A Walk Through the Past

Sometimes it seems as if a dream evokes our distant past, when our potential lay buried deep within our ancestors. The Dream: I am walking through a European city and see sections of town that have facades from prehistoric times. I'm intrigued by this and sorry we don't have this sort of antiquity in America. Then I think, “Perhaps we do.”

Interpretation: This dream was triggered by a talk with a friend about ancient goddesses. The dream got me to thinking about our links to the past. For women, mitochondrial DNA from our mothers stretches back unchanged into distant antiquity and provides a link with our ancestors who, through us, live in modernity.

The Bear on a Fixed Track

You can learn a lot about your dream by taking the time to look at the words, especially plays on words or double meanings. The following dream is a good example.
The Dream: I have a stuffed bear that navigates the world on a track. I'm with it in the back garden, then watch as it goes through the back door of my house, on its track, and out through the front. It's not capable of locking the doors so I do that. I watch the bear roll down the street and wonder what the neighbors think of it.

I'm planning to rendezvous with my bear at a museum I used to enjoy. To get there I have to scale down what looks like an artifact of the ancient past: a steep, carved palisade. Part of its side begins to detach as I descend. Two things worry me. I don't want to deface this ancient carving, and yet I'm afraid that if I try to fix it, to make it right, I'll lose my footing and fall into the pit.

When I get to the museum it is rundown and in disrepair. Not much is left that is interesting. I'm disappointed; this place is not what it was. There's one bright spot: I recognize a stained glass window that I still like.

Interpretation: To start, let's take a look at the word “bear.” Am I as grumpy as a bear? Is there something I can't bear? Am I feeling discouraged, in the dumps (bearish)? Am I closed-minded, fixed and unswerving in my fixed track? One thing seems obvious, the state of mind this dream is dealing with is rooted in the past. You'll notice the references to the back garden, the back door, the palisade that's an artifact of the past, and the museum, a place that houses old things. And since my bear is stuffed, I'm guessing that what's got me down and grouchy is some stuff from way back.

The dream gives me an opportunity to work through some unresolved past issues. The meeting with my bear takes me to a place where I can look at my old stuff (in the museum) and realize it's not interesting anymore. My fears are unnecessary: I don't lose my footing or fall into the pit along the way. If the carved sides along my descent are disintegrating, I accept that I can't fix them. And there is even a bright spot: I find something to love and cherish, a stained glass window. It lets in a transformed and colorful light.

Remembrance of Things Past

The key to this dream is sisterhood.

The Dream: I see a stylish woman wearing a Kappa Kappa Gamma key as an ornament. I think this looks good, and I go to find my own sorority key. In looking for it I find information about the early Kappas, and I become interested in the history of the group and in the sorority itself, things I didn't care about as an active. I realize things have changed, but my own interest in the group, and my feeling of attachment for it, is greater than I remember its being.

A woman appears who is an official of Kappa Kappa Gamma. I tell her that I’ve written a biography of the founder. She asks to see it, and I realize—if I didn’t know it when I spoke—that I made that up. I say I’ve misplaced it, and in the meantime I plan to go to the library and see what I can discover. I tell myself not plagiarize; I hope to find more than one source of information.

I find records of my past Kappa Kappa Gamma activities. There’s a light yellow silk blouse with a v-neck and ruffled collar that seems important. I find an old play that I thought I’d written in New York, but it turns out I wrote it shortly after I was married. It has a large cast of just about everyone Clark and I knew at the time. I think it must not have been too embarrassing a venture, since I don’t remember anything about it.

Interpretation: I’m dealing with my past here, re-evaluating the worth of some of my activities. My participation in a college sorority seems more valuable in the dream than it did at the time. The dream tells me it’s time to look at things differently (I realize things have changed): the history I’ve say I’ve written (the woman’s biography) doesn’t exist. I need to do some research and find some new sources of information. And, what’s more, what I discover must be unique to me: I’m not to plagiarize someone else’s version of the woman’s (my) life.

“Sisterhood” represents my early family life, when I was the “sister.” Looking back, I see I wore a beautiful, well-made silk blouse; I see the experiences I had and the bonds I developed are more positive, and that the gifts of the organization (my family) are greater, than I realized at the time. 

The tie-in between sisterhood and my subsequent life (the play in New York) hints that my awkward feeling that everything I did as a young person was awful and embarrassing might not reflect reality. (Maybe it wasn’t too embarrassing a venture.)  The dream symbolically points out that the sinking feeling I get when thinking about my own past—partially feelings of loss, partially feelings of embarrassment—might not be accurate. It’s time to take a second look so I can find a more comfortable way to integrate the past with the present. 

Guest Writer: The New Year as Transition

Thanks to Rob Drew for today's post.

Happy New Year!  We'll be giving and receiving this cheerful greeting the next few days without much thought, yet it is full of cultural and personal significance.  A million people will brave the cold in New York City to watch the glass ball descend into Times Square. Millions of others will watch on TV.  But why celebrate a moment, the transition from one numbered year to the next? 

As humans we are capable of experiencing time. We can look back on the past and forward to the future just as the two-headed Roman god Janus, for whom January is named. As we travel through time we have to leave some things or some people behind, perhaps by choice or perhaps not. The Old Year provides a place to do that, a symbolic resting place for old loves, former jobs, silly fads, passe' fashions, and our own bad habits. The New Year is fresh, alive, unknown and full of potential: new loves, better jobs, and resolutions for one or two new good habits. The stroke of midnight is the portal between past and future, a closing door on the past and an opening door into the future.

Under Water

Some dreams are inspired by waking life events in your past. When this occurs ask yourself, “Why did I revisit this particular incident now?” The answer? Something happening now—in the last couple of days--evokes a similar feeling.

The Dream: I am on a rubber raft on a fast river. Someone shouts a warning about the dangerous currents and I topple out of the boat. I am under the water about 6 inches, but traveling so rapidly, face-up, that I can’t save myself. I can see the bright blue sky through the sparkling and clear rushing water. I think, “I’m going to drown.”

Interpretation: Something like this happened to my daughter many years ago when she was three. We were in an inflatable boat, and she fell off the back. Her father grabbed her foot; in the several seconds it took to retrieve her she was dragged behind the boat, looking up with a startled and terrified expression.

Why did I dream this now? When I look at what’s going on in my life, I see that I’m feeling under water. I’m drowning under too many deadlines and obligations. Time to come up and breathe.

Overcoming the Past

Dreams can deal with painful material from the past, as I think this one does. Even without specifically remembering the event, the dream helps us resolve the issues involved.

The Dream: I’m out driving, trying to avoid a rough-looking neighborhood. I turn into a street with older buildings which look like one-story garages. It’s a poor neighborhood, but bright. I wonder if I’ve arrived in a scary part of town after all, but I see children, smiling and happy-looking, so I don’t feel threatened.  At the end of the street is a low house with a screened-in front porch.

I go in. I chat with the woman who lives here. She is middle-aged and I am younger. She has a tasty-looking dish on a sideboard. I try some and find out it’s made of squirrel. I think using squirrels for food might solve the problem I have with them eating the seed in my bird-feeder, and besides, it is delicious. But I wonder who will skin them.

There is a silver contraption on another sideboard. To my surprise, the woman pulls out a very long, sharp gleaming silver knife. I am uncomfortable with her standing there with this knife in her hand. “This belongs to the children,” she says.

Interpretation: I go into the past (a street with older buildings), where I feel threatened (the rough-looking neighborhood) and meet the woman in charge (the part of me still living with an old wound). She feeds me unusual and unexpected but delicious food. Besides nourishing me, this food might be a way to protect my offerings to my soul or spirit. Birds often represent both; and I want to safeguard my “bird-feeder” from the squirrels. But there is some ambivalence: eating the food, solving the soul problem, requires skinning the animal (exposing my vulnerability?)

The woman surprises me by pulling a knife out of an old wound (silver can represent the past, tarnished and/or precious). At first I find her possession of this knife threatening, but she diffuses its power by saying it belongs to the children. Perhaps she is hinting that children caused the painful event in the past. However, the children in the dream are not threatening, signaling I’ve moved on.

The Medieval Poisoners

Two women in a woman’s dream can allude to two conflicting parts of herself, as in this dream, where it’s a fight to the death.

The Dream: Two women have a rivalry. One is young, attractive, and dark-haired. I pretend to be her friend. The other has dark blonde hair and looks about 50; she is slightly stout. I don’t know her very well. I know about their plots and machinations but saying nothing, letting events take their course. Both the women wear medieval costume:  the younger one in dusty mauves and pinks, the older in autumnal rich ochres. The beautiful dark-haired woman has been poisoned and dies in my arms while I watch without much reaction. The other woman has also been poisoned, and I know she too will die soon. I look at her face and see a kindly older person. It’s like a small revelation. So I suggest that, if she is capable of it, she try to vomit. Once I have given her this heads-up I realize that she was the one responsible for poisoning the other woman. So how kind could she be?

Interpretation: I see a conflict from the past, as symbolized by the medieval costume. On the one hand I have the part of myself that cleaves to the roles inculcated in my youth: the beautiful young woman refers to the beautiful aspect of woman in my girlhood. How lovely she was, in her elegant Vogue splendor: hats, gloves, chic costume—and what fun it was to be completely preoccupied with fashion and elegance.
The older woman symbolizes the “older and wiser” part of me, the part that rejects being limited to a superficial and decorative role. (Not to mention the part that, being older, would have a hard time pulling it off.) So, inevitably perhaps, the older self kills the younger. But she must face the possibility that in killing off her younger self she also poisons herself. The dream ego steps in just in time to save her, but not without some reservation.