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• Josephine Cutaran Gibbs

  I could have titled this topic dream interpretation but you wouldn't check it out,

  so I need your opinions. I just woke up at 3 am from a peculiar dream, though not disturbing but strange. I dreamed that I was talking to my father (who has been

  dead ten years next month). In the dream, I was asking my father (he looked happy

  and youthful) about where I should go to work. This question is asked within the

  dream as though it really was in a parallel reality in which I am a law graduate,

  just as he wanted me to become, not the art teacher that I rebelled of being.

  
  He answered,'Well tell me where you want to work? In the dream I answered with

  a list of a few places on my list (I can't remember them). He laughed and said, 

  thats the problem, you have a list when it should only be just the one and you

  go after that one single-mindedly until they succumbed and take you in. He also concluded that I need to be more assertive and to be more forceful in pursuing

   what I want. I woke up and wrote this topic.
  
  Should I listen to his advice literally or does the dream have a hidden meaning?

  There is a tinge of self-consciousness in this question too, that brings to mind

  the ideas about the self that i was talking about (the idea that the context and 

  people in our life determines who we are). If that were so and that I have retained

  my father in my head because I was convinced that we conversed face to face, 

  to me he was real and not just a memory.

  What do you think about this? Please share anecdotes of something similar, 

  if you have any.

  last Friday

• Josephine Cutaran Gibbs

  To explain the title of the topic;
  I used the title because I notice that we go off topic all the time and this is fine but it would be good to explain a text if you introduce it here. Not all of us might have 

  already read it. Thats what exegesis mean, isn't it, explaining a book that someone

  wrote and adding your ideas in hindsight?

  last Friday · Delete Post

• 
  

  

  
  
  Lyman Paul Grover wrote:

  Thirty years ago when I was into dream interpretation in conjunction with Jungian analysis (and found it VERY helpful), I learned that there is a difference in the validity of what a dream is telling you depending on what stage of sleep you are in. Deep REM sleep is when the validity is the greatest. Dreams that occur just before you awaken in the morning are the least valid because the names of the people in your dream are picked at random from your semi-conscious mind to play the parts of the 'play'.
  
  There are dream interpretation books out there, but many are written by charlatans. I would be very careful where I get my information, if I were you, and especially beware of advice from an elderly male with no dream-interpretation credentials onthe PIS forum. ;)
  

  last Friday · Report

• Josephine Cutaran Gibbs

  'Deep REM sleep is when the validity is the greatest.' The dream was during

  REM stage because the dream went on for a long time but without my father

  in it anymore. By the time I woke up the dream have broken up into many

  confused and unrelated narratives that I have forgotten except the bit on

  an argument with my siblings which woke me up with a pissed off feeling but

  I didn't want to emphasize that bit.
  
  I shortened the dream for you guys for clarity because I laid in bed tossing

  and turning and then, remembered the vivid part of the dream with Papa.

   I missed the guy all over again, decided to get up, posted stuff in

  Facebook and gone back to bed. I am here again but remembered no

  dreams as usual, not for a long time. This is why I bothered to write a

  topic about it here.
  
  Please explain how Jungian analysis work on interpreting dreams

  please Lyman. No, you are not uncredentialled, you are being

  overly modest i think.

  last Friday · Delete Post

• 
  

• Josephine Cutaran Gibbs

  I can rely on you to state the obvious thing Aaron but although I agree

  with you there, Lyman has point that in trying to understand myself, 

  I can use other people's ideas to get my handle on this introspection

  through this dream of mine. Asking for outside advice will gain me 

  distance from the subject, which allow me to move forward and 

  understand it better, so to speak. So far I 'm reading Jung's key

  archetypes and it is exciting reading but maybe sort of too

  airy fairy for you.

  last Friday · Delete Post

• 
  

• Pamela Chng wrote:

  Josephine,
  
  >>Asking for outside advice will gain me distance from

  the subject, which allow me to move forward and understand

  it better, so to speak.<<
  
  But how, and why would you want to distance yourself from the

  subject (i.e. your vivid dream?). You have experienced something, 

  perhaps extremely meaningful, through a dream. Unless you are

  sceptical about it?
  
  Early last year, my dad had one such dream. He described it as very

  frightening but very real. In the dream, he was trapped in the

  pitch-black darkness of a house alone. In his desperation to find

  a way out, he called out to my mum (who passed some 31 years ago, 

  but he still constantly talked about her). She was also calling out to him,

  trying to help him find his way out, and it went on for some time. 

  In the end, he felt a hand (supposedly my mum's) grab him from above.

  
  Nobody could make out what the meaning of the dream was, but my

  dad often had vivid dreams, and this was one of them. Not long after

  he had that dream, he suffered a seizure while undergoing a minor

  operation to remove a blood clot in his head. He went into a coma for

  about a month and awoke to a paralysed body. Today, I could see his

  consciousness through his eyes, his thoughts and words trapped in a

  body that would not respond. The meaning of his dream became clear to us.
  
  While my dad was in coma, an uncle had a dream where my late mum

  handed over a black 'box' to my brother and told him to give it to my dad.

  We still could not make out what this 'box' is, and it looks like

  we'll never find out.
  
  So, were you sceptical about your dream, Josephine? The incident with

  my dad could well have been a coincidence, but I tend to believe that

  vivid dreams like yours have a hidden message. We just don't know 

  what this message is. Thanks for sharing it with us anyway. :)

  on Saturday · Report

• Josephine Cutaran Gibbs

  Pamela said,
  'But how, and why would you want to distance yourself from the

  subject (i.e. your vivid dream?). You have experienced something, 

  perhaps extremely meaningful, through a dream. Unless you are

   sceptical about it?'
  
  First, I reply to how;
  I can gain distance by seeing through another's perspective but

  magnified a thousand times. I am reading your comments as though

  I am looking at me looking at myself on a mirror. It is like a window

   of free associations to infinity or is that too crazy?
  
  I must tell you that I am intrigued by your 'box'. It exemplified 

  a plethoric symbol encapsulating a wealth of meaning and

  resonance for a pragmatist with a penchant for occasional

  mysticism. Like you, speculating on its meaning or possible

  meanings, so engrossed was i enough to make me nearly late

  for work this morning. I was just stunned and just quietly sat and

  thinking inwardly about it, until my son asked if was going to

  work or not on the way to school. I barely made my last train

  to North Sydney. Frankly, I still can't get over it.

  
  Second, why:
  The reason is hard to explain, but the closest justification to my

  vision of asking you comment on something of personal nature, 

  is attempting to grasp on to something that might be universal; 

  what I went through might have been vivid but it was merely a dream, 

  not reality-a construct of my mind or a pastiche out my memories

  and ultimately false. Do you get it?
  
  Thank you so much for the story of your father Pamela and I feel 

  enriched by that story, possibly more than I can ever express to 

  you through this medium. I just want to give you a comforting 

  hug as a thank you. You're right, I take anything with a degree 

  of skepticism but the sincerity behind the telling rings true to 

  me and that's enough.
  

  on Monday · Delete Post

• Josephine Cutaran Gibbs

  Thank you James for your psuedoanalysis or psychoanalysis.
  'Why?
  Well, It is my dream and we can only figure it out posteriori, 

  it has already happened. Also, if you go back to my topic 

  'About time for Philosophy discussion', a dream is like a 

  capsule of time. I could not re-dream it exactly as i 

  remembered but my objective memory of it is already 

  hazy in retrospect. Am i making sense? In a way, from 

  the realtivity theories by Einstein to the most new agey 

  crackpot speculations can easily be applied to interpret 

  my dream dialogue with my dead father.
  
  'Is it because you believe that most people are afraid or 

  hate or refute Sigmund Freud? Oh not at all, I am open to 

  that as well. It's all good.
  'Are those your dreams or your educations?'
  
  I am not sure how to answer that question, I may need 

  more information.
  
  'Do dreams usually cause you to awake at such obscene 

  hours of the day?'
  
  I usually sleep like a log. My husband is the light sleeper 

  in the family in fact, he told me I was snoring (embarsssing, 

  I know). It was a surprise that I was awake before he was for a change.
  
  'Thus, the tenth anniversary of your father's death must 

  have a particular toll onto your emotional life? I would 

  not know.' I haven't realised that until i started writing 

  about it. No, the pain has mostly faded but the grief still 

  grip me at unexpected moments like seeing and my 

  brother's face and seeing my Papa again, very startling.
  
  'I would not know. My own father still lives. ' 

  You must tell him you love him, despite everything 

  like awkwardness maybe between father & son.
  
  'Why was he happy and youthful?'
  In the dream, he still had all his hair, smiling, very 

  charming and handsome. He was a respected man 

  but feared too. All I can say is that he was a military 

  law-enforcer and a leader of men. He was the LAW 

  in our small town, if not on the whole island- a fiefdom. 

  I really felt like a princess too and a with a self-satisfied 

  smirk of confidence and self-assuredness, that only 

  the most secure and privileged can have, which so 

  irritated many about me even today. It was a shock 

  to come to another country and be a nobody and 

  noone so much as toadied to get my favours, how 

  exasperating. Not fun. I couldn't blame anyone but 

  myself since I ran away from all that, it was romantic 

  and I was in love.
  
  'Was he young when he died?' He was sixty but thats 

  old age where i came from. He retired and that was a 

  mistake. he had lung cancer from smoking like chimney 

  all his life.
  'Was your mind drifting toward old photographs or 

  memories?' No i havent, my regret from leaving home 

  in a hurry and forgot to take childhood photos. This is 

  why it was so peculiar and so vivid but i've already stated that.
  
  'Or, was that what you wanted to see?' Perhaps James. 

  I was convinced that i sat opposite him at the hut outside

   the family house, where the family sat in the afternoons, 

  after the midday heat. It can be very hot in the tropics. 

  The heat is moist and humid, you can almost cut it with a knife.
  
  'Maybe you just wanted the advice of a person in this world 

  (now or then) that you would actually trust.' Had he still lived, 

  he would have said it exactly so.
  
  'He, your father, would give you his honest opinion if the job 

  was the best for you' But I am not a friggin lawyer, excuse 

  the French. I love being a teacher. In some ways, I could 

  have been one but a bad arrogant one too. No thanks.
  
  'Lawyers are art teachers, don't ever let yourself deny that. 

  The law is just a prettier art. Look at of a child and then 

  compare it to the art of Michelangelo. Michelangelo was 

  the lawyer compared to the art teacher.'
  
  I've no idea what you mean. is it suppose to be a joke?
  
  'And, in the actual dream, he did not get that far. 

  You just filled in what you wanted. Wish-fulfillment.' 

  Yes, that's possible.
  
  'You should take some more time to ask the living 

  folks in your life.'
  I've asked everyone living including you. You are part 

  of my narrative now, whether you like it or not.
  

  on Monday · Delete Post