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Any more dreams?



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Any more dreams?
e.
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Posted Oct 22 2005 - 01:43 PM:
Subject: Any more dreams?
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#1
Hi Lib and everyone.

I'm wondering if we have any more dreams for analysis.

I have this one.

So - I'm in my estranged brother's house. It's big and expensive and he has the two children that he has in real life and a new baby (that he doesn't have). As I am feeling nervous I pay attention to the baby, as a distraction. I see my brother looking over at me, as I cuddle the baby.

My brother looks very pleased, as if I am finally going to behave myself - maybe reconcile and behave myself with him.

While I am holding the baby, I notice that it is has a worried look in it's eyes. The eyes look kind of grown up. Suddenly the baby whispers in a grown up voice, not to me but in a kind of soliloquy - "I shouldn't be here, this is all a mistake, I don't know where I am." The baby looks terribly anxious.

I look over at my brother but he doesn't seem to have noticed anything. I wake up thinking of the look in that babies eyes.

Shudder.

That's it, Cheers, e
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Posted Oct 22 2005 - 02:55 PM:
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Hi e

I think that the baby in the dream is you! This is because you feel unable to express your feelings in your brother's house as he might think you're causing trouble, so the baby is the symbol of your emotions.

(This reminds me that I often look at babies in 3d and think I perceive a knowing grown-up look being directed at me through their eyes, as if I can see the adult already. It's quite spooky really. What do they know that they cannot tell?)

Anyway, back to your dream. I feel the baby is definitely you, and you're trying to protect it (and yourself) from anything bad.

Cheers, JuneBug wink wink
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Posted Oct 22 2005 - 02:56 PM:
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I'm completely unlicensed for dream analysis, but I'd interpret the baby as being a sort of a new start between you, but a false one that can't work out beyond a dream, which realizes that the scene of tranquility it's created is out of place.

I hardly ever remember my dreams, but I happen to remember the very end of what I was dreaming this morning. I was at the intersection by my elementary school in the neighborhood where I grew up (set in the present with me at something like my current age). There were important tasks being handed out (I've forgotten what it was all about, if there was every anything concrete), and people went off in various directions to do whatever it was. I was alarmed to notice that no one was heading off in the direction of the local Burger King (which I always stop at these days when I'm in the area going to the credit union). I remember feeling it was my civic duty to go down that way, and so I got on some sort of odd scooter/elongated-skateboard and headed off that way. It's part of a shopping center area, and on the way through the intervening parking lot I saw some teenagers hanging around right in my path. I was afraid they'd try to talk to me (I'm always afraid of talking to people), but I slipped past them with only the odd glance indicating they wondered what I was doing. I walked on toward Burger King, was getting ever so close to it, and then I woke up... feeling hungry.

I know, that's not much of a challenge to analyze. :p
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Posted Oct 22 2005 - 03:09 PM:
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Hi Paul

I think maybe your dream means that you're afraid of things going awry, out of kilter, as you prefer life to be orderly and you get anxious if arrangements are not well-organised or if they change without prior warning. Also you were probably hungry when asleep which is why you were hurrying more than usual to Burger King. The teenagers were a symbol of your fear of talking to strangers.

Does that make sense?

Cheers, JuneBug winkwinkkookykooky
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Posted Oct 23 2005 - 03:37 PM:
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Mostly, but I'm not sure about the orderly part. Predictable routine is more of a fact of life than a goal, I get anxious when I have too much time to anticipate something. Probably is a fear of things going awry though. Actually, to self-analyze, Burger King to me a place of great importance... growing up I always looked forward to any excuse (like the power going out) which might lead to us going to BK, and I still highly anticipate my perhaps-monthly lunches there. That I failed to make it there before I woke up, and the way it seemed so hard to get to, could mean I long for an impossible refuge.

When I was a kid I had much odder, sometimes reoccuring dreams... unfortunately that's all I remember, can't recall what the dreams were actually about (should've written it down). As a teenager I usually dreamed that I was in an impassioned argument with my mom about something trivial (say, baseball stats). And when I first moved out, I noticed for a while that my dreams always had me living with my parents. Now, there's no interesting trend left to recall.
libertygrl
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Posted Oct 23 2005 - 05:53 PM:
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*pondering*

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Posted Oct 25 2005 - 06:43 AM:
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hi everyone,

i had some interesting dreams last night. i won't get into a lot of detail right now as i'm pressed for time and, well, there's a lot of detail, but i would like to mention one sequence in particular that stands out in my mind. to me, it clearly connects to my periods of drug use and subsequent backlash but i'd be curious to know if any other interpretations come to mind.

in one scene, i'm in a giant forest (of redwoods, maybe?). very misty all around like an enchanted forest. i've got this huge pogo stick and i'm leaping through the forest on it. the pogo stick is designed with the head of a horse on it (not a real horse; kind of a cross between a stuffed animal horse, like you see on those kids toys that have the horse head on a pole, and a huge magestic statue horse head such as you might see on a monument in greece or something). it seems that the horse's head is a greyish silver in color, matching the pole. every time i leap up, the pogo stick launches me hundreds of feet in the air, and every time i come down, i can feel the pole pushing through layers and layers of dirt in the earth.

later, i find that i'm lying on the ground in a sleeping bag in the same forest, and my mother is in a sleeping bag next to me. i get the impression that she and my sister and i have gone camping together (but my sister is not in the scene). it seems that the camping trip had not been going so well but things are picking up now and i comment something to the effect of "all's well that ends well". then, i seem to be dozing off when i wake up to my mother standing over my face, screaming that there's a huge black poisonous spider on me. i can feel it on my right nostril and it's biting me. i brush it away with my left hand and my mother is still standing over me, peering at my nose as if the spider had gone into my nostril. i mumble something about the spider being on my hand now, but it's difficult to talk because i can feel my face becoming numb from the venom and the fingers of my left hand are becoming numb too. i begin to feel annoyed, as though it were my mother's screaming that caused the spider to bite me, and i begin to grumble to myself about her lack of faith.

i'll be back later to share some comments on the other dreams mentioned.

cheers,
smiling facelib

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libertygrl
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Posted Oct 25 2005 - 12:57 PM:
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hi e.,

here's an interpretation of your dream which considers each of the characters and elements (including your brother) as aspects of yourself. you recently mentioned something to me about picking up your music again, and it seems to me that the new baby could be speaking your fears about this. here is this baby, your music, finding itself a stranger in its own house, in the way that it is a free-spirited part of you that has been surrounded by a lot of grief (and conformity); thus it finds itself in a place that it fears it does not belong. this fits as well with junebug's interpretation that the baby is voicing your emotions that you yourself feel unable to express.

paul's interpretation also resonates, in that it could represent a new start between you and your brother, one that doesn't seem likely to work out very well given his behavior toward you in the dream (as though you're always the one who's the problem and thus it's always on you to fix things).

lib


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libertygrl
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Posted Oct 25 2005 - 01:46 PM:
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hi paul,

i get the impression that the BK in your dream represents the desire to re-visit some happy childhood emotions. it seems that certain paths leading toward the creation of these positive emotions (for instance, the work that your parents may have put into their relationship with each other) have been generally "overlooked" in your life (as they were in the dream) in favor of more "purposeful" activities, so your dream self actuated seeking them out, but in so doing came across some unpleasant emotions that you may have experienced during your teens, perhaps a feeling of not fitting in or something to that effect.

lib




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Posted Oct 25 2005 - 02:47 PM:
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I have had a wide variety of very strange dreams, many of them lucid. Dreams and dream philosophy is one of my favorite topics, not so much what a dream means but rather what a dream is. I will get into that in a later post. I would love to share a dream that has touched and confused my life.

I was driving with some friends around a city; no specific city comes to mind, but a large city. We were driving around for a while, listening to music and laughing. Then there was a shift in the dream. I found myself in the middle of the city standing on a street, people all around me, when I think about it now I get a sense that it was a riot or some major uproar of that nature. I found myself not running with the crowd, but more like a stone in the stream, all was breaking around me, people flowing around me. Suddenly I had the impulse to run, but I couldn’t move. Suddenly I started falling down. I wanted to stop myself but I couldn’t, I couldn’t move at all. I remember the moment when my head hit the ground. I was lying there looking at this riot from a strange perspective, on the ground unable to move at all. Then the surrounding started fading to white. I realized that it wasn’t the surrounding but my perception that was dissolving. Suddenly I was engulfed in white, I was aware of my nature, but I did not have a body or anything like that. Then the white started to fade. As the white dissolves I am in my room awake. I just laid there not sure if I could move or not. Not sure if it was still a dream or not. It wasn’t like I woke up I just faded into existence. I am under the influence that I did wake up then, but who knows. I may still be in the dream, who knows? But I digress; I will get to that at a later day. I see it as I died in my dream, and for some reason I came back to my existence after, not sure if I woke up or just came back.

Please give your thoughts; I am very interested to hear what you have to say. I will start drafting my dream philosophy post ASAP.

question Your perception
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e.
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Posted Oct 26 2005 - 12:41 PM:
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Hi June, Lib and Paul,

Good grief,

That was a serious piece of analysis from my dream, how do you do it? I mean, how do you get so deep?

I guess we just don't understand ourselves, although I suspect that our subconscious minds know what is going on.

Lib, I'm still thinking about your dream, but I don't have the tools to analyse it, just some gut feelings.

Cheers folks,

PS - Re the music, I have attracted a couple of good musicians around me and it is all looking very promising. The words 'juices' and 'flowing' spring to mind.


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Posted Oct 26 2005 - 12:59 PM:
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Hi lib,

I've read your dream a couple of times. The problem for me is that things in dreams are never what they seem, and it's hard not to read stuff into it.

My feeling is that the spider is not the real problem, it's more to do with your mother not having faith in you. Your mother warns you but she doesn't take the spider off you, which is what we would expect a mother to do - ACT. That is the part of the dream that worries me. I also have an idea what the spider means for you.

I hope that's not too heavy for you - I'm nothing if not heavy!

Good thoughts, e
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Posted Oct 26 2005 - 01:03 PM:
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Hi Kungfu,

Sounds like you had some 'sleep paralysis' happening there; that weird thing when we dream that we are waking up, but in fact we are still asleep.

Interesting.

Cheers, e
libertygrl
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Posted Oct 26 2005 - 01:03 PM:
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hi e.,

go with the gut feelings, works just as well as anything else (at least with dream interpretation!). and i like heavy, or at least i'm used to it. the dream felt very heavy, even in the telling of it. your assessment so far is pretty right on. i'd love to hear your thoughts on the spider (and any others) when you have the time.

juices flowing sounds quite excellent! rock on!

smiling facelib

p.s. kf, i'm still pondering your dream, stay tuned...


Edited by libertygrl on Oct 26 2005 - 02:18 PM

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Paul
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Posted Oct 26 2005 - 07:20 PM:
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libertygrl wrote:
in one scene, i'm in a giant forest (of redwoods, maybe?). very misty all around like an enchanted forest. i've got this huge pogo stick and i'm leaping through the forest on it.


A desire to frolic in nature like a kid. (I should be dreaming that, as I'm planning a drive to misty Eagle Falls in the foresty Tahoe area... but I doubt a pogo stick would be safe.)

Your forest with pogo stick seems kind of like the field in Catcher in the Rye (disclaimer: haven't read it since high school).

it seems that the camping trip had not been going so well but things are picking up now and i comment something to the effect of "all's well that ends well". then, i seem to be dozing off when i wake up to my mother standing over my face, screaming that there's a huge black poisonous spider on me.

Here you transition from your ideal of a carefree youth into your memory of an imperfect youth. The spider represents the nastiness of reality compared to the ideal. Of course, Freud would never forgive me if I didn't suggest every dream means you have issues with your mother. :p Perhaps with her being overprotective, as though you're seeing the transition from the carefree youth into the mere reality as being a result of her control over your youth.

libertygrl wrote:
i get the impression that the BK in your dream represents the desire to re-visit some happy childhood emotions.


Elementry school wasn't a fun place for me at all. If it was about a happy past, I don't see why it'd take place there (and in the present). I'm not sure if that Burger King was even there when I was young, I think it was at times and closed at other times. There's an element of the past, but I think it's more wondering if I can move on from the past to accomplish something.

it seems that certain paths leading toward the creation of these positive emotions (for instance, the work that your parents may have put into their relationship with each other) have been generally "overlooked" in your life (as they were in the dream) in favor of more "purposeful" activities

It wouldn't be fair to say that I overlook my parents (though I'm not sure how their relationship with each other effects me, other than that I'm glad they remain happily married), and I've never been a very goal-driven person, always been rather lazy.

, so your dream self actuated seeking them out, but in so doing came across some unpleasant emotions that you may have experienced during your teens, perhaps a feeling of not fitting in or something to that effect.

Elementry school was more unplesant than high school (kids were more immature, hence cruel). The teenagers just represent my distance from society and lost opportunities to socialize... and perhaps disappearing youth as well, realizing that I'm no longer a teenager.

kungfu jesus wrote:
I found myself not running with the crowd, but more like a stone in the stream, all was breaking around me, people flowing around me.


A fear of being left out? Perhaps the idea is your friends abandoned you there.

e. wrote:
Sounds like you had some 'sleep paralysis' happening there; that weird thing when we dream that we are waking up, but in fact we are still asleep.


A similarly undesirable thing is dreaming you're getting up, and then realizing you're still in bed. One time probably 15 years ago I was sick, and felt really thirsty. I got up, went to the bathroom, filled a cup with water, started to drink it, then when I couldn't taste it I realized I was still asleep. Then I repeated this process a number of times. Quite frustrating, hence I still remember it.

Edited by Paul on Oct 26 2005 - 07:32 PM
libertygrl
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Posted Oct 26 2005 - 07:34 PM:
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#16
Paul wrote:
A similarly undesirable thing is dreaming you're getting up, and then realizing you're still in bed.

ugh! i hate when that happens!
Paul wrote:
Elementry school wasn't a fun place for me at all. If it was about a happy past, I don't see why it'd take place there (and in the present). I'm not sure if that Burger King was even there when I was young, I think it was at times and closed at other times.

by happy childhood emotions, i meant the time you spent with your family (specifically, at burger king - not necessarily the same one). the dream was suggesting to me not that you overlook your actual parents but rather steps they themselves had taken toward social integration which you yourself had not taken. hm. that the dream was taking place in the present calls attention to the fact that you have a certain amount of liberty now that you didn't have then - for instance, the fact that you do not have to subject yourself to the cruelty of others.

thanks for your interpretation, food for thought for sure. i haven't read 'catcher in the rye' since high school either, although i do remember being in love with holden caulfield when i was a teenager. hehe.

lib

p.s. when i got into work the morning after i had that dream, i realized that the scenery was in part created by this photo which i have as my wallpaper on my computer desktop at work:

http://terragalleria.com/wallpaper-samples/picture.06.html

i also noticed that the dream had incorporated the image from my wall calendar at work which also has a similar scene with redwoods and greenery on it for the month of october.

Edited by libertygrl on Oct 27 2005 - 09:16 AM

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Paul
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Posted Oct 27 2005 - 01:10 PM:
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Interesting, never been there. A bit of a drive, but it goes on my eventual vacation list (some googling makes the Damnation Creek trail sound very appealing).

In light of the work association, I could reinterpret the transition from paradise to spider as a reflection of how these beautiful images are illusions, showing where you'd rather be while you're actually surrounded by annoying work.
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Posted Oct 27 2005 - 08:09 PM:
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kj,

what were you feeling during the events in the dream? did you feel a sense of panic at not being able to move?

lib

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Posted Oct 28 2005 - 02:30 AM:
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lib,

interesting dream. don't hurt me for being silly.

I'd explore the possibility of the word cavalier in reference to the pogo stick with a horsehead. Your inability to see a spider on your nose which caused your mother to jump and tell you, much to your disdain, is the response of her instinct to protect you. Maybe this makes you annoyed because she doesn't realize the impropriety of her behavior given that you've matured.

lib wrote:
i begin to feel annoyed, as though it were my mother's screaming that caused the spider to bite me, and i begin to grumble to myself about her lack of faith.


Lack of faith in your own ability to recognize what is dangerous to you. She is still on the lookout for your safety.

For some reason I think that hopping up and down on a pogo stick in the forest is distressing to your mother. Maybe you engage a cavalier attitude purposefully, which may represent the joy of pogo sticking, hopping up and down on mother earth. With the phrase "all is well that ends well" you are forboding what is going to occur.. you expect your mother to do something motherly.

Your mother is the spider who captures you in her web, for riding so carelessly (cavalier) in her domain.

Your mother is the earth that gets stuck with a stick, for a child hopping so high.

Quid Pro Quo

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Posted Oct 28 2005 - 06:20 AM:
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It wasnt really panic, it was just a very subjective moment. I knew I couldnt move, so I didnt try. I guess that is not entierly true, while I was falling I tried to stop myself and fou nd i couldnt. Once I hit the ground I just accepted it. During the riot part, again it was very subjective. I was watching myself, there was no real sense of urgency.

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Posted Oct 28 2005 - 10:47 AM:
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hi kj,

i get the impression that the dream represents a (possibly involuntary) meditative/dissociative technique that your psyche has developed as a response to stressful social situations in which there's a lot of activity happening in your surroundings, and thus a multitude of elements triggering (or overloading) your sensory perception.

does the dream represent a literal near-death experience? that seems very unlikely to me, at least i'm not getting that impression from the movement of events in the dream. a metaphorical death, certainly, especially given that you've expressed a conscious desire tending toward ego dissolution.

(depending of course on when the dream actually occurred,) it seems more likely to me that your experience with writing music contributed the concept of "fading" your consciousness in and out. again, this seems to me more like a natural adaptive response to sensory perception overload wherein you are meditatively gaining control of the situation by fading it out (dissociating) and then fading it back in, so as to acclimate to the sensory input in a gradual fashion.

lib

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Posted Oct 28 2005 - 12:51 PM:
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hi nihil et al.,

cavalier is a good word. my ex-husband used to complain that i was too cavalier about things; i suppose it's one of my survival mechanisms.

i'll tell you my interpretation of the dream.

the pogo stick represents the drug ecstasy, which i used quite heavily over a period of about 2 years as a form of self-medication. coming up on it was very carefree and childlike, and in the sense that it temporarily relieved me of my emotional pain, it was like distancing myself from my body (the earth). coming down was like tearing very deep holes into my soul.

i stopped using ecstasy about 2 months after my father's death a couple of years ago. after he died, my mother and sister and i were able to begin building a different kind of family unit that was not focused on my father's controlling and competitive nature. i feel that the camping trip symbolizes this new beginning for the three of us. i feel that the spider biting me represents the backlash from my ecstasy withdrawal, with especially strong symbolism in the numbness of my face and hand for reasons that have to do with particular injuries i've suffered during my period of withdrawal and recovery.

i have a tendency to think of the spider (and spiders in general, in my dreams - long story) as symbolizing fate. my mother's reaction and my subsequent irritation, i feel, are calling my attention to issues that had always existed between me and my mother, but now that my father issues are largely coming to rest, these others are coming to the forefront of my attention.

in the name of being "protective", my parents both did a lot of things that were extremely invasive to me while i was growing up (things like reading my mail, eavesdropping on my phone conversations, etc, besides physical abuse) behaviors which i believe had nothing to do with protecting me, but rather had to do with longstanding issues between the 2 of them involving their own infidelities and subsequent anger, resentment and distrust of each other.

[begin disclaimer] obviously there's much more to the story of our family than can be told in a few paragraphs; in fairness i feel i should mention that throughout it all i know that my parents truly loved each other and i know they genuinely loved us too (me and my sister). i love(d) them too. [end disclaimer]

thanks everyone for your input! 3 cheers for quid pro quo.

lib

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Posted Oct 29 2005 - 03:35 PM:
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Hi lib,

Your post shows an amazing amount of maturity and understanding, also reconciliation, regarding your young life. When I say 'reconciliation' I am thinking of reconciliation within yourself.

Your awareness that your parents were relating to you through unresolved issues between each other is a highly relevant perception.

I have developed a good deal of respect for you over the last year or so, and you continue to impress me. I hope you don't mind me saying this.

Good thoughts, M

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Posted Oct 29 2005 - 04:04 PM:
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e. wrote:
I have developed a good deal of respect for you over the last year or so, and you continue to impress me. I hope you don't mind me saying this.


not at all, it's much appreciated. thank you.

smiling facelib

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Posted Oct 31 2005 - 10:33 PM:
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It is good to have qualified administration on forums like this. thumb up
____________

I feel that remembering a dream is interpretation in itself, since we might remember only what is significant to our interpretation. I wish I could remember most of my dreams in detail.

Here is one intense dream that I associate with a novel and its themes by John Gardner. He wrote Grendel, a story of the epic poem Beowulf from the monster's perspective. Grendel, the monster, meets his fate at the hand of Beowulf at the end of a twelve year war between himself and Hrothgar's kingdom. Grendel is almost human and he narrates the pain of his alienation in very articulate, poetic way, among creatures who are so much like him but regard him as a killer; it is his inability to speak well and his monstrous features that end several of his attempts to reconcile with humanity. He is alienated and accepts his fate with scorn and rage, almost seems to engage the anger as a result in the same heroic (perhaps mocking) manner that his human heraldic counterparts do from their myth to destroy evil.

In my dream I'm standing in a Siberian plateau or Steppe that is interspersed with pines. It is very open space and some of the pine trees are very short, like christmas tree size. Other trees are oversized, like California Sequoias. The juxtaposition of massive trunks against the smaller trees seems significant to me in some way. The ground is patched with grass just like the trees on the larger landscape. In the middle of the clearing that I'm standing in is a large hole in the earth, but it is actually a grotto which I appear in. In that grotto are a bunch of school children dressed in 19th century victorian clothes (I am one) in line waiting to slide down a rock spiral in the center of the grotto floor. The kids are using the spiral as a slide. There is a male professor and a female teacher, the latter being responsbile for the children. The professor seems drunk or oblivious to any kind of maternal stress which the female teacher exemplifies in her duty to keep order among the children. He does a trick when he slides down the spiral of the center mound at amazing speed and flips heals over head when he meets the grotto wall, and lands on his butt. He is physically fine and the children clap and congradulate him for such a daring trick. At some time the woman attempts to do the same thing but she hits the wall straight on. I feel embarassed when she does this -- I've this image of her as an anal hysterical woman, which is the cause of her messing up when she attempts to imitate the man. My mom has such characteristics, which make me feel sick or nauseated when I think about it.

The next part of the dream takes place back on ground above the grotto and the hole disappears. I'm standing with a sisterly figure and we are holding hands; we are children, the same age as those in the grotto and no one else is around. She wears a dress and a distinctive orange backed cameo on her neck with the profile of a woman, and I'm in a boys knickerbockers. Then a horrible presence fills the atmosphere, the feeling one might get if they were to realize that monsters exist and one is very close by -- a cold sweat and fear. Then a ghastly figure walks out of the forest -- the air is cold and filled with electricity. The figure is a monster, (he) is very tall and boney, made of bones and animal flesh in a pastiche construction. He wasn't recognizable as any specific animal but more alike an amalgum of all sorts of long dead forest creatures. He was mostly bones with small flaps of hairy leather patches covering his soldiers. He walked very slowly and gracefully as if to taunt us. At some time my female counterpart runs off and I'm left there to listen to what this thing says; he has a deep ancient male voice. I didn't understand him but it is as if he was speaking about an idea of principle import, a very important and sublime thing about humanity in general -- I felt that but don't remember the meaning of his words. He advanced slowly and zig-zagged across the ground as if doing a dance or mocking a gentleman's stroll. He had a mask on or a skull which I know wasn't his real face; it was that of a goat's, well bleached. He came up to me grabbed me by the neck, proceeded to take off his mask which also was his head and pressed the skull to my own face.

Then I woke up.

Later I wrote an recount/essay of the dream, and ended it with: "No face is as terrifying as the abscence of one." I thought this was strange sentence because "No Face" is "the Absence of One"; I thought I was saying "no face is as bad as no face," instead of thinking that a faceless thing is worse than a monster -- but I suppose a monster is in some way faceless, because we don't share his face. Another Idea was that without a face God is absent.

A lot of my interest of this dream coincides with a frustration of not being able to understand what I want to understand about the novel, Grendel. I want to sit down with someone and have them tell me exactly what the symbols, characters, represent. I've read essays but I don't have emotional closure, a feeling of certainty, which makes the novel so fascinating to me.

I think the monster in my dream parallels a scene in which Grendel meets with a dragon in the book. The dragon spans time and sees all future and past, tells of the absurdity of man's endeavors in time. Yet he guards gold, and that is all he does. 'All will be blown out and happen again infinitely' says the Dragon, so it doesn't matter what is done, and he begins to tell Grendel things that I can't make heads or tales of (neither could Grendel). Supposedly, the Dragon speaks an Alfred N. Whitehead quote, word for word. In school we learned that the dragon represents sort of a nihilistic voice in Grendel's conscience. The greatest act of nihilism that Grendel specifically mentions in the book would be to kill the prized maiden Wealtheow (wealth thy owe ?), but instead of that he only rapes her. I'm thinking that killing the queen may fully validate the judgement Grendel already suffers as the monster of circumstance and myth, giving the dragon wealth. Sacrificing the maiden to the dragon?

I've read a bunch of essays about the book and letter from Gardner to school children but I don't understand the perspectives and language . Maybe it is not so much a need to understand as a need to be emotionally statisfied about it -- there is no closure, the end feels paradoxical. So is the dream.
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