a dream of the nighttime sort

Last week I had a lot of negative nighttime dreams. If you do dream work, you know that the average dream comes out of daytime events. In my opinion, most don't have a message as such. When so many are negative, it can be reflective of something read, seen, or simply routine daytime tensions. The outside world provides plenty of those these days.

Nightmares are rare for me but one nightmare last week was set in a small town (not one I know) and about bigotry, people choosing sides and it became very violent. Quite a vivid dream, but I did not see any message for me beyond the story. Although the bomb blast was very colorful, like seeing it in 3-D.

The rest of the dreams I won't go into but they were routine tension inspiring. If I was tense during the day, I was more so every time I'd wake up from these nothing-is-going-right dreams.

Then came Friday night's dream and a change of pattern. The story was a simple one. I was with a family, which in the dream was my family, but not sure they were my family today. Children, adults, a mother figure, myself, lots of activity.

Someone broke a glass leaving shards all over the floor. I was concerned children with bare feet might step on the pieces and began carefully picking them up. When I had one hand full of sharp pieces, I hoped I had them all and headed for where I could throw them away.

To get to a safe place to dispose of them, I had to go through a narrow slot where it quickly became obvious it was going to be necessary to use both hands and slide carefully through.

In dreams, places often shift; and this narrow space was nothing like the house but more like a very low cliff with a narrow gate opening. With a hand full of glass shards, there was no way to get through. What to do? Put down the glass pieces and risk not finding them all endangering the family still? Find another path? It didn't seem like there was another path.

Then I said to myself, this is just a dream, I don't need to keep my hand closed to go on. There is no glass to drop or hurt anybody. It felt like I actually had my hand clenched in my sleep, opened it; and of course, no glass fell.

What happened is the kind of thing I experience once in awhile in a dream. It can be called lucid dreaming. It's where in your dream you realize you are dreaming and take control of the events. Your conscious mind enters into the dream and changes it to a more suitable conclusion.

This one though I also would call a medicine dream-- my own term for when a dream has a message in it for my life. In this case, it was that I can let go of the things I am trying to hold onto as a way to protect others. What I am so afraid of releasing often is no more real than the shards in the dream.

I/We can control of our own lives when we do not let what is unreal have power over us. This is especially true when we are trying to do things thinking they will protect others. To me, the dream was a reminder of what I know, but the idea had more power when it came through a dream.

(There was no ocean in the dream but I had so many pictures from the coast that I wanted to slide a few more in somewhere. In a way, the sea is like dreaming-- wide, expansive, and seemingly unlimited-- okay, yeah, that was a justification.)