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“Throw a line into the darkness”

The Nightmare by-Henry Fuseli

The other day while watching a rather intriguing detective series on PBS titled Anika I became aware of the background music and its rather haunting lyrics. The theme song “Bringing Murder to the Land” by Newcome and Allison spoke to me in another way than perhaps it was intended as a theme song for a murder drama.

“Throw a line into the darkness

Oh, we are shadows, blaze inside

This light will shine unbroken tonight

Shine inside

And this light, it can blind us

Torch the shadows for all time

And you can color in my dark nights

Paint your promise over me

This light will shine unbroken tonight

Shine inside

Shine tonight

Shine tonight

Shine tonight

Burn

Burn

Burn

Burn

Burn”

The first line, “Throw a line into the darkness,” reminds me of what the mind is doing through a nightmare. It’s also reminiscent of “fishing,” a metaphor for bringing up something from the spiritual and the deep so that one can deal with it in the light. While trying to bring this darkness into the light of consciousness, “Oh, we are shadows, blaze inside. This light will shine unbroken tonight; shine inside. And this light, it can blind us, torch the shadows for all time” these lines suggest to me that we can be overwhelmed and blinded by the darkness of our shadow self as it grows in brightness, entering our awareness. Bringing the dark into the light can add color to our darker natures, and by looking more closely at the nightmare, it can hold much promise for bringing light into our future nights and “burn” away our fears.

Perhaps it was the mysterious and haunting way the music was sung and the slight reverb in its presentation that wormed its way into my soul, or maybe it was the cryptic lyrics. Still, it struck me as the perfect theme for the nightmare dreaming and interpreting genre.

Murder in a dream can conjure the need for change or the effects change can have on one’s status quo. It can also be about ending some vexing issues, habits, or behavior.

Bright lights can symbolize spiritual awakening from the darkness of the ego coming through the hidden aspects of the unconscious, which can be quite shocking at first when one sees a different reality than the one they have been living.

The ‘’burn, burn, burn…” in a dream can be about something that you can’t just ignore. This may be true of any occasional nightmare. If one is human, There is repressed material in the unconscious mind that can affect everything done in the conscious world. Nightmares bring light to that hidden material, especially when it causes problems that must be addressed.

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Morpheus Speaks: The Encyclopedia of Dream Interpreting

Over 5000 dream descriptors with everyday dream images and image interpretations of the Zodiac and Tarot that show up in dreams. The book also includes a section on nightmares and current research and treatment for excessive nightmare dreams.

Learn the possible meanings of snakes, witches, and death in your dreams, kittens, wise old men/women, or angels. What might it mean if you’re being chased or shot at, drowning or trying to find a bathroom, or just standing out in the open naked?

There’s also a section on how to remember your dreams.

See the ordering picture link on the right-side column.

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The Dream: Trapped in my stifling negative inner dialog

Trapped in my stifling negative inner dialog unable to breathe, move, or escape I force myself to wake.

I do myself great harm with this unrelenting waking narrative of self-criticism and thus cut myself off from the sacredness of my soul.

The wisdom of “Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” is fundamentally a directive to do no harm to the sacredness of life, including oneself. I spend far too much time chewing on my shortcomings and insufficiencies and too little with my strengths and resourcefulness. “I am sufficient”, though I don’t yet fully agree with that statement, I do know that at my core I am whole. However, my expectations for how to realize the fact of my wholeness gets in the way of my acting sufficient.

So I feel trapped, trapped in my own judgments and self-criticisms, feeling as in the dream paralyzed, breathless, and unable to move or escape the negative narrative.

The dream is also saying to me “How do I transmute these leaden thoughts into the golden core of my real self”? In the dream I see what I have sunk into and I pull myself out and awaken to my real self, my real life. “Be mindful” says the dream.

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An Anxiety Dream

Young student in front of blackboard istock photo

The Dream: In a classroom having missed a test I was told to solve the problem written on the board. Try as I would, I could not solve the problem. In fact, I didn’t even understand the problem or how to break it down into its simplest form. It was as though I had no understanding of the math involved, too stupid to even get started. Finally, embarrassed, and greatly saddened, I admitted before everyone and the teacher that I didn’t know how. I knew that by admitting this I had failed and my career as a student would end. I awoke depressed anxious, and agitated, a failure and loser. The teacher consoled me with “that’s alright”.

Comments on the dream: Oh my! I thought, “I hope this dream was not confirming my constant worry that I am stupid and everyone around me knows it”.

I then remembered an earlier blog article* that I wrote on the purpose of life. When I write on such things, I always worry that these explorations of life are sophomoric and reveal my ignorant and immature nature (my apologies to college Sophomores a period of my life that I enjoyed immensely and seem in many ways to have never grown out of).

In the article I packed it all under the rubric of “Mystery” that basically I love a mystery because I don’t have to have the answer or be able to parse the meaning. I can just enjoy my ignorance and play the Fool even if others think me stupid. By aligning myself with the great mystery that is life I can’t really be wrong. As the dream says I am not a student of answers but of questions and mystery. And the dream also reveals that admitting my lack before everyone is the first step in the acceptance of self. The teacher in me says that that’s just fine. 

_______

*2-27-23 The Book of Dreams blog

Why? What’s the purpose?
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A drowning dream brings relief

“By virtue of our ancient roots, we are all instinctively disposed to respond immediately to threatening and fearful stimuli. We do this in both our waking lives and in our dreams, often through the intervention of nightmares. In a very real way, nightmares tell us that all is not well in our outer or inner worlds.” (Cole, RJ, Pg. 543) *

Along with recurring dreams that seem to show up when there is something going on that may be critical to our well-being, nightmares seem to be an evolutionary and instinctive adaptation to peripheral threats and should not be ignored.

Lately, I’ve been experiencing a dream that incorporates both recurrency and nightmarish qualities.

In this dream which showed up across three nights I puncture a large cube-like container that starts gushing water.  I try to stop it and get sucked in feet first but get stuck moving forward as I try to pull myself out. I struggle mightily but eventually give up and let it suck me into the cube in hopes of overcoming it and then swim my way out. As I find myself underwater with little chance of escape, I begin to panic and frantically thrash toward the entry hole letting the water that’s escaping through the hole suck me back out into the air.

Whew!

Water overwhelming and threatening to drown. As a metaphor for strong or overwhelming emotions that were threatening my well-being this cry for help dream definitely caught my attention. So, the question is, what’s going on right now that is overwhelming me emotionally? What I noticed upon reflection and not going into details was that I had for several days been experiencing a general background malaise, anxiety, and despondency that had been spoiling my ability to enjoy the good things that had been going on and making me feel ill and listless, sort of ‘Bah, humbug’ if you will. I had also fallen into the cynical “everything is meaningless” trap that was making every color turn gray. Given the current circumstances in the world and in the country where I live this attitude had become my defense against the fear, violence, and hate i.e., it can’t hurt me if I render everything as meaningless. 

But it robs me of the joy in life, the love, and compassion because if I render it all meaningless then they too are taken away. As in the dream I’ve let the malaise take me over in hopes that by stopping my resistance to it that it will let me go. Dealing with it is not, however a passive act, it requires an active participation.

This post as well as a number of other activities (such as watching corny Hallmark and Netflix movies) is my way of swimming up toward the hole and escaping the overwhelm.

*Morpheus Speaks: The Encyclopedia of Dream Interpreting

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Loss of independence and personal power

The Dream: A disturbing nightmare where broken teeth and a crowned molar are falling from their place in the upper jaw. I’m trying to put them back where they belong, but without much success. People are killing other people, stabbing and mayhem. 

Interpretation:*

Clearly, I’m experiencing conflict and violence in the waking dream and it’s registering in the dreams of my sleep.

Teeth in dreams often refer to power and independence with the loss of same suggesting equivalent losses in one’s waking life. Broken teeth can reveal problems with self-image or lack of self-confidence. Trying to put the fallen teeth back can be about the need or the attempt to regain power or independence. As one ages these dreams can occur more often reflecting the weakening and losses of power and independence one experiences as they get older.

The killing in this dream could symbolize the feeling of being undermined in status, self-esteem, or self-confidence. Killing can also reflect restriction of independence or of some aspect of the self. Death can be a metaphor for the need to kill off something such as a way of being or negative aspect or trait that may be affecting self-worth.

*Some of the interpretive elements (incl. picture) came from the book Morpheus Speaks: The Encyclopedia of Dream Interpreting

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Death in dreams: not so ominous as you might think

Philosophy and religion on the surface look like opposites where on one side one operates on faith and belief while the other critiques and challenges belief. One espouses the rational while the other embraces the irrational.

However, both are of one mind regarding death in that both welcome the mysteries of death because it speaks to the mysteries of life.

When life and death are seen as opposites separated at birth death becomes real. But when death is seen as the continued transition of the soul’s migration through reality the separation and opposition disappear into a mystical unity.

In Jungian philosophy a goal of life is the reunion of opposites called the coniunctio.

In this vision of life’s purpose death takes on a new meaning shifting from an ending to an element in the soul’s journey toward unity and becomes about change and transition from one way of being to another. This point of view is also reflected in one’s dreams where death can be a symbol for change, an end from one way of being to another. Thus, the image of death becomes an archetype for transition. To embrace it is to partially fulfill the purpose of life i.e., to bring all of life’s opposites (life/death, male/female, the conscious/unconscious) into unity.

After doing a little research on the meaning of death psychologically I put down my laptop and ambled down the hall to bed. During the night I had a dream where I sat before a desk with others standing around me and I placed a small beaker upon the desk and concentrated my focus upon it. When I did it correctly a transition from one place of being would become a new one i.e., we would all sort of “portal jump” from one place to another. I was elated with each successful transition.

Upon awakening the dream seemed significant though a mystery as to how. As I continued my research later that morning the dream’s meaning began to clear. The portal jump from one reality to another was an archetype of death. It’s a focus that I find I often think about these days as life gets closer and closer to this transition period. A shift in focus from an ‘ending’ of life, or place of being, to one of a ‘change’ of place of being seems important to me and gives me a new sense of purpose. As with my earlier life my purpose was to prepare myself through all of life’s transitions to live my life as fully as possible, I now can create another purpose that of preparing myself for this next transition. As a soul it’s all my life.

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Death in Dreams

Tarot: The death card, a sign of spiritual transformation and great change and even fresh starts.

“Without death, life would be meaningless…limitation enables you to fulfill your being.”
–C. Jung

Basically he’s saying that death is a condition for the meaning of life.  

Death in Dreams (The symbolic meaning) Death often relates to the ending of something.
But it can also suggest our relationship, or attitude towards death e.g. how do we feel about it? As an archetype it can show up as a sunset, crossing a river, twilight, a skeleton, gravestones, a cemetery, blackness, the grim reaper, an old man, or woman, a fallen mirror, a stopped clock, or an empty abyss.

Death often shows up in our dreams during times of transition
Dead animals can also be metaphors for our own demise.  

“These are the woods you love where the secret name of every death is life again”  Associated with death is also rebirth and resurrection. 
-Mary Oliver (Skunk cabbage)

Shiva, Hindu god of untamed passion also known as the “destroyer.”

Such things as a cave, or an egg, Spring, dawn, the cross, a snake, a seed, a bird taking flight (though if it were to fly off into the sunset it might suggest death), a Phoenix, flame, a pearl, or the womb.The body itself is in a constant birth, death and renewal cycle in that individual cells need to die in order to be replaced and renewed without constant injury to the body’s cells, fresh cells could not revitalize. This is the idea of creating by destroying. The Hindu god Shiva is the destroyer of the world (actually the ego—the false identification with form, and the letting go of habits and attachments). Brahma then recreates what has been destroyed. In short, all that has a beginning must also have an end. The only thing that dies according to this concept is the illusion of individuality and separateness. In this way Shiva is the great purifier. 

Caduceus Medical Icon/ also known
as the staff of Asclepius

The ancient Greeks believed that a person’s well-being depended on the opposing forces of dissolution and creation. The Caduceus with its entwined snakes and being the symbol of the healer can be symbolically linked with Psyche interacting with matter and transforming both. This idea of the snake representing both death and renewal sheds its old skin to reveal something new and revitalized, thus dying so as to be reborn.                                       

Dead people in Dreams:In most cases this is about the dreamer trying to deal with the passing of someone close. It’s all a process of letting go and of resurrecting the one you interacted with on a physical level into the memory of that same person. For some the deceased become eternally living within the memory of those left behind. 

To see a dead person in a dream:This can represent some area in ones life that has “died” such as a feeling, a relationship, or situation. Sometimes anger repressed in your waking life can kill ones vitality and satisfaction. It can also represent a part of yourself that you would like to leave behind (to see that part, look at what aspect the dead person may represent). 

To see your own death in a dream:This can suggest a transformation in the way you have been, in thought, in feeling, or in attitude. It can also suggest the transition of one phase of your life into a new one. 

“Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear?Who made the grasshopper?This grasshopper, I mean-the one who has flung herself out of the grass,the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” –Mary Oliver (the Summer Day)

For more on death and resurrection in dreams go to the Dreaming Wizard website.http://thedreamingwizard.com/death-and-resurrection-in-dreams_295.html

See also Darkknightofthesoul.blog Dec 20, 2019

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A week of dark night dreams

•Racing around town on a self-propelled scooter at breakneck speed and weaving and dodging.

•Men jumping without looking into deep holes, crevasses into the underground.

•I’m walking into a room. It’s greyish and dark, dank, cold, and empty. It feels lonely and abandoned. I see no windows with the room feeling small but unending.

•Someone is attempting to stab me in the stomach and then shoots me with a rifle.

Lots of internal conflict and warnings about being too reckless. An overall malaise seems to have enveloped both my waking and sleeping dreams. A sense of being attacked by others and by myself permeates these dreams.

I have not spent enough time exploring what’s going on with me, so my dreams take over to focus my attention. I’ve been too harsh on myself lately as well. This has created an unsafe place and empty void within me. I need to let up on the self-attack and focus on what I’m doing.


“Being kind to yourself is one of the greatest kindnesses”.

–Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the mole,

the fox and the Horse

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Insight from a disturbing dream

A scene from the movie, Matrix, we are all a digitally coded reality.

The night before’s dream centered around a vision of a “heart,” more an experience than a physical image. It is a life-altering experience that appears to have a physical form but is not material in essence. The heart experience seems real, but it is not; it appears present, but it is not. I can get it for someone but can’t guarantee that it will work for them. There’s a sense that it brings profound connection and dispels the feeling of separation. I reach into the ether to pull one into existence.

My interpretation of this dream appears to be as cryptic as the dream but reflects something I’ve been psycho-emotionally wrestling with for quite some time. As time has moved on, I’ve developed more and more clarity regarding the thoughts and feelings that have plagued me.

Are we but avatars of One being? Not actual, not separate, with the experience of separateness being illusory born of a system designed to create the illusion built over time.

I wonder if stories of Jesus being sent to earth so that God can experience the human condition are but a human projection or metaphor that reveals a much deeper reality of life?

The creation stories of many cultures also seem to suggest that the “we” we see ourselves as is, but an illusion created by the One.

The reality of death may be part of that illusion because if we are only avatars or expressions, then we were never really born. We are not separate because we were never apart. We are only the illusion of individual beings. As avatars, we may be “experiencers,” aka the “heart of God” or the One. We are both black and white, illumined and dark, gold and lead, wise and foolish, believers or non-believers, loving and hateful, holograms of the One’s expression into the world.

With this view that everything, including what we call “we,” are but God expressions, I seem to have moved from a monotheistic view of God to a pantheistic one. In this view, God, whatever it is, acts as a prism diffracting itself into a myriad of colors (The “we” I’m referring to) but, in essence, is only the One all-encompassing color. The “heart” of my dream is the One we call God.

Shades of the movie Matrix!

Once seen, it changes my relationship with everything I’ve been calling and believing to be “other.”

The strange thing for me is that if this were a true reflection of reality, what would I do with it? In other words, so what? I don’t have an answer for that, yet I somehow feel more at ease with these thoughts than with the belief in separateness. Separateness brings with it fear, helplessness, and vulnerability.

This point of view also seems to answer in part my age-old question of what is my purpose? My purpose in this scenario is just to be, do what I do, experience what I experience, strive for what I strive, feel what I feel, change when I think I need to, and think what I think whenever I think it. That may seem too easy to some, but for me, it’s always been a struggle and probably, to some extent, will remain the same. So, to my list, I’ll add “struggle” with what I struggle with.