How a Dream Turned into a Painting

Carla: Elaine Drew links one of her paintings directly to a dream. In this post she'll show us the path that took her there.

Elaine Drew: The inspiration for this piece, called Journey was a dream in which I was to about to be sacrificed in a primitive religious rite. (That scene is represented in the 3rd panel of this 4 panel painting.) What, I wondered, was that all about?

Because the dream seemed to embody a spiritual quest of some sort, I organized the artwork along the lines of a medieval predella, a small strip of narrative scenes that appear at the bottom of an altarpiece. This organization reflected my asking myself what was at the bottom of the dream?

This led me to think that consciousness, the great gift that makes us human, might be a double-edged sword. That is the theme of the second panel. Here the figure carries consciousness like both a precious gift and a burden.

So, in the first image we enter life, unconscious, enclosed in a particular culture and point of view. Our first task is to break out of our shells, hit the road, and experience life in all its complexities. As we do this, in the second panel, we attain consciousness, and this includes the awareness of our own mortality. In the third panel we face the threat that this hard earned consciousness will be obliterated.

Wait a minute! I thought. I've been told that dreams come to us to tell us things we don't know. My piece needed a 4th panel, one that would get me past the limits of my current understanding.

It took a while, and some of the false starts most of us are familiar with when we try to solve a problem. Finally, as you can see in the 4th panel, the idea of the renewed self emerges into a built environment. And then the meaning of the piece became clearer to me: while I will probably never understand the mystery of life on earth, I can understand the process of death and resurrection that often plays a part during our lives. We are asked to sacrifice, and at times it feels like too much. Or we find our hopes or ideas dead in the water. But then a kind of natural salvation kicks in. We re-emerge with an expanded consciousness. It engulfs us, and we see the world through it. We are now in the world we built, no longer wandering in a barren wilderness. The sacrifice is behind us.

So, the Journey begins again. The painting is about life, about change, about learning as we go, and about the hope for an ultimate understanding that makes sense of it all.

Kiss of Death

This dream struck me as macabre, and I hesitated to foist it upon you, dear reader. But, as so often is the case, I discovered as I worked on the dream that it had a helpful message.
The Dream: I am kissing my husband. He looks old, like an aged Clint Eastwood. As I awakened I was thinking of a cafe, with all the patrons' faces showing their mortality, like a roomful of living skulls.

Interpretation: As what Jung called my animus, my husband stands for the part of me that goes forth with energy and purpose into the world. As time goes on, this part of me diminishes; will it die? And what about my absolute mortality, the one we all share? In a sense we are all living skulls. These ideas felt very negative and off-putting, to say the least.

But as I worked on the illustration, one part of me was thinking of the idiotic things we humans waste our time on, and I began to have the realization that a sense of mortality might encourage me to look at my life's purpose and to focus on what's important. A little prayer popped into my head,

 Thank you for my time on Earth. Help me to use it wisely.

 This prayer felt like a gift.

Sujal in Paradise

In this dream about a young friend who died I begin to get a hint about the place where immortality might dwell.
The Dream: I'm at a conference. It might be some sort of awards conference. I see Sujal. I'm happy to see him; he is lively and healthy and exuberant, lots of smiles. I think that I will remind him that he is always welcome to Thanksgiving--that even though he and my daughter are no longer dating we can all be friends.

When I first see him I am a little surprised that he has returned from Africa, and that he is well. I have a dim realization that he had been ill, and I'm relieved that he has recovered. As time goes on I become confused, because I gradually remember that he has died.

Interpretation: This dream left me feeling sad, experiencing again the loss of of this remarkable young man. Before drifting off to sleep the night before I had asked for a dream that would put me in touch with spirituality and show me what, if any, spiritual truths I subscribe to. Is this my answer? If it is, what is it telling me?

When I told my daughter about this dream she mentioned that it occurred within two days of the anniversary of Sujal's death. Looking on the web I discovered that his amazing spirit has indeed lived on after him; he has inspired others from his medical school to create a yearly symposium named after him and dedicated to health and justice, the causes he devoted his life to. (Although I hadn't known about the symposium, the dream setting is a conference!) The dream has shown me that we live on in the hearts, minds, and actions of others. What we choose to do with our time here creates a "spirit" with a lasting impact.

The Snake

The Dream: I don't know if this was a dream or if it actually happened. In the middle of the night I heard Clark talking in his sleep.He talked about a snake and something else that I didn't remember afterward. I spoke to him, telling him what he had said. In the morning he didn't remember any of this, and I was left wondering if I had dreamt it.

Interpretation: The snake, as a rebirth symbol, fits into the sequence of dreams from this time that attempts to get me more comfortable with death. I am not ready to embrace the rebirth idea, so I perceive it as coming from outside myself.

The Howl

Psychically we heal by fits and starts. Here I slide back from the equanimity toward death that I was beginning to achieve in my last dream.

The Dream: I get a phone call from my older brother. He is crying and inarticulate, howling. I understand with a sinking feeling that Mother is dead.

Interpretation: My mother had been dead for more than seven years when I had this dream, but my younger brother had died a few months before. In the dream I feel terror at facing the mortality of those I love and, ultimately, of myself. I've lost all sense of the hope Stephen had offered in the previous night's dream.

Boxed In

This dream begins a series dealing with the deaths of loved ones over the years.

The Dream: I am trying to move, packing my things into a car. Stephen (a friend from long ago, now dead) is helping. There are things I can't solve that he easily overcomes. For example, to load the backseat he removes a sliding door, effortlessly. I hadn't realized that was possible. I'm in the backseat as he does this and get “boxed” in. I wonder how I'll get out so that I can join him in the front seat, but then it occurs to me that I can climb over the seat back. This realization gives me a free and happy feeling.

Interpretation: Stephen, my first close friend to die, has come to help me move (move on). In other words, he helps me begin to accept our limited time on earth and gives me a sense of the possibility of an afterlife. Because he has passed through death he understands things that I don't. He knows how to work the sliding door, the moveable separation between this life and the next. I am almost boxed in by my limited view, but just in time get enough insight to climb out of my difficulty.

Oblivion

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.

The Embrace of Perfect Love

The Dream: I am with Mother. Uncle Steve is ill, and we are worried about him. “Who will take care of him?” I ask. Mother chides me for ignoring his condition. I defend myself. “No,” I say, “We have kept in touch, calling him. And Sergie has been keeping every one informed.” I say something to the effect that at Uncle Steve's age (82 in the dream) you couldn't expect him to last much longer. Then I realize that Mother is also in her 80s and that I've made a tactless remark. At the same time I realize that Uncle Steve is dead, has been dead for some time. I start to tell Mother than I know he's dead; I'm trying to persuade her to remember. I embrace Mother, telling her I love her. She says she loves me. As she says she loves me I feel her pulling back emotionally. I realize she is trying to protect herself from these strong feelings. I feel very tender toward her. I recognize that her need to protect herself is the measure of how much she loves me and how vulnerable she is. I am moved to tears by this.

Interpretation: This dream has made an important discovery. With my new understanding of what had appeared to be my mother's coldness I can enlarge the compass of my empathy and understanding. At the same time the dream might be pointing out what's behind my own emotional distance. The tears are a good sign—feelings have broken through.

A Dangerous Illumination

The Dream: An old woman sits on a park bench with me; a younger woman sits behind us. An older child plays nearby; a baby lies in a pram with a hood the length of its carriage. The older woman speaks, sotto voce, about things the children shouldn't hear. The “nanny” behind us is alarmed that the children will hear. I look inside the tunnel created by the pram's hood and I see the baby: ugly, very ugly, its red face scrunched up in a yowl.

The older woman is murdered. The scene switches to a prequel. The older woman, the nanny, and I run into each other in a general store. They have a large stream of children with them, ranging in age from pram age to about 11. They are lined up in the order of their ages. I understand that this scene (of the dream) will help me determine who murdered the old woman.

Interpretation: This dream occurred on my mother's birthday, and the older woman in the dream allows me to reflect on her loss as I wonder: who killed her?

What is it we don't want our inner child to know, as we whisper sotto voce, if not the grim reality of our own inevitable death? Of course the baby howls—as loudly as he can—to drown out this realization. He becomes ugly from the effort. Is this what makes humans so ugly to each other? Would we behave the way we do—so grasping—if we accepted our limited time here? Death is the most basic “fact of life.” Of course it can't be discussed in front of the children who, by succeeding their parents, appear to have killed them, leaving the children with a guilt they can't acknowledge or eradicate. Or is the guilt from the unacknowledged joy of being free of them at last? Is that the murderer we can't discover?

Guest Post: Dreams of Life after Death

Susanne van Doorn, a dream worker from the Netherlands, contributes today's post. She has gathered and analyzed dreams about death, and she is sharing this research with us in advance of its formal presentation. You can visit her on Facebook

Now, here's Susanne:
In answer to my request for dreams of lost loved ones I received 114 surveys from 3 countries: America, Germany and the Netherlands. This post is about my interpretation of these dreams as  dreamers' views on life after death.

The dreams in my survey fall into several categories: precognitive dreams of facing the impending death of a loved one; dreams about the transition to the “other world”; what life is like on that “other side” according to our dreams; guidance dreams of help from a deceased loved one; dreams that console; and dreams that help the dreamer come to terms with her own inevitable mortality.

A New Reality

The Dream: I'm at a social event. Don is there. After a while I realize I must be dreaming because I know that Don has died. He looks very healthy and in some way I know he lives elsewhere. I want him to tell us about his new life. What's it like in the world beyond?

Interpretation: This dream gives me a clue as to what the precocious children represent in the last dream: their preternatural intelligence is not about things we are capable of knowing in our earthly existence. Don shows me a spiritual reality that transcends earthly existence, but he doesn't answer my questions.

The Indignities of Old Age

The Dream: Clark and I are in LA, going to see Clark's mother. When we get to our destination it is my mother we see, not his. She is incredibly old, tiny, and practically hairless. Clark keeps trying to get her to talk—she's lying curled up on a bed—and he wants her to get dressed so we can take her out. He is being kind, but I can feel the desperation in his voice. She seems more dead than alive, but she pulls herself out of bed saying, “I get enough exercise lurching around here.” When she “walks” she is bent over at a 90 degree angle.

She goes over to a nearby toilet and sits down, with no self-consciousness whatsoever. Her dark blue trousers are at her feet as she sits on the toilet. I go over to her. She laughs. She's laughing at finding herself in this ridiculous situation: elderly, frail, sitting on a toilet in front of others. It's a short burst of cognition. I put my arms around her and say, “You're a good sport; God bless you.” Then I feel myself ready to dissolve into tears.

Interpretation: This dream, like most dreams, is trying to come to terms with life's difficulties. In this case the problem is the inevitability of aging, of watching those we love diminish, and of making the connection that as they go so will we. The animus figure Clark wants to overcome the problem with practical action—get dressed, talk, go out: in other words, carry on. The desperation in his voice tells me that even he doesn't think these measures will work. It is the aging person herself, accepting the inevitable with humor and a dignity that transcends her situation, who shows the way.

My Days are Numbered

I had this dream the night before I received the shocking news that one of my brothers had died unexpectedly.
The Dream: I have received medical news that my days are numbered. I try to deal with it, both internally and externally. For myself, I work to accept the reality with some sort of equanimity. For others, I worry about how much trouble my condition will cause. I feel very much “the other,” as one with a death sentence hanging over my head. I think of my friend Don who had pancreatic cancer and how—at least in public—managed a robust cheerfulness, an ability to keep living.

Then I contemplate what life would be like with no death, and I realize that life would lose its sweetness, its poignancy, in some way.

Interpretation: Was this dream precognitive, or was the timing merely coincidental? If not precognitive, was there some sort of mental telepathy going on? These issues come up with dreams, and I don't think we have the answers.

Looking at the dream in its own terms, the interesting thing about it is that it tries to deal with the concept of mortality and even comes up with something positive about our finite existence. It seems the dream is trying to prepare me for the inevitable.

The Resurrection of Don

Dreams about the departed are called visitation dreams. Whether or not the person we dream about lives on in some external realm, it's clear he lives on in our internal reality. 

The Dream: I am at Ruth’s house. The entry wall is wider than it is in waking life; it’s a room with a table, like a dining room. The staircase is in its normal place. Someone says that Don is upstairs. I feel concern, thinking that this person does not know that Don has died. 

“Don is dead,” I tell her. She goes upstairs to verify what I’ve said.

“No,” she says, when she returns. “He’s upstairs, and he wants to see you.”

“I’m not going up there,” I say.

Don comes down, naked from the waist up, radiant and glowing with health. He glows with something else besides. I am filled with joy to discover he is alive and healthy.

Interpretation: Visitation dreams are a way of grappling with the anxiety and loss we feel after a death. The dining table in the entry way tells me that the dream has come to provide some sustenance. Don is “upstairs,” in other words, he’s in my thoughts. I try to accept his death by telling myself (in the guise of the person who doesn’t know) that Don has died, but I don’t really believe it. I go upstairs to see for myself.  There I see that he does live—upstairs; in my mind he’s alive, while at the same time my down-to-earth self (the part who insists on remaining on the ground floor) refuses to accept it. I won’t go there. But Don gets the last word, as he often did: he won’t allow me to deny him life after death: he appears, transformed and radiant, and I am also transformed by joy when I see this new reality.

Time and Eternity

Can color and texture hold a dream's meaning? Read on.

The Dream: My child is wearing a red crocheted dress over a lavender and purple silky skirt; in some way these pieces don’t go together. The child is very pleased with herself for selecting this outfit and doesn’t seem to realize the pieces clash.

Interpretation: The meaning of this dream lies in its colors and textures. The color red is associated with life (childbirth, menstruation) and death (flowing blood). A crocheted texture is rough and bumpy. Taken together, the red color and uneven texture of the crocheted dress symbolize the rough road of our lives in time.  Meanwhile, underneath, is a silky smooth violet garment. According to Tony Crisp’s Dream Dictionary, violet often “appears in dreams containing a deep sense of one’s eternal nature . . . .” My intuitive (child) awareness can accept these two apparently contradictory modes of being: temporal and eternal. (She doesn’t realize they clash.) On the other hand my reason (the adult) can’t accept the dichotomy, pointing out that the pieces “don’t go together.”

There is No Safe Way

The Dream: Clark and I go into a Safeway grocery store. Clark decides he will shoplift the day’s groceries. I’m very uncomfortable with this idea, but he’s determined. The next thing I know he’s disappeared, and I’m afraid he’s done the deed. I don’t see how he can possibly get away with it: there are security cameras everywhere.

The next time I see Clark he is in the hallway near the employee lounge area, using push pins to post clues about how he managed to shoplift right under the store’s surveillance cameras. He’s feeling very smug and clever but I explain that his prints will be all over the push-pins, and he’ll be caught. He finally agrees and removes the clues.

We leave the store and go to the parking lot. I drive. Police question us, and I explain that Clark is the most honest person I’ve ever met. They don’t pursue their inquiries, and I drive off after having a little difficulty starting the car. As I drive down a hill I notice flooding near the bottom, getting progressively deeper. Clark criticizes my driving, and I turn the car around and head for higher ground. There’s a round-about at the top of the hill, put in place to make the turn easier for boats.  A boat on a trailer goes down the hill as we go up.

In the next scene we are in a cave. The earthen walls are rich red sienna, and so is the calf-deep mud we are wading in. This is unpleasant, but soon gets much worse as I fall into a hole I hadn’t seen under the mud. Submerged up to my chin, I holler for Clark; I expect him to rescue me. He ignores me. I have an expensive camera with me, and I’m sure it’s been ruined. I extricate myself, unaided, from the hole, and my new concern is for the camera. I hear a story about a man whose camera suffered similar abuse: he gave it away, thinking it was broken. The new recipients were two young boys and, to my surprise, they were able to make good use of it.

Interpretation: In this dream my psyche is looking for safety (the Safeway) and is reduced to stealing to get it, clearly not feeling entitled to have what it so desperately wants (food, sustenance). And what is it facing that has caused such alarm? The recent death of two close friends has forced me to face my fears about my own death. I realize I can’t get away with cheating death, as I explain to Clark (my other half) who thinks he can. (He is  planning to steal food, that is, life).

The flooding is unconscious material forcing itself upon me. I head for high ground, trying to get away, but the dream tells me I’m going in circles (the round-about). I escape the flood, only to be submerged in mud: the red clay symbolizes my mortal flesh, my earthly existence. I call for help from my animus, the part of me that deals with life in a rational, practical way—this part can’t help here. The camera represents my eye (I); that it’s expensive says I value the self I have created, and I fear its ruin (death). The camera records my experience and might be a way of leaving, or bequeathing, something of myself. In the dream the camera evolves from something that watches and judges (the store’s surveillance camera) to something valuable to me that will inevitably be ruined (my camera in the muddy cavern) until it is given to two young boys who make good use of it. The dream tells me that the job of my life at this point is to prepare a gift for others and to believe they will find it useful, whatever my doubts.

Guest Dreamer: The Flying Dinosaur

In this guest dream, Firequeen faces grief at the loss of her husband. Death appears as a swift raptor, a cheetah that cheats her of her beloved. The dream triggers a powerful transformation: By facing her pain in the dream, healing can begin.

Firequeen’s Dream: Weird dream last night. I was standing in my house with Wolfram, it was not this house but the room we were in was this one (office). We were standing at the window and we saw a flying dinosaur - about the size of a pelican - the name given me in the dream was velociraptor, but I just looked that up and it doesn't have wings. This had a big head and a very long sharp beak. Wolfram was intrigued with it and began making faces at it and waving his arms to annoy it (he was like that) and it turned and flew towards us. This did not make him give up. It flew straight at the window and its beak pierced the glass, making a hole. It made about three of these holes. Then it saw a small bird sitting on a bush and it speared the poor bird with its beak. Then it sat back on its haunches - it had turned into a cheetah-like creature and was holding the bird in its paws and had a grinning mouth full of teeth. It seemed able to change back and forth between these two creatures at will. I felt it was extremely dangerous and could get in the house through the holes it had made, so I persuaded Wolfram we should leave the room and shut the room door behind us.

Then we went to the door of the house and I saw the house was in a field with open space around. People were coming towards the house and I was supposed to have made food for them, but hadn't. Then Libby came and she was carrying trays of beautiful food and cakes, which she had made for us and the people. There was more but I only remember fragments - Adrian, a friend I haven't seen for a long time, was holding a pane of glass and saying he was going to repair the window.  I felt I had to warn all these people about the velociraptor, but I could not get them to listen. I kept lining them up outside the house and saying they had to listen to me before they went in. But they were too busy talking to each other. If any of them did listen, they dismissed it as imagination.

Firequeen’s afterthought: Some days afterwards, I was thinking about this dream, and how Wolfram is so often with me in dreams, and I felt sure that he is always there, even when I don’t know it, and then I received the message that this is so, and it is because we are now merged. We don’t have to wait until after my death. And maybe this was why he ‘wasn’t there’ on the holiday this year, when he had been so vividly present the year before - because he had been present in me.

Carla’s interpretation: The dreamer has shared some facts from her life that I take into account as I interpret her dream as if it were my own. I am standing in my house (my self) with my husband Wolfram, who in waking life died unexpectedly in 2006. We are in the office, which is the dream’s way of telling me that I have some work to do. The window I look through represents my view of things, and the creature that I see tells me what I need to work on. I see a dinosaur, which has mythic elements for me, reminding me of a fairytale dragon (something to be conquered), but this dinosaur is very particular—it’s a velociraptor, a word that literally means swift seizer.  My husband was swiftly seized by death, and the dream is helping me deal with my feelings around this tragedy. The dinosaur breaks the glass: my husband’s death has been a shattering experience. My soul (the bird) is held in this fearsome event, and I feel cheated (the Cheetah). I have tried not to look at this painful reality. (I persuade Wolfram we should leave the room and shut the door behind us.)

Yet having experienced the pain and fear of my loss in the dream space, I begin to heal. I go to the door (a threshold, the demarcation between one state and another), leaving the painful part of my inner world to enter the open space of a field. My world view is opening up. Because of my suffering I hadn’t been able to nourish my friendships (make food for my friends), but my friend Libby (the part of me that is now ready to interact and give to others) has provided enough for all. The Adrian part of me (a part that has been gone for a while) will repair my shattered heart (the glass pane “pain”).

My dream shows me how I have progressed through my grief, but also warns me not to forget the life lessons I have learned, even though there are parts of me that don’t want to know as well as people in waking life who refuse to accept the difficulty of dealing with death (the people who ignore my warnings about the swift seizer). As I can see from my thoughts a few days later, my spiritual beliefs were activated by the dream and console me with the realization that my love and I have merged: he lives on through me—in real time. Wolfram is not lost to me.

Love and Death

Sometimes dreams very simply and clearly encapsulate the central issue of a life situation.

The Dream: I am in a forest. To my left are four trees, whose leaves have turned beautiful fall shades. I move up a mountain in some mysterious way, as if on an invisible conveyor belt. The forest surrounding these four trees is deep conifer green. Out of an intense, palpable loneliness I pray to god for love. The god tells me that great love involves great pain and asks, “Can you handle it?” I say I can.

Interpretation: In waking life a close friend’s husband is dying, and as I watch her suffer I ask myself, in a dream, if this can be avoided. The dream tells me it cannot.

Dancer in the Dance

The Dream: I’m taking dancing lessons. At first the teacher is enchanted with my potential. Later she comments on two of us students: “Clara and Carla, I thought they were going to be something special; but no, they are a disappointment.” I understand I have no outstanding talent, and I think “I’m too old for fancy leaps.” I awakened feeling unsettled.

Interpretation: In waking life I’m dealing with an elderly and demented relative, and part of the job is finding a burial site for her. This unpleasant duty was the inspiration for this dream. The meaning here of being unexceptional is that my fate in the dance of life is the same as her fate; in other words, I’m going to die. Of course this is not news, and yet to face it is unsettling, especially since I’m too old for fancy leaps.

The Ravages of Time

This is a dream firmly grounded in life, as Clark and I care for an aging parent. In the present we are caring for his mother, but the dream evokes my struggle with my own mother’s debilitation at this stage of her life.

The Dream: Mother is staying with us. She hardly eats and stays in bed all day. She is dying.  I wish she would die and end this agony. For a brief moment she emerges from the bedroom, standing and coherent, settling some issues, in control, making plans: she is her old self. I am surprised and think perhaps there is hope. Then she reverts to her incapacitated self, and I wish she would go back to my brother’s house so I wouldn’t have to face this dreadful situation any longer. I console myself that dying of starvation is painless.

Interpretation: It’s all here—the recognition that my parent is failing; my mixed feelings: wishing she would get better, wishing she would die, wishing she would leave—anything to help me avoid the horror of my own feelings about loss and death. My concern for myself rather than her starves us both—and I try to convince myself that this is painless.