DARKNESS's blog: "Dreams"

Time travel is a common dream event. There is rarely a time machine involved. Rather, the dream story simply unfolds in another era of time, past or future. These dreams often represent either the romance or hopes we attribute to moments other than our present. You may find that the dream stems from your desire to identify with particular mores of a time period or to influence certain events. If you spontaneously dream of going backwards in time, it is most likely a dream of romantic wish-fulfillment. The good old days seem to conjure images of heroism, nobility, morality, and social life that, while not altogether accurate, draw our admiration. Often there is a facet of your personality that you feel you could more easily tap into as a pioneer, statesman, damsel in distress, or some other stereotypical image of history. Most times, the time travel is confluent with your particular image of an archetypal dream character. For example, if you are dreaming a warrior/hero archetype, you may personify yourself in the dream as a medieval knight.

The dream plot often is forwarded along by very unusual events (e.g. suddenly the room turns blue and everyone disappears). Other times, a cryptic message works its way into the dream event. Often the code is symbolic rather than alpha-numeric, though it can be either. Other times, it is a riddle. Whether or not you can decode the message becomes the dream conflict. If you can decode the message, does it mean anything to you? It may make perfect sense to you, but mean nothing to others in the dream, or vice versa. The point is that the message was decoded, showing insight. The relative meaning lies in whether or not the insight can be appropriated by the dreamer. If you cannot decode the message, you may be experiencing life as incomprehensible at some level. This dream reveals that truth of your conscious life. The key is to look at who in the dream serves as a source of knowledge about the code. Who gave you the message? What was the reaction of others is when they learned of the message? Are they worried for you, nonchalant, or joyful?

Many times, life feels like a journey. Not surprisingly, in dreamland, the journey becomes confused. This may be a simple reflection of a dream that did not make sense or a dream story that did not seem to go anywhere. However, there are two ways to become lost, both of which say a lot about how we view ourselves in waking. First is being lost because you have choices and lack the ability to know which one to make. This may include dreams of driving a car, mall dreams, amusement park dreams, or other dreams where opportunities become uncertain. The other version of feeling lost is isolation, or a sense that motion is not leading to progress. Which image of feeling lost most accurately conveys your awareness in the dream? If you are lost due to choices, you may be at a point in life where you are unsure of what you want. This may include vocational, relationship, or personal values that seem up-for-grabs. It may also reflect an inability to see where a particular choice will take you if you make it. If you are lost due to motion that does not lead to progress, you may be pretty ambivalent about whether your waking life is meaningful. Your ability to feel effective in life is being compromised in some area that needs a little examination.

Asleep / Sleeping Dreams of being asleep are not unusual. After all, it is the actual state of your body while you are dreaming. However, dreams of being asleep are not usually dreams of being at rest. Sleeping is one of our most vulnerable circumstances in life. When you are asleep, your cares are disarmed, your ability to defend yourself is limited, and your care for others in a practical manner is practically impossible. Dreams of this nature often reflect either our great ease or a sense of violation in life. How you awake, and who wakes you up, are important elements to consider.

Journey The longer one's life, the more apparent it becomes that. life is not a destination, but rather a journey of searching for meaning, understanding, and ultimately happiness. While we don't necessarily characterize our dreams as journeys, there is a sense in which our waking journey is sometimes affected by our most powerful or memorable dreams. Many dreams include needing to travel from A to B before progress is made in completing the dream task. Many times, this traveling is the challenge. The elements may be uncooperative or contrary. Traveling machines may be magically powerful or nonsensical and unreliable. Sometimes, we are simply walking across a field, down a road, up a hill, through the forest, or along the cliffs on our journey. The environment around us along the way can be familiar, strange, friendly, anxiety-ridden, and a host of other possibilities. The purpose of the traveling and the companions along the way can be significant. The journey is often a symbol for trying to find what is needed to bring life into equilibrium. This is the task of finding one's place in the universe. It could also be characterized as the archetypal search for the most authentic self. In either of these metaphors, there is the idea that our souls tend to be a little restless at times. The journey is the task of finding out what the soul needs to quiet that restlessness. In waking life, this is played out by the I need a change feeling that crops up every now and then. The process of individuating yourself from the expectations and influences of others conjures feelings along these lines. In dreaming, we often travel alone, leaving others behind by choice or necessity, to find what our next task is. Along the way, who we meet and what we partake in may reveal much about where our individual struggle is in the waking, conscious self. We may encounter strangers with whom there is an adversarial relationship or a romantic one. We may encounter mystical strangers who unlock unknown powers within us or withdraw particular powers from us. In either case, the journey is our personal goal, and how we experience others during the process says much about the relationships of our waking world. Is your destination known to others, or held in confidence? Do others invite you to accompany them, vice versa, or are you on a solitary trip? Can others direct you, or are you traveling to an unknown place? Answers to these questions influence the meaning of the dream in your life.

Time Riddles Timing and time riddles can be a difficult element of dream interpretation. Since dreams occur in a fantasy-like mindset, there are few controls on how time is perceived. One dream may seem to happen in real time: twenty minutes of events in a given REM cycle. Another dream may occur in a series of edited scenes that happen over the course of days, weeks, years, or an unfathomable period of time. Other dreams still may seem outside of any time constraints whatsoever. One way to discern elapsed dream time is to simply recall the scenes and then try to identify any chronological changes. Another is to think about numbered items in the dream and associate that number with time periods in your life. If your dream watch says 5:15, this could be the time, the date, or an elapsed time between two ages; in this case, perhaps five and fifteen years old. These riddles are both frustrating and wonderful. In them are the deeper nuances of dreaming. You may readily observe a cyclical pattern to life that repeats periodically. You may recall when your maturity or self-awareness changed and how long that transition took. Numerous insights are available in these ways. Sometimes the aspect of time within a dream may affect the emotional milieu of the dream; a real time dream will probably offer a different emotional background than a scattered time dream.

Problem-solving Problem-solving in a dream situation and solving waking-life problems through dreaming are two very different experiences. The former is a dream event while the latter uses the dream event to address waking concerns. In dreams, you may find yourself able to solve more problems than you normally do in waking. Problems that you can solve in dreams are virtually limitless because you are not bounded by logic. Many times this can work to the dreamer's advantage. If you are able to solve problems effectively, it is a reflection of untapped competence in a particular area of your life. The idea of problem-solving through dreaming comes from the saying, Let me sleep on it. The ego is designed to differentiate which ideas are allowed to enter consciousness. Consequently, some thoughts are dismissed before they even get a chance for deliberation. The problem is that most of us are prejudiced by our experience to eliminate potentially good solutions to our problems. This is due to the neurosis that is part and parcel of every personality. By sleeping and dreaming about a particular problem, your mind accesses a broader variety of problem solving choices than it would normally have the ability to recognize. When you awaken, you may not remember the specific dream content, but the problem may be miraculously resolved. Always take note of the methods used in your dream situations to solve problems therein. Is there any situation in life that may benefit by employing similar tactics?