John: So the imagery in yesterday’s dream is showing that I’ve withdrawn from the world around me. I perceive everything as being poisonous, so I’m not opening up to what is being presented. As a result, I’m cutoff from the threads (strings) that have aliveness to them.
Of course, I’m not seeing them as aliveness; I just reject them as noise and commotion. It’s my attitude that’s unsettling me energetically, and therefore the flow is denied. The images also show that it doesn’t need to be denied: the door is partially open, but I do not use it. I don’t take advantage of this opening for something to occur.
From my perspective, in the dream, I think I’m protecting myself from outside contamination and ridding myself of the poisonous object in my shoe. But I’m in this tenement building having to somehow make it work – this is the reality I find myself in. I find myself waking up a bit sad, out of synch, out of touch; just unable to resonate with the place.
The tenement residents won’t disturb me because that is how I want it. Even though the door is open a crack, I’m still holding on to my self-imposed separation. But my attitude is keeping me in a stupor, like a heavy cloud. And I’ve got a painful impediment in my shoe that makes moving around uncomfortable.
So this scenario, which feels like a nightmare, is caused by my denial. I am meant to step through the open door and engage in what is out there. I am meant to find the meaningfulness in my situation – in the reality I find myself in. Even though I perceive the poisons as coming from outside of me, they are actually triggered from inside, because I have cut off the flow. When the flow is cut off, things begin to die, or go bad.
It was a hard dream to pull out, but it crystallizes an aspect of me that needs to be addressed in my life. After that dream, I had the following images.
I’ve come back to my hometown where I will not be staying long. This is a place where I have history that rises up to be faced upon my return. It’s ancient history; I’ve been gone for years. I just need to confront it in passing. One cannot just ignore things.
And I am offered the opportunity to be open about the past – I’m not meant to linger. I’m scheduled to leave town again very soon, this time for good. While there, however, I need to wrap up the loose ends.
Now this image adds to the prior dream. There I was withdrawn in my room and I couldn’t go through the open door. Here I’m given an opportunity to revisit, and come to terms with what is holding me back. Perhaps the key to being open and in the flow lies in my making peace with part of my past.
So now, essentially, on a psychological level, it’s like karma in that I’m repressing things that could set me free. What I repress becomes a filter through which I see the world and it becomes a limitation.
From a psychological standpoint, one often sees problems as a result of the way a person grows up, or the type of parents they had, or the tribulations that they went through that create certain defense mechanisms. They shape a person’s reactivity to the world they meet.
And we have to conduct ourselves in a way that sets us free of those limitations. In doing so, you are also setting everything around you free. You are unplugging yourself from unintended consequences that cause suffocation and repression. That’s how this image adds to that prior dream.
Then I end up getting one last image:
I drive into a hotel parking lot. I know when I am supposed to arrive, but for some reason I have come much earlier. I feel an urgency to know if this is okay. The bellboy sees me and, instead of waiving me off (which I am expecting), he immediately points me to a spot right in front of the main doors so that I can unload and bring in my belongings. The manner in which he does this clearly indicates that they are ready to receive me.
So the normal route, and karma, I was following would have me go through a very circuitous approach in terms of how I carry myself. The first dream indicates that there is an opening, the second image shows me that I can go back and deal with things, and now the third image shows that I have reached my destination: I am open to receive. I have moved from a tenement into a hotel.
The dream imagery is arranged to accommodate the change that is now possible, because I’m recognizing that I’m meant to open up to possibilities and to stop shutting myself off.
So these images show how this process unfolds. As we accept or deny what our dream life is showing us, the imagery changes to show us where we are and keep us on track. When we change, the imagery of the outer world has to change as well.
