Tell Us A Dream #6
Posted: Saturday, February 06, 2010
by Gregory Lewis
PopGnosis
Back to college
Greetings Non-Dreamer, and welcome to Tell Us A Dream!
Here is your dream:
"Hi Greg, First of all, I tend to not remember dreams or even have them (not sure how that all works). I do not know if that means anything. I was browsing through the columns yesterday and noticed yours. I clicked on it and thought, "How interesting, too bad I can never remember my dreams?" Well, I woke up this morning and remembered a dream I had. Weird! Can you make yourself dream? I was in college (I graduated 8 years ago) and I was hanging out with some girls in their off campus house. Personally, I lived on campus during my time at school. In the dream I remember feeling uncomfortable and like I was not part of group. I tended to feel like this in college when I was outside my group of comfortable friends. We decided to go to campus in my dream, and on the way there we saw this store and it was advertising a sale. It was a store that sells designer brand things at lower prices. It looked like a normal storefront and nothing special. I remember feeling awkward asking the group, like they would laugh at me. We went inside and it was actually a large department store, with escalators and people everywhere and just a lot of movement and energy. Nothing like the storefront would suggest. The thing that was even more odd was that it was like an 80's department store. All the clothes were from that time period, like we had gone back in time. Fast forward and the next thing I remember is actually making it to the campus and I was in the cafeteria getting ready to go to a class, I think I was running late. I was trying to finish getting ready in the bathroom. I exited the bathroom and went up to a cash register in the cafeteria. I felt comfortable there and started opening drawers below the register, where the cashier could keep their belongings. There were earrings and a gold necklace. I proceeded to put them on. A woman approached the cash register. It was my mom, and she was the cashier that worked there and it was her jewelry I was putting on. That is all I remember. My mom did attend the same college I went to but I do not think she worked in the cafeteria. I was born in the 80's if that has anything to do with the clothes at the department store. Maybe you have some insight for this non-dreamer!"
Dream interpretation as an art requires a degree of intuition, revelation, and inspiration. The trouble is that nobody is always inspired. Sometimes we have to work for that understanding. During those rough spells, as with any writing it helps to pick things apart. Your dream is by no means unusual, but that doesn't mean it deserves a pedestrian answer. We can pick this dream apart (literally, analyze your dream) by noting its basic components. Then, we look for commonalities and opposites.
The first thing that stands out is a return to the past, which is not at all uncommon after natural cycles of about seven years. Whether it is high school, college, moving, divorce, or whatever big change happened, you will find people tend to nostalgically relive that previous phase in their life. In your case, that was college.
The contrast is the "you" of today against the "you" of yesteryear. Your dream is bubbling over with contrast and dissonance. The designer clothes store, for example, is selling at bargain prices. What you have here are the high idealistic expectations of your college years, when you were emerging into adulthood and its distinct difference from reality as you now perceive it. These old styles didn't keep their value over the years. What seemed fashionable then is not on the front racks now. We're not talking literal fashion sense, as in clothing, but the ideals of youth. But is that really so, or does the window on your world need cleaning, and are you ready to go retro? The dreams of our youth demand periodic reflection. There is a vast amount of modern research showing that engaged individuals never grow old in the mind, and continue to enjoy a youthful presence their more jaded counterparts eventually lose. If you keep re-suiting for old age, then you'll get there that much quicker.
The unconscious is knocking at your door, like a good neighbor who is trying to wake the woman in the kitchen overcome by gas. Your youth is slipping away, out of reach, and suddenly your unconscious realizes it. You have grown increasingly distant from youth, a suggestion implied by the imagery of being apart from your college friends. Your unconscious is pushing this realization to the surface. We tend to have these fears both at the time we are there, when separation anxiety looms as an imminent possibility, and years later, when the inevitable has finally come to pass. There is a secondary, understated implication, one that is more important. There is a sign that you are entering a new phase of life, unaware. The dream is a funny thing. It seems to talk of the past, but hidden in its symbols is the message of the present. It's like a child feeling the pain of the sprouting new tooth, yet she can only think about the old tooth. We can't really know the future, but we sense its leading edge. The future is a wave coming at us, and we only dimly see what lurks in the water behind and within it.
Your dream mom doesn't have anything to do with the fact your real mom attended the same college; at least I don't read that. You might have some other associations that aren't present in your narrative with regard to that. The mother symbol is the older, wiser, and maternal part of you that is dispensing wealth, the gold jewelry, symbolic for the wisdom gained in maturity. It can simultaneously mean your actual mother, who probably took care of you during college. She gave you what you needed then, and what you needed then is what you need now. What makes gold different from any other material of value is its permanent luster, its incorruptibility. It never tarnishes. You have something of value in the hidden drawers, something more valuable than dollar bills, and the dream mother is the keeper of these secrets. Your unconscious is telling you that you still have these valuables, they were never gone, and you might need to "draw" from them now as you enter a new growth phase.
Gregory
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)This article is pretty interesting and was worth the time spent reading it.Please log in to respond to this comment.Thanks for reading, anon. Drop us a dream sometime.
-GPlease log in to respond to this comment.
I was really hoping you'd say something about the "non-dreamer" part. That's what got my attention, I'm one of those people who rarely has dreams I remember. Probably once a year or less. What about that?Please log in to respond to this comment.Hi Jean,I guess my focus is on the dream content, which is a very different subject from the physiology of dreaming. I'm not really one to give advice on how to remember dreams, except to say you can get better at it as you practice remembering your dreams, and maybe an earlier bedtime. Here's why:
Dreaming occurs, as many of us have heard, during the slow wave period called REM, which is detectable to the observer by the dreamer's rapid eye movements.You go through four stages of sleep before entering REM. Each stage is indicated by a distinct kind of wavelength. We are most easily aroused by external stimuli during REM sleep. If you wake up during REM sleep, you will almost certainly recall having dreamed.REM sleep occurs at regular 90 minute intervals throughout your sleep. There is a refractory period after each REM period when you cannot enter REM again. The cyclical nature of REM appears to be controlled by an internal clock.
The typical sleep cycle:
Fall asleep->enter Stage 1-> enter Stage 2-> enter Stage 3-> enter Stage 4->
jump back to Stage 2-> enter REM -> back to Stage 2- back to Stage 3-> back to Stage 4 (repeats)
What is probably the case with people who do not regularly remember their dreams is that they leave REM sleep, and enter into one of the non-REM deep sleep cycles before waking. The converse is to say that people who regularly remember their dreams have just awoke from a REM period. When your REM period falls next to the time you wake up, you will most likely remember your dream.Please log in to respond to this comment.Thanks Greg. That makes perfect sense.Please log in to respond to this comment.
Greg - I've been reading your stuff, and I want you to know that you're a man or rare intelligence and wit. A philosopher in a Key Largo-Hawaii shirt. I'm not just saying that to be nice.Anybody who can make the corrupt fascist Chinese government attempt to hack their website has my vote.Keep writing.John SammonPlease log in to respond to this comment.
One last Note - I rated your story with five stars and the word "or" in the top line should be "of." I depend on spellcheck.JohnPlease log in to respond to this comment.Thanks John, your comments are a rare and precious gift. No if, ands, ors, or buts.Please log in to respond to this comment.
Hi GregoryYour insight shows through very well in this article. I am an avid dreamer, sometimes too much so. I am adept at lucid dreaming and use it as a tool when I need answers that do not come through the general way. Because I consciously use the dream state, I usually know what the message is that is being conveyed. Not always (what I call worry dreams) but usually. I can wake myself up when I need to while in a dream, if it becomes too uncomfortable for whatever reason.I actually look forward to bedtime because I love dreaming. What could be better than to do what you wish without the weight and mass of the physical body. When life gets tiring, I go into dream land, works every timeBlessingsPlease log in to respond to this comment.I'm trying to remember some words I spoke in a dream at this minute. I remember the other content, some of the characters, but one key character has already become ambiguous.Dreams are a life passion. Something that takes up so much of life must have value.Thanks for commenting, Goshwin.Please log in to respond to this comment.
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