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.

Old-Time Religion

The Dream: I’m in a city, wandering the streets. I start from a school. There are many churches: each street seems to have one, old, beautiful and out of date. It is nighttime, and I go into one.

Interpretation: Nighttime; the time of dreams and spirit. I leave the learning of the day (school) and enter the spirit realm.

Preparing the Spirit for Rebirth

The Dream: I press a bird against a spinning spindle that pulverizes it. The bird does not resist, but looks at me mournfully. I feel terrible doing this, slowly killing this lovely defenseless creature. When it is pulverized I am to eat the little mortarized bits. I steel myself for this task, and also wonder how I will retrieve the pulverized bird from the wood chips at the bottom of the spindle so I can eat them.

Interpretation: Part of the spiritual journey involves breaking ourselves down in preparation for a new soul (psyche). In this dream the bird represents the soul or spirit. What slowly destroys me is my time on the earth, spinning on its axis like the pulverizing spindle. For me, as for the bird, resistance is futile. My eating the broken down bits symbolizes taking back in the transformed parts of myself, a kind of rebirth.

A Metaphorical Meaning of Christmas

For today’s post I thought it would be interesting to use the methods we’ve been using to look at personal dreams on a dream that belongs to our culture: Christmas. This day has been observed as a Christian holiday for over 2000 years. Christianity paired its celebrations with those of older religions, so the birth of the Christian deity was celebrated on the night of the Solstice. Symbolically this dark time of year creates the dark cave of the unenlightened soul, a cave which may be seen behind the Virgin Mary in Orthodox Christian nativity icons. The virgin birth symbolizes the soul’s rescue from this unenlightened dwelling: the spirit is born and becomes incarnate in our previously animal nature. In other words, the birth of the deity to a human mother reenacts the historical moment in our evolution—and the actual moment in each and every life--when we become capable of consciousness.

Mother’s Birdcage Hairdo

One of the most difficult things we do as humans is to try to come to terms with the loss of our loved ones. The grieving process goes on for years, as the next couple of dreams demonstrate.

The Dream: My mother has had her hair done by my hairdresser. It’s something like my style but with an extra feature: a configuration of hair that resembles a birdcage coming up from her scalp. I’m trying to reassure her that she looks good with this “updated” hairdo, but neither of us is convinced.

Interpretation: If hair represents our thoughts, having my mother’s hair done by my hairdresser reflects my wish to make her think as I do. But since she died some years ago, the unconscious lets me know this isn’t possible. Her hair instead becomes a birdcage. Birds represent the spirit; her thoughts, or my thoughts about her, have formed a place where her spirit can dwell (the hair twisted into a birdcage). I am not ready to release her from this earthly life, so I don’t care for her updated hairdo, but I try to accept it for both of us by telling her, however unconvincingly, that it looks good on her.

Head in a Lantern

The Dream: A friend has put her mother’s or aunt’s head in a lantern. She has also put my mother’s head in one. I am worried that my mother will starve. She will get no food in this odd cage. A part of me wants her to die so I’ll be “finished” with her; yet another part is concerned and guilt-ridden. After a while I think that she won’t starve to death; she’ll die of insulin shock before that happens. In fact, she might be dead already. I am very worried about her suffering, so her death would be a relief.

Interpretation: My mother died about five years before I had this dream, which sums up all the confused and tortured feelings that centered on my relationship with her. As a child I idolized her. When I was 17 she became diabetic, and I was in terror of her dying. Over the years, every time I saw her I thought might be the last. I saw her suffer through innumerable insulin shocks as well as cancer and heart disease. As anyone with an ill family member knows, all share the pain. In a very real way her death (at 85 in spite of everything!) was a release. Years later, as this dream shows, the unconscious is trying to come to terms with these feelings.

Besides my relief at an impossible situation being resolved, the dream gives me a glimpse of a kind of immortality. Important people in our lives don't die, but live on in us.  Mother's cage resembles a birdcage, and birds signify the spirit. That Mother’s cage is a lantern tells me her spirit still lights my way.