John: This time, it is not a woman in a car pointing a gun at me saying “get in.” I am on foot, going away from another situation that was too much for me to handle. This time there is a male cop who comes up to me on his motorcycle. Even though he is a cop, he is attempting to use a softer approach. He has tears in his eyes because he is trying to get my attention in a softer way, a way that touches me. While trying to get my attention he points out that I have nothing to fear from him and that I should not feel intimidated because the bullets aren’t real, not even in his gun. That was that image.
This is the flip side of the yesterday’s dream where the message came more forcefully. This is an attempt to work from a softness of the heart, where one is then able to open up to a greater clarity, instead of adopting a rigid, limiting attitude. So the image of retreat is based upon the idea that I now have an awareness that I need to give in to something that causes a reaction in me. I had drawn a line, and was shutting off a connection, by leaving the group. In the softer approach, I am being coaxed back, not forcefully ordered as before. The choice is mine.
This leaves me more unsettled because I am realizing that there is something that is not quite right. It is like another recent dream where I was on a road that I thought was quicker, with fewer distractions, only to discover that it was a dirt road and I had to go slower. Then, suddenly, I seem to get a whack to the side of my head that knocks me into a state of amnesia. I go back to the spot where I took the detour and realize that I can see something there more deeply – it has more meaning in terms of life. When I get back on the original road I feel discombobulated and disturbed. I had originally taken the detour to avoid heavier traffic, but just being in the flow of the traffic would be better than the bumpy, dirt road. I have the sense that the dirt road may eventually turn into something useful, but it is not there yet.
So I begin to understand that I have to go through the agitation and disturbance I associate with the main road, because there is something I must learn from this journey. If I do it can open me up to something that I otherwise would not see. Something is made visible to me: At one point in this dream I am looking at an atlas to determine where I am on this detoured road, but it is cluttered with images that seem useless to me. Yet when I turned and came back to the main road where everything was chaotic, at a stop sign I saw these same images again. A light bulb went on; I now can recognize the depth of the images. My sense was that the images came from Japan. When something comes from the East, it is coming into life by participation, rather than by removing oneself from what is taking place.
So that was the setting for a recent dream and, in today’s dream, by comparison, I am suddenly having to confront the issue of whether or not my choice was too much for me. Is what I am doing too much because of the agitation that it creates? If I walk (or drive) away from the agitation, I may create another kind of problem. Essentially I have made a progression in the dreams to where I can be in the area where there are ample strawberries and no limitation of a tax and, essentially, I can throw myself, like the moth, into the light as an act of “dying before I die.”
Now that is obviously a big gulp to swallow, so all my reactions show me finding different ways to leave. These are danger zones. There is a volleying back and forth going on, yet if I were actually to pull away completely and leave, and not be coaxed or drawn back in, it could be a catastrophe. What would be left behind? So effort is made by my higher self to help me reconnect.
As a deeper meaning to all this, it seems that I am making decisions to relieve the pressure upon myself based on certain determinations I have made. These dreams suggest that I am meant to recognize that when a pressure is lifted, that is when I lose a connection. In other words, a human being opens up to steadily unfolding and letting go, to a point where one willingly submits to the pressure. To avoid facing the pressure is to run away. The feeling of relief when one leaves is actually a denial of an experience that is important to the process. Now that I know this, I realize that for me to let go of my resistance to specific issues (pressures) that weigh upon me is exactly what is necessary to bring me to a greater inner closeness.
