BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Temple >

Dream Clinic

  
  

Page: (1)2345

 
 
Quantum
13:35 / 05.02.07
Significant but puzzling dream? Discuss it here.

We could also use the thread for discussion of dream symbolism in general, how to tell if a dream is prophetic or a Message and not just that cheese sandwich before bedtime.
 
 
grant
14:29 / 05.02.07
From the "Stupid Questions" thread, Mordant Carnival writed:

It was one of those loud pingy dreams where you're sure it was Very Important.

In the dream I'm soon to be married, to another woman. Everyone is very happy for me, but my mother is rather critical of my bride's hair and insists on giving me a bottle of special shampoo for her to use so it'll look right on the big day. She also doesn't like the wedding-dress I've picked out and insists that I wear one of her six wedding dress which she has been keeping in storage against this very day. I choose a dress which has a decoration of large mother-of-pearl flowers, which I'm told were carved out of oyster shells. (NB--the woman who's my mother in the dream is not actually anything like my mother in real life.)

I don't get this at all. Why the hair-washing? Why the six wedding dresses? Why the oyster-shells?

So I is wrote:
Some old, domestic (in-grown, inside yer head) process is putting conditions on a state of transformation/union with an external influence.

These conditions are superficial and sort of beside the point (the point is that they're beside the point), but seem not to be making you feel good about the union.

There's something in your head trying to shape the way you're taking your next step.

(If the pearls were pearls, then that'd be another cipher for "sea change," but mother-of-pearl makes that a little vexed. Although, since it's a mother with the mother-of-pearl, that might make *you* the pearl.)

Oysters are also richly symbolic of themselves, being tough, nasty looking exteriors over soft, tender insides (which are surrounded by beauty inside their tiny fortresses). It's hard for me, in the context of the thread in which this dream originally appeared, not to read oysters as having something to do with Reichian body armor, but that might be a red herring.

Anyway, shells, hair and dresses are all things that are external to the body yet a part of the body -- the cover by which books are judged.

That help?
 
 
Benny the Ball
14:37 / 05.02.07
I dremt that I had moved back into my parents house, and had infact moved into their room, while they moved into my old room. I laughed at something very hard, and shat myself a little - then suddenly woke up, went to the toilet to realise that I had shat myself only to wake up again, for real this time, devoid of self soiling.
 
 
EvskiG
15:38 / 05.02.07
It was one of those loud pingy dreams where you're sure it was Very Important.

In the dream I'm soon to be married, to another woman. Everyone is very happy for me, but my mother is rather critical of my bride's hair and insists on giving me a bottle of special shampoo for her to use so it'll look right on the big day. She also doesn't like the wedding-dress I've picked out and insists that I wear one of her six wedding dress which she has been keeping in storage against this very day. I choose a dress which has a decoration of large mother-of-pearl flowers, which I'm told were carved out of oyster shells. (NB--the woman who's my mother in the dream is not actually anything like my mother in real life.)

I don't get this at all. Why the hair-washing? Why the six wedding dresses? Why the oyster-shells?

Here's my take, with a Jungian spin.

(Keep in mind, of course, that I don't really know you and could be completely wrong.)

Bride: A semi-neglected aspect of yourself that you (1) presently see as exterior to yourself, and (2) feel a need to internalize and join to your conscious self.

Mother: Part of your self that generates self-critique. (Pretty common symbol, actually.)

Female/feminine symbols: all over the place. bride, mother, woman's hair, wedding dress, oysters, mother-of-pearl, flowers.

So the dream could mean something like this:

The part of your mind responsible for self-critique (mother) is telling you that you need to work to make more conscious (marry) certain underdeveloped or neglected aspects of your self (the bride).

This may involve things seen as classically or stereotypically feminine (bride), including personal appearance (hair/dress) or relationships (wedding/marriage).

You have a variety of options for exploring this aspect of yourself (six wedding dresses). You expressed interest in one that involves classic feminine and mother symbols (oysters, mother-of-pearl).

Does that sound at all right?
 
 
The Ghost of Tom Winter
17:44 / 05.02.07
It was one of those loud pingy dreams where you're sure it was Very Important.

In the dream I'm soon to be married, to another woman. Everyone is very happy for me, but my mother is rather critical of my bride's hair and insists on giving me a bottle of special shampoo for her to use so it'll look right on the big day. She also doesn't like the wedding-dress I've picked out and insists that I wear one of her six wedding dress which she has been keeping in storage against this very day. I choose a dress which has a decoration of large mother-of-pearl flowers, which I'm told were carved out of oyster shells. (NB--the woman who's my mother in the dream is not actually anything like my mother in real life.)

I don't get this at all. Why the hair-washing? Why the six wedding dresses? Why the oyster-shells?



I’ll try my hand with the structuralism technique.

There seem to be two parts to this, the realization of discontent of the mother and then the gaining of a new dress.

There are a few opposites that seem important:

1st part
Happiness vs discontent
Like vs Dislike
Daughter vs mother

2nd part:
Flowers vs oyster
Land vs sea

Perhaps, there is a part of you that knows what you do will not be fully accepted by your mother but that she will still try to be the nurturer for you. Perhaps accepting the advice of your mother (or mother figure it seems) will lead you to a nurturing position your self (as shown by the flowers made of oyster shells). Or maybe the passing on of nurture-ness

This reminds me that I’m not too skilled at this structuralism stuff, but perhaps that helped somehow.
 
 
EmberLeo
22:03 / 05.02.07
I equated hair-washing to head-washing at a glance, and started looking for water goddesses (at least as symbols, if not actually passing down messages from on high) for the Mother giving Mother-of-Pearl wedding dress.

--Ember--
 
 
crimson
03:15 / 06.02.07
The imagery seems very reminiscent of the painting of Venus and of the story of Aphrodite in general. You have the same oyster/ pearl/ mother of pearl connection, the water and the washing seems to echo aphrodites emergence from the sea and perhaps you yourself need to undergo some kind of ritual with water or cleansing of the soul, coming to recognise something maybe? before you can harness and use your femininity perhaps in a nurturing capacity (maybe this is where your mum comes in)

I think that the dream indicates that you have some form of commitment to make to a direction you need to go in and that this direction is tied up very largely with your feminine energy.
 
 
Unconditional Love
09:16 / 06.02.07
Okay my take, you have reached a place in your life and your self where you are looking at the qualities that make you whom you are, you know that you have the characteristics of your mother within you, that you absorbed as a child, we all absorb our parent(s) traits, your faced with a choice of choosing those aspects you relate to well and those that you are uncomfortable with, you are going through a change of internal and external make up/appearance, self questioning who you are.
The deepest parts of yourself reflect your mother, yet you are there as well, distinct from her character, a choice of integration is being presented, you can choose those aspects, the mother part of you is guiding you as she would and from your rememberence as a child.

The decision is yours of what aspects of your parents you integrate into yourself, the seperation between parent and child is never complete even thou we may think we have grown up, our ancestors living and dead are a living part of our awareness and whom we are, they speak to us in dreams, they also reflect parts of ourselves to us in dreams and day to day situations.

The choice of dress is about the renewal of self as is the washing of hair.
 
 
Quantum
12:19 / 06.02.07
The Star in the Haindl Tarot is washing her hair (and associated with Tzaddi).
 
 
The Ghost of Tom Winter
20:27 / 06.02.07
Hey guys, I got a dream from a few months ago. It seemed like it was important, I can vaugley see a pattern, but I'd like to see an outsiders take on it as well.

I, along with Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca and the rest of the Rebel Alliance blew up the Deathstar from within as most of you are familiar with. After this I was leading a scout team of rebels to inspect the debris, we came upon this strange set of debris that seemed to have logged itself within a comet. As my team got closer we realized Luke was fighting Darth Vader inside this piece of debris which appeared to be a landing bay.
I flew my X-Wing into the landing bay right over the two Jedi heads and got out to inspect. It seems that Luke and Vader were no longer there, or had gone elsewhere. I looked around and notice Boba Fett standing near a rock wall that had made its way through the debris. He looked over his shoulder, showed something to me, then activated what he was holding in his hand. At this point Boba Fett turned into a glowing outlined form of a trilobite and followed this were various other animals in glowing outlined form that represented a form of evolution. Boba Fett then disappeared, or became with everything? He kinda melded into the air/rock/debris.
So I head over to what he was looking at and noticed some capsules. These capsules kind of look like chromosomes and I noticed that I was able to pull tiny spheres out of my body and place them into the capsules. I took apart the capsules, rearranged them and put various spheres from within me into this capsule. I understood that Boba Fett unlocked a Mayan secret. This is why they suddenly disappeared. They altered their DNA to evolve unto a higher plane of existence. Now I was doing it. I got all the pieces together and closed the capsules and began the activation, it started doing something but as this was happening a giant monstrous female succubus* thing charged at me and questioned what I was doing. This thing was hideous, it had matted tangled hair with giant fangs and a body akin to part bat and wolf. I want to say she batted away the capsules but I am not sure. After this I'm unsure what happened. I believe I was in a dark place with someone else and we were lying down because we couldn't do much else.

*The succubus kinda looked like my mother, but it didn't "feel" like her if you gather my meaning. It felt more like a powerful female force.

So yeah, there it is.
 
 
Princess
09:15 / 07.02.07
OK. Had this dream, thought it was pretty. Would like to see what it's about.

A beautiful boy, covered in white feathers. He is called Swanboy. He is mute. He falls in love with a grey boy, a metal man. He is metalman. Swanboy can only talk when he is dying, so metal boy has to eat a bit of him everytime they need to talk. Eventually swanboy get's entirely eaten.

Felt poignant and beautiful, and also kinda sexy. A very subdued, icy sexy.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:23 / 07.02.07
(Just popping back to say thanks, everyone--you've given me some useful input to consider.)
 
 
Quantum
10:31 / 07.02.07
Mr Microcosm- did your dream feel magical, or deeply significant, more so than your usual dreams?
 
 
The Ghost of Tom Winter
11:59 / 07.02.07
did your dream feel magical, or deeply significant, more so than your usual dreams?

Yeah, it had this certain thing about it, like a layer of importance almost, or a jumpyness about it.
 
 
GogMickGog
12:51 / 07.02.07
Besides the one where the charity girl on the street with a clipboard -you know, the kind you cross the road to avoid- tried to get me to sign up as a freemason (though I had to pretend I wasn't expecting it. Sounds like a bad Mitchell and Webb sketch, no?) the biggest weird dream I've had of late goes as such:-

I am trapped in some sort of large warehouse space, made up with all kinds of obstacles. There are three or four other people with me, all of whom are a family - a mother and child and her husband. How and why I am there isn't clear, but it seems like some kind of punishment. The feel of the whole thing is a little Mad Max.

We all wear these rigs on which are arranged lots of coloured balls. As well as this, we have some sort of cannon which, when fired at one another cause one ball to fall loose at a time. I never quite work out what this means, but there is a sense that when they are all gone, the subject will be put to death. Somehow, I don't have a rig of my own so everytime I fight with someone I end up winning the fight and there is a real sense of guilt that I have brought them closer to death.

Anyhow, the crux of the dream is that one day I wander over to one corner of the warehouse and find, to my shock, an exit. I walk through and find myself in a tube station where a whole bunch of men in suits come out of the shadows to congratulate me.

Now, what the heck?
 
 
The Ghost of Tom Winter
09:42 / 11.02.07
A beautiful boy, covered in white feathers. He is called Swanboy. He is mute. He falls in love with a grey boy, a metal man. He is metalman. Swanboy can only talk when he is dying, so metal boy has to eat a bit of him everytime they need to talk. Eventually swanboy get's entirely eaten.

I'm strangley turned on by this...
anyways
I see a duality between sensuality and masculinity (Swanboy and Metalman). Swanboy seems the passive type that must be coaxed into action by the larger force known as Metalman.
Eh, it's a start. And an attempt to revive the thread.
 
 
Princess
11:27 / 11.02.07
I didn't see him as passive, more sort of trapped. It wasn't that he wouldn't talk, it was that he was physically unable, Swan Song and all.

I'm not entirely sure I want to disect it too much. I've dealt with the dream,(it's a song now), and I don't want to overly muddy the waters.
 
 
LykeX
21:49 / 11.02.07
Do you mean that you've actually written a song on this theme? When I first read it, I thought it'd make a great short story, although now that I think about it, a song would probably be a better way to do it.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
23:12 / 11.02.07
I kind of read that dream in terms of Swansong: Teh Actual Old Thing. I saw it as an update, whereby Swanboy (swan) wanted to communicate with Metalman (human) and had to consent to his death/consumption. The Old Thing version--swans make a fairly horrible noise, but each swan may sing one last song of intense and surpassing beauty at the time of its death--is here rendered into a consensual love-affair.

Me being me I have to get all into people who can change into birds, swan-maids and so forth. Voland/Wayland, etc.

I also recall a grim(m?) fairy-tale where a girl's 7 brothers were cursed into swan form and she had to rescue them. She had to remain mute for 7 years and weave, with her fingers, coats of nettles. Obviously eclectic mutism and mucking about with dodgy herbs will get you into all kinds of shit, and our lass had only done six and three-quarters of her knitting when her neighbours deemed it meet to burn her as a witch. She managed to get most of her brothers sorted out, but the youngest was ever after left with a swan's wing for an arm.



*well, if you're human. I'm sure it's very nice/interesting/significant if you're another swan.
 
 
Princess
23:20 / 11.02.07
I think the story is traditional Irish rather than germanic. "Children of Lir" I believe. I used to have it in a big story book as a child, and it's one of my favourites.

But yeah, it is a song, and I'm really happy with it. It's just so surreal and sexy and odd. Very anti-folk.
 
 
Quantum
08:48 / 12.02.07
This version doesn't have the cloaks of nettles but the sound of a christian bell saves them, so I reckon the nettle cloak and eleven brothers story might be the older version, before the missionaries amended it.
 
 
Quantum
11:58 / 12.02.07
Aha, the nettle cloaks story is The Wild Swans (De vilde svaner) a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen.

The people decreed that Elisa should be burned. But Elisa continued to knit, even in her prison cell and as she was carried on a cart to the pyre.
The people saw that Elisa was innocent and the king placed a white rose over her heart. The church bells rang on their own and there was a wedding procession back to the castle, such as no king had seen before

Interesting detail that he places a white rose over her heart and the bells ring on their own- looks like the Irish myth is older after all.

The last part of the story in detail goes;

"Now I may speak," she exclaimed. "I am innocent." Then the people, who saw what happened, bowed to her, as before a saint; but she sank lifeless in her brothers' arms, overcome with suspense, anguish, and pain.
"Yes, she is innocent," said the eldest brother; and then he related all that had taken place; and while he spoke there rose in the air a fragrance as from millions of roses. Every piece of faggot in the pile had taken root, and threw out branches, and appeared a thick hedge, large and high, covered with roses; while above all bloomed a white and shining flower, that glittered like a star. This flower the king plucked, and placed in Eliza's bosom, when she awoke from her swoon, with peace and happiness in her heart. And all the church bells rang of themselves, and the birds came in great troops. And a marriage procession returned to the castle, such as no king had ever before seen.
 
 
grant
14:36 / 12.02.07
I like the Book of Boba Fett up there.

He's always such a sphinx, isn't he?

The bit at the end reminds me also of Grendel's mom -- tougher than Grendel, oozing out of the swamp.
 
 
EmberLeo
17:42 / 14.02.07
This felt significant, though probably only about my emotional/spiritual state, rather than a Message From Above:

I dreamt that somebody ignorantly, and perhaps just a bit spitefully, took all my old Barbie dolls that I have dressed in special handmade scrap suede outfits, and let the kids they were babysitting play with them in the bathtub.

I came to see the bathtub, which was in my Mom's bathroom (so, the one I grew up with), but not in my Mom's house, and the tub was practically lined with Barbies, about half of which were my dolls, soaked, their clothing ruined, and stuck to the sides of the tub where they were drying.

I was furious! And there was nothing at all I could do about it besides rage and rant. It couldn't be undone, because those dolls aren't available anymore, and those random scraps from the Ren Faire are never the same twice, and the careful work I did as a teenager to make the outfits wouldn't be the same now as an adult.

Now, what comes to mind, now that I'm awake, is that the Soul Retrieval I had done in December for the sake of experiencing it before learning to perform it on others included recieving a doll back. But that doll was very specifically NOT a Barbie. It was the kind of cloth-body plastic-head baby doll that little girls are given to carry around and pretend to be a mother. I very specifically did NOT want that doll. So I'm not sure it's related.

Thoughts?

--Ember--
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
01:39 / 12.03.07
A postscript: On plugging "six wedding dresses" into Google, I got the story of a woman in Shropshire who found six white wedding dresses in a cupboard. She donated them to a charity taking humanitarian aid to Eastern Europe.

This pinged pretty hard for me. I like working with textiles, sewing and embroidering. It seems sort of therapuetic for me. But I can't always motivate myself to do the work for the sake of doing it. A wedding-dress might be a bit of an ambitious project, but making handicrafts as donations and gifts seems like a plan. A lot of charities like to recieve such things, either to sell on or to give to people. Looks like a good excercise in generosity, which I am bad at. (It would also make a nice devotional act for some of the less butch Ladies in my pantheon. I'm sure Freyja would just LOVE it if I made a wedding-dress in Her name, eh?)
 
 
Aha! I am Klarion
14:33 / 15.03.07
Recently I had a success with one of my sigils, using an audio program I created a bunch of phonic sound files which I would listen to at random...at this time I was having some doubts about magic and wanted some more tangible results, so I came up with some random wishes just to test the waters...odd stuff. Well one of these sigils was "It is my will to dream about birds" worked well. The other night I had a very, very vivid dream before waking.

I was in the back seat of an open top car driving by a river lined with powerlines. I look up in the sky and floating (and I say floating, as in not flying) is a larger blue jay (about the size of small dog). This blue jay was not a full grow in shape, but had the body shape of a chicken (or baby penguin) but with blue feathers. It landed in my lap and played in my lap like small kitty, its talon's scatching me. Just before I awoke the bird reached up and bit my adam's apple, not painfully but like a sweet nip from a cat or dog. However, I had this weird feeling of comfort mixed with existential terror of bird...and it had this feeling of special signifigance, like it meant or was something more.

What up with that?
 
 
Olulabelle
22:27 / 04.04.07
In my dream some boxes started moving around of their own accord in my bedroom. It wasn't my real bedroom. Prior to the boxes moving around I had been sorting through them, looking at old baby clothes.

I investigated the cause of the moving boxes and I found a rat about the size of a rabbit pushing them around like a sliding block puzzle. It had half a tail and it looked a bit like Gordon the Gopher - it was a furry toy rat, but it was alive. I wasn't frightened of it.

It ran across the bed which The Beautiful Man was sleeping in and I tried to scoop it up. I wasn't going to hurt it, just remove it from the room. It bit my finger, hard, there was blood and it's teeth sunk into my skin. I tried to shake it off. I opened the window and shook and shook and it fell off my finger and splatted all over the roof below.

***

When I woke up I cried. I felt really bad about killing the live toy rat, especially since it had already survived one injury (losing half it's tail).

In Chinese astrology I am a rat and so is TBM. I am not afraid of rats. TBM used to keep two and they lived mainly in his pocket. Ganesh rides a rat.

I can't think of any other obvious rat symbolism.

Why did I kill the rat in my dream?
 
 
Dutch
00:54 / 05.04.07
Not really puzzling, but significant, at least I felt it was. And it somewhat illustrates the power of dreams to resolve issues, at least to me it does.

Reality: I was having real difficulties with my ex having a new boyfriend. Every time I saw him or her (or together), I would crawl up inside myself or be antagonistic towards either of them.

Then, a few weeks ago, I had this dream where I was at a party, where they and several of my closest family members were present. At one point, I turned around, and there my ex and her current boyfriend were, "making out" on the couch. As I turned towards my father to complain about it, he merely looked at me and said; "You're acting. You need to move on, and stop feeling sorry for yourself."

I woke up, and instead of feeling miserable, after previous dreams where my ex was involved with another guy, I just immediately sat upright on my bed and realised my father was right (even though he never told me in real life).

Haven't had that many problems since then.
 
 
grant
03:03 / 05.04.07
Rats: my guess is it's something uncomfortable or taboo or disgusting that you're dressing up in cute, acceptable, harmless clothing. It's not working -- the gross thing is wounded, and it's still, on a fundamental level, a wild creature (or impulse or feeling) that needs to be free (expressed? reframed?), not cuddled and treated like something it's not.

I don't know what this thing might be. Anything from sexuality to repressed anger to, I don't know, an urge to pick your nose on the pavement.

Perhaps eating some Bumblebee tuna would help. I love a sandwich made with Bumblebee!
 
 
The Ghost of Tom Winter
04:07 / 05.04.07
I had a dream a few weeks ago that all of Barbelith was a giant rusty freight boat. Everyone worked together to create golden pipes (about 6 foot in diameter) that were then shipped off on smaller boats. A very large sea giant was walking towards the Barbelboat and took one of those pipes. He then absorbed the pipe into himself.
 
 
Sekhmet
00:52 / 09.04.07
I have been told by all the prognosticators who are trying to predict the gender of my baby that I should pay special attention to my dreams in that regard. So of course, I finally had my first dream about the baby, and it was completely inconclusive and cryptic and I figured I'd toss it out here for Barbe-perusal:

My doctor calls and says that she has been listening to the tape from my last visit and she thinks she has detected a second heartbeat in my womb. So I pull it out in the bathroom and unzip it (my womb is apparently a brown leatherette bank pouch) to see what is inside. I find two black birds, some type of corvids, I think. One is fully formed and fledged; I discover the other when I lift her out of the pouch. It resembles a hatchling with only a few feathers edging its wings. They are female and male, respectively, and in place of eyes they have cabochons of pale green stone. I rinse the female under the tap, having handled her, and carefully replace her in the pouch.

(For the record, my first ultrasound pretty conclusively demonstrated that I'm not having twins.)

Any thoughts appreciated.
 
 
Papess
02:39 / 09.04.07
It would seem like you chose the female, but odds are 50/50.
Congratulations, to you, Sekhmet!
 
 
Sekhmet
03:16 / 09.04.07
Hmm, yes, well, that's a thought. I didn't think I had a preference, but perhaps my subconscious does.

And thanks!
 
 
grant
00:38 / 10.04.07
I ask this because it's relevant: didn't you write something about corvids on here before?

I agree with the "sounds like a girl is being made ready" assessment, by the way.
 
 
Sekhmet
02:09 / 11.04.07
More than likely I have. I operate mostly within the Northern trad, so ravens are kind of a big deal, and related birds sort of by association. Crows, grackles, all that sort. And I'm a bit birdy-obsessed anyway - I collect feathers and I get all excited about redtailed hawks and great blue herons and purple martins and point them out to people who don't care.

Hmm. Isn't there some sort of folklore about black birds carrying the souls of the dead to the afterlife, psychopomp-stylee? I wonder what carries a soul into a new incarnation?
 
  

Page: (1)2345

 
  
Add Your Reply