My Waking Dream About A Graffiti Tag: Post #3

I’ve been looking at my own waking dream about graffiti being spray painted on a trailer. There are two themes running through this dream. One of them, a theme about redoing a house, is constructive. The other theme—about gangs—is counterproductive. Now let’s do the detail work on the symbols and see what we learn.

The dream

You can scroll down to my last post to read the dream in its original form. What follows are my responses to my own “Tell me about it” prompt. I have taken each important symbol and commented on it with a metaphoric meaning in mind.

Tell me about…

*  Comfortable suburban neighborhood: Stress-free environment where people are cooperative and get along.

*  Kids on bikes and playing: A strong, secure youthful presence.

*  People walk unthreatened:  It’s safe.

*  House:  Where I live in my body, in my thoughts, in my goals and aspirations, in my trials, in my pleasures, in my accomplishments, in my disappointments.

*  50 years old:  It’s strong and secure, but it’s endured some buffeting, too.

*  Has needed work:  It’s time to reinforce it and upgrade some outdated systems.

*  Internal systems:  The ones you can’t see, but are vital for smooth functioning.

*  Work on the outside:  The first line of defense against the elements, and how it looks to others.

*  Gangs:  Angry, disenfranchised, unemployed males who feel impotent and destructive. They have been left out, left behind.

*  Spray-painted gang tag:  Defacing; taking something good and deliberately making it worse.

*  The only target hit:  It only affected me and no one else.

The “house” symbol

Notice in the list above how lengthy my reply was to the house symbol. For me, a house is really my state of consciousness. It’s where I reside in all facets of my being.

Now, the dream restated as metaphor:

There is a part of me that lives in my own stress-free environment where all aspects of me are cooperative and get along. In this part of me, there is a strong, secure youthful presence. It is safe here. My whole state of consciousness—where I live in my body, thoughts, goals, aspirations, trials, pleasures, accomplishments and disappointments—is strong and secure. But it’s endured some buffeting, too. It’s time to reinforce this part of me and upgrade some outdated systems. Those include ones I can’t see, but are vital for smooth functioning. It also involves my first line of defense and how I look to others. But an angry, disenfranchised, unemployed male part of me that feels impotent and destructive has been left out, left behind. It is subverting my efforts to upgrade myself by defacing and taking something good I am doing and deliberately making it worse. Doing this only affects me, no one else.

I am of two minds

From my initial assessment of this restated dream, I’d say that it is alluding to a feeling of ambivalence about work I am doing on myself. Tomorrow we’ll explore that sense of being at odds with myself!

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