A Challenging Fight

The Dream: I'm a man on a spaceship shaped like a long and narrow oval. I'm on the deck reestablishing its hexagon shapes; they've been covered with snow.

Even though I'm in outer space I am gliding over a dark sea. I wear no special outer space gear. I realize I've passed an island full of exotic beasts, but I'm so preoccupied with inscribing my hexagons, so narrowly focused, that I'm missing the marvelous sights of this amazing journey. I'm aware of the contradiction of being in space and on the sea; I don't understand it.

Later I'm in the lower portion of the ship when a fire breaks out. Someone's wife, perhaps mine, had left paper plates on deck. I wonder if these might have triggered the blaze. I'm the captain, so I rush upstairs to lead the crew in the effort to extinguish the blaze. We all realize we're fighting for our lives, and this is very energizing and motivating.

Interpretation: This dream was triggered by news about the birth of the cosmos, dark matter (the dark sea), and dark energy. Is my narrow focus causing me to miss the wonders of the universe? Domesticity (the wife's paper plates) create a blaze. Am I angry about its demands? The dream points out that I need a challenge that I feel is crucially important (leading others in a life or death struggle) to be energized and motivated. Yet it is the feminine that releases the captain from his narrow focus, if we assume that the wife's paper plates did indeed create the blaze. He won't be re-instating hexagons when he's fighting for his life. On the other hand, he won't be looking at the marvels of the universe either.

So--is there something that the life and death struggle distracts from? Is it not so important in and of itself, but rather as a way of not seeing something? What about the exotic beasts? In the dream they are something like gargoyles, ugly and fascinating at the same time. Why do gargoyles appeal? They have the undeniable intrigue of something atavistic, something scary that can't hurt us. Something that holds primitive antisocial tendencies, but also symbolically protects us, just as they protected medieval churches.

Interesting to note that it is when I (the captain) go "under" (into the unconscious) that the blaze breaks out.

Nowhere to Hide

The Dream: I'm on an iceberg in a frozen world. I am taking part in a documentary meant to demonstrate how a person can create an ice fortress for protection from roaming beasts.

I have my own patch of territory, a rectangle marked with an edge of shoveled snow. The beasts begin to appear. I demonstrate how to make a small mound to hide behind. After I make the mound I'm told to crouch behind it, cradling my head in my arms. Even as I do this I have doubts that it will work. In the first place, the mound is a pile of dark earth. It seems to me that against the white snow this will only call attention to my hiding place. Next, as I try to hide behind it and tuck my head down I realize I can't see what's going on, and I don't see how that's going to help me avoid a predator.

Interpretation: This dream shows me that my defenses are useless. I've tried to make myself safe by isolating myself on a frozen patch (a place free of emotion). Yet the only way the rectangular territory is cut off from its greater environment is visually; it's ridiculously simple for any threat to breach the boundary. And the threats do come, in the form of wild animals (my unacknowledged strong feelings). My attempts to hide from these are ludicrous and only make me more vulnerable.

It's interesting that I'm making a documentary, perhaps a symbol for my dream journal. I'm following the dictates of the “director” as I build my idiotic “fortress.” The message here is that I will not find my safe place—the place where I can live—by following the path laid out for me by others. In the final dream sequence the fact that I'm questioning what I've been told will keep me “safe” is a kind of progress.