Today's guest dreamer Travis Wernet gives us the opportunity to further explore the shoe theme. Travis works with both dreams and sound healing. You can find out more about his work here. Like Tyler, Travis has a two-dream sequence, and both of his feature shoes. We'll look at the first dream today.
Travis' First Dream: I'm in a bedroom, arranging a transparent pillow full of branches/twigs/herbs on a bed and at the 'head', which is on my 'right'... To the left is a group/audience - composed of all women (I am pretty sure). My waking life sister opens a door to the left and enters with a friend. I feel interrupted/distracted. They've brought in two pairs of shoes and set them on the bed. One woman in the audience whom I am seeking to impress remarks on the "fine, stylish red pair." I know they're leather and I myself don't see them as red, but more dark/brown. She wants me to put them on and wear them and it seems to me they are very finely crafted shoes, but I seem hesitant to wear them and want to get back to my pillow arranging activity.
Carla' thoughts: The bedroom, the place where I sleep, is also the place where I encounter my unconscious. Of course it is also a place of intimacy, so this dream is giving me information about my unconscious feelings about a relationship. The relationship might be with another person or it might be with my own anima (the woman that lives within a man). How I relate to my anima will affect the way I interact with women in general, and I think I might be on the right track here because there are so many women in this dream.
The transparent pillow is particularly important since it occurs both at the beginning and at the end of the dream. A pillow is a place where I put my head—a symbol for the rational—while I sleep. This is when I can experience the unconscious intuitive way of thinking that is traditionally associated with women. The pillow's branches tell me that I'm branching out, ready to experience something new. The twigs suggest new growth, and the herbs tell me that the new growth that will emerge from my branching out is healing. The pillow's transparency symbolizes that what the dream is telling me is clear—not opaque.
My sister (my anima) opens a door (gives access) to the left (my unconscious). Of course I'm distracted by this intrusion; it interrupts my usual relationship to my psyche. She and her friend present me with an implied choice between two pairs of shoes, although the second pair doesn't show up until the second dream. They put the shoes on the bed (symbol of my intimacy with women), and I begin to experience conflict. There's a woman that I want to impress, but she and I don't see eye to eye. She thinks the shoes are red, while I see them as brown (I'm more down to earth; her feelings are more passionate than mine). The shoes are leather (I'm dealing with something basic, instinctive). Yet she sees the shoes in a more superficial way, as stylish. She wants me to do something I am not yet comfortable with: I'm not ready to wear these shoes, fine as they are. I go back to arranging the pillow: I need to sleep on it (do some further psychic preparation.)
