Dream Analysis of the Week- Death of what matters

Dream:

I have had series of dreams about death, dying, losing pets and what matters to me. It leave me feeling heavy, sad. I often wake up scared and vigilent. 

Insight:

What matters to you at one stage of life will differ from other stages. Prioriities change and we evolve as beings.  Death dream themes can be disturbing and confusing. Rest assured, the theme of death is not literal. Its not a premonition you'll leave your body soon. These dreams refer to parts of you undergoing a symbolic death. Its about resistance to letting go of what no longer serves your soul growth.

What in your life is slowly slipping away? Is it your anger or your lust? Is it a lifestyle or persona you present which feels false or incongruent you grow more authentic? Maybe you are ready to give up on a dream of being a musician or fighter pilot? Maybe you are ready to leave a public role you held for years in order to pursue your dream of running a horse farm. Already moving beyond the familliar version of you, fear what's next? Death could be symbolized by peer rejection, acting "out of character" or not living up to expectations. As we move from a mindset of being a follower to being a leader or our own assertive self, it may be we are shifting percspectives or personas to uncover more of what is real and possible for us now.

When something in us dies, we go through a natural grieving process. To feel sad or miserable is a stage in letting go. How bad we feel is proportional to how attached we have been to an idea, person or situation.  In essence, you are saying good-bye to something you have thought about, known or experienced, moving into a new life or vibrational phase. It may even be a trauma related to something scary that happened ages ago, like falling off a bike, keeps you from riding bikes. To let go of fear allows you to find new confidence.

Come what may, if you are bored, some life situation you have outgrown hinders your soul growth. Death from boredom can be a good thing as you may be detaching from what no longer serves you. If it is someone who is killing you (in the dream), then you may be in conflict about letting go of a relationship or your idea of one that is not happening as you envision. Your narcissistic need for adoration, heavy attention or vision of an ideal romance could be killing your hope for real intimacy. Pay attention on where your mind is and bring it back to the present to recoginze how you feel where you are.

Beyond all the above, the purpose of human existence is to learn to let go of the three great distrations of body, mind and emotions in order to revert to the source of true nature.  Turns out, true fulfillment only arises as we work though our fears and shadows, make them conscious and discover freedom beyond it.  The highest path is learning through our daily life to gradually let go of what is distracting our consciousness from innate peace and acceptance. What matters to ego, to body, mind is what triggers emotions and keeps us clinging to the unreal.

We offer Dream Consulations and other services to explore single and multiple dreams.  We also offer an Astral, Lucid and Dream Yoga Course.

Dream Analysis of the Week- Walk Away

Dream : A wrangler jeep was covered in mud like it had been through the wringer. A man ressembling my father-in-law was driving it fast through a rainy storm along muddy roads.  He squinted, could not see clearly yet sped up oblivious to danger. Meanwhile, a woman slept in passenger seat beside him and a tall child reclined (out-of-sight) in trunk (boot).  Suddenly, the jeep skidded, went off road into quick sand. Woman and child seemed to sleep through the ordeal. Vehicle sank. From a distance, it appeared nobody escaped, that everyone died.  Yet, from another perspective, all three got out. This was seen looking from the other side of the car.  The woman helped the child. The man sat on a nearby tree stump, shaking his head, worried about the lost car oblivious to woman and child.  The woman took the child in hand and walked away.  The sun emerged from clouds to shine down on them. The mud fell off their clothes and they looked rejuvenated.

Interpretation: The three different people are versions of the dreamer's psyche.  The unconscious driver exhibits unawareness or forgetting the repesent moment. He represents focusing on getting ahead, on the future, the build-up of related stress and anxiety and undesirable consequences.  The passenger echoes sleepwalking through life. Part of you may feel out-of-control or directionless.  It dawns something about life conditions require attention: financial issues, relationships or job scenarios are but examples. The young person represents the inner child.  This is a semi-independent, out of sight but not forgotten aspect of self that subordinates to your conscious mind.  Being aware of its pure love and acceptance within can enrich your life. 

 The occurrence of quick sand draws attention to the inner call for a new kind of stability in your life.  You may not feel like you are on solid ground which echoes feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. The dream is calling for ingenious solutions to tough problems. It points to the potential to get out of anything and also the need to detach from what holds us back or is not validating our sense of truth or reality.

The nature of this dream also echoes the power of lucid dreaming where we can exercise our abilities to rewind and change our responses to dream events as well as waking life events based on emotion and how we choose to feel.

To theme of the power and control rings true. The jeep vehicle dream also symbolizes adventure, willingness to explore. Jeeps are often associated with off-road adventures and the thrill of exploring unknown territories. This dream contains elements such as longing for excitement and new experiences in waking life.

The jeep vehicle and how passengers respond can also echo independence and self-reliance. Just like a jeep is designed for ruggedness and durability, it represents our ability to assert ourselve, be self-reliant or create experience for this to unfold. The dream may be highlighting your desire for freedom and the need to be independent in your decisions and actions.  Ask yourself if you feel trapped, confined. Moving out of victimhod and low self-worth helps us realize we are always in control of how we respond to life, thoughts and feelings.

Dreaming about a jeep veihicle reflects a hidden desire to sink your wheels deeper into life, control, adventure, and independence. It symbolizes personal strength and ability to overcome obstacles, to get unstuck. The dream serves as a reminder to embrace or reclaim power, take charge of life in a whole new way.  Shift vibration from fear to into love.

Note we offer Dream Consultations that are relevant to different experiences and levels of consciousness.  We also explore dream series and patterns. We also offer an Astral, Lucid & Dream Yoga Course

13 Things you can do to shift in Lucid Dreams

Dreaming can be developed as a skill to sharpen aptitudes in waking life. Daytime experience is helping night and night is helping day. In practicing of raising consciousness in sleep states, you prepare for Bardo (in between life and death). Yet you do not have to wait for Bardo to put this into practice. Consider 13 things you can do to shift life course in Lucid Dreams: 

1. If you feel held back, change speed

2. if its about size, you can grow or shrink

3. If feeling stuck, free yourself 

4. If you resist something, let go

5. If you imagine self as human, shapeshift into another creature

6. If some creature scares you, transform it into a kind and loving creature (i.e. puppy) or something ridiculous

7. If you freel frozen, allow yourself to move

8.  If you feel uninspired, stagnant, engage your creativity

9. If you experience scarcity,  transmute the situation into abundance

10. If you are serious, allow yourself to laugh, be happy, experienfe aliveness

11. If you have problems, devise effective solutions

12. if you feel limited, stretch save yourself, escape chains that bind you

13. If its about monkey mind, focus on smthg long enough and it becomes effortless

Manage emotions differently

Notice when we acknowledge emotions and feel them in this moment, rather than resist, we do not trap this energy within ourselves. Instead, we clearly tune into vibrations of Higher Being from within the heart. Thus, denser energies no longer need to reside within us. We can integrate and/or let them go layer by layer or in whatever way resonates. As energies surface, we can embrace the wisdom they hold. Higher Self observes everything without judgment, resists nothing, feels no negativity. Negative emotion is a byproduct of a limited perspective not vibrating in alignment with Higher Being. We each have capacity to live in harmony with Spirit, the most expanded version of Self. Live mindfully in a permanent state of awareness. Image what unlimited freedom feels like. Be. Embody it. Let it in.

Notice so often, many assume spiritual growth means achieving some extraordinary, other-worldly, blissed-out state where we are somehow transported out of where we are. This view leads us to constantly reach for the next spiritual high, focus on futures. Or we feel that with all our commitments, responsibilities we have few ways for developing our inner nature. Both of these views reflect an error in perception. Let's step back, take another look. 

In fact, our day-to-day experiences offer raw material for spiritual development. Conflicts that arise in our families and among colleagues, the pain of losing loved ones, or our resistance to paradigms, stories, events, do not prevent inner development. Rather, they point to our ignorance and all else that hinders us from knowing and embodying true nature. We must simply be willing to surrender to the process. We are each invited to meet situations that present with compassion. This is true nature. 

Many of us do not distinguish between true nature and our personality traits, particularly our less desirable traits. Thing is, we are not the body, mind, emotions, but spirit-soul. It is the nature of the untrained mind to want what it perceives as advantageous and resist what seems painful. Discovering how the heart and mind can work together allows us to move beyond resistance and start to know inner freedom. Every situation we create has potential to reveal our true nature.

At different stages, we can feel overwhelmed by life conditions or feel bound by past traumatic events. If and when this happens, we do not see things as they really are. They are just mind-states which can be known, seen as impermanent, do not belong to us. They do not define true nature. A spiritual practice can provide insight and discipline to explore our perceptions. We each must discover what is true for ourselves. Heresay does not cut it. We can each do this right where we are. There is no need to go to a monastery or get our life more together. The intensity of our will and fears is a catalyst that propels us to go down the rabbit hole.  We can choose how to see, reframe, respond to events that will lead us to a deeper relationship with true nature.

For many years, words by Viktor Frankl have inspired me. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning wrote, “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

It is crucial to understand, from a spiritual perspective, that the pain and suffering with which we work is no less substantial, or less real or difficult than those others face. The constrictions of the heart and mind cannot be measured like so many pounds of pressure; they are energies we learn to feel, harness and guide us back to true nature. Funny, the quest to reconnect with true nature is often lost in ordinary life. To be wrapped up in the mundane causes us to forget the big picture.

Buddha teaches that true nature is obscured by veils of wanting, fear, and delusion (or ignorance). He urges us to look at nature of our mind systematically and observe how these three mind-states condition what we think and value, and how we behave. He teaches that to identify with these mind-states causes suffering.
If we are not our thoughts, then what is our true nature, how do we find it, and how do we live so that it may flourish?

Well, the true nature of love is not based on ego strategy, but on the sheer openness of one heart to another. This is the kind of heart-opening that provides us with courage to face what arises.

Buddha also echoes our true nature is emptiness- a lack of a permanent Self- and when this true nature is realized, the divine states of the Brahma-viharas – loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity- emerge. There is also a state of mind and heart known as bodhichitta that leads one to completely dedicate oneself to the liberation of all beings from suffering. In the teachings of the great yoga masters, our true nature is Brahman, the universal soul, of which the individual soul is simply a part. When this is realized there is satchidananda, the awareness of bliss, from the knowing that pure awareness is our ultimate nature.

At some stage, it dawns, feelings of true nature are real. What Buddha describes are actual states of mind- body that can be physically and emotionally felt as profound consciousness shifts. For some people, these changes in consciousness have a strong physical component or a marked shift in perception. Some of us experience dramatically altered states of being. Others know subtle shifts in clarity, emotional centeredness, spontaneous acts of kindness. Every moment the body and mind experience true nature may feel transcendent, and manifestation simply occurs without effort. To know a “soft heart” is to act with selfless compassion. This is dwelling in the divine aspect of true nature. The new normal can feel like a transcendent moment.