Dream work

One of my interests has been dream analysis partly or maybe mainly because I have very vivid, colorful dreams. Most of mine are easy to understand. They relate to what I am doing during the day or sometimes are a fantasy story that I create for amusement, much like watching a movie. Some though, I have come to believe, are to give me insights into my life. June 11th, I awoke from such a dream.

In the dream I was painting on a large canvas. Parapluie was also painting but elsewhere and not sure what she was painting, but mine started out looking toward a waterfall and painting it, then I added an old barn, a goldfish and its fishbowl. Nothing was going very well. The goldfish was coming out the worst as it seemed to get smeared with the bright orange paint. The old barn was changed into one fallen down.

The dream was a frustration and even though a friend was nearby, she wasn't really part of either the frustration or the solution. There were three key elements, none of which seemed to go together-- goldfish in bowl of water, waterfall, and old barn or its remains. Basically as frustrating as I sometimes find painting, dreaming about painting was worse. Despite painting for years, I don't remember ever dreaming about doing it.

The reason I thought this dream might be trying to tell me something was because nothing in it fit together.

Sometimes, when I have what seems to me to be major dreams, I do a digital painting of the parts. As I worked on this one, I tried to keep the sketch to what it had felt like in the dream-- a little misty, not very good-- and putting the basic elements where they had been. I might have improved the goldfish a little...

I do not try to interpret every dream. Most are just mind traffic; but when I do, I start by thinking what I believe it meant to me. In this case, the main feeling I had was frustration that I could not make the painting work. I was in the position of creating it and deciding what went into it but nothing was going well or fit together. I think the dream reflected my desire to create my life, to get things how I want them to be and my feeling that things keep changing and I can't get a clear vision for what should be done.

Why would I do a painting of those three elements together? To find their potential meanings, I went to the dream dictionary that is my favorite:

Dream Dictionary

To see a waterfall in your dream, is symbolic of letting go. You are releasing all those pent up emotions and negative feelings. The dream may also represent your goals and desires. In particular, if the waterfall is clear, then it represents revitalization, regeneration and renewal.

To see a barn in your dream, signifies feelings kept in your unconscious. There is a possibility that you may be holding back your instinctual action or natural urges. [So when I collapsed it in the painting, perhaps it means I know I need to stop holding back?]

To see a goldfish in your dream, signifies, wealth, success, and pleasant adventures. Alternatively, goldfish represents some important emotional matter or valuable insight. [The goldfish was the main element I was having trouble painting.]

I thought since I saw the goldfish in a bowl, it wouldn't hurt to look that up also. To see a bowl in your dream, symbolizes the womb and sense of security. Consider the condition of the bowl and how it is treated or handled in the dream. This may offer clues as to how you feel you are being treated in a particular relationship.

The only really strong color in the dream was the goldfish and that was emphasized by repainting it several times-- unsuccessfully: Orange denotes hope, friendliness, courtesy, lively, sociability, and an out-going nature. You may want to expand your horizons and look into new interests.

Since my reason for doing this blog was to give others an idea of how to work with dreams, I won't go further with my own interpretation of this one. I will say it was helpful to me. Sometimes when we hear a message from our subconscious, we take it more seriously.

One more point, interesting to me at least, was that the night of the 10-11th, others said they had similar type dreams with different elements but similarly feelings of frustration as they tried to master something that wasn't working. Maybe insight waves come through that we can catch-- or not.

Some say they don't dream; but if we sleep deeply, we all dream. It's a question of what we do with them. If we are not in a habit of using them, perhaps we lose them. Our subconscious knows what we dreamed even if we don't. It might be impacting our daytime (positively or negatively) but we are unaware of how. I believe it's worth the work of trying to retrieve dreams.

There are many tools to help that happen. When going to bed at night, ask for a meaningful, helpful dream. When waking in the middle of the night with one, stop and write it down. No matter how vivid nighttime dreams seem to be for me at the time, by morning I rarely remember mine either.

A useful tool is a dream journal alongside the bed, then writing down the dream and its elements while they are fresh. Do this even if dreams don't seem important because it's building a skill. For me, telling someone the dream right away, which of course requires someone else in the bed, helps me remember them later. Maybe saying them out loud without someone would do the same thing, not sure.

Think of the emotions in the dream, what you think it might have meant before going to a good dream site or book to look for possible meanings to things like say goldfish. I also like doing a small painting of them (digital makes that very easy) as I am thinking how this could apply to my daily life.

To me, meaningful dreams are an encouragement that there is more to us than flesh and bone. We do have a 'spiritual' nature, something we cannot explain by logic, whatever someone might want to label it.