i've been wanting to form a dream group for ages - Page 2

[sueami]

luma, i meant to saythis last night but i was really tired. i love how your bellydancing experience informs the dream's meaning! with that information, to me it seems like a marvelously affirming dream, with an unexplored aspect of yourself embracing you and warming you with her energy and vitality! congratulations on exploring new territory and expanding yourself with your dancing!
susan

[amymarie]

I want to join...I try to interpret my dreams and use them to help me and it feels very good. For years the majority of my dreams I would remember were very scary...being chased,someones trying to get me,that sort of stuff. But recently I have been having no scary dreams and actually good feeling ones. Heres one I had a few nights ago....Me and my best friend,boyfriend and my dd are walking in a poor part of a town close to where I live...we are walking on a street and it goes up into a big hill...we walk up it and go in a store at the top...we are browsing, feels like we are shopping...its a gift store and I remember looking at a necklace...I buy something, i think a phone and as we are leaving there are security guards checking our bags...when we go home my niece is there and my boyfriend and I walk her and dd to the park which has hills and hills of grass. The end...

[yoga]

Hi, Everyone...

Do any of you know what dreaming that someone is frozen is supposed to mean? I had this very powerful dream a couple of years ago, and I haven't been able to find out what that meant. It was my mother, if that helps. Maybe I should tell the whole dream...

Well, I was riding in a car w/my step-dad (he was driving) and we found my mother, frozen, along the road. I tried so hard to unfreeze her, but nothing worked. I remember yelling at her, but not in an angry way, just frustrated. And, we put her in the trunk and drove off. At some point in this same dream, my step-dad tried to do something sexual with me, but nothing happened.

My step-dad never molested me or anything IRL, but I have felt that he had perverse feelings toward me growing up. I think I know what this dream meant, but I'm still working it out.

Thanks!

[juicylucy]

gosh Chaka, that is a tough one. Your mother being frozen seems to signify that either you or she has/had repressed feelings, maybe when it comes to your relationship. I'm not sure, it'll be interesting to see what others make of this dream.

Just another though- you say "I remember yelling at her, but not in an angry way, just frustrated"- it sounds like you were trying to tell her something at that time in your life, but that you felt that it wasn't getting thorugh to her- hence the ice??

Not sure about the sexual advances by your stepdad, but what you said may explain it.

[sueami]

hi all, sorry i haven't been around. out-of-town family visit has kept me from mdc. i have a few minutes now, so thought i'd try to catch up a bit.
it seems like this is something people want to do on an adhoc basis, posting dreams as they think of them. we can try that, although i have found that having a deadline to discuss a dream somehow either calls them up or helps me remember them more easily. it never failed when i was working with dreams with my psychologist that i'd have a really interesting one a day or two before my appt, just as i was thinking of cancelling for lack of material.
that's why i was thinking that a weekly posting, maybe on a sunday or monday, might prompt us to have a more productive dream life. i think we may also need to add some personal details when we post dreams, to help others offer useful comments. since we don't know each other irl, we don't know the context the dreams are coming out of. i'm thinking of your belly dancing experience luma, and how that adds meaning to your dream.

welcome, amymarie! that's great that you can remember and recount your dreams with so much detail. i'm going to throw out a bunch of things that come to mind to see if any give you that tingle of recognition...
if this were my dream, i would wonder whether walking through a poor neighborhood and then going up hill to a shopping district might say something about the economic/financial progress going on in my life. gifts imply an abundance over and above just having your needs met. what does a necklace symbolize for you? it might mean to me an aspect of beauty and wealth, or in a different vein being collared/restricted. a phone to me seems very much about communicating (is there someone you need to feel heard by? someone you want to say something too?) security guards searching bags might indicate a feeling that i am not really entitled to these gifts (personal abilities are also called gifts--do you feel you have a gift for communication? a gift of beauty?) or i am under suspicion for having them. what does your niece represent for you? how do you feel about her? a park with hills (again.) of grass is a mix of bucolic and tranquil with uneven terrain, a tough climb, maybe, an inability to see very far around you? how did the park feel to you, what emotions did it elicit?

and chaka, a very powerful sounding dream. if it were my dream, i'd consider the various meanings of being frozen -- unable to move, unable to act, unable to communicate, cold, unloving, unemotional, stopped in time all come to mind.
in my dream, step-dad driving would indicate he is in control of where i am going or what i am experiencing, and i wonder how that felt to you in the dream. okay, exciting, frustrating, frightenening, oppressive?
yelling, but not in anger, is interesting... for me anger is a big component of my frustration, when i feel frustrated i feel angry too. so if this were my dream and i wasn't feeling angry in it i'd wonder if that was being repressed.
putting her in the trunk instead of the car is interesting... some possible interpretations -- she is not treated like a person, she is not included in the trip/experience you are having with your step dad; you are putting her away because you can't reach her, you can't communicate with her.
and then a sexual experience attempted/initiated by your stepdad. I've had some dreams like this with a male relative that made me wonder if i'd repressed molestation, but i was never able to come up with anything, so i had to let it go and assume it was a metaphor for other boundaries being crossed.
i'd be interested to hear if any of these possibilities resonated with you. if it were my dream i'd consider one theme or msg to be that i felt like my mom was unresponsive/not protecting me from my step-dad's inappropriate interest in me, and i might explore the idea of unacknowledged anger/my own frozen emotions towards her.
okay,
i have a four year old bouncing on my lap, so i'm going to sign off now.
maybe after christmas we can try to get up and running with this, if you all are willing and interested.
susan

[yoga]

Thanks, SDmummy and Sueami for your responses!

My mother and I definately had a cold relationship. I was not allowed beyond these boundaries she had set up. My interpretation of the dream was that she was never there for me, removed b/c of choice and partially b/c my step-father was in the picture. And, I was trying to get thru to her, but that it was no use. My step-dad was running the show and she was just along for the ride, but it was ruining any chance of a decent relationship with her.

But, the fact that she was frozen has always bothered me. I guess b/c if I go w/my gut feeling on it, my not being able to reach her has more to do w/outside circumstances. Like it's beyond our control. Or, at least beyond mine since I couldn't thaw her out. Does it help to know that ever since I was a little girl, I've felt responsible for my mother? Like, I am here to show her something, teach her something, but she refuses to learn from me. She has always provided for me just fine, so there was never any codependancy going on. But, I just know that my purpose in being her daughter is not getting served and it frustrates me. I have learned to not dwell on it, b/c you can't help ppl who don't want you to, but it is a concern of mine. Sometimes I feel like after I die, my soul is going to suffer b/c I didn't complete my main task in this life (my mother).

Anyway, thanks for reading. That's my "real life" background...

[sueami]

thanks for the background chaka. i'm sorry that your mom was so difficult to have a relationship with. mothers are so primary to our emotional needs, i know...
i wonder if the frzn aspect is the dream's msg to you that you are not responsible for a failure to reach your mom, that she is not able to receive your message?

[Luma]

hi all, Im glad the thread is going!
thanks all for your input on the belly dream, im still thinking about it and I have had other dreams, so sueami, you suggest that we post one dream a week each?

chaka, i have been thinking about your dream and it made me remember one time I had a dream where my hands were frozen and at the time it had to do with anger that I felt I needed to freeze in order to avoid the violence that I could produce with my hands if they were free or not frozen, I dont know if this makes any sense to you? but if it were my dream I would think is some feeling im afraid to express or act upon...????

amymarie, If it were my dream the "security" guards going through my stuff would make me feel the opposite: un-secure, ...

sueami youre right about giving the background...

[yoga]

Originally posted by sueami
i wonder if the frzn aspect is the dream's msg to you that you are not responsible for a failure to reach your mom, that she is not able to receive your message?

very good interpretation. I feel you are probably correct.

Originally posted by Luma
I had a dream where my hands were frozen and at the time it had to do with anger that I felt I needed to freeze in order to avoid the violence that I could produce with my hands if they were free or not frozen, I dont know if this makes any sense to you? but if it were my dream I would think is some feeling im afraid to express or act upon...????

I don't understand how that would apply to my mother being frozen. Could you please explain more?

SDmummy: I reread your post abt your dream. I have often dreamt abt my parents (mom & step-dad) and me (sometimes my kids are in it, too), and they were always controlling me in some way. But, unlike IRL, I would argue w/them and yell at them, trying to regain control of my life. We would be in different houses, tho sometimes different dreams would take place in the same house.
If I was having the dreams you have, I would think that there is something significant in my youth that I have not gotten over or learned all the lessons from yet. Maybe fear of your father or being trapped in an abusive relationship w/someone like him. Or, maybe you have someone in your life that displays a lot of the attributes of your father, and that's why these dreams are still occurring in your present life on a regular basis.

One dream/week is fine by me. Should we all keep dream journals, then?

Luma: I have nothing to contribute abt your dream (sorry!). I could envision that woman tho. Sounds like a powerful dream.

[Luma]

chaka, im not sure about how it would apply to your mother being frozen, because I related it to my own dream, (ok this is getting crazier and crazier) but Im going to ramble a lot:
If I think of the dream in terms of "I am every person in the dream and Im my mom in some ways" I would think that my mom part, was afraid to express, feel, act upon something, or just plain afraid because freezing, is like stopping or not-moving, alive but unable to act, and fear freezes. I thought of the dream I mentioned above and it was to me fear to express violent feelings, so I thought maybe there would be an element of that in this dream IF it were mine.

Then wanting to bring her back, to unfreeze her, maybe I would think that a part of me was frozen and that I desperately needed that part of me alive inside of me, nurturing, and that I could try to do that now, that is nurture myself and be my own mom.

Now, if I were to separate the mom from me, I would maybe think that I kinda wanted her to be frozen so I could be with my stepdad (all this is me and IM CRAAAZY!)
And also that I cant feel her and she cant feel me, no matter what I do and this would make me feel very sad indeed.

You know, i went through a stage with my mom where I felt I had to get through to her, it was in my 20's and the way I did it was through lots of touching and holding and kissing, like every time I saw her I would literally jump on her until I felt I had broke through some wall I thought was there.

im sorry if im not making ANY sense, this is harder than I thought!

[sueami]

luma, i just wanted to say that your comments made sense to me. from what i've read (and i really like taylor's take on dreams. he's been doing dreamwork for 20 years, 70,000 dreams, and he seems to be very familiar with a wide range of schools of thought on this) dreams have so many layers of meaning, all of which are true to some degree or another. he talks about how incredibly complex the dream construction and symbology is, how we could never consciously come up with a puzzle that fits so many elements together as seamlessly as dreams, in which every piece has many multiple meanings that fit together with all the other pieces to construct new layers of meaning.
so, i think it's entirely possible and valid to offer that every character in a dream perhaps represents a part of us as well as a person in our life who holds emotional meaning for us as well as something as simple as their name being a pun that contains a msg too (some people have names that have other meanings -- bill and will, for example. and items in dreams are often puns too, dreaming about finding coins can mean dreaming about change as in changing circumstances...)
so, just wanted to applaud your efforts. that's exactly the sort of input you throw out in a dream group for the dreamer to mull over and try on for size.
susan

[yoga]

Luma: I get it. Thanks for explaining. I think the "me as my mom" meaning you gave probably does apply. I need to nurture myself...right on! That makes sense.

The weird thing w/dreams is that they can/do mean so many things all at once. I'll have to write something down to share w/you all, since you're so good at this. Much, much better than the dream book I own.

[Luma]

thanks sueami
chaka Im glad it made sense!!
so now.... more dreams!!

[Alegria]

I want to join too

but I'm afraid because I have a lot of unhappy dreams and I am afraid of rejection because I've always had a lot of "negative " "stuff" to deal with. And people get overwhelmed by it.

I dreamt yesterday that my dh was having an affair with an ex-roomate of ours. Actually she was a combination of two different female roomates we had lived with. They were both mexican, same as him. I'm not. I think partly it's cause I know I haven't lived up to his expectations of what a wife should do. Secondly I had a fealing they were more atractive to him then me. BTW I really liked both of these women. We haven't seen either in a long time.




Luma- the tall dark women in your dream, the first thought I had was that she could be an ancestor of yours visiting you, giving you strength and power and love. Very Feminine and Strong which is exactly what belly dancing is about. Congratulations btw.

Do any of you believe our ansetors can visit us in our sub-consious? Nothing like that has ever happened to me but I've always wanted a conection to my father's mother who died when I was only three. I wish she could be with me.


Am I way Off Topic?

Thank you.

[Luma]

mamitorres I think is great you opened up like that, and we all dream negative stuff away, wait till you see one of my complicated-all-revealing dreams!

about your dream, I think you have said it, feeling unsecure because you feel you are not up to his expectations... I would also maybe think if this were my dream that I have an image of his expectations, represented by these girls, and maybe would try to find out if that image is his image or mine of my own expectations about what I should be, (?)

I do feel in dreams everythings possible, talking to ancestors, animals, waking up, travelling...
a very interesting pov about she being an ancestor thanks!

[sueami]

hi mamitorres,
welcome! don't worry about being too negative, unhappy dreams are the most important ones to listen to, often. msgs are often couched in nightmares and bad dreams to be sure that we remember them in the morning.
as for your dream, do you remember any more details about it? what were the women's names? where did the dream take place? what objects where in it? what colors? what exactly occurred? did you see them having an affair or did you just "know" that it was happening?
it's that level of detail that will bring out the many messages in any given dream, and i'm sure yours had many more messages than just your sense of insecurity, which you already know about. dreams usually are bringing us information that we aren't consciously aware of. and they're always in the service of wholeness, so we don't have them just to torture ourselves!
are we ready to start a new thread here and begin? has anyone had any striking dreams since we started talking about this? has anyone had a decent enough stretch of sleep to remember their dreams?
let me know, (i'm still waiting for a new one, but i have two from just before i started the thread that i can offer, if necessary)
susan

[yoga]

My Dream 12/30/02 (long!)

There was a British man cooking in his apt. (which was really my friend's apt.) and a friend of his came over w/a phone call for him. He wanted to charge the British man 50 cents to give him the phone(it was the friend's cellular), but accepted 50 cents worth of butter instead. (The British man had been razzled and thought it was very silly of him to demand payment.) So, the Brit talks on the phone and finishes, but Friend is going on and on. He says he needs to go back home to his girlfriend. He leaves the Brit's apt, forgetting his phone. Brit talks on phone to Girlfriend (who's never met him and didn't even know Friend was going to his place), telling her to tell Friend that he left his phone.

Friend gets home and GF questions him abt his whereabouts. They play a little sexual cat and mouse, and eventually, he tells her the truth. She says she wants to meet his friends. He kinda says no and tries to evade her pleas, but she squeezes a "yes" out of him. She attempts to "pay" him for the yes w/sex, but he doesn't let her and asks where she "learned" that that's appropriate. She talks abt how she was raised in a cultish environment and jokes abt how she's just now growing her hair out, but doesn't know what to do w/it, so he should be more patient abt her un-learning ways of her past. (The GF was blonde; had thinnish, curly hair, pinned up, but kind of haphazardly; big boobs in a nice "shelf" bra and see-thru nightie/long dress; no British accent)(The Friend was regular-looking, British, tall, dark-haired)(The original British Man was shorter than the Friend, average-looking)

So, the couple leave their apt and go to a fair. They run into black (British) friends of the Friend/Boyfriend (lesbians, it seemed) and they're hugging and kissing him in greeting. Friend looks noticeably uncomfortable w/this exchange occurring in front of his GF, tho it is obvious it happens all the time. One of the ladies asks him abt a play she wrote that he "put on" for the kids he teaches. He assures her they loved it. She asks him to do it for a group of kids collecting at the fair. He agrees, and they all move this big, oval ring-ttpe thing (high-sided) over to the left of the tent they're in so he can put it on inside of it. (half the tent has gone dark--right side, and half is still lit--left side, so they were moving the ring over to the lit side) There is a black woman sitting, watching them move the ring. She seems stern and I think is security for the fair, but she doesn't say anything.

Once the ring is moved over, Friend gets in and puts on the play, using balloons and bows. One kid wants all the balloons instead of letting the play go on. He keeps grabbing them and I try to get him to understand that the man needs them to do the play. Since he won't let go, ppl start leaving the production. I'm squatting nect to the boy and ppl look a bit grumpy. I tell the boy that they're leaving b/c he wouldn't let go of the balloons and now the play can't go on. He doesn't get it.

Then, my 2 older kids are there. I am thinking abt my son and calling him Solomon-ee and feeling badly that I didn't give him a "lovey" version of his name like ppl in other cultures do.

The End. The dream started off seeming like a sitcom on TV.

[sueami]

whoa. cool dream. great detail. let me ask a few questions before i offer any thoughts.
are you in the dream at all before you talk to the balloon boy? is it unusual for you to have a dream in which you are not a character?
is your one boy's name solomon and do you really call him solomonee or just in the dream? do you think the balloon boy represents any of your children?
what does england/british mean to you? have you ever lived there or had someone british in your life? (what does it mean to be razzled? i didn't recognize that term)
did any of the characters remind you of anyone in your life?
did you have any sense about what they play was about? did you see any part of it going on at all?
do the interactions of friend and girlfriend resonate in anyway with the relationship between you and your sigother?

[juicylucy]

hi all Mamitorres, I do hope you post here- I often feel that some of my negative stuff is too much to talk about, but when OI have, people on these boards in general have been really supportive and helpful. And if your negative stuff is coming out in your dreams, maybe we can help there by trying to analyse them a little for you. This dream you had sounds like a classic insecurity dream- the feeling that you are not good enough, at least in your husbands eyes. Do you have a lot of problems IRL? Is it partially a cultural thing, in that (taking the dream literally) you think he would be happier with some of his own culture and beliefs? I think maybe Sueami is right and that your dream is maybe telling you more that that you are insecure.

Chaka, that is a crazy dream for sure! (in the nicest possible respect ) There is so much going on there, it is hard to offer interpretation, especially as you weren't all that "involved" until the end. Did the "friend" seem familiar to you? Did any of the characters have recognizable faces, or did you feel you related to some of the characters more than others?

I haven't had any memorable dreams lately (just the usual reoccuring dream about my dad), but I will post when I do.

[yoga]

are you in the dream at all before you talk to the balloon boy?

not really. see, before this whole dream started, I was dreaming that I was in a car w/the friend whose apt it starts out in, and we drove past her house, but I was confused b/c I didn't know where we were going and didn't want to be there w/them. But, that seemed like a different dream all together. so, I don't believe I was in the dream before talking to the boy. But, I think I sensed myself watching the fair scene as me, if that makes sense.

is it unusual for you to have a dream in which you are not a character?

no

is your one boy's name solomon and do you really call him solomonee or just in the dream?

yes; no, just in the dream

do you think the balloon boy represents any of your children?

no, but could represent what I'm going thru w/my kids now (having to explain things and they don't seem to understand/care)

what does england/british mean to you? have you ever lived there or had someone british in your life? (what does it mean to be razzled? i didn't recognize that term)

I feel drawn to Britain, but I've never been there. I'm very interested in the culture, tho. Never had anyone British in my life, but I watch a lot of BBC shows. Razzled is like frazzled (maybe I left off the 'f' ); when you feel a little chaotic abt something.

did any of the characters remind you of anyone in your life?

no

did you have any sense about what they play was about? did you see any part of it going on at all?

I think it was about kids, but I don't remember any of it (I remember watching it tho. interesting balloon shapes and the bows (christmas type bows) were all around his feet)

do the interactions of friend and girlfriend resonate in anyway with the relationship between you and your sigother?

not really, except that I'm going thru major spiritual growth right now. Actually, when we first got together, I'm sure I used sex in a way that he didn't deem appropriate, so he would deny me.