The Dream: This dream was like thinking, only thinking while asleep. In the dream I thought that when you die, that's it. No afterlife, no spirit living on. It's over. Then I thought that all that is left of my dearly loved brother is the little pile of ashes that we deposited in the Petrified Forest.
Interpretation: My brother's ashes were taken to the Petrified Forest because he had once expressed a wish to be fossilized when he died, and this was the closest thing his son could think of. Upon awakening I felt that this dream probably—I hate to admit it—reflects what I believe happens when we die. This is cold comfort indeed.
When I imagine this dream for myself, I feel sadness, and I also notice the deep resonance between ashes and grief, which goes back in many cultures. Given that the dream is framed in a sense of ~ this is the thought I'm having, I agree with the above interpretation, that this dream is coming to show me that the thoughts I hold, supported by the culture in which I find myself, are reflecting an idea that "death is the end".
ReplyDeleteHaving worked with several dreams that have included visits by deceased loved ones, I also wonder if other dreams, or future ones might show that my thinking about the matter is 'off'. Also, as a man, I recognize that the emotional life is not readily available to me, and I want to consider that maybe the dream is letting me know that it would be helpful to grieve this loss, letting myself have the enormously difficult emotions that it evokes. In this sense, I'm the petrified trees in the dream, which, as in certain flokloric tales, may be redeemed through an act of "willing sacrifice", on the order of allowing my natural growth patterns soften and green so that the vitality and long-held spirital ideas about trees might 'come back to life' in myself and perhaps help me to connect spiritually with my brother.
Much Respect for this dream, the sharing of it and I do hope my response is helfpul in some way, TW
Thank you, TW. Your comment was beautiful and meaningful. Yes, very helpful.
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