Welcome!

Thoughts on lots of things, especially education, psychology, culture, religion, and personal growth.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Propositioned

Last night I dreamed that I was in some building that felt like a university building, and Man A (a former professor I never knew very well) came up to me and asked, "Hey, would you like to take a walk with me?"  So we started walking, with him at my left, and it was a long walk through lots of places in this building. He was constantly quiet, imposing, stoic, a very solid presence at my side.  I felt it was awkward to have silence, so I filled in by chattering constantly.  I don't even remember what I was talking about, but I just kept talking cheerfully!
We ended up in what at first looked like a train car, but was actually a moving truck.  We walked in from the back, and even though there were things inside, there were aisles so we could walk through it easily.  I looked around and said, "Oh yeah, all my belongings will easily fit into this big truck!"
Then Man A went into the cab of the truck, while I looked out the windows in the back.  Then I noticed the truck was moving, and realized that Man A had removed the brakes, and it was rolling backwards!  The ground was only on a slight incline, so it wasn't moving very fast, but I saw that it got steeper as it went on, and the road led right into a busy highway!  Man A was laughing maliciously.  I was scared.  I don't remember what I said to him exactly, but I chided him for treating me like this and told him to go away. He went away, and everything was OK.
Then I saw Woman B (also a professor), and I said, "You wouldn't believe what just happened to me!" I told her everything that happened.  She looked at me strangely and said, "You know what he wanted, don't you?  He was going to proposition you!"  (The implication was that I would sleep with him in exchange for good grades, but she didn't say it.)  I was shocked, outraged, and upset.  I told a bunch of people, "I can't believe it! He was planning to proposition me!"

Then the scene switched, and I was in a basement room in or near the same building as before.  It was a small computer room, but it had plenty of computers in it.  Nobody was there, and I thought, "Oh, nobody knows about this, so it's perfect. I'll be able to work in peace and quiet."  I sat down at a computer, and then I noticed there was a radio playing up to my right, and it was playing Oldies music.  I thought, "Oh, I can tune it out."   I went to a website that had a bunch of work-from-home job offers on it.  A lot of them were offers to sell jewelry.  I was trying to decide what I wanted to do.  I saw one that was a business selling crystals.  There were pictures of several large crystals cut in typical, long, pointy, gem-like fashion, most of them were clear or light colors.  Then people started walking in and out of the room, and I thought, "Oh no, I won't be able to work as well if all these people are here to distract me."


Then I woke up.  I actually felt good when I woke up, though.  I had a boost of optimism, and I'm thinking something shifted in my dream.  Indeed it did.
__________
My personal associations with the dream symbols:
Man A: Lazy, doesn't take responsibility, full of himself, but I didn't know these things about him until later 
Moving truck: Very large. I have been thinking about moving lately, in waking life. Indeed, all of my personal belongings would fit in a truck like that. Strange that it had windows.
Woman B: Extremely talented and accomplished, but low self-esteem. Was taken advantage of professionally (in waking life) by Man A's irresponsibility
Proposition: an offer for sex. For some reason, the word reminds me of the word "propel," to move forward.
Basement: no windows, private, secluded
Computers: Connectivity, extremely important tool for my work, powerful
Oldies: unsophisticated but fun, relics of the past, can be irritating
Work from home job offers: most are scams in waking life, but I knew all of these in the dream were legitimate.  An opportunity to gain value without having to go to the effort of traveling away from home
Crystals: "crystal clear," something is becoming more obvious to me. Valuable. Contain powers, according to some people.


Interpretation: 
I'm in a situation that puts me in a frame of mind very similar to when I was in college.  (Umm, Yes.)  I am playing with an idea, or rather, an idea is playing with me, that would cause me to identify with my lazy side, the side that doesn't want to be responsible but still be esteemed in others' eyes.  This part of me is not obvious, but I know it's there, and I feel the need to cover it up by expressing all kinds of things that are off the point, a distraction technique to evade the danger I feel I'm in.  This side of me brings me to a place where I could see myself completely uprooting from my current state of mind and associating with an entirely different identity and frame of mind (just as a moving truck would move all my belongings to a different place.)  Just as I'm about to "let loose," let this side of my life remove all inhibitions (the brakes) and send me to a dangerous place, I see what's happening, take control again, and banish this idea.
The part of me that undervalues myself, though, appears at that point.  If I'm not going to over-value myself like Man A does, then I guess I'll under-value myself like Woman B does. She reveals that the irresponsible side of myself was going to ask for sex, which in dreams symbolizes a unity, a joining into the consciousness of energies within the dreamer.  My irresponsible side wants to be a part of my consciousness.  I am outraged, though.  I do NOT want to be identified as irresponsible in ANY way!
This leads me to the basement, the privacy of my own soul.  I am working on connectedness, relationships, trying to figure out the right perspective ("site"= "sight").  I am synthesizing these responsible/irresponsible energies somewhat, as shown in the symbol of the work-at-home jobs.  I could have the best of both worlds: the relaxation of being at home, but the responsibility of having a job.  It is this synthesis that has the potential to give me a view that is more "crystal clear."
There is the pesky problem of my past, but hey, I can ignore that for now. (Yeah right. Watch it come back in other dreams...)  It is after I have the revelation of things becoming more "clear," that people begin to come in and out of the room.  It's as if to say, OK, you've got this idea down in the basement of your mind. Now you have to live it out in all the actual issues of your life. I'm unsure I can do this in the dream.  And yet I woke up feeling good, so I know that, indeed, I can live out this synthesis.


Dream work:
I'll find a picture of a crystal like the one in my dream and print it out. (Or I'll probably just draw it.)  Under the picture I'll write, "I work from home in perfect balance."  This will tell my unconscious mind that I have accepted the challenge of synthesizing my ostracized lazy irresponsible side in a healthy way into my consciousness. Hang this picture in a prominent place, and let my mind feel "clear and powerful" when I see it.
Note to readers: This is not an attempt to magically make a "real" work-at-home job appear in my life. All the images in dreams are symbolic of deeper energies.  When I do the dream work, I'm allowing my unconscious to heal a split within myself that has very little to do with my career choices, and everything to do with my struggling personality.

No comments:

Post a Comment