In the hands of God we are a part of one creation. We are unique and intertwined
“I said: what about my eyes?
God said: Keep them on the road.
I said: what about my passion?
God said: Keep it burning.
I said: what about my heart?
God said: Tell me what you hold inside it?
I said: pain and sorrow? He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
- Rumi
I had several dreams that felt as though they were correcting previous notions that I had. They have to do with black and white thinking, and personal responsibility. The dreams suggest that there are things in between the extremes, and that each of us has a role that is uniquely our own.
My partner has a number of dreams in series: dream one, two, three, four, with four representing a completion. I recognize this pattern as I’ve dreamed in series as well. The first dream represents our sense of being one. The second dream is related to how we are. The third is about an aspect of how we are. The fourth dream is the letting go of all of it.
In my partner’s first dream she is confronted with a situation in which she encounters rotten food. This is a black and white scenario. When food is rotten we throw it away. But in her dream, she has not rejected it, and this is symbolic for where she finds herself. It represents that she’s not totally set. In the dream she tries to figure out a way to salvage the food. This salvaging represents that she does not buy into the rejected quality of herself, settling into black and white thinking.
This leads her into a new part of the dream in which she has some money that can be used and other money that’s to be rejected. This part of the dream series shows her that she’s holding a prejudice. Her recognition of it refers to aspects of self that she herself questions: being loud, forceful, and misusing energy. She knows that she can be dismissive and realizes in the dream that she cannot dismiss anything because we are all intertwined.
This realization leads her to the next part of the sequence in which a policeman appears. He represents self-consciousness, her reasoning self, or the quality in herself that sifts and sorts. She realizes that she doesn’t mind the policeman, and we take this to mean that she accepts what is happening which leads her to the eventual realization that everybody is included in true acceptance, even herself.
I had a dream that was similar to hers, and featured a woman who was a natural leader. As such she recognizes others in a broad way and she is able to see the Dharma in our human nature. She has training and education, and it is her nature to be in this role. Her traits show in her personality and they are recognized by all. People see her as capable of management and able to provide guidance.
In the dream she makes a mistake which causes her respect to be in question. If she is a balanced person than she can accept the mistake. But her self-image, and her need to impress and impose herself gets in the way. Four years and eight months later (in the dream) she is still struggling over this problem. In this way, in the dream, she is bearing liability as a consequence of the mistake. She doesn’t know how to accept it. Others in the dream notice this. She notices that she brought the situation on herself.
However, because she’s a natural born leader she possesses the ability to heal the situation, confesses what had happened, and releases herself from it. Something in the dream is created that invites her to let go, but she’s still not able to, and as a consequence a horrendous problem is created.
In the next dream I’m trying to show a similar pattern as we’ve seen in the previous dreams. In the dream I enter a bathroom where I am standing at a urinal. It’s a small room. A big man enters and I know he’s been rejected in his life. To cope with the rejection, he learned to use the fact that he is a big guy. He rejects many things because he has been rejected. He can do what he wants and get away with it.
He says to me,” You don’t mind if I take a shit here?” I think to myself, “Of course I mind, it’s going to smell the whole place up,” but I reply, “No, I don’t mind,” because I sense that he is not serious about actually doing it. “He is messing with me,” is what I think to myself in the dream. What seems important is that he assumed that I’d react, and that he imagined I may bounce off the walls over it, because he is big and intimidating.
He urinates and makes a mess all over the place after which he produces a wrapped up object. He is standing at the sink with it. I see that he is washing a small rock which I catch a glimpse of. I ask, “Is that an aluminum ingot?” He says, “Yeah.” I am curious about the item. He goes on to say that the rock is a piece of equipment. I inquire further and he begins explaining it to me. In the dream I’m not rejecting him, nor am I rejecting anything he’s done. I thank him for the explanation of the ingot which for me has cleared the air. Everything feels nice and light because we opened up the ethers through an authentic exchange.
Suddenly we are in more than a bathroom, the room has shifted. There are three women who are each about 20 years old standing in the room with us. They look alike. One woman has unusually small hands, they don’t look right. I mention her hands to her and discover that all three of the women have an illness that express this feature.
A second women shows me her hands which are peeling. She presents them to me with a “take that” kind of attitude as if she expects to be judged because of her hands. I realize that all three of the women have the same quality. “Could I take an interest in this?” I wonder, and I ask more questions. In the dream I’m experiencing rejecting feelings and I squirm over the unsightliness of their condition. They take the time to explain what their illness is. As they do, I feel myself becoming less judgmental and I begin to really see them. This shift has me feeling relaxed and at ease. I suggest that they may need more sun, which I recognize as a symbol of courage. They then show their hands with confidence rather than with a sentiment of “poor me.”
In the dream I’m self-conscious, but they sense that I am not rejecting them. They tell me, “We are taking vitamin D and other vitamins too.” I realize in the dream that something about the nature of their illness has affected the way that they can be open and free flowing. So, I say, “You know, another thing that would really help you would be to get engaged in sports or outdoor activities.” The way I’m saying this shows that I’m tuning in to how it is, and who it is that they really are.
In the dream I have an understanding that they are intertwined with essence. The dream continues in this way. The more I offer to the women the calmer they feel and the more things open up.
In another dream I’m shown that we are all unique and exist together in an intertwined way. In the dream there are, laying in front of me, an unbelievable number of papers. I have to sort them out and sift through them. As I’m fumbling with them a person comes into the room and with one glance, I know that a particular paper in the pile is for them. I look for it until I find it. The paper has a song written on it and it’s understood that this person could bring this song to life better than anyone else could.
Then, I have a meditation dream in which I suffer. The suffering has to do with a wound I carry that I endured long ago and that is still affecting me and preventing me from free-flowing from my heart. I feel repressed and anguish about not having shed this wound. Feeling guilty about it does nothing to ease this. Until I drop the wound, it will find a way to return and have an energetic impact on me. I see that it reshapes the events in my life, and causes me to cycle through the same variables. I beat myself up over it.
Interpretation
My partner (and my own) dreams that came in series of four, the dreams show the stages of acceptance we move through the recognition of resistance, wisdom and choice, and finally acceptance.
In the natural born leader dream, the woman who is all about recognition, becomes relatable when she lets go and becomes a part of the intertwined overallness. I am being shown that when we can make a shift, however clumsy it may be to do so, we’ll find grace. In her story she first must recognize what’s happened and then she and others around her can accept it. There’s nothing condescending about her stages along the way. All are a part of grace. When we recognize and accept and put aside the personal defenses we carry, which seem always rooted in rejection, we realize that projection starts with us and is aimed towards ourselves, then we carry that rejection out in our treatment or judgements of others. There is nobody else to blame in this world. Rejection and judgement begins with ourselves and becomes dense as these concretized feelings extend out to the world through our behavior.
The natural born leader dream also shows how leaders, when intertwined with overallness, possess insight. Their connection gives them an ability. The leader’s defense mechanism is one of the veils she carries that prevents her from clear sight. One who is behind a veil cannot bring the thread across into the overallness. In the dream she’s stuck in this state of trying to move past the mistake for years and the veil intensifies. This shows that the issues in time and space are accentuated. She must strip off what causes her separation and get herself back to nothing but nothingness.
The dream shows the importance of time and space which is available to us so that we may wrestle with and work out our karma, which leads us back to wholeness and connection.
The dream that started out in a bathroom with a gruff guy, and ended with an encounter with three women with unusual hands represents setting aside that which keeps us stuck in time and space. In the overallness, in time and space, we judge quickly and draw conclusions about others. Yet the more we move towards one another the more compassion becomes available. As I opened up in the dream I was able to offer helpful suggestions. When the dream concludes there’s a realization that though we are not all the same as one another, each of is a thread in the intertwined wholeness.
In the dream about papers which contained a song, before I matched the song to the person, the person felt out of place with nowhere to fit in. The dream is showing how seeing pent-up conditions in the environment and recognizing them non- judgmentally creates a harmony that we can all belong to. It points to a way of seeing that’s beyond our usual time and space mindset. We all have a role in this life. In the dream I was able to see a particular person’s role. We each connect in our own way to essence, each of us a unique thread. If we accept ourselves, we may give ourselves and others permission to be who and what they rightly are.
In the dream in which I’m suffering over a long ago created wound, I see that we carry the quality of unworthiness as a result of unresolved pain. The question it raises is, “will I accept the position of personal meanness at the expense of another part of myself?” If I do, then I keep the wound. It festers and exhibits itself through my way of meeting the world. I relate this to the metaphor of Adam and Eve who when they turned against the rules set out for them about how to live in the garden, that deviation becomes a wound that over time continues to spiral out and express itself in the world.
The facts and circumstances of our lives are in a way unimportant. We’re meant to see reflectively and the facts and circumstantial details aren’t what’s important. What we must notice is that projection exists and our projection penetrates through the ethers. Our role is to flush the projections out, face them, and redeem them. Until we do, we are bewitched, and live in purgatory. This is about taking responsibility for the collateral damage we’ve caused in the world.
So often we know we have a guilt or an anger, and yet we don’t recall where it began. These becoming malingering veils around the heart keep us repressed that continue to play out in time and space. All of these dreams show different aspects of the process.
Suggested Contemplations
In what way do you relate to the idea of carrying old wounds and impressions? How may your dreams have addressed this. How do you experience the holding of old wounds in your waking life? What effects might those wounds be having on your experiences?
When a moment arises in which you feel particularly reactive, take a moment to consider that your reaction may be due to an old wound that you carry. Step back inside yourself and give it space. Allow yourself a waking dream to explore it in real time. Let this inform how you respond to the situation before you.
Keep notes in your journal about these experiences. Before going to bed you may ask yourself to dream about the wounds you carry and by doing so you may receive more information.
“The dream is the utterance of the unconscious. Just as the psyche has a diurnal side which we call the consciousness, it has a nocturnal side which is the unconscious psychic activity that we apprehend as dreamlike fantasy.” - Carl Jung
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