The other night I had an interesting dream.

 

I dreamt that I was flying, without being on a plane. I was on a mission from up there. My mission involved six people: three men and three women. (One of the men happened to be Jack Nicholson, but that is irrelevant!) Oddly enough, I do not know what my actual mission was.

 

While I was up there I was watching these three men on their journey to a far-off tropical land. Their goal was to study the culture of the tribal people there, but I knew they were really there to learn something about themselves.

 

The indigenous people of this land were a tribal nation, rich in culture as well as costume.  Jack and the other two men felt they would be more welcome if they dressed like the natives. They all wore Hollywood bronzed skin. Jack’s outfit was the most stunning: brilliant orangey-bronze pants with a matching band tightly strapped around his chest.   

 

While they were gone, the wives of these three men decided they wanted to know what their spouses were up to. Jack’s wife was somehow suddenly given the information that she could visit them in spirit without having to get her body down there. She told the others, and the three spirits went immediately down to the far-off land.

 

I continued to watch all of this from above. I saw the wives while they were back at home, and I saw their spirits now in the far-off land. Jack’s wife amazed me the most. Her first comment upon arrival was not anything about how awesome it was to be able to travel in spirit form.  She just went straight into a rant about Jack’s costume!

 

As I witnessed this, I wondered whether the men would be able to see their wives. I never learned the answer, as my dog woke me up just then.

 

The feeling this dream left me with was one of awe. My spirit felt as light as it might if I really had flown.

 

Do dreams such as this serve a purpose? I am certain that they do. 

I had a lovely visit with my Dad on Christmas morning. The details of the visit are somewhat sketchy and not all that important. Dad gave me a Christmas gift of love.

 

During his lifetime, Dad had many labels associated with his name. Some were pleasant, and some were not so pleasant. Now they are all gone. What remains is only love. Pure beautiful love.

 

Some might argue that “a dream” about a departed loved one hardly constitutes a visit. I beg to differ. This was a visit.

There was once a young man of Chinuktuk. He was a quiet and soft-spoken fellow. He went about his business every day, and very few people saw or heard him. As time went on, he realized he was becoming lonely. He decided it was time he find himself a companion. He knew that civilization existed outside of the little cocoon he lived in. He ventured out and successfully snared a young woman into his life.

 

Life was good for the young man and his new companion now. They were happy. They were living in the rose-colored champagne of the honeymoon season.

 

As time went on, the young man noticed that his young partner was less than perfect. The young man himself was also not perfect, but he wanted his partner to be so. He became openly critical of her, publicly correcting her imperfections. Unfortunately, this did not make his partner more perfect. It only deepened her imperfections. The more he criticized, the more she erred.

 

The young woman was deeply hurt by how the young man had turned on her. She kept a brave face by day, but cried herself to sleep at night. She told herself it was ok, and that she would try harder. Then everything would be alright.

 

This story does not end here. There are several different ways this tale could go. It is entirely up to the young couple which path they will follow…

 

Does criticism have the desired effect?

One form of dream we often find ourselves immersed in is the release dream. Release dreams are those dreams that our mind conjures up in order to release the stresses of the day. A release dream may be nonsensical in its lightest form or a horrific nightmare in its extreme form.

In a dream I had a couple of years ago, my entire extended family came piling into our house, because “we had room”. All of my long-lost relatives and all of their kids squeezed in, and then my basement filled with water. Suddenly, the house lifted off and floated away. I feel that this was purely a release dream. None of these things are logical. At the time, my son was engaged to be married, and we were, in fact, expecting some family members to fly in and stay with us. The dream was just my mind’s way of creating a worst-case scenario. I was worried about not having enough room, and my dream gave me an outlet to express that.

Nightmares are the release dreams that we all dread. We wake up short of breath with our hearts pounding. Sometimes we may even scream audibly. I had a nightmare a couple of nights ago. In it, my dog lost one of her legs in a highly unusual manner. The emotional response this invoked in me was horrific. I woke up, relieved that it was only a dream. In reality, that dream enabled me to live out a deep-seated fear I was having, about my slightly lame dog. Now the fact that she is only slightly lame is much easier to bear.

Release dreams may or may not be fun while we are dreaming them, but they serve a valid and valuable purpose.

I never really thought of myself as being imaginative. Now, I’m starting to think I may have underestimated myself. Some of the symbolism I see in my dreams shows me that I do have imagination. I just wasn’t aware of it.

Take last night, for example. Last night’s dream saw me going up and down some hallways, looking for a particular gym. Someone was with me, but I don’t know who it was. I did appear to know the person in the dream. I asked someone else for directions, and was sent to the wrong place. All the while I was carrying a blanket with something wrapped inside.

What I see here is my life. The hallways represented the many paths I have taken, or could choose to take in my life. The fact that I never found the place I was looking for indicates that I am having difficulty achieving something, or maybe I am uncertain whether I am on the right path. The person who misdirected me tells me that whatever it is I am looking for, or hoping to achieve, I will have to find or do it on my own. The bundle I was carrying represents a burden in my life. The bundle was very precious to me, as I didn’t put it down, but held it close to me as if it were a baby.

Sounds like my life in a nutshell. I have been uncertain lately, as to whether I am still in the right profession, or at least with the right employer. My burden, I suspect is my precious old puppy, who is blind and a little bit lame.

Dreams are a great way for us to relive our current situations in life. I do not know why we change things up by dreaming in code, but it does seem to happen a lot.

Dreams are something we all have in common. We may not always remember them, but we all dream. It’s part of our normal sleep cycle.
Last night I had one of  those dreams that makes you think ???what the heck??? My dream was very simple. I was looking at some images that I had apparently taken. My daughter came along and said that they were good, and that I should post them. I started to think back about other photos I had seen, and suddenly something hit me: they all had four corners! My images were round, of course! The lens in the camera is round, so my images were round. Why on earth were everyone elses’ four-cornered? It bothered me and puzzled me. 
When I woke up, the first thing I asked my husband was, ”Why do cameras take four-cornered photos when their lenses are round?” He gave me a logical answer, but really, I was asking the wrong question. My real question should have been why would I dream such a thing?   I do not know anyone who can tell me the answer to that. I have come to the conclusion that we need to find these answers ourselves. The best answer I can come up with, today, is that I see things differently than most people. Apparently, I needed to be reminded of that.