General Dreaming > Dream Interpretation
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:
--- Quote from: pj on October 08, 2010, 09:05:54 PM ---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.
--- End quote ---
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.
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