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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 FridayTo 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 PostThirty 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'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
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 PostJosephine,
>>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 · ReportPamela 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 PostThank 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
