Maritzia's · Thoughts

I tend to be very introspective in the shower as I think I've mentioned before.  Part of the reason for that is that my conscious mind has to be pretty well occupied to let my unconscious hold sway.  It's one of the reasons why I much prefer ritual prayer.  The ritual gives your mind something to latch onto so your unconscious mind can communicate with you for a bit.  I'm not one of those persons who meditate easily.  There's some studies that say a person is either born with that ability or not.  Those of us who were not have to make do in other ways.  So for me, it's when my mind is occupied with other things:  driving the car, doing the shopping, and..yes...when I'm in the shower.

So, today I was thinking about how dreams evolve.  When I was in the convent, our novitiate had a lecture on dream interpretation.  Since I've always tended to have very vivid recurrent dream, I found this quite interesting and have read more on the subject over the years.  I've found I'm pretty good at interpreting not only my dreams, but in helping others interpret theirs.  Anyway, as I was saying, I was thinking today about how our dreams evolve.  Looking at our recurrent dreams over time can be a really good picture of how we are evolving emotionally.

For instance, cars in dreams tend to denote power.  Being in a runaway car denotes powerlessness...i.e. things are out of your control.  The bigger the vehicle, the more power is involved.  This is a long term recurring dream for me.  I've had it most of my adult life.  What has changed about the dream over time is how I react in the dream.  These dreams used to bring me heart-stopping terror.  I was so terrified as to be completely unable to function in the dream.  I'd usually wake up gasping for breath, heart pounding, afraid to go back to sleep.  Over time, though, as I've come to accept that I can't control every part of my life (as much as I'd like to *laughs), the dreams have changed.  I still have the dreams (although not as often as I used to), but these days, I'm not afraid in the dream.  Sometimes I'm a bit tense, but much of the time, it's just not important that no one is controlling the car.  I trust that it is going to get me where I need to be.

Another theme in my dreams has been being threatened in some way.  Someone is following me, or I'm being shot at.  You know the kind.  Again, these used to be really terrifying dreams.  I don't really have these much any more, but I had one this week.  My boss came in earlier in the week in just the most abhorrent mood.  While he's a loud, rather voluble man, he isn't usually a screamer.  Well, he was screaming this day.  Normally, something like that just shuts me down (having grown up in an abusive household, screaming was usually just a precurser to having the shit beaten out of you).  However, while I was extremely tense that day, I was still functional.  That night, I had the threatening dream again, one where I was being chased.  But the difference was that, while I was tense in the dream, I wasn't really afraid.  And as the dream went on, I became the aggressor.  I stopped running and started hunting.  Then it went off into this whole Battlestar Gallactica thing *laughs*, but I don't think that was particularly symbolic.

Our dreams can be an important insight into how we are coping emotionally in our lives.  If you are a person like myself who tends to be pretty private and never show emotions, then probably you also have very vivid dreams.  Because if we don't allow them expression while we are awake, they will certainly express themselves in our sleep.