Altercation As Waking Dream: Concluding Post

This week I’ve been examining an incident that I witnessed at our local airport. Two families got into a verbal dispute that escalated to the point that airport security had to intervene. I was the only witness to this confrontation, and I chose to analyze it as a waking dream. When I went through the interpretation process, I was amazed to see that the metaphoric message was not only relevant to me, but poignant and timely. So my question, then, was: Since I was the only witness and the altercation carried an important message just for me, was it, somehow, cosmically staged exclusively for my benefit? And if so, then what about the two families who ended up being actors in my own private little drama?

My question answered

The short answer is, no, the incident was not staged exclusively for me. The reason I know this is that, in the past, I have had the opportunity to examine similar incidents in which the confrontation was amicably resolved. In a few such instances all the parties involved were interested in looking at the incident as a waking dream. What we discovered was that the dream had relevance to everyone.

Let me illustrate

Suppose, instead of the altercation that I witnessed escalating, it had been resolved. Suppose I was able to approach both Family #1 and Family #2 and ask them, “Would you like to examine this incident as a waking dream?” If they agreed, then I would take each party through the “Tell me about it” question and answer process to try and learn what metaphors revealed themselves to each actor in the play.

Astonishing results

On the few occasions that I have been able to do this kind of group analysis in the past, I have been astonished by the results. Each party to the incident has had a relevant waking dream analyzed for them. One might think that the dream message delivered to each actor in the drama was pretty similar to the messages delivered to the other actors. But that has not always been the case. Sometimes the metaphoric messages have been widely different. And yet each player received a poignant, relevant message that he/she benefited from hearing.

What this implies about the universe

What does this say about the way life is structured? We go about in our private worlds, minding our business and attending to the affairs of objective life. We take our kids to school, cook our meals, pay our bills and socialize with our friends. That’s the part of life that we are taught is the important part.

And yet, at the same time, there is this subtle cosmic drama being enacted for our benefit. In an intricate play, we are all, subconsciously, actors in a grand metaphoric drama that is designed to teach us. And through this instruction, we are provided with vital information and guidance that can be extremely helpful to us as we go about the business of our lives.