“A dream that has not been interpreted is like a letter that has not been opened.” – The Talmud Dreams: God’s Forgotten Language (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989) is the title of a book by John A. Sanford, a Jungian analyst and Episcopal priest, in which the dreams and visions in the Bible are brought to prominence and treated for their psychological significance. In the theological scheme that has come to have importance for me, dreaming, like intuition, is a valid way of knowing. Dreams are symbolic messages from the unconscious that come to guide me to health and wholeness. They tap my inner wisdom; they speak from and for my deepest self – my Self.
For nearly ten years, I have been participating regularly in dream groups -- small, intimate groups of three or four people who meet with a trained facilitator to share dreams and to search together for their meaning. From that activity, I have gained significantly in self-understanding and self-acceptance, as well as in adjustment from the professional world to retirement. In this “Musing,” I hope to encourage participation in dream work as an integral part of a spiritual journey by offering two of my own dreams with their interpretations.
First, however, for those who are relatively unfamiliar with dream work, I pass along these principles, as stated by Jeremy Taylor in his book: Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill: Using Dreams to Tap the Wisdom of the Unconscious (New York: Warner Books, 1992).
1. All dreams come in the service of health and wholeness.
2. No dream comes just to tell the dreamer what he or she already knows.
3. Only the dreamer can say with any certainty what meaning his or her
dream may hold.4. The dreamer’s “aha” of recognition is a function of previously
unconscious memory and is the only reliable touchstone of dream work.5. There is no such thing as a dream with only one meaning.
6. All dreams speak a universal language of metaphor and symbol.
7. All dreams reflect inborn creativity and ability to face and solve life’s
problems.8. All dreams reflect society as a whole, as well as the dreamer’s
relationship to it.9. Working with dreams regularly improves relationships with friends,
lovers, partners, parents, children, and others.10. Working with dreams in groups builds community, intimacy, and
support and begins to impact on society as a whole. – (P. 11)I am a dancer as well as a dreamer. For more than 20 years I have participated in a Creative Movement – Improvisational Dance group, and I continue to do so half way through my seventh decade of life. Dance, therefore, is a metaphor that carries meaning for my life, as these two dreams indicate.
The Dancer Wore Red -- 11-9-96 I am at a World Series game, watching from down the first base line, not in the stands but in foul ground. It is about the fifth inning and the other team has a man on third base. It rains, a real downpour so heavy that I can hardly see across the field to third base. The umpires do not stop the game because of its importance and the difficulty of rescheduling. The final out in the inning is made, and I walk over to say to the first baseman, “Well, you kept him from scoring.”
The rain stops at the end of the inning and in the sky a cloud formation turns into a magnificent stage. It develops gradually, and I think it is becoming some kind of sign that the weather gods are looking kindly on the home team. But the ball game disappears and on the stage is a young woman dressed in red – a dancer’s sleeveless dress. The dancer has dark hair, is strong and athletic, though not visibly muscular, and not thin as dancers often are. She exudes health, and she begins to move across the field that is no longer a baseball stadium. As she dances near me, a young man, also dressed as a dancer, appears from behind me, and they make an improvisational dance. I watch, and at the end of the dance she comes to me, touches me on the shoulder, and says, “You are healed.” Then she moves away across the field. As the dream fades, I wish that I had danced with her, but I simply stand there watching her go.
Interpretation:
As the scene shifts from a baseball diamond, with its straight lines and its rules and regulations and its umpires whose judgments determine even whether the game should continue, to an open air arena in which dancing is not even confined to the stage, I am reminded that after a life time of conforming to the authority of parents, teachers and employers I am, in retirement, now free to improvise. I can dance through life rather than playing within lines and rules determined by others. The degree of structure my life requires is my decision to make. The umpires are my internal judges, and they have determined that the game will continue, as I determine that my game, my life, will go on, more freely than before, and that I am not on the losing side. The rain stops, and the clouds are transformed into the “magnificent stage” of development that I am entering.
The rain is cleansing; water is often a symbol of spirituality, and this is a heavy rain.
I stand in “foul ground,” and it sometimes feels that way as I look back, wishing that I had lived parts of my life differently. (Yet, much that is positive is happening at the time of the dream. There was the healing both of my relationship with a daughter and of a painful rift with a long-time friend; I had gained new insights into the ways that anger from my own unhappy childhood had been played out in my relationships with my children; and the creative process of turning these “Musings” into a book had begun.) The strong, creative dancer part of myself tells me that I am healed, and I know that this is an affirmation of fact, that I am whole. My need is not to be healed by an outside source (God?) but to claim the wholeness that is already mine, and to let that wholeness dance freely and in joy.
Red (the only color in the dream) is life force, fire, passion, attention-getting, and an indication of feeling good about oneself.
As my process of spiritual growth is reflected in my “Musings,” I have been moving from intellectuality toward feeling, from logos to eros. In the dream, my anima, the feminine aspect of myself, is healthy, vigorous, strong, physically balanced, passionate, celebrative. I am in touch with her, and at the same time wishing that I had taken the opportunity to join her in the dance (an aspect of me, the young man, had that experience).
Another masculine reference is to my father who was a semi-pro baseball player. He was, I think, disappointed that I was prevented by poor eyesight from being as athletic as he was, yet from him I gained a fascination with sports and continue to be a fan. The balance of masculine and feminine is reflected in this dream, though they are not yet integrated.
Ah, but that dancer is so alive, so free, so colorful, so dramatic. How I wish that I had “danced” through more of my life. I will meet her again, and we will dance together.
A Day for Dancing -- 1-20-99
I am in a dance class at a Big Ten university, maybe Purdue. There is a teacher, a man, but the dancing is purely improvisational. My partner, who is a regular member of the class, tells me that the teacher watches and takes notes and may make suggestions later, but he lets the dance flow on. I am a drop-in, not a regular class member, and that is OK. My partner through the entire time is a young blond woman, slim but not scrawny, dressed in a white blouse and pale green slacks. We hadn’t met before, but we move easily together, with a series of small lifts, then a bigger one. Neither of us leads; we just let the music and our own sensitivities guide our movement. We talk some, and I tell her about our daughter who was a dance major. At one point she comments quietly about a bit of impatience on my part as I move us into a particular set of moves, and I respond that she is right. (At that moment I had lost the flow and forced the dance with my own ego.) But we regain our balance and flow on, around and among other dancers and around tables that occupy some of the space. The tables seem arranged for a garage sale, with miscellaneous stuff on them. The space is open air on one or two sides, and the day is comfortably warm and mild – a lovely Spring day. We dance on and finally end the dance seated side by side under the end of one of the tables, in a space of our own, a kind of haven.Interpretation:
As Jeremy Taylor notes, dreams have meaning at several levels. The meaning that I saw immediately in this dream is the admonition to let go, to relax and stop trying to control so much of my life. I had been in a period of placing expectations on myself, still in that old work mode of needing to produce in order to insure that I am of value to the world. As previous dreams have reminded me, and as this one does, I am now free to be, rather than to do, and I can dance in that freedom. When I try to force the dance, balance and flow are lost, and my anima needs to remind me to lighten up.
Unlike the previous dream, I participate in this dance. I think if I had danced with the dancer in the red dress, I would have expected her to lead and I would have followed as best I could. But now my anima and I are in balance. This dancer is more real; she does not come from the clouds and disappear back into them. In both cases, the dancer represents the “maiden” figure of Greek mythology, one who has not yet given birth, who represents creative potential rather than fruition – a reference perhaps to the book that has not yet been written. And the dance has an ascendant quality; it is uplifting.
This anima is different from the feminine aspect of myself in the earlier dream. She is lithe and light, of a different strength, blond, and dressed in white and pale green, the colors of spring. This is another face of the goddess within, and, perhaps, a reminder that spring always comes. In an archetypal sense, the reminder is of Persephone, who had been kidnapped by Hades and was required to spend a portion of each year in the underworld. Those were the winter months, and she returns to the upper world at the beginning of spring.
Had I been in the underworld? Yes. Over the winter a close friend had suffered a catastrophic stroke, another friend had been diagnosed with cancer, and I was feeling less vigorous than usual. I was depressed, feeling my age, aware of my own mortality. I was in need of being uplifted by the reminder that spring always comes.
I was also to find relief in the garage sale tables that were filled with the old stuff that had weighed me down, was now being aired out, and would soon be gotten rid of.
There are a couple of other possible meanings in the dream. Do I sometimes feel like a “drop-in” in life, not a regular? Yes, sometimes, particularly when depression overtakes me – or am I sometimes depressed because I feel that I don’t quite belong? Both/and, I suspect.
And the teacher figure, as another aspect of myself, is the one who observes life and learns from it. That was my approach to teaching, and my book will flow from what I have learned from being as aware as possible. I will suggest to my readers that they take what they can use and leave the rest. The teacher part of me is the God-figure within. In the realm of pure potentiality, the dreamer and the scene become one, as in modern physics (or anthropology or perhaps any other science) the scientist/observer influences the outcome of the experiment.
Is there also a reference to God in Purdue? “Per Dieu?” (I didn’t quite have an “aha” when a member of the dream group asked that question, but, given my interests, it is worth considering.)
Note that while dancing I mention that I have fathered a feminine dancer, perhaps to establish my credentials for “dropping in” on the dance class.
And we end in a safe and comfortable place, perhaps a place where I can be with my muse more often.
Among all the dreams I have worked with, these two are memorable, perhaps pivotal, and certainly they have connected me with my inner source of health and wholeness.
My mentor for dream work is Carol Jones Conroy, a licensed professional counselor and dream interpretation facilitator. She has been of immeasurable help in the process of bringing my inner wisdom into consciousness, and I thank her.