Wednesday, 5 October 2016

A Dream With Two Plots, One Of Them About Einstein: Post #2



I’m examining a dream that is partly about Albert Einstein taking the dreamer for a car ride. But there is also another plot line about standing in an employment line:

The dream
I was standing in the employment line waiting to be interviewed for a possible job. There was one lady in line in front of me, and I remember noticing that she was heavyset and very nice. Then something called to me—I’m not sure what—and I turned around and walked out the door and into the street. A car and driver were waiting for me, and I got in. It was then that I noticed that the driver looked exactly like Albert Einstein. He started driving me around, and while we were exploring a variety of neighborhoods, he told me that I really needed to fall in love with a tree. Then he took me back to the employment office, and I walked into the same door that I had come out of. Only this time, I had a job in the office.

Interpreting with metaphors
The wonderful thing about using metaphors to interpret dreams is that it doesn’t matter what kind of a dream it is. On this blog, you have seen me use this technique with numerous and varied dreamlike situations. The dreams can make sense when first told, or they can be strange. They can be dreams we have at night when asleep, or they can be waking dreams—startling and often upsetting experiences that we have while going about the normal business of our days. The dreams can be prophetic. They can involve contact with deceased relatives or friends. They can even be scenes that dreamers are certain come from past lives.

What’s the bottom line?
None of the possibilities I mention above are to be discounted. Prophesy is real. Likewise, if we have an upsetting experience during the day—temporarily losing sight of one’s toddler in a busy shopping mall, or having a close call with a car—those events need to be dealt with at face value. Similarly, if in the dream state, we receive important or helpful information from a loved one, it is advisable to pay attention.

But what constitutes the core value of the experience? Is it the event seen and acted on literally? Or is it the message being delivered through metaphors? In the past, although I have been criticized for my own opinion on those questions, I nevertheless hold firm to the understanding that metaphor constitutes the bottom line. No matter what kind of experience we may have, that experience can ALWAYS  be understood as metaphor. And invariably, the metaphoric restatement does two things. First, it takes any confusing, unlikely event or dream plot, and it makes sense out of it. Second, it then delivers a constructive, helpful message that is tailored specifically to the dreamer. The metaphor is the universal common link, and it is that metaphor that we’ll examine with this dream as well.  

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2 comments:

  1. You promised to show the dream interpretation but you did not. Did yoi show it else where? I wish to compare yoir interpretation with mine.

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  2. Hi, Thanks so much for your comment. You are correct that I have not interpreted the dream, yet. I will do that in Friday and Saturday's posts. Every week, I try to use the first couple of posts to highlight some interesting aspect of dreams, so sometimes I don't get to the interpretation itself until later in the week. But it'll happen. Thanks, again! David

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