Dreamscape
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
~Zora Neale Hurston
The woman stood alone on a small barren island no larger than a child’s wading pool. Endless blue water stretched out in all directions, its waves lapping rhythmically past the isolated mound of sand. Color drained from her face as she watched the island edges crumble away at an alarming rate and dissolve into the salty water. As the sand disappeared she began to sink, her fear rising as quickly as the water that would soon engulf her. There was no thrashing, no gasping, just sinking. And then, the air was gone. Her lifeless body drifted downward, and as it did, her soul emerged and gently helped her physical form settle to the ocean floor. Her spirit essence arranged the body nicely and then found a rock to sit on while she contemplated the situation. After a moment, she rose and stood a few feet from the head of her body and tossed what looked like a peach towards it. As the fruit was about to land on the head, the body instinctively raised its hand and hit it away, causing the fruit to fly at and hit a small wooden cupboard only a short distance away. Again the spirit tossed a peach, only to have it batted away. This happened three times before the body got up and walked over to the cupboard. As she did this, the spirit came over and rejoined her body. The woman opened the top glass doors of the cupboard, reached in, took out a purple onion, peeled off the outside paper skin and took a bite.
My dream ended there. I read and re-read my journal entry and swallowed against the awareness that was emerging from the symbolic dream I had had years earlier*. At the time, I woke up knowing the woman was me, but had no idea what the fruit represented, or why I would prefer an onion over a peach, and I was all too familiar with that sinking feeling. I realized that what I had been unearthing during my therapy sessions fit the dream in an oddly symbolic and consistent manner.
I must give credit to my subconscious in regards to preparing myself for the onslaught of images I was recovering in weekly therapy sessions. I didn’t waste any time in plunging right into the horror, but then again, I was asking for the truth - and the truth was horrible. I could easily see how I was demonstrating my preference to the layered bitterness of an onion over accepting a “sweetened version” of what I thought my reality was, and in a very real way I had to immerse myself in the fluid memory recovery, separate from an old way of thinking to allow myself to reengage in a new way of partnership with myself.
Dreams have always been a mysterious and wonderful part of the human experience. Their messages and symbolism can perplex the best of us. They have a tendency to create enough of a disturbance, that upon awakening, the dreamer knows that something had moved in upon a quiet moment of rest, demanding an audience with the consciousness.
Often, as dreamers grapple with the intrusion that created such an internal stir, the dreams are repeated to others in serious, playful, or even mystical ways that gives one permission to validate the experience. It can soon become apparent that patterns and symbols from the unconscious make little sense to a practical mind, and can even teeter on the absurd. Within this context a choice is offered to the one whose unconscious braved an attempt to communicate: forget and dismiss, or listen and understand. If the dreamer succumbs to the analysis of common reasoning, the dream is surrendered and drifts away on the wind of forgetfulness. When a desire for internal communication is present, then hopes of interpretation move the dreamer to ask questions. It is truly a beautiful process of self communication that one embarks upon when discovering the messages that are offered from within.
Maybe it stems from hopes of making this process easier that books and articles have been written to offer a template to those wishing to interpret their dreams. But what soul is designed from a mold or created from a template? I would propose that the dreamer knows the dream and it is only the inner-language that needs to be learned.
There is a parable that illustrates God as a potter shaping clay; using no template or cookie cutter as the creation is designed. Mysterious, puzzling, and potentially inspiring, dreams offer each individual an invitation to step inside and listen to their own stories. Asking The Creator and Yourself for answers is an honest way to connect and understand. There are examples of interpretive help, such as the Bible story of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dream of the seven ears of corn and the seven kine, that boldly illustrates the effectiveness of giving audience to odd symbols or strange metaphors and desiring an interpretation of them. Heaven does not leave you without guides as you embark on the terrain the dreamscape offers. It will manifest its message just as fully as it you give it time and space.
After years of unearthing the truth, I can confirm that the symbolic ground I previously stood on has crumbled from under me and I quickly felt consumed. I rested in the depths of the water - a spiritual conduit - as I honor my spiritual self for contemplating the state I was in, and then witnessing choice when offering a sweet peach (more than once). My Self was able to join my physical form when I chose to address what was previously closed (or ignored), open the doors of a cupboard that lay in the deep and draw out an onion; a bitter, layered, unpleasantly raw experience that I willingly bit into.
Dreams, books, key friends, and personal experiences each played a part in guiding me into unfamiliar territory where questions became more abundant and the journey to answers beckoned.
*This dream occurred in 2000, and therapy began in 2003. The original composition of these thoughts were written in 2005. Much of what I have written has been waiting for close to 20 years to be shared.
