Thoughts: "Present, past and dreams"

When dealing with stressful situations, such as having a job interview or meeting a partner's family for the first time, we may be feeling uncomfortable. We are worried because we enter the field of someone else's judgment, nevertheless the space for freedom of choice is still on our side. Knowing that we can influence reality based on our intention opens up a small piece of space in our mind. This allows us to think clearly and react appropriately depending on what is happening around us. On the other hand, if we choose to not accept this space, we lose touch with reality and direct our attention inward. As a consequence, we begin to feel overwhelmed and under pressure. Depending on our personality, we can experience the same things very differently. The same situation causes fear and anxiety in some people and makes others feel motivated and excited. Our instinctive responses determine how we perceive reality as well as how we perceive ourselves in that reality.

"Your hero's destined to waver Anyone can, always my man" - "Savior", Red Hot Chili Peppers

Because our perceptions of reality are anchored in very early experiences, our reactions are based on the outdated data of unconscious thoughts and memories created at the time when we were completely dependent on others. As if we were connected to a hard drive that is reprocessing the same stories over and over again. As a consequence, we react instinctively and inadequately to situations and act as if we were ten, although we are now fully grown up. That way, we reject the space where we can reach out to reality and update it according to our intentions. In a metaphor, we cast ourselves to play a supporting role in a movie about ourselves. Meanwhile, the creative energy that we carry within us demands to take the lead and express our individuality. Such an expression can only happen in interaction with another person. In a broader perspective, all the stories we carry in our mind, until expressed in such interaction, lie fallow in our mind and create a filter that distorts our own image of ourselves in reality.

In order to answer the question ‘’what are we made of?’’, we would have to look for answers much deeper than in our memory. Dreams reveal the shaded side of our personality and open a path paved with dark bricks of ourselves which we force to stay hidden from the world. Nevertheless, even unpleasant dreams are good for us because they serve as a form of connection with something powerful that we can't deny. Something which prompts us to be honest with ourselves. We have no control over dreams, but our higher Self creates a whole world in a dream to play God for the little man who grew up on our Ego up to this moment in our lives. Often our dreams relate to a time when we were younger, then we go back to earlier stages of our life so that we can understand or deal with the unresolved conflicts that lie within. In this way, we untie the repressed memory knots that make us feel overwhelmed over time. We can view dreams as our personal self-help book written especially for us by the Universe. After all, whether we are awake or dreaming, we are left with only traces of memories that shape our perception of reality; our personality.

Dreams: "Class"

(Boris - man, age 46)

Dream:

"I am back in school and I am taking part in a maths class. The teacher asks me to sing some kids' songs in front of the class. I start singing and I feel very awkward. I am coming to the part of the song that should be sung in a high-pitched tone, and if I would sing it like that, it would sound like a child or a woman singing.

“My soul is not contained within the limits of my body; my body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul.” - Jim Carrey

When it comes to that part I feel ridiculous and scared. I stop singing and leave the classroom. I feel disappointed with myself as I ruined a chance for getting a good grade because of the way I sang the song. I end up having a low mark but still pass the test with the lowest possible grade."

Dream interpretation:

In the view of the dreamer's age of 46, maths expresses an inner assessment where he symbolically is about to take an account of his life up to this point. Subjects of maths may also manifest an inner sense of predictability; an unconscious model of comfort zone. Singing the kids' song in the dream indicates some repressed childhood memories and illustrates his relation to them on the unconscious level. The dreamer feels judged and anxious about singing which suggests that he may find it to hard to be spontaneous and creative in reality. At the end he passed the test with the lowest possible grade which in parallel to reality reveals life with the weight of being judged. Through the dream he gets in touch with that weight which unveils the unconscious urge to shake it off and unblock his suppressed emotions and creativity.

Dreams: "Bear"

(Danika - woman, age 25)

I am in one of the old buildings in Sweden where I was born. It's old with thick tenement walls. Inside there is an ice rink where a hockey game is being played. There I see three men who look like gangsters. They are taking jewellery away from some of the girls that are inside. I realise, that they will come after my jewellery too.

"Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth." - Henry David Thoreau

I decide to run, and one man runs after me. He is very fast, and I feel like I am running for my life. I am heading towards my house, and when I am halfway there I notice a huge wild bear laying down on some grass, just a little off from the footpath towards my house. It raises his head up as it sees me and for a moment we are looking into each other’s eyes. I am standing still and I am in shock. The bear moves slightly and gets up, I can tell that it is aggressive and wants to chase me. I quickly run inside a supermarket that is close by. There is a glass entrance door and once I get inside, I can't lock the door to keep myself safe. The bear is running after me, and leans on the glass door trying to open it with its body weight. I am pushing back from my side of the door. This is when I realise that I am dreaming, and I cannot die (be killed by this bear) and I am not scared anymore. I open the door, and the bear shrinks to the size of a puppy.

Dream interpretation:

The dreamer finds herself in the building which she associates with the place of her birth. She lived there until she was around eight years old. Therefore the building in the dream reveals psychic features linked to that period of the dreamer's life; her early childhood. She describes it to be old and robust which is likely to convey the atmosphere and principles that surrounded this period of her life. The hockey game which is played inside the building is manifesting her inner masculine energy. Seen in her dream, the game is an indication of the collective Animus manifested as a group of men competing within the frames of controlled rules. Such energy invokes something oblivious yet intriguing inside the dreamer's psyche. And from the perspective of time exposes strong masculine influences imposed on her during childhood. The building as a whole represents the features of the dreamer's younger Self, and the game played inside reveals a strong influence of an older man such as father or older brother during that time. The girls inside the building are getting robbed of the jewellery which reveals her perception of the Animus seen as being unsafe. As she describes, all the girls in the building wear jewellery hence the jewellery can be seen as a general personification of femininity.

In the next part the dreamer runs away in order to save her jewellery from being taken away. Consequently, she perceives masculinity as a threat. This part of the dream may be mirroring a belief to general distrust towards men in reality anchored in her childhood experience. When she is halfway home she notices a huge bear laying in the grass. Being halfway home may emphasise a stage of the individuation path. If we would look at this part of the dream as the allegory for developing personal autonomy and unique identity, so to speak halfway would suggest that at this stage the dream refers to more recent events in the dreamer's life rather than the childhood symbolised by the building. To take a step back in the plot after escaping from the building she was chased by one of the gangsters who may in fact indicate a person who she projects the Animus attributes in her real life. There were three gangsters in the building and in the dreamer context they could represent her father, older brother and her partner. One of the men follows the dreamer and symbolically pushes her into the encounter with the powerful and dangerous animal.

A bear symbolically refers to the maternal strength as well as the dreamer's individuation process. When she comes across a sleeping animal and awakens it, through eye contact she symbolically encounters her own primal instincts. A paralysing fear of the bear in the dream may in fact be manifesting the fear of the dreamer's mother's anger as a consequence of her individuation i.e. saving her jewellery. Also the bear which falls asleep and wakes up seasonally may symbolise a rebirth to the new stage of life. In order to synthesise this primal energy and find an inner strength coming from her own Self, she needs to look it in the eyes which symbolically happens in the dream. At first she is terrified of being ripped apart alive and tries to hide behind the glass door. The dream reveals that she may find protection there but at the same time, a see through glass signifies that despite the barrier the feared part of herself will always be seen inside. At the end of the dream she faces the fear and she realises that she has the power to control it.