image courtesy of istockphoto.com
This week we’re taking a breather from dream interpretation
to explore the nature of life, especially when life acts unpredictably. I began
with the example of the composer, Mendelssohn, who wrote a piece of music that
his sister also wrote independently. We are amazed at such synchronistic events
because they don’t follow our preconceived—and faulty—notions of life being an
objective experience.
The fact is, life often breaks the rules we impose upon it.
We observe life and notice that, for the most part, it behaves in a certain
manner. Then, we make the mistake of assuming it is supposed to behave that
way. When it doesn’t, we decide that it is acting oddly.
So far this week, I've offered examples of shared experiences during
waking hours (Mendelssohn) and during sleeping hours (my grandchildren). Here’s a third kind of incident: An individual with psychic abilities looks
into her crystal ball and sees her neighbor’s car in a ditch. She tells her
neighbor of her vision, but her neighbor is unimpressed and ignores her. A week
later, the neighbor is doing errands and is in a hurry. She leaves her car
running while she ducks into a convenience store to pick up a quick cup of
coffee. When she reemerges, she sees that her car, which was on a slight
incline, has rolled off the pavement into a gully. It will now necessitate a
tow truck to pull her out. Clearly, the psychic had a prophetic vision. And
assuredly, her neighbor will pay closer attention next time.
But there is another way to look at this: Mendelssohn was
witness to a pair of identical experiences that happened during the awake
state. My grandchildren had a pair of identical experiences that happened during
the sleep state. And the psychic and her neighbor, in the hypothetical example
above, had a pair of identical experiences, one of which happened in a
sleeplike trance, and the other during wakefulness.
As a society, we tend to be in awe of such “unusual”
phenomena. We find these incidents mysterious and humbling. And certainly, I
would agree that, if you know someone who has accurate prophetic vision, it
would be a good idea to take them seriously!
But there is another way to look at all of these events:
They are metaphors designed to show the person experiencing them some facet of
themselves. Why did they happen twice? Because the message that was being
delivered was important enough that it warranted repeating.
Repeated dreams are a common phenomenon. If a dreamer is
struggling with an issue in life, the conflict will be expressed through dream
metaphor—almost invariable with the solution at least implied, if not overtly
stated. If the dreamer does not manage to resolve the issue, the dream will
come again. This can reoccur in any number of ways. The same dream message can
be expressed using different metaphoric images, so that is seems as if the
dreamer is having a “new” dream. Or the same dream can become repetitive. Or,
as we have seen in the examples this week, the message can express itself
through a combination of dream and “real life” imagery.
We’ll finish tomorrow…
-----------------
Announcement
I am starting an 8-week class in dream interpretation to be
held in Springfield, Oregon. Click on the “EVENTS” page for details.
No comments:
Post a Comment