A Dream About BART: Concluding Post

 Photo courtesy of vaelen.org

I’ve been working with a dreamer who dreamed that she got stuck in a turnstile while trying to use the San Francisco’s BART. When she and I worked together to isolate the dream’s symbols and to make metaphoric associations, there was a clear set of themes that emerged. (Scroll down to my last posts to follow along.)

Analyzed metaphorically, the dream seems to imply that the dreamer is trying to travel through the “greater metropolitan area” of herself. But she can’t tell if she’s “coming or going.” She’s with other parts of herself who have no problem, but she is carrying “excess stored mass.” She has the “certificate” giving her permission, but she is experiencing problems. She tries unsuccessfully to go through the “control room.” Finally, it is a “magical” solution that gives her hope.

There was an additional symbol which she and I discussed at length. It was her reference to not knowing if her companion was male or female. We talked about how, in dreams, feminine energy often represents a more intuitive quality, whereas masculine energy is more assertive and demonstrative.

As with all dreams, the only person who can really decipher it and put it into context is the dreamer herself.

The dreamer discusses her own dream

The first word that comes to my mind is indecision. Oh boy! Does that ever describe me. I have been stuck so many times in my life, not knowing which direction to go, or knowing it and being unable to act on it. That’s the whole masculine-feminine reference in my dream. It’s both an intuitive and an assertive obstruction. I know I have permission to do what needs to be done—that’s the “certificate.” And I know that I have earned the right. But the dream is correct that I carry a bunch of attitudes around with me, and I try to manipulate things so that I don’t have to face the decision. It never works.

So far, the dream is just repeating what I already know. But now comes the part that is really interesting to me. It’s the part that talks about how there is a solution to my problem, and it has to do with “magic.” That reference came from the dream’s image of sprinkling Disney-like fairy dust all over myself. I have to smile, because that is a lot like an image used by my yoga teacher during a recent visualization she led us through. She said to have us imagine a crystalline sheath of light descending over us to block out all the world’s distractions so that we could concentrate better. I have to say, that visualization worked for me; I felt a lot calmer afterwards. So maybe I do need to bring that technique into my regular decision making in general. I’ll give it a try.

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