Dream Journaling

[roamer]

So one of my New Years goals is to get in touch with my dream world on a deeper level. I have to date done spotty dream journaling in the past. One difficulty that I notice in my dream journaling is that I have a dream but am then sort of concious in my dream state and end up interpreting it or alterning it before I wake up. I've probably had this habit for a while, but since I find Micheals work on archetypal subconcious dreams fascinating I really want to capture the dreams my subconcious is presenting to me.

Looking back on my first couple weeks of dreams this year I am realizing that capturing as much as possible as important, since any object has lots of potential symbolism. I also am noticing that there are long term patterns that are available to look at if I consistently jounral. For the last week I have had dreams of personal illness every night, but because they were in a variety of contexts I would not have picked them out as significant until looking at it over the week. Somehow I think this dream I had last night is related to the illness theme.

I dreamt that I was in the middle of a native oak savanah landscape, perhaps california'ish. At first I did not recognize the small oak trees or the lanscape and then it came into focus and I looked around in amazement at the little oak bushes, the spotty grass and red earth. Somehow I then found myself pulling a high kite in the breeze as I walked towards something more ominous. I was accompanied on this journey by a short sickly kid, who in this dream was a former classmate. We came into a large city that apparently had a clear ceiling wich my kite could not fit under. The kite caught the attention of some authorities and I was found and scolded, my sickly friend who accompanied me turned to the side of the authorities and seemed to be telling them that he had advised me against doing this all along, and that I just never listened. This left me confused and slightly frightful, that maybe I was wrong after all.
Somewhere at this point I became semiconcious and started to redream it or rewrite it so that it didn't leave me with the nasty ending. I got out of this loop though and jotted down the notes in my dream journal.

Any one want to take a stab at some of the symbolism? I personally have my hunches as to what it means, but want to see if maybe there is some symobology that could add a deeper level of understanding.

[roamer]

Ok without knowing about the symbololgy here is how I interpret this dream. For me being in native natural settings is my default most appealing state, in a sense my heaven abode. The sick child who appears and accompanies me in my dream feels like he represents the part of me that betrays my true self, the part that didn't stick up for what was right because he was afraid. The kite represents my own thin connection to my higher self.

The city for me feels like a place where I am most anxious particularly about all the rules, wich for a large part of my life I did not understand. Though it probably has an archetypal symbology for me it conveys a feeling were mans rules reign, not heavens. The fact that my kite is cut off at the upper boundary of the cities and my sickly friend betrays me means I am challenged to connect with my higher self in this place.

So this dream it seems to be all about the battle for me to stay true to my higher self in all of lifes situations. I just hope its not ominous that in the dream I didn't work a way out of the situation!

[Michael Hawkins]

Hello Nick,

Apologies for taking so long to get back to you on this dream. It's been one of those weeks, if you know what I mean....

I think you've done an excellent job interpreting your own dream -- and I'm not just saying that! While it's true that there's never really a "wrong" interpretation, what you've come up with shows that you have tapped into some deeper truths, and this is exactly what the "soul" or inner Self intends when it sends you information from the depths of the unconscious. In other words, you've already honored the higher part of your being, first by writing down the dream, and then reflecting on it with some level of intensity and depth.

I'll just give a quick impression from an alchemical/archetypal perspective.

Flying kites almost always tap into the Idealist archetype, which goes with the Fool card in Tarot, and with Aquarius/Uranus in astrology. As you've already intuited, it does have to do with "higher thinking," in the sense that it is concerned with obtaining a higher perspective (as with the Fool card, standing on top of a mountain looking down over the land below) so that one may synthesize seemingly disparate bits of data into a coherent and meaningful whole. A dream bringing a kite into the picture would, then, be exposing in you a challenge to attain some level of objectivity in your life -- to see the Big Picture -- most likely in anticipation of taking some sort of action to adjust your material life in the interest of aligning with this "higher" perspective. As a counselor, I would be scrambling to look at your astrological transits now, to see what Uranus (both in the sky and in your natal position) is doing, and to see what planets you have in Aquarius, if any. I'd also be looking at 11th house stuff.

The city, and the implication it carries for you as a place filled with seemingly arbitrary rules and expectations, may correspond with the Elder Leader archetype -- Capricorn/Saturn. Buildings in general can be interpreted as psychic structure, so a city is a collective psychic structure of some sort. In other words, it is a repository of collective beliefs, assumptions and reality-constructs. It is interesting that there was a type of ceiling or upward barrier that prevented your kite from flying where it wanted to go. I would say that, between this restriction and the disloyal kid (conflict with same sex imagery -- places you at the beginning of an alchemical process, probably, as mentioned, around the Idealist archetype)... your intuition is right on, in that you are feeling repressed by outward circumstances, and that you are receiving very little inward support in addressing the situation in a meaningful way. In fact, you feel as though you've stabbed yourself in the back -- "narc-ed" on yourself, so to spak -- just when you are seeking FREEDOM.

Again, this is just one dream, so it's hard to say for sure that you are working with the Idealist and are at the very beginning of a cycle (known as the Black Rose phase) around this archetype... but this is a very clear dream, for what it is, and if we were to assume that we've placed you correctly within the alchemical/archetypal unfoldment, I would encourage you to "embrace the descent," to continue to record/interpret your dreams... and to know that the act of interacting with these messages from the unconscious is precisely what propels one cycle into the next. In other words, your choice to do dreamwork has brought consciousness to that which was unconscious, and this speeds things up, so that you don't get stuck in a descent, but may look forward to movement in short order.

On the other hand, the dream seems to be challenging you to remain sensitive to the Big Picture. It also asks you to recognize that there is a part of you that is frail and frightened, that does not quite feel ready to assert itself in the face of an impersonal and powerful System -- and it wants you to love that part of yourself. If you retain anger or resistance toward this part of you, the Black Rose will continue to exert its descent influence on your life, and not just in dreams -- there is a tendency for things to manifest physically when one is working through the Black Rose descent cycle. The Idealist lives in the lower legs and ankles, for instance -- Achilles' Heel, which is the mythological framework you'd want to look into. It's just important not to push against that little kid, but to let him have his fear and debilitation, knowing that healing comes through receiving the higher message.

Phew... so much for a quick impression!

I hope this helps, brother Nick....

Much love,
Michael

[roamer]

Micheal,
Please no worries at all about the reponse time, I'm just very grateful for the wealth of information that you so generously offer, but completely understand you have lots going on.

Since that dream I have actually not really been able to tap into my newer dreams, and in general feel like it was a culmination of an inner message I was to understand. I have embraced it though by dispassionately examining my outer life and inner life in many situations. In general it is pretty clear to me that I am not trying to hold up my inner ideals in outer life, and I sort of knew that. I've had bursts in my life where I have tried to hold fast to my ideals as much as possible and have put all my energy into it, and it has usually let me down and a bit depressed.

More recently I have taken to sort of leading a bit of a double life, inwardly I have a fire going and am contended and alive in joy and bliss of meditation. Externally though I am so disheartened at what I see that I have sort of false front that gets me through disturbing family situations, work and social interactions with the least amount of resitance and pain. I think this sounds worse than it is, its not like I am doing anything harmful with that false front, but rather not being my true self, simply because it seems so disheartening challenging and confrontational to be that way.


The frail child though is that part of me that still needs and desires affections of friends and family. It is however the piece of me that puts my true self in conflict with higher ideals. Without this need I would not fear being myself, even if I knew it would conflict with some peoples percieved sense of reality.

In the past I thought I could simply sever this need and learn to live without those connections and be closer to my higher ideals. That hasn't proven to be the case. It gets pretty complex, because there is a part of me that feels like friends and family really need to have a me that "acts" as though frivilous objects, social status, job status, and other minutia that occupy thier lifes actually matter. I'm pretty extreme on this point becuase I really don't think they do. I'm not nihilistic either, because I think that life is so so terribly important, its just that 99% of what we have duped ourselves into doing with it is not. Everytime I have tried to explain this to friends and family it has been met with horrible responses, as though I am attacking them. I have since then learned to be mute about so many things.

So anyways my natural response has been to finally take this conflict up and examine it and resolve to come to terms with living my life in a way that is closer to my ideals. The key right now is for me to try to develop wholesome deeper connections with people ( to nurture that sensitive part that needs connections) while at the same time begin again to hold up the deeper part of my ideals. I feel mature enough now to recognize that this will mean sometimes standing my ground, sometimes having to not be accepted, and also just knowing that relationships can exist on many levels, and formerly close family relations need not exist on a concious spiritual level.

Thats a mouthful, but somehow just working with through it in words feels like it begins to enable the healing process. Thanks for helping this process along Micheal!