Taking Things In In Its Own Way

A Caltech lecture on a new direction for robots inspired today's dream, one that provides an example of how we can look at an image in the same way we look at a narrative.
The Dream: The dream is only an image. It is a fly with a long snake-like tongue that it uses to capture its prey.

Interpretation: A lecture I attended focused on how biology is the model for robots as tiny as a white blood cell or an e-coli bacterium. One trigger for the dream was a slide of white blood cells going after a virus. In my image a fly, a loathsome creature, has a kind of appeal. With its long tongue it has created its own way to take things in. The dream tells me that even the things I dislike and find repulsive have their own purpose, and I shouldn't be too quick to think I know what they're about. And it hints that I might be using my own unattractive traits for protection, even sustenance.

A Long Row of Happy Dead

Sometimes the only part of a dream that you'll remember is an arresting image. It's particularly important to attempt to illustrate these dreams if you want to penetrate what the dream means to you.

A Dream Image: This was part of a longer dream, but I don't remember it—except that there was a man, about 48, sitting in a chair. He had a few days growth of beard like a contemporary actor, and looked like one. He was someone's father. We went to where he was sitting and realized he was dead. Then we noticed a row of seated people with very large heads and over-sized, odd faces. They were all dead, leaning comfortably and companionably on one another.

Interpretation: Since what I remembered of this dream had no narrative, its meaning could only be unlocked by thinking about the image it created. As I developed the image a couple of things surprised me. First, the characters were indeed comfortable, and second, I chose to paint them in cheerful colors. Could these dead characters represent parts of myself that had had a “life” and were satisfied with what it had been, in other words, fulfilled? If that's the case they could indeed lounge comfortably and companionably, leaving behind the things I sometimes associate with the past: mistakes, failures, losses. It's as if they are saying, “That's over now.”

The one differentiated character is an actor, and aren't we all actors in our own life drama? He's “contemporary,” so he's been alive for me until this dream. My dream is telling me to follow the path of authenticity—the “actor” is dead, and that's a good thing. Since he was someone's father, he was instrumental in giving birth to the one who goes on, but he and his fellow dead, with their distorted heads (over-sized intellects) won't be going forward into my future. The light and bright colors tell me this is a happy development.

Choices

Dream Image: Circles, containing different worlds. I must pick one. Each world is represented by a different image or symbol.

Interpretation: A dream realization of the different roles I play and of the conflict that can result from having to choose where to put my time and energy.

Why Are Things Unconscious?

The Dream: I am working on an image in Photoshop. The software suggests what part of the image should be cropped out. I don’t like the software making these determinations, but after a while I realize it’s right. The areas it wants me to delete are populated with animals and plants: leaving these in detracts from the main part of the picture.

Interpretation: Our more primitive knowledge and experience, symbolized here by plants and animals, is kept at an unconscious level; so it appears to have been deleted (cropped out). This dream tells me why: consciousness evolved to enable us to focus.