Lightning Dreamwork Game

[The Littlest Leaf Dragon]

[pj]

Leenanau Wine

The town of Glen Arbor is located on Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula, right in the heart of the Sleeping Bear Dunes along beautiful Lake Michigan.  It is a quaint town with a Victorian flavor, though the tourist destination atmosphere tends to overpower the underlying quaintness.

I really wasn't minding the tourist thing, being a tourist myself.  The late summer evening was cooling off fast as the sun was setting over the dunes, and the city lights and crowds gave me the feeling of being in another country during a festival.  People were everywhere, crowding the walks and shops along the main drag, sitting around town square listening to a lousy little country band playing in the Christmas-lighted gazebo.

"What do you expect?  I don't imagine they have a huge entertainment budget here."

I turn to face the voice.  It emanated from a very fit man who might or might not have been a bit older than me, but who was certainly more physically fit, better groomed and better dressed than I.  A gold-ringed hand cuffed by a Rolex was extended in my direction.  I grasped the hand and locked eyes for a moment.  The grip was firm but a bit restrained, and the gaze included the absolute assurance that I should be grateful for that restraint.

He turned toward the main drag and motioned for me to join him.  The air of confidence and authority he carried had me following him instinctively, as I would my father or the founder of my firm.  I fell into step at his side, feeling a bit self-conscious about my jeans and sweatshirt.

We walked, and we talked.  He asked about my career, life, education, political views and more.  As I shared myself with him, he seemed to drink the information.  His attention was absolute, and I had the impression he was truly fascinated with me.  He shared enough of himself to keep the conversation from being entirely one-sided, but kept turning the focus back to me.

Nearly two hours had passed before I was able to really get him talking.  We had circled back to the town park.  The band had finished for the night, and we took an empty bench along the circular walk around the gazebo.  He told me of several aborted careers and failed businesses, then told me about the one great success in his life - his having founded one of the very successful vinyards gracing the Leelanau Peninsula.  He reached into the shopping bag that had been inconspicuously carried by his left hand and pulled out a yellow labeled bottle of Riesling. He handed it to me.

I took the bottle in my hands and admired the color and the label - 1996.  I looked at him and shook my head, getting ready to explain why I don't drink.  Something in his eyes made me swallow the whole story and thank him for the gift.  I knew others who would certainly enjoy the wine.

A sad resignation settled over him as I put the bottle into the bag I was carrying and set it at my feet.  "I'm ready to retire," he said, "and I don't know what to do next."  I suggested that he consider politics or some other job that would involve public contact.  I pointed out that he had an incredibly powerful presence, and that I don't tend to tell just anybody my life story.  He nodded and smiled while gazing down at his Italian shoes.

The silence continued for a long minute before I realized I had been dismissed.  I stood and extended my hand.  He stood as well, grasped my hand and then cupped my hand between both of his.  He looked me in the eye as he held my hand like that.  "Thank you," he said.

As I walked back to my hotel room, I realized that I never asked his name. . . and he never asked mine.

[pj]

Step 2: Three questions.

    * How did you feel when you woke up from the dream?  This is important, as it reflects the message of the dream and helps give us insight on it.

I felt like I had done something important, even though most of the conversation was about me.  He seemed lonely and lost by the time we were done, and I was glad I spent the time talking to him.

    * Did you recognize any of the people or events in the dream from real life?  -or-  Could any of the events or messages in the dream apply to waking life?  Asking a question such as one of the two listed here help figure out whether the dream is literal, symbolic, or an experience in a separate reality, and it will help determine whether the dream contains any messages or warnings that apply to your waking life.

I recognized nobody.  There are a couple situations in my life that this could be analogous to - most significantly a friend whose life was recently turned upside-down by something that destroyed his business and all his plans for his "twilight years."

    * What would you like to know about this dream?  This question gives guidance for the next step.

I would like to know what he ended up deciding to do.

[Burned up]

Step 1

Dad vs dad

Children are playing in some kind of semi-public space and their fathers are watching from a distance, separate from each other.  Turns out that one father is some kind of crook and the other is involved in a police sting to entrap him.

The informer guy starts walking across a car park, knowing he is being followed by the crook guy.  He goes into a building, along a passage to the bottom of some stairs, where the stairwell entrance room is glassed off with safety glass.  A door is not visible at first glance, but must be there because the man is now the other side of the glass.  When he gets into the room with the stairs, he picks up a heart-shape instrument (like a triangle, but heart-shaped, maybe like a "Jew's harp") and tings it.  This is meant to be the signal for the cops to come in, as now the other guy will be in the passageway and easily cornered.

But they don't come, and unsurprisingly the first guy looks worried.  He proceeds into another room and shuts a heavy wooden fire door, with a window of safety glass, behind him.  As he's shutting it, the crook guy tries to force it back open.  In the struggle, the crook guy breaks the safety glass on the door and punches the first guy, hard, through the hole where the glass was.  But although his strike was full in the face, the first guy was too quick.  He takes some broken glass from the hole and plunges it into the crook's neck, killing him in a spurt of blood.

Step 2: Three questions.

    * How did you feel when you woke up from the dream?  This is important, as it reflects the message of the dream and helps give us insight on it.


Waking feeling - disappointment that the dream had to end like this, a needless loss of life.  Disbelief that the bad guy was putting himself in a kill-or-be-killed situation.  Generally angry that the cops didn't turn up like they should.

   * Did you recognize any of the people or events in the dream from real life?  -or-  Could any of the events or messages in the dream apply to waking life?  Asking a question suck as one of the two listed here help figure out whether the dream is literal, symbolic, or an experience in a separate reality, and it will help determine whether the dream contains any messages or warnings that apply to your waking life.


Nothing from waking life here that I can hook to. I think this is to do with archetypal DCs.


    * What would you like to know about this dream?  This question gives guidance for the next step.

I would like to know more about the actors in the dream.  (i) the good guy, (ii) the bad guy, (iii) the children, (iv) the cops, who I didn't see but was aware of their (lack of) presence. How do these each relate to aspects of my self?

[Burned up]

Leenanau Wine

The town of Glen Arbor is located on Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula, right in the heart of the Sleeping Bear Dunes along beautiful Lake Michigan.  It is a quaint town with a Victorian flavor, though the tourist destination atmosphere tends to overpower the underlying quaintness.

I really wasn't minding the tourist thing, being a tourist myself.  The late summer evening was cooling off fast as the sun was setting over the dunes, and the city lights and crowds gave me the feeling of being in another country during a festival.  People were everywhere, crowding the walks and shops along the main drag, sitting around town square listening to a lousy little country band playing in the Christmas-lighted gazebo.

"What do you expect?  I don't imagine they have a huge entertainment budget here."

I turn to face the voice.  It emanated from a very fit man who might or might not have been a bit older than me, but who was certainly more physically fit, better groomed and better dressed than I.  A gold-ringed hand cuffed by a Rolex was extended in my direction.  I grasped the hand and locked eyes for a moment.  The grip was firm but a bit restrained, and the gaze included the absolute assurance that I should be grateful for that restraint.

He turned toward the main drag and motioned for me to join him.  The air of confidence and authority he carried had me following him instinctively, as I would my father or the founder of my firm.  I fell into step at his side, feeling a bit self-conscious about my jeans and sweatshirt.

We walked, and we talked.  He asked about my career, life, education, political views and more.  As I shared myself with him, he seemed to drink the information.  His attention was absolute, and I had the impression he was truly fascinated with me.  He shared enough of himself to keep the conversation from being entirely one-sided, but kept turning the focus back to me.

Nearly two hours had passed before I was able to really get him talking.  We had circled back to the town park.  The band had finished for the night, and we took an empty bench along the circular walk around the gazebo.  He told me of several aborted careers and failed businesses, then told me about the one great success in his life - his having founded one of the very successful vinyards gracing the Leelanau Peninsula.  He reached into the shopping bag that had been inconspicuously carried by his left hand and pulled out a yellow labeled bottle of Riesling. He handed it to me.

I took the bottle in my hands and admired the color and the label - 1996.  I looked at him and shook my head, getting ready to explain why I don't drink.  Something in his eyes made me swallow the whole story and thank him for the gift.  I knew others who would certainly enjoy the wine.

A sad resignation settled over him as I put the bottle into the bag I was carrying and set it at my feet.  "I'm ready to retire," he said, "and I don't know what to do next."  I suggested that he consider politics or some other job that would involve public contact.  I pointed out that he had an incredibly powerful presence, and that I don't tend to tell just anybody my life story.  He nodded and smiled while gazing down at his Italian shoes.

The silence continued for a long minute before I realized I had been dismissed.  I stood and extended my hand.  He stood as well, grasped my hand and then cupped my hand between both of his.  He looked me in the eye as he held my hand like that.  "Thank you," he said.

As I walked back to my hotel room, I realized that I never asked his name. . . and he never asked mine.

Step 3:  Now it is time to play one of my favorite games, the "If It Were My Dream" game.  To play this game, a second person listens to your dream, and then tells you what thoughts, associations, and memories it brings up for them.  This serves to help you understand your dream better by giving you new insights and perspectives.


What comes to mind for me is one of those meetings we see in movies, where both parties know and don't know who the other person is.  Like Bruce WIllis meeting Alan Rickman half way through Die Hard.  A kind of game going on, if you like.  Maybe the other guy knew you didn't drink, maybe not?  You had to consider many possibilities before settling on your course of action - to accept the gift but not consume it. For me that was the tensest moment of the story - to accept a gift to decline it because it is alcoholic.  In fact you did both - you contained the situation both actually (the wine stayed in the bottle) and metaphorically (you stayed in control).

The other man seems quite a melancholy character from the way the story comes across to me. Some things are important to him but he can't seem to communicate exactly what these might be.

[pj]

Step 1

Dad vs dad

Children are playing in some kind of semi-public space and their fathers are watching from a distance, separate from each other.  Turns out that one father is some kind of crook and the other is involved in a police sting to entrap him.

The informer guy starts walking across a car park, knowing he is being followed by the crook guy.  He goes into a building, along a passage to the bottom of some stairs, where the stairwell entrance room is glassed off with safety glass.  A door is not visible at first glance, but must be there because the man is now the other side of the glass.  When he gets into the room with the stairs, he picks up a heart-shape instrument (like a triangle, but heart-shaped, maybe like a "Jew's harp") and tings it.  This is meant to be the signal for the cops to come in, as now the other guy will be in the passageway and easily cornered.

But they don't come, and unsurprisingly the first guy looks worried.  He proceeds into another room and shuts a heavy wooden fire door, with a window of safety glass, behind him.  As he's shutting it, the crook guy tries to force it back open.  In the struggle, the crook guy breaks the safety glass on the door and punches the first guy, hard, through the hole where the glass was.  But although his strike was full in the face, the first guy was too quick.  He takes some broken glass from the hole and plunges it into the crook's neck, killing him in a spurt of blood.

Step 2: Three questions.

    * How did you feel when you woke up from the dream?  This is important, as it reflects the message of the dream and helps give us insight on it.


Waking feeling - disappointment that the dream had to end like this, a needless loss of life.  Disbelief that the bad guy was putting himself in a kill-or-be-killed situation.  Generally angry that the cops didn't turn up like they should.

    * Did you recognize any of the people or events in the dream from real life?  -or-  Could any of the events or messages in the dream apply to waking life?  Asking a question suck as one of the two listed here help figure out whether the dream is literal, symbolic, or an experience in a separate reality, and it will help determine whether the dream contains any messages or warnings that apply to your waking life.


Nothing from waking life here that I can hook to. I think this is to do with archetypal DCs.


    * What would you like to know about this dream?  This question gives guidance for the next step.

I would like to know more about the actors in the dream.  (i) the good guy, (ii) the bad guy, (iii) the children, (iv) the cops, who I didn't see but was aware of their (lack of) presence. How do these each relate to aspects of my self?

Step 3:  Now it is time to play one of my favorite games, the "If It Were My Dream" game.  To play this game, a second person listens to your dream, and then tells you what thoughts, associations, and memories it brings up for them.  This serves to help you understand your dream better by giving you new insights and perspectives.

What strikes me is the children of these two men playing.  In my mind, they are completely oblivious to the tension, the struggle and the death.

I associate this with the children in our family having been caught in a terrible situation involving one of the aunts involvement in drugs and alcohol, and the results shredding that side of the family.  My kids have grown up missing a grandmother and grandfather as a result.  All the kids of that generation were completely innocent of the situation, but they ended up paying a price anyway.  While it was going on, however, we did all we could to keep them from being pulled into the whole mess.

The good guy wins - but I always wonder about the "crook's" motives and actual crimes.  We live in a world now where governments tend to create laws deliberately (sometimes) to create criminals so they will have more control over the populations.  Some of those society and the law regards as criminals not so long ago would have been recognized as pioneers, innovators, stubborn individualists. . . which, at some not so deep level, I can relate to.

[The Littlest Leaf Dragon]

Pj:

If Leenanau Wine were my dream, I might notice first how this man seemed to be dominating the dream, both literally and figuratively.  He is both its main focus, and he is also guiding you, much as a respected older relative might take you and guide you when the time comes that they need to have an important conversation with you.  At the same time, on a more subtle level, he seems to see inside of you.  Though you don't say anything, he seems to read you and comes right off by saying to you "what do you expect?  I don't imagine they have a huge entertainment budget here."  I also would notice that for all of his wealth and confident exterior, he truly seems to be lost inside, looking for direction, looking for someone to give him a purpose.  In fact, towards the end, that's exactly what's done.

I might wonder at this point if he might be a part of me or represent something inside of me or something that I've been feeling lately, or perhaps someone close to me.  I would also wonder what the real meaning of the gift he gave me was.  What significance did it have?  Also, I would acknowledge that I gave him a gift as well, the gift of guidance, giving him a direction to go.

For step four: How are you going to honor this dream?  Personally, I would suggest reflecting on it in relation to your IWL life and making it a goal to re-enter the dream and find out what he decided to do, since you were interested in knowing.

[Burned up]

Step 3:  Now it is time to play one of my favorite games, the "If It Were My Dream" game.  To play this game, a second person listens to your dream, and then tells you what thoughts, associations, and memories it brings up for them.  This serves to help you understand your dream better by giving you new insights and perspectives.

What strikes me is the children of these two men playing.  In my mind, they are completely oblivious to the tension, the struggle and the death.

I associate this with the children in our family having been caught in a terrible situation involving one of the aunts involvement in drugs and alcohol, and the results shredding that side of the family.  My kids have grown up missing a grandmother and grandfather as a result.  All the kids of that generation were completely innocent of the situation, but they ended up paying a price anyway.  While it was going on, however, we did all we could to keep them from being pulled into the whole mess.

Yes, that's the bit I spotted too. Children being as children have the right to be. And in the dream neither father was interfering in their innocence of their parts in a greater game.

The good guy wins - but I always wonder about the "crook's" motives and actual crimes.  We live in a world now where governments tend to create laws deliberately (sometimes) to create criminals so they will have more control over the populations.  Some of those society and the law regards as criminals not so long ago would have been recognized as pioneers, innovators, stubborn individualists. . . which, at some not so deep level, I can relate to.

This part, and your last paragraph about your family, suggest that there is some explanation for the bad guy's involvement in this story.  This is interesting for me, as I tend to be lawful by default and people who operate outside of the law (gangsters, organised criminals, smugglers etc) must therefore be "bad".  So in fact this "bad guy" could equally be someone who is not "bad" in any absolute sense, but someone whose situation is such that the law wants to bring him to its justice.  The "good" guy (who I identify with in this dream even though it's not me) is merely someone who co-operates with the law.

Step 4: The final step is to decide to do something to honor your dream.  This could be as simple as wearing the shirt or color you were wearing in the dream, or it could be going to the place you dreamed about or calling that friend who made an appearance.  This helps pay honor to the dream as well as to bridge the gap between the dream and the waking.


Well I could do something unlawful and become angry at anyone who tries to stop me. Or I could punch someone. Or I could decide to let down someone who wants my assistance.  Or kill someone who I know is being "bad".  But these would be challenging for me for obvious reasons. Some unlawful acts needn't be bad, of course (in the sense of whatever my personal morality might permit). Maybe I should illegally download something or do something else terribly illegal like drive my car without wearing a seat belt or photocopy some sheet music.  Something will come to mind!

[pj]

Just a side note - I've absolutely not lost focus of this game and will be getting back to it very soon.  Thanks to both of you for your thoughtful responses. . . they are certainly hitting some chords with me.  I'm still cogitating about step 4.

[Burned up]

Just a side note - I've absolutely not lost focus of this game and will be getting back to it very soon.  Thanks to both of you for your thoughtful responses. . . they are certainly hitting some chords with me.  I'm still cogitating about step 4.

Ditto, Pete, and the bit about the law has been illuminating.

And well done Wolvendeer for condensing my whole workshop into one post!

[StarSeeker]

+ watching +

[Sunshine]

(content removed by user request)

[The Littlest Leaf Dragon]

My Brother.

The earliest I remember in this dream, my grandma had some glass contraption with a jar inside containing a thermomiter suspended by a pipe in her bathroom.  I had undone it, and was trying to fix it.  I finally screwed it back onto the fixture the right way, and looking at it I thought there might be spiders on it, but they were only screws. *skip*  Now I am in my old bedroom, sitting on my bed, and there were two guys that were slightly older than me at my computer desk, one sitting down, who I didn't clearly see, and one standing up, who was slightly taller than I am, wearing a blue and red button down shirt with jeans, and is skinny with black hair.  The one standing up was explaining something to us, I thought it was about HIV when I woke up, but it had something to do with a spider bite on the neck. I remember calling him over (at this point I know he's my older brother) and I don't clearly remember what happened next, but at the end of the dream, he was laying on the bed (for a shirt he only had a white undershirt on now) and I was laying with my head on his chest as we fell asleep.

As a note: I was the first born from my parents.

    * How did you feel when you woke up from the dream?  I felt at peace and happy.
    * Did you recognize any of the people or events in the dream from real life?  I didn't know any of the people from the dream, but all of the places were familiar.
    * What would you like to know about this dream?  I would like to know more about the last scene from this dream.  It isn't often that a scene in a dream has the effect of putting me completely at peace.

[wake]

Hi. Wake new here. But, I&I use this technique (SENOI TRIBE technique) for DolphinOlogists! THANK YOU FOR SHARING IT HERE>
May I&I give you CHALLENGING DREAM being dealt with this morning, for the game, here on this reply? i'd like some feedback on?
or is there better place to post?

[pj]

This is the right place to post for this!  I'm glad you found it and find it useful.

Wolvendeer hasn't been around here in a while - perhaps your post in this thread will draw him back.

Thank you!