I’ve written about my personal dream symbology before in this post, about death and different kinds of crosses that have appeared in dreams depending on the kind of symbolic information being relayed. Now I’ve had a realization about the figures that have reappeared in many of my dreams and how I have most likely been misinterpreting who they are, and perhaps missing a larger point at the same time.
When I’m writing down my remembered dreams in the morning, I often find myself automatically applying a layer of interpretation that may be obscuring meaning rather than illuminating it. It’s the layer of my physical reality focus (rational mind, left brain, ego, whatever you want to call it) – whatever details from my ‘waking’ life that apply, as closely as possible, to the dream symbols. Until recently, I wasn’t aware to the extent that I was actually doing this. It was more of an automatic function, choosing an interpretation with a ‘known’ label, whether or not it was truly accurate.
This tendency to apply my physically-focused rational mind to dream symbols seems especially obvious with the people that appear in my dreams repeatedly. For instance, if I remember a female with dark hair in my dreams, which I often do, my rational mind immediately assumes that it was one friend or another that seemed to fit the description, so I’d just write down the name instead of the description. And since I know many females with dark hair, I’ve found that I switch between them depending on what seemed to be more likely, all subconsciously. Most of the time I haven’t been able to ascertain WHY this specific person might have been in my dream, and so end up dismissing it and moving on. But if I step back from the name or specific ‘rational mind’ interpretation of the raw data, and just write down the raw data itself, a female with dark hair, then I can start to see a larger overall pattern emerging. Not that dreams can’t involve people I know in physical reality of course, but I’m suspicious that they haven’t been appearing as often as I thought they were.
These dream figures are often in a supporting role, just ‘hanging around’ with me while I go through my dream and do what I do. I’m often not interacting with them directly, except to know that they are ‘friends’, which also may be why I try to assign the identity of friends I know in waking life. Often they are just a step behind me to either side, so I don’t see them directly but more peripherally, but I know they are there and that I’m not alone in the current dream. Sometimes they even speak briefly to each other. As far as I can remember, they have always been cheerful, and sometimes quite amused at what I’m doing.
Why has this realization suddenly dawned on me? It was a more recent, but still frequent appearance of a ‘friend’ in my dreams who did NOT fit the description of anyone I knew in waking life. And it was a slow realization; it’s amazing how clueless I have been when you consider in how MANY dreams this figure has made an appearance over the years! A recent dream seemed to put a fine point on things when this dream figure walked up to me, smiling broadly, and looked right at me – so much presence and attention in the dream that I woke up. That’s when all of this started to come together.
For this friend, or guide, I’ve asked for a name, and received one in my head that seemed to be exactly right. And I know a lot of possibilities are currently opening up with this relationship, so the potential is rather exciting!
Maybe sharing my personal light bulb moment will help others take a fresh look at their own dreams. The information or communication is already there – we just have to look at it the right way!
[tags]dreams, dream interpretation, symbols, spirit guides[/tags]
