All week we have been examining an aspect of dreams that seems common, at some point, to all: the basic dilemma – and stress – of being unable to accomplish what seems easy enough to do in one’s mind. We saw it in Jeane’s dream (Getting Sorted), where she wanted to scan and sort some documents, yet the machine she was using made it impossible. And John experienced serious “flop sweat” in his dream, No Joy in Mudville and Mind the Gap, coming into a baseball game fully confident of his pitching mastery, only to find his throws barely reaching the plate and, even then being crushed by the batter. And yesterday (Check, Please), the struggles continued, where a simple sandwich in a restaurant brought confusion and stress.
What each of these dreams has in common as an underlying motif, is the disconnection between the higher self and the lower self. The dreams present a familiar seeming scenario and yet the actions taken don’t work out as expected. And the more effort is expended to “fix” things, the crazier the scene becomes. Part of what drives that deterioration in a dream is the ego’s desire to handle the situation according to established patterns and psychologies that are in play in our daily lives (and that can trigger the same kind of trouble in any given situation in our real life). Of course, the way this works is different for the masculine (more linear and direct), and the feminine (more encompassing and indirect). But on a certain level, our inner lives are trying to get us to see that if we let go of our ego trappings and let the higher self energies flow through, the end results will be much smoother for us, and will be more closely aligned with the way we envision things, both in our dream lives and in our real lives.
John: Yesterday I ended by describing the delirium I felt in being unable to throw a decent pitch. And, of course, the delirium for me is caused because I have a certain echo from somewhere inside that causes me to want to conduct myself in a certain way in my outer life, but that really doesn’t tango very well with what the inner requires.
I suppose you could say that it’s good to have a dream, in your example, that shows one having to both sort things out and to scan them. Because we do need to be able to sort things in our lives and at the same time scan for what is really going on. From a linear, masculine perspective, you do not do both simultaneously, yet the masculine needs to allow the feminine aspect to create the wholeness. In life there is a responsibility for things that requires being able to sort and scan and see the whole picture. That perspective is a better viewpoint from which to take action.
So the higher self knows this implicitly, which means that you do as well, somewhere inside you. Of course, somehow or another, maybe part of you has not quite gotten that memo. Your lower self part can tend to see that there is work to be done, but sees problems as separate items. The higher self has the sense of the whole, and knows that it’s all part of the same equation.
In my particular dreams, the closest that I could come to feeling the wholeness was to back away from interfering any further with my lower self reactions. The reason why the higher knowing isn’t permeating and working out in the outer realms is because I am carrying it with a certain ego attitude in terms of myself. When I was pitching, I just decided to pitch. All I could think about was the joy and fun of pitching and I did not take into account everyone else on the team who also had to enjoy or play the game. Then, as if to make sure that I got it, a mirror image reflection of myself was created in terms of the opposing batter who, in his demeanor, makes a mockery of me in my demeanor, because obviously, he cannot be denied either.
It can be understood, in a way, as abusing the privilege: what comes through from the higher is a connection that one has as part of their waking up to the light, yet that is not really being owned and honored. It flickers somewhere inside, but then in the outer reality, it is not quite coming together. What these images show is amazing, really.
