Interpreting Dreams
October 16, 2005
by Jeffrey Pierce
In the previous article ("Seeking Direction and Turning Keys," October 8, 2005), I wrote about my decision to revisit a meditation that I'd had years prior in an attempt to find some direction for my path. The obvious question would be, what led me to this make this choice? Why did I think that revisiting something that had occurred years before would help me navigate the portion of my path that I'm living today?
There are a couple of different methods to use when navigating our paths. The first is to
follow the flow of our world, using events, opportunities, our reactions to both, and the
symbolic nature of those patterns to understand and analyze the energy and the direction in
which it is currently manifesting in our lives. The second is to rely on our dreams and the
messages they hold. It's extraordinarily useful when the two synch up, but our perspective
of our paths isn't always clear enough for us to see the interaction between the two.
It was one of those dreams, the kind that always seemed to shout, "I'm important! Pay
extra attention to me!" All of my physical senses were registering simultaneously at the
very top of the scale. The colors were a little too crisp, the sounds a little too clear for it to
be real life. I could smell the air and the feel the tacky sensation of the steering wheel
beneath my hands, the crispness of the vinyl seats beneath me.
As my consciousness solidified in the dreamscape, I found myself driving an old sedan
from the 1970s, a massive four door land yacht in which you could sit six adults comfortably
across the wide backseat. I was driving down a narrow paved road that cut across open
grasslands straight as an arrow, heading toward an impossibly tall and rugged range of
mountains that stretched across the entire horizon. A massive thunderstorm loomed above
the peaks, reaching to the very limits of the atmosphere, as if one thunderhead had been
stacked on top of another in an endless procession. The clouds were illuminated from
within by a steady golden light and the lightning leapt, not from the clouds to the earth, but
from one level of the cloud formation to another.
My passenger in the car was the daughter of a close friend of mine. As we drove toward
the mountains and the waiting power of the storm, she rode beside me as I taught her to
play trombone, the relationship of teacher and student filling the empty spaces of the
road trip to overflowing.
Then I awoke.
When I went back to sleep, I found myself back in the Dreamtime, only this time I was
onboard a ship on storm-tossed sea. My senses were just as acute as they were in the
previous dream. I could feel the chill arctic wind, the way the ship rose and fell with the
surging waves. The crispness of the air, the darkness of the night and the illumination of
the ship's console lights, the voices of my crewmates, all were extraordinarily clear, even
more so than in the waking world.
"Check out this storm!" one of the crew joyfully exclaimed. Our ship was a rollercoaster car
on a theme park sea, riding unbelievably massive waves with a mixture of excitement,
mirth, and intellectual interest. It rapidly became clear that we were in a research vessel
that's sole purpose was to study and experience the power of the storm-tossed sea.
Within a short period we docked and one could see the surging ocean, even in the near
complete darkness of the arctic night. "We need to get another ship," one of the crew
remarked offhandedly to the other as they headed up the pier toward dry land. "Something
bigger that will take us even deeper into the storm."
Once more I awoke. Returning to the arms of the night, the remainder of my dreams were
simple things that scattered at first light. But the first two stayed with me and I knew,
because of the way they lingered and the intensity of the symbolism and sensations within
the dreams, that they were important and intended to aid me in my path.
When we work with dreams, it's extremely important to remember that the Dreamtime is
written in a symbolic language, not in literal concepts and phrases. Think of it as
participating in a game of energy charades. The concepts are typically intended to help
you connect the dots and reach a broader conclusion. Their value and message is rarely
held in their literal representation.
For instance, both of the dreams had massive storms as the center piece of the message
they presented. Taken literally, one could easily assume that the dreams were a warning,
that the two powerful storms represented danger looming on my path.
But that interpretation only works if you look at the dream literally. And given the
surrounding symbolism, even that interpretation falls apart in this pair of dreams.
The dual storms weren't a threatening presence in either dream. In the first, the storm was
a near-mystical formation. Illuminated from within by a golden light, stretching to the upper
atmosphere, the thunderstorm was beautiful to behold. What's more is that the lightning
never touched the earth. The destructive potential of the storm was contained within the
clouds, rather being released onto the earth where it could potentially pose a threat to
myself or my passenger. In the second dream, it was obvious that the ship was there for
the sole purpose of experiencing the power of the storm and that the entire crew was
excited to have the opportunity to participate in the expedition. At the end of the dream,
one of the crewmembers remarked that they needed a larger ship so we could travel even
deeper into the storm, the implication clearly that they wanted to seek out stronger winds,
larger waves, and the center of the storm's power.
Both dreams also represent a form of traveling. In the first dream, I was riding in a vehicle
that had rolled off the production line near the time I incarnated into this world; in the
second, we were aboard a ship. It's easy to say, "Being in a vehicle typically represents
travel or a person's spiritual path," but why is that? When looked at from a symbolic
perspective, the dreamer is in a state (inside a vehicle, moving down a road, on board a
ship) where they are moving from one point to another. In the language of dreams, this
says, "The dream isn't about where you are now or where you will one day be, but the
energy involved in moving from the first place to the second." The obvious key for me was
in the first dream. As we traveled down the road, I was teaching. It doesn't matter that I
was teaching my friend's daughter how to play trombone as it's the symbolic nature of the
act that's important from a dreamer's perspective. In the first dream, I was traveling toward
a mystical source of power and part of the energy of that journey involved me teaching
skills, concepts and theory.
Given my own spiritual path, there couldn't be a clearer message sent to me that the intent
behind the dream was to address the direction my own practice was headed. When a
dream is this precise, it's generally a call that action needs to be taken or that the events
illustrated in the dream will soon unfold. This immediacy was amplified, not only by the
intensity of all of my senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch) within the dream, but by the fact
that the first dream was immediately paired with a second, holding a similar message.
The symbolism of my path was mirrored in the second dream by the journey aboard the
research vessel. Once more the power of a storm came into play, but it was clear that the
ship was designed to head into such waters and that it was difficult to sink. The concept of
teaching was mirrored once more, although in a much more subtle manner, by the fact that
everyone that accompanied me on board the vessel was there to learn. While each of
them saw the storm through different eyes, given their scientific backgrounds, they were all
there to learn from the experience. Once more, my spiritual path was coupled with other
people learning from my journey, the very core of my approach to teaching.
If the second dream had ended at that point, I would have taken the message as the spirit
world saying, "Focus in a little tighter, but don't make any significant changes. You're
exactly where you need to be." After all, both dreams were symbolic snapshots of a path
I'm already on. (Both dreams started with me already on respective journeys, rather than
showing the beginning of the process. For this reason, the energy suggests an existing
journey, rather than one that needs to be undertaken.) Both dreams represented the
energy of teaching others along that path, something I'm already doing. And both dreams
represented a move toward a source of intense power.
However, the second dream ended differently. The final portion of the dream featured one
of the crewmates on the research vessel stating, "We need to get another ship. Something
bigger that will take us even deeper into the storm." In other words, the tools and approaches that I was employing at the time of the dream weren't enough to take me where
I needed to go. I could only go so far without making a change.
The key here was that a bigger ship was needed. Symbolically speaking, it's the same
approach to the storm, employing the same crew with the same set of skills. The dream
didn't suggest that I look at satellite data or take an airplane up into the storm, both of which
would suggest that another path would take me where I needed to go. By increasing the
energy available to me, by getting a "bigger ship," I would be able to continue on the same
path (symbolized by the research vessel and the crew that were happy to be led into the
center of the storm's power).
If the method of the necessary change wasn't currently present in my path, it would have
appeared in the dream. Given the symbolic nature of the Dreamtime, the second dream
would have most likely continued and I would have been shown how and where to acquire
the larger vessel. After all, it was in this dream that the change was suggested. There's a
possibility that a third dream would have been presented to convey the message, but its
presence in the Dreamtime would have a significance of its own, most likely saying, "Do
this as soon as you possibly can!" as series of three have strong magical significance, even within a dreamscape.
Because the method to affect the change wasn't presented, it meant that I already
possessed the knowledge or the tools to acquire that knowledge. While there are
obviously numerous methods you can employ to seek direction on your path, the meditation
that I spoke of in the previous article represented a key turning point on my path. It was
there that I was not only given my Craft name, but received much of the energy that I am
currently manifesting in my own spiritual growth.
And ironically, the core of the meditation was a Viking longship, a bit larger than the
research vessel that I had captained.
One of the keys to navigating our spiritual paths is to remember that the symbolism isn't
simply contained in our dreams, but extends to the flow of our path. It's not unusual to find
parallels and connections between our dreams and the other aspects of our spiritual paths
and our lives as a whole. After all, if we truly are spiritual beings experiencing reality from a
physical perspective, than the energy all around us is also spiritual energy. What we find in
our dreams manifests in our daily lives and we will often find obvious parallels between the
two.
Next time we'll look at Elemental energy from a new perspective, the first component of casting a circle and doing spellwork in the spirit realm.