Practical Example of Dreamwork
Yogic approach to dreams can be quite practical: if from all the dreams that we see during the night we are able to remember just a certain dream(s), it means that it carries information that’s useful for us. Something that can teach us, answer our questions and serve us as a base for improving ourselves and our lives.
Here is an example of this type of dreamwork where the dreamer was able to find useful practical advice that was wrapped in the thick layer of metaphor and presented in a dream as something seemingly “unrealistic”.
DREAM
Ted sees himself in Iraq being imprisoned by Saddam Hussein for using Hussein’s armed forces to attack the Iraqi leader (to attack Hussein). Somehow Ted escapes from the prison and rushes towards US Embassy in order to find safety on their territory.
BACKGROUND
Ted is former US citizen who renounced his American citizenship a few years ago because he is permanently living in another country. In his real life Ted has never been to Iraq and hasn’t experienced any military- or prison-related troubles.
Based on this personal background which seems absolutely unrelated with scenario of the dream, an inexperienced dream interpreter would be puzzled about the meaning of such dream and tempted to discard it as something odd and useless. In other cases dreams with similar scenarios (that feel like it’s about “another life”) may be understood by some dreamers as a literal vision of their past or parallel life. Even if it’s true and someone brought the information about their past life from behind the veil, what would be the purpose of retaining the memory of such vision? It has to be helpful in the current life, doesn’t it? Otherwise such vision wouldn’t be remembered because the veil is thick for a reason.
In this case Ted tried to find the message hidden in his dream that could be practically applied to his current life.
INTERPRETATION
Step 1. DECODE
Working with metaphor: extracting its pure meaning and summarising it as an abstract statement(s).
The whole scenario of this dream can be interpreted as a set of following abstract statements:
- “dreamer was using someone’s assets/resources against their owner”
- “dreamer was “imprisoned”(i.e. blocked/stopped/isolated) because of that”
- “dreamer is trying to find a safe place for himself (or, better to say, for his aspect)”
Step 2. MATCH
Trying to find corresponding scenario(s) in dreamer’s life.
In this case it wasn’t too difficult to find the situation in Ted’s life that could be described by the first two statements. Couple of years ago Ted was posting articles on Facebook that were directed against the establishment and, as a consequence, his FB account was permanently deleted (by the establishment whose resource he was using against it). It was challenging situation for Ted as his business depends on his presence on social media.
So, now we can see that the main character in this dream is an aspect of Ted that can be called “truther” (activist, conspiracy theorist etc).
Step 3. WHAT’S MISSING
Is there something in the dream’s scenario that couldn’t be so obviously connected with the real life situation? Perhaps there is an important hint/clue hidden in this metaphoric picture?
Yes, the part about looking for safety in US Embassy is something that still needs to be decrypted: what does it mean for Ted in his real life: where does he search for a safe place for his “truth-warrior” aspect?.. As it turned out, Ted did have some ideas about it, but he couldn’t see the message hidden in this dream in this regard.
Step 4. FIND HIDDEN CLUE
Let’s take another approach at this point and ask Ted: If you would literally find yourself in this situation in Iraq (running away from Saddam Hussein), what would you do? Would you try to get to US Embassy in hope to find safety there?
Ted’s answer was NO.
First of all, he is not US citizen anymore, so it’s not his embassy.
Secondly, he doesn’t believe in finding any safety on the territory of American embassy that’s directly involved in waging wars in the foreign countries. Ted just recently watched a movie called “Beckett” (where the main character – American traveller in Greece – got under the deadly threat from Greek government because he witnessed their dirty game; and he was rushing to the US Embassy in hope to find safety there, but found out later that this whole political conspiracy in Greece was actually instigated by US government, so he had to run for his life from the people working in US Embassy because they wanted to eliminate him as well).
This is an example of the dream where its scenario was “borrowed” from a movie, maybe not identically but still with certain degree of resemblance; and on the emotional level the dreamer could feel a connection between his dream and the movie he recently watched.
Step 5. APPLY
Trying to apply this information to the real life situation.
Let’s ask this question again. This “truther” aspect of Ted that was deleted from Facebook not long ago – where is he placed now, where does he express himself believing that it’s safe place to do so?.. Well, the answer to this question was easy to find, but not so easy to accept. Ted started to pursue the same type of activism on LinkedIn recently, somehow believing that it’s different platform and his precious professional account will be safe there.
Now we know that the dream says “no, it won’t”, what means that Ted is putting his business under the same threat again (just like this guy who was running at first from the Greek government and then he had to run again – from the US government).
This dream is a caution, but it doesn’t say it in direct way. Even decoding its metaphor wasn’t enough for depicting the warning message of this dream. The reason for such deep encryption is in preserving Ted’s Free Will and allowing him to make his own choices based on his experience of learning from his own mistakes and also on his readiness to make a Change.
At the same time, this level of encryption is a safety measure for preventing other people to influence Ted’s decisions: this specific scenario about US Embassy can be properly decoded only by Ted himself, who knows what it means for him at this stage of his life.
Step 6. EXPAND
Is there bigger message in this dream? Something that offers wider perspective, new level of understanding and/or basis for Transformation?
This step is usually overlooked by many dream interpreters, even by the experienced ones. In the same indirect manner, this dream is posing much bigger question: “Where to find a proper place for the truth-warrior aspect of Ted?” What is “his embassy”? Or better to say what is “his country, his place, his people”?… Is it another social media platform? Or maybe it’s different approach to speaking the truth, to expressing himself and to help others?… Something that Ted needs to contemplate about. If he is willing to make this kind of Transformational Change.
Author © Margarita AoteaRa, 2022
Dream is published with permission of the dreamer; all names are changed.
Image source: “Beckett” movie 2021
