Jeane: I am heading somewhere and I have to pass through a field near a woman’s house. The woman seems to be tiny, and I get the sense that she doesn’t know very much. This field is near a simple rural town; there are other houses in the distance. I have to pass by there as I go somewhere in town with other people. The first time I pass by I can tell from her clothes that perhaps she has a washing machine and a dryer outside in the field, but she doesn’t know how to use them. Even if she does wash her clothes in the washer, they look worse than when she started.
Then second time I walk by I show her how to operate the washing machine, although I’m not sure she will understand it. But her clothes do look better. Then it seems that the third time I go by I become aware that people in town may make fun of her for being so simple.
This third time I also realize she has a dryer, out in the field, away from the house. I show her how the dryer operates and how clothes look when they are dried. Then I go back into town. Maybe the people in town wonder what I am doing wasting my time with this woman. I am never quite sure about the progress I am making, but the woman is really delighted when she discovers the dryer.
John: What this dream is showing is that you are trying to help, and in trying to help you are finding out that your attempt is actually all discombobulated. There is something about your approach that is awry, so you are unable to effectively do what it is you are trying to do. This kind of helping is not your strong suit.
You see yourself as having to do this, that, or the other to try to wash things, when your more effective role is actually in knowing how to facilitate things, to absorb things. Your strength is not so much in directing something, but rather to know how to provide a space. What is interesting is that you are asking this question of yourself three times, and each time you are shown the answer. It is as if you are going along, and you are adamant that it needs to work in this particular way; you are trying to be a force that pushes for something to occur. You believe this about yourself, that this is one of your capabilities.
And so you ask the universe three times. And you don’t like the answer: you are saying “No? Are you sure?” Each time the universe says, “No, you are kind of a mad hatter in terms of doing things that way, however, you are able to be more effective like the dryer, not the washer.” A dryer takes something out of a situation, it doesn’t add or stir a situation. I push and stir situations, you do the opposite. You absorb. You provide a space. That is your way. So it’s a very effective dream in terms of putting something back into a cadence. When you are “drying out” you are actually allowing something to come through. It’s an important dream in the sense that it is showing a major shift in terms of how you might conduct yourself. In other words, you have a tendency to look one way, and the dream is saying, “Look the other way.”
