Guest Dreamer: Where Do I Belong?

This dream was contributed by a woman going through a divorce after close to 30 years of marriage.
The Dream: I was jolted awake by a dream, imagine that! I was on a bus and couldn't remember my address. I went through my purse and nothing in it told me where I lived. I looked up what it might mean....loss of direction in life, loss of goals, identity? What do you think?

Interpretation: Dreams are rooted in what's going on in the dreamer's life and tend to be triggered by a waking life event that occurred in the last few days. Naturally you are the most knowledgeable on that topic. Did anything happen recently that created a feeling of not knowing where you belong?

While triggered by a recent event, a dream is also a reaction to your life situation. Dreams come to tell us things we don't consciously know. Let's take a look at some of the details. A bus is a communal conveyance and so can represent our social self, the part that goes along with the direction of the larger group we belong to. When in a bus we aren't driving, but are being driven. Putting myself into your dream, and into your life situation (in terms of your divorce), I see myself losing the aspect of my identity that is socially defined: that of a married woman. The purse I'm looking into would be expected to hold valuables and ID cards, but there is nothing in this bag to tell me where I live--because I no longer live in this particular social identity. The dream came to help me make the transition to a new single identity, and perhaps to make me aware that I do miss the social status of my marriage, even though I'm happy to be out of a draining and unhappy situation.