Wednesday, 9 August 2017

A Waking Dream About A Smashed Windshield: Post #2



 photo courtesy of damascusautobody.com

My wife and I drove to the Oregon coast, and while going through a construction zone, our windshield was hit by something—probably a rock—that caused a baseball-sized, smashed area right in front of the driver. We were plenty shaken by the event, and knew that it was an important waking dream. After we calmed down, we each began working separately on the symbols, curious to know how different our interpretations would be.

We looked for metaphoric associations, something in our lives that each symbol made us think of. Usually, we would start with the neutral prompt, “Tell me about it.”

Tell me about…
* Driving:  Going from one place to another place.
* Construction zone:  A place where work is being done and something is either being newly built or repaired.
* Traffic:  Lots of vehicles going lots of places.
* Heavy and slow:  There is congestion because there is so much usage.
* Smoothly:  There are no significant obstructions.
* Suddenly:  It was unexpected.
* Ear-splitting noise:  It was a shockingly loud auditory event. It was momentarily all-consuming in its presence.
* Near me:  Right in my space.
* I have hit something:  I have made a mistake and it is my fault.
* A car or road barrier:  Something that is innocent that I have done damage to or maligned.
* Windshield:  It allows me to see out in front of me while I am traveling, but the whole time I am being protected.
* Large smashed area:  There has been a significant impact, and the windshield took the brunt of it.
* Right in front of me:  Had it not been for the protection of the glass, it would have injured me.
* Clearly large and flying fast:  Dangerous.
* Construction truck:  A tool used to haul materials at the construction site.
* Rocks:  They are minerals, and as such, living entities, but they are ossified and crystallized. Their lives transpire at imperceptibly slow rates.
* Opposite direction:  Going counter to the way I was going.
* Shock:  I am temporarily rendered immobile and in a daze.
* Hands shaking:  I have lost some control over my faculties.
.
Initial thoughts
It has been my experience in interpreting dreams that the hardest part for the dreamer is moving beyond the “victim” mentality. Even with an incident as minor as having a rock break a windshield, there is a distinct feeling of being violated: What have I done to deserve this? Why me?

Yet, if you work with dreams enough, you begin to understand that ALL dream images—all symbols—represent an aspect of the dreamer. Even the bad guys in dreams are facets of the dreamer. And this is true whether the dream occurs during sleep and the dreamer is frightened by a “make-believe” dream monster, or the dream happens during waking life, and the dreamer is shocked by a “real” rock flying straight at his car.

Although I have worked on dreams for decades, it still takes me a while to calm down after an incident like this—an important waking dream—and acknowledge that the flying rock in my dream is me! When I do, I understand that the first question I need to ask is, “Why am I crashing into myself?”

More on Friday.

No comments:

Post a Comment