Two Consecutive Dreams

Last Monday night I had a dream which was unlike my typical meandering mazes. It was a story laid out in three scenes, each highly detailed and I knew nearly everyone in the dream, either personally or I knew of them in the general public.

I have considered and prayed about sharing this dream but I do not feel a release from the Holy Spirit to do so publicly. However, I do feel led to share a few components of it and maybe I’ll eventually get it interpreted in full. I can look up all the symbolism online but dreams are highly contextual and the dreamer’s emotions about objects and people are of utmost importance. One hundred people can dream of a bucket and each could have its own interpretation within the context of the dreamer’s mind.

On the following Tuesday night, after the narrative dream, I had another very detailed dream more in line with my typical dreaming pattern. I will share this dream as it was not as intricately symbolic or involving known figures as the first dream. It stands in stark contrast to the ordered, linear dream with a continuing narrative.

Some Questions About A Few Elements In The First Dream

Symbolism of the Unconscious Mind

Can you enter someone else’s unconscious mind in your own dream? Is the unconscious represented by water? I know sexuality is represented by water but the context didn’t necessary indicate this, not overtly anyway. The sides of the stream had luminescent vegetation and small creatures like fireflies. And what could it mean if you follow someone into the calm stream of water that is clear but dark because it’s nighttime and the figure leading has no problem with you following them in, nor are they disturbed or uncomfortable by it, but you grow increasingly uncomfortable to the point you clammer for the edge and they assist you out, only to turn and calmly continue their journey down the stream, disappearing into the darkness? And if it was my sub/unconscious then why was I ready to get out but they were completely not afraid of it?

The Meaning of Clothing, Exchange of Clothing

What does a coat represent, especially if someone asks for assistance to remove it and then you find yourself wearing it? You didn’t put it on and they didn’t put it on you, but more as if the result was assumed. Or maybe entrusted with it, as if care would be taken in handling it. And it remains a key feature for the entire length of the dream through all three scenes. So it doesn’t seem to be an arbitrary inconsequential event. Does clothing in general represent identity? There was not necessarily an overt feeling of protection, as if it was needed to shield or cover something…but the exact opposite, perhaps contextually like uncovering something previously unknown by enveloping oneself in it.

Apparitions

And there appeared, after so many other strange events, an unknown, unrecognizable person that was also a creature that revealed itself in the last scene. Can figures representing one idea then vanish and reemerge as wholly different archetypes? It was as if there were others transforming or events happening within the dream ‘off stage’ if you will, the dreamer not privy to those transformations or how they occurred. Or maybe, an apparition standing-in as another person’s thought.

And woods or forests – do they also represent the unconscious? Chaos even, as if crossing from civilization to wilderness, and all at night where things tend to vanish, and the night becomes a character in and of itself. The Lord will work this out perhaps one day for me. I do not know if the dream was in anyway events that have happened, are happening, will happen, or simply my mind creating stories for my own amusement. This is not my typical dream by any stretch, which you will see below.

Regardless, I will go on and share the second dream. Whether having the first narrative dream and the second more typical dream consecutively had anything to do with each other, I do not know. I’m inclined to say no. The peculiar timing of each may have been a prompting for me to take a closer look and even led me to share as much as I felt comfortable. I wasn’t thinking of posting anything about any of it and then sought the Lord as to how to proceed. I dream often. But it was the narrative dream that has me curious and searching. Strange, deeply intriguing me, and so many unknowns.

Dream One: My Typical Dream and its Patterns

The Ship

I find myself on a large ship. So large I cannot see all sides of it at once, even if I walk to find the other side, it simply opens up and the ship expands the area of my walk into other parts, corners, doors and floors under my feet. I have my own room and there are many other people also residing on the vessel. We are here for various reasons, I am here as part of a business trip. I have someplace to be but I’m not sure exactly how to get there, so I explore the ship.

This leads me to many different compartments throughout the inner workings of the ship. Sometimes I find myself outside with the sky always blue, sometimes I’m walking through a series of doors and steps and larger rooms I must walk across to get to other doors. Maybe I ascend up and maybe down but I find my way to the outside and perhaps to one end of the ship because I can see three corners.

Three Corners Lay Themselves Out

One corner is the open sea, the other corner is a vast, jumbled formation of rocks pressed right against the ships bow, the third side (or third as I’m counting but in the dream it was simply another side that was visible to me) were people convening, talking, enjoying each other on a more level surface of sand which spilled up onto the deck forming a ramp, so it was easily accessed if I wanted to walk towards them.

The rocks were separate and apart from the ship and I felt a good deal of anxiety looking in that direction; they were imposing and took up nearly my whole plane of view. What was the space between me standing on the deck and the surface of the rocks? Why were they so close and were they going to move? Was I supposed to attempt to scale them, leaving the ship behind me? They remained stationary and though the feeling wasn’t immediate danger, I was disturbed at their proximity to the ship, their height and the unknown that lay between.

I made my way back to one side of the deck where an acquaintance who was rather large in weight was sitting on an asymmetrically shaped object in the middle of the deck, maybe a quadrilateral. So I carefully sat down on the opposite edge but my fears were correct and the object deflated with my extra weight, so I abruptly stood up and she regained her seating beneath her. I made my way over to a door, now trying to find an exit off this portion of the ship but instead of leading me back to the main interior decks, the door opened to reveal a messy room with a woman and a child in it. I had walked into someone’s private quarters.

I closed the door and walked across the deck to the sand side but it had morphed into a series of stairs and ladders spread out over the sand and merging with the sea. I had somewhere to be but not sure where that was or how to get there. As I moved toward the sand, it changed into the boat again and I was climbing up objects, square metal panels, and other things on the ship to get to where I was going. Who knows where that was.

This dream then concluded.

A Final Thought

Maybe I’ll find a solution to understanding the narrative dream, or maybe I never will. God gives dreams and visions to us for a reason – but though I believe this, I also believe that at times, the mind can simply be working out its own patterns and the patterns of the world it encounters and there is no deeper spiritual meaning or foreshadowing to it. I do think our dreams can see into how others are functioning, like tapping into what our subconscious is picking up in our daily interactions that we may not be able to bring up and perceive outright. Intentions of others, for example, are extremely hard to know consciously, during normal interactions, but the subconscious can readily map such subtle indicators.

For now, I bid you farewell. And until next time, sweet dreams, beautiful people~