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.

Storm at Sea

The Dream: I'm in a boat in the waters surrounding New York City, on the deck with a friend. We are lying under an overhang. A storm is about to come up, and the captain goes about handing out large rain parkas. He only has three; I reach out a little aggressively to claim one that he seems very willing to give me. Then I realize my friend and I are protected by an overhanging interior cabin, and I refuse the parka saying, “We have some protection. Others need this more than we do.”

The storm is furious, with slanting rain and rough, choppy seas. The surrounding area is gray with lines of rain sheeting across; some hits us because of its angle.

Interpretation: The emergence of a lot of unconscious material—grief, loss, anger—creates a psychic storm. I realize I don't need what the captain (my inner controller) is offering; instead I get strength from refusing to to be park(a)ed: stasis is not the way to move forward. The interior cabin represents the inner strength and stability that I rely upon to protect me in this storm. Nevertheless, parts of my psyche are getting the brunt of it. I (my normal sense of self) get splattered.

Things are Not What They Seem

Often it’s a lot of work to get to the truth of a dream. In this one, my initial reaction was far from what I later concluded.

The Dream: An evil and powerful woman -- ambitious and driven, caring only about her own advancement -- is trying to kill me in an exotic way. I am the captain of a small crew, and we are going to be shot into space. Then I will be murdered—remotely by her. The crew knows nothing of her plot and is not involved. I am frantically trying to stave off this event, which seems to be moving forward inexorably.