orange/tan.
The tree almost seems like a person. I know the gesture is for our next way of passage. I nod and watch him place the money. He turns to me and smiles making eye contact, and we continue forward.
There’s a restaurant on the right side; it’s the last building before we start to descend down a slanted bridge. There are no stairs but its a sloped walkway, with handrails made of rope or metal - cylindrical handles.
As we start to walk down, I notice a figure in black starting to walk up on my left side. It’s a police officer; he’s dark skinned, his police uniform is disheveled. He doesn’t make eye contact with me, but we notice one another. As I look at his physical appearance more closely, I notice that his feet are bare and that he has no shoes.
He marches passed us, his face expressionless, and we turn the corner to the left to descend even further.
We are surrounded by walls made of green ivy and bushes.
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Although I had this dream series a few weeks ago, the images and residual feelings of the dream still linger within my body. I can see the details and feel the connection between many of the images, as well as a progression of imagery, like I am watching a movie in my mind, witnessing how things are building on each other, although in obscure and complex ways.
Knowing that dreams can hold several meanings, I try to sit back and observe the dream as if it is separate from me. I go through each dream individually and then I watch them play together, streaming consciousness, with the understanding that doing both will illuminate something different, especially because the connection I think I see between the dreams could also not be there - and they are to be understood separately.
Remaining open to both - I go to the dream stood out most or what, in the current state of reflection, elicits the most visceral response in my body and mind - noticing the image(s) or felt sense, or any part of the dream that hook me, in some way, ranging from excitable/love/positive to dark/shadow/taboo/negative.
Start there - as the observer, remain open to where attention flows, and allow the body, the intuitive, and higher Self, to inform.
There are A LOT of images in this dream, especially since I often dream with copious amounts detail. Identifying which image, felt sense, or part of a dream shines brightest (or darkest) in my psyche and body will help me understand the relevance these unconscious messages have to my waking life, my purpose, my current problems/issues I am facing or what other deeper knowings that want to be known. This is how I interact with my dreams and trust in their presence as not merely a coincidence of chemical and biological signals, but a combination of the waking, unknown, collective and personal fields of our existence. It's a lot to weave through so I go low and slow with intention and hold graciousness for the process.
The first image that sticks out to me was color white - my shoes in the first dream, the blond hair, white boy in the second, and the man I'm with dressed in white.
The other noticeable image for me was the fact that there were three male images in each dream, all different ages, and there being the two of them on my ride side, the side I associate with the masculine.
The third image that both haunts and excites me is the dark figure that walks up on my left side as I descend at the end of the last dream.
The next step in my image analysis is to sit with the image I want to work with first. After settling into my body and breath, I close my eyes and bring the image, right now of the "white" into my mind, running through the dreams where this is present. I take a few moments to allow my dream to integrate into my conscious mind, creating an intention to be open as I move into my personal associations to "White," while also taking into consideration the different expressions of white in each dream and how they might elicit a different response or interpretation.
I like to use The Book of Symbols I was introduced to during my graduate studies to start the association process, or sometimes I will have my own personal associations to the image already. Either way, I create a list of the personal and collective interpretations of the image, and again, as the observer, I notice which associations land in my being the strongest, the ones that have a hook in my unconscious, something that wants to become known - this is why there is a felt sense, it's a way to help the dreamer come into the present - it's awareness, a crack opening for light to pour through.
For White - I think of purity, openness, cleanse, pristine, all colors, ability to be easily stained, no mess, bleach, winter, snow, alchemical process of albedo.
As I look through the symbols book, I uncover collective associations as perhaps one will also create a crack; "Baptism; glaciers; Snow Queen; Moby-Dick's white whale; white is the pale horseman of death; the pallor of the corpse; bone stripped of flesh; the emblem of the Vishudda chakra, the throat or "void" in which all elements intermingle, a state of illumination or the dawning of the unknown personality in consciousness - thank you Jung."
A few associations catch my intrigue and I am driven to go deeper...and that's where I am headed. I look now at my waking life as I reflect on the associations in with the hopes that a knowing and understanding will be revealed. Both before the dream and since, I had been undergoing an unraveling in my own life. Questioning my professional goals, my purpose, my close relationships, my connection to the masculine and feminine, but mostly with the direction of my life. We been enduring COVID for a year, which has rattled the personal and collective psyche into a metamorphosis, and although many have died, we are becoming more resilient and awakened. I have entered into new friendships and partnerships which have delved up other unconscious materials and trauma, causing a knee-jerk reaction of "walls up and everything is fine" or "run away" and do the easy, comfortable thing. Most of the world has had to do this too, everyone in their own ways. These are the things I sit with and contemplate, and try to understand why my shoes were white (on my right foot) and there is a man dressed in white on my right side. This analysis is to be continued...
It is important to note and trust that not all dreams will be understood and ignored images can repeat themselves, especially if they are really wanting to be known.
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Although this series of dreams took place a few weeks ago, I haven't quite spent enough time unpacking each image, however I wanted to provide a starting point for the analysis of dreams and dreaming, and some of the wonderous ways dreams can help us to understand ourselves and our waking conditions, be a tool for self-discovery and creative exploration, or be a way to tap into something greater.
In addition to logging dreams, it is also important and useful to maintain a journal to capture your waking life - writing down any issues, personal and relational, that arise. I've used dreams in the past to assist with solving nutrient imbalances or other physical maladies. I will write about this technique and approach to dreams in a future post!
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I've started a dream repository, The Dream Weaver's Portal. Please submit your dreams and your own analysis, or just your dreams, to be a part of the Dream Weaver project. My goal is to collect dreams and dreaming experiences through our current, ever-changing world to see just how connected the collective psyche truly is, and to share your unique dreaming experiences. All dreams will be kept anonymous unless the dreamer otherwise specifies :)
Dream on -
E