The White Dragon - Becoming the Spirit

The dream opens up in a Civil War battle which I believe it’s the Second Battle of Manassas in Virginia (a.k.a. Bull Run) and the Confederates are knocking the Union force back which I am a part, but then Union troops rally and we drive the Confederates back breaking their line and forcing them to surrender and the war is won for the Union.

                                Photos from Wikipedia

I have both flags, the Confederate ‘Stars and Bars’ that was captured, and the Union flag. The Confederate flag is unfurled. The older general I was with doesn’t like the fact that I have the enemy flag open and has me furl the flag. We were in a helicopter flying away from the battlefield.

Then, I am flying in a plane with an old friend, Jack, and he is showing me some maneuvers in his plane. Suddenly, I am flying by myself making all types of daring maneuvers. I am flying under bridges through masses of electrical and telephone wires that seemed impossible to make it through: I didn’t think I was going to make it a couple of times and I end up miraculously going right through the wires. The plane seemed to be controlling itself and it just appeared that I knew what I was doing.

           Photos from Wikipedia.

Then, four of us are in the plane all seated in a row piloting the craft. The general was now just an older guy is in his late seventies or early 80s and he is like a grandfather type figure. The next guy over does not say anything until the end of the dream, and my friend Jack has the last spot.

I feel comfortable ‘in my own skin’ because I have proven myself with these guys in the war, plus my flying style with all of the maneuvers I had done under tunnels through a jungle of telephone wires. But part of me thinks that it was absolutely blind luck, not skill.  I just kept making these miraculous maneuvers and manage to come out of them intact.

Then we fly into a ravine with a river flowing below–it had massive rock cliffs, similar to the Grand Canyon with the Colorado River below but without the levels of strata just solid grey stone. Someone said there were a bunch of seals below and at first I was afraid it would not get to see them, but when I looked down there were a lot of them, then I spot a cave where they’re coming out of the mountain into the river.

Then the ravine leads into a huge underground cavern which we fly into–the older guys know that there is a large creature in there and they’re trying to summon this creature by making noises that sound like whales singling. Apparently, they had done it before, at first the creature does not respond, but the older guys knew just to wait and listen carefully. Eventually, we hear the creature’s calls emanating from deep within the cavern and the creature communicates it will come out the cavern and fly with us.

We exit the cavern and there are other bi-planes coming out of the cavern – air traffic is all around us -. One pilot is a German World War I veteran and his copilot is in some type of serious trouble. We can tell he is a good man even though he was with the enemy. We pull our biplane over next to theirs where my friend Jack goes half way into their plane to see if he can help. It appeared that the copilot was suffocating; Jack sees the problem and pulls off the co-pilots oxygen mask, which was preventing him from breathing - the copilot starts to recover.

My seat was apparently on the outside of the plane because I was resting my foot on the landing wheel. Suddenly, the front bracket of the wheel hub broke and was hanging down. But the pressure of my foot was on the back bracket, I felt I would be blamed for it, but I knew that having my foot like it was, would not have caused that damage. The older gentleman points out to the others that it broke from the front not the back where my foot was resting, and therefore could not be my fault - it was just a faulty front bracket. I felt relieved that somebody had stuck up for me.

There was an evil American fighter pilot in his WWI biplane. He had a gun and he intended to shoot the creature when it came out of the cave. He thought of the creature as an object that could be hunted and killed; the American pilot had no feelings for the spirit of the creature. He wanted to make it his own by killing it. He had no concern for the life or spirit of the creature.

Somehow, I got a hold of the evil pilots foot and I was biting his big toe trying to force him to throw the gun away. I moved his toe from my front teeth back to my molars where I could really apply a lot of pressure - then he would have to let go of the gun. Finally, I bit off a part of his toe and spit a sizable chunk of it out of my mouth. I think he was disabled at this point but not sure, but I wasn’t worried about the ‘asshole’ beyond this point.

Suddenly, we could see this beautiful white dragon flying in the distance. It was covered with soft white feathers and looked very powerful, strong, proud and noble. It was a brilliant white and shone in the rays of the sun. Then the dragon flew over the top of our planes very quickly so we could get a close glimpse of his rather massive powerful structure and then it flew off. I could sense that this creature had a very strong spirit.

My friend Jack goes back to the airport early and I am left flying the plane alone,  then it dawns on me that I don’t know how to land the plane. The airport I am supposed to land at is on a river and is enclosed by mountains except by the river approach. I think the name of the airport was Kincaid Airport. A woman pilot, whose plane is behind mine, reminds me I have to put down my landing gear – that thought had not occurred to me, so I pull a switch and the landing gear goes down. But, I am too afraid to land and continued flying.

It is, now, night time and I realize I have to land, however, I’ve become tangled up in a bunch electrical and telephone wires in a field as I approached it and I’m flying around followed by this massive tangle of wires.

Suddenly my friend Jack comes out looking for me realizing something must have gone wrong. But, I must have landed on that field, I remember walking on the ground and seeing all the tangled wires hanging around.

Then I am walking along a path with the older gentleman and a third guy who was silent up to that point of the dream speaks. This guy claims he owned an auto parts warehouse in Washington DC. The older gentleman tells me later that this guy did not own a warehouse but was just a sales representative; however, he did not explained why the guy lied to me. The older gentleman told me that he, Jack and two other gentleman with the original for owners of the original four parts warehouses.

There is a huge river I have to cross, but first I have to get across this highway for bicycles with about 20 bicycle lanes going in one direction and I have to be careful not to get hit by one of the bikes crossing this highway. I finally make it to the other side of that.

As I move towards the bridge to cross the river, I am saying goodbye to the old gentleman, grandfather figure, he was on a moving walkway and being pulled in the opposite direction but we were shaking hands and I did not want to let go of this kind of authority figure, teacher, coach and supporter - part of me wants to say we’ll meet again, but I know we will never see each other again.

There is a pedestrian bridge that’s separate from the bridge where cars cross. I am heading for the pedestrian bridge when emergency vehicles and police cars go racing by us. The pedestrian bridge is being shut down due to some disaster. Then we are directed to begin walking over the bridge for auto traffic.

As the automobile bridge comes into view, I realize it’s a very high massive suspension bridge with a very steep incline. I realize it is going to be an arduous task to make this crossing, But I keep trudging even though I know my knees are going to have trouble. I cannot even see where the bridge ends – the structure ends in the clouds in the distance.

We are walking through an underground passage that takes us to where we can walk across the bridge. There are quite a few open parking spaces in this passage area and someone is complaining that they have all these empty parking spaces. They blame it on government waste and I don’t see what the problem is. The space was there anyway because of the bridge – so the only additional cost was a little paint. The point the person is making seems rather ridiculous to me.

The dream ends there

Dream Interpretation

One of my ancestors was a Union officer at the second battle of Manassas August 28- 29, 1862 and was severely wounded fighting against the troops of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson. He was a Prussian officer from Prussia which would later become part of the German Republic in the 1870's. He was hired by the Union forces to lead German-speaking farm boys from New York and Pennsylvania into battle as part of one of the New York regiments.

In reality, the Confederates won the Second Battle of Manassas (a.k.a. Bull Run) and the war went on for another 4 years before the Union defeated the Confederacy.

The battle represents in my mind the fight between forces of unification to pull things (my life) together versus the forces that would pull things apart. Could represent the right versus the left side of the brain where the right strives for cooperation and joint effort (Union) with the left versus the left which tries to control the mind by itself which can lead to internal conflicts.

During the final drive in the battle, I recall our forces going down into a depression and then fighting our way up a hill and then breaking the Confederate line. The depression in the ground could represent having to over come the depression in life – the effort it takes to fight my own depression, or the fact that I have over come it to a large degree.

I have both flags might represent having both and right and the left hemispheres of the brain engaged in dream work. Also, the Confederate flag currently in my mind because of the issue in South Carolina with the flag as the States flag. It was time to remove this symbol as it is time for the resistance, or rebellion in my own mind to be furled. It no longer serves a purpose.

Jack was one of my best customers and had purchased several systems from me over a 20 year period. In 1997, Jack, myself and a friend of his flew half way down Baja California in Mexico to see the whales having their calves in the San Ignacio Lagoon. This ties Jack, the airplane and the whale reference together.

Flying in the plane represents my working life as a salesman for a computer company where I had performed extremely well under very difficult circumstances. It was the first time in my life where I truly excelled at something - I was the top salesman for about 15 straight years. At the time, I was led by my intuition rather than by having any training or knowledge on how to sell. It would confound my boss that I could go out and cold call and come back with more good leads that he could obtain with mailing list etc. for an entire year. He was so jealous from the get-go that he constantly tried to steal leads and come up with reasons why he should handle certain accounts.

The feeling of soaring early in my sales career is similar to the feeling I am now feeling with my website having some success. Traffic to the site is picking up and people seem to like the content.

(intuitive not something learned).

The older gentleman in the dream is probably that part of myself that which derived from the collective unconscious to act as a mentor since in real life I never had one. My father was in alcoholic and basically unavailable for the task of mentoring and the boss I work with for 22 years was a narcissist or sociopath who tried to take away my success at every turn. Therefore, I mentored myself based on ideals that seem to preexist in my subconscious. I seemed to hold myself accountable to an archaic or mythical standard of how I assumed officers of the Civil War would behave where honor, truth and integrity counted. I was fascinated with this time period when I was growing up and, of course, believed everything I read in the history books.

The reason I feel comfortable in my own skin is because I knew I had performed well. I knew I had really closed the deals that my boss would claim. My boss worked predominately from the left side of his brain which is basically a calculating, selfish part driven by materialistic aims and nothing more. Where as myself, I had managed to integrate the right side with the left and was able to act intuitively, plus had the skills of the left side available. Since I have proven myself to myself (this is not fantasizing) but that I had actually accomplished significant goals, I have a sense of being very competent back in the 1980's and 1990's. I know deep down inside I accomplished many difficult if not impossible tasks.

One good example of this was my ability to make successful cold calls in sales. I came across many opportunities that were golden in those days merely by walking into an auto parts store unannounced telling the prospect what I sold and was able to gain their interest to enhance their business with a $40,000 computer. In my 20 some years with the company I am not aware of my ex-boss ever making one successful cold call or an unsuccessful one. He was a coward, he did not have the courage to make a cold call.

Then we fly into a ravine, which seems to represent the subconscious mind in my dreams. (See Jungian – Individuation dream) We are flying above a river, and water normally represents emotions in my dreams. Then seals are spotted in the river  (I was afraid I would not get to see them) and I see them coming out of the cave within the mountain –  the seals represent the parts of myself that are going back into the stream of life after having been locked up in the unconscious, the mountain, for so long  - they are literally streaming out of this cave and jumping into the river - as if they had been held back from feeling anything for so long and want to jump in the river so that they can feel and be alive.

Fear of not being able to see seals, might be fear of not being able to remember dreams – it had been awhile – think due to pinched nerve at top of spine.

Then farther up the ravine we fly the plane into a huge cavern on the mountain side. We are searching for something and I’m not quite sure what it is but the old gentleman and Jack seem to know of its existence.

Jack has been a friend of mine for over 20 years and one was one of my original computer customers it was a very good businessman and his company did well.  He was respected and liked by his employees which in my eyes makes him extremely successful.

I believe that at this point the older gentleman and the cave represent the collective unconscious especially since the creature we seek is really deep under the ground or surface. Also, we do not use language to summon the creature; it was these archaic or ancient whale noises or signaling that were used to summon the creature.

Somehow this creature communicates is going to come out of hibernation and fly with us. I believe this represents a part of my spirit that has recovered enough to venture forth from its long hibernation. The older gentleman in this case represents that part of myself that exists within the collective unconscious that knew how to summon my spirit forward again.

Transformation from older mentor to dragon – from teaching myself how to become to becoming. Transubstantiation transforming from inert or dead matter (spiritually) to becoming alive and driven by my own internal forces.

There are several other bi-planes flying out of the cavern - perhaps, this is a reminder that just because I have discovered this spirit, that not everyone is waiting for me to come out and celebrate my discovery. Everyone has their own problems and issues – and some people we’ll be jealous or will just want to destroy my (your) successes because they haven’t achieved theirs –like my ex-boss.

The German World War I pilots could possibly represent my trying to resolve the issue with my German heritage combined with the atrocities committed by the Germans during World War II. I have the same genetic makeup and this causes some confusion. The German pilot in the dream turns out to be a good man so I have resolved this issue. And, Jack helps knowing that his copilot was worth saving.

The next segment of the dream deals with the broken wheel hub. I had my foot resting on it and it broke but apparently my foot was not the cause of the break but I feel like I will be blamed for it nonetheless. Often in my life I have been blamed for things and made to feel guilty when I knew I was innocent as in the case of my second divorce. My second marriage was set up for failure about 25 years prior to my even meeting my ex-wife due to her sexual abuse issues. Therefore, the older gentleman sticks up for me by using the logic that the bracket that broke was not under the stress of my foot. It had broken on its own accord.

The evil American pilot represents my ex boss of 22 years who was a narcissist and only thought of himself and he did not care of the effect that his cheating lying and stealing would have on his prey. He just wanted the glory and the money but somehow I feel his victories had to be quite hollow because he had not done the work to obtain these goals - other than being a very skillful liar.

I get a hold of the evil pilot’s foot and bite off his toe - this represents the mental activity I wasted hating the son-of-a-bitch. And it could, also, represent that self-destructive side of myself that takes on the negative soul murdering aspect that was started with my father and then in every essence through some sort of negative transference to my boss. In a way, it’s a part of me (you) that destroys things that I (you) are trying to put together so the person who will destroy them anyway won’t get the opportunity to do so. It is a very negative quality that has been reinforced by the actual lives that’s some of us have had to live. We weren’t given positive rewards for achieving things because our mentors or parents were so destructive that they didn’t know how to teach us to put our lives together and so we became failures in certain areas.

So, in essence I am also the ‘evil’ pilot who has the gun and I will shoot down my own spirit (self-destructive behavior) but the ‘dream ego’ or pro-spirit part of me now is fighting this force so that the true spirit can come out and fly freely. The same force that won the battle because I was finally able to integrate the right and left hemispheres - the right's intuitive, emotional and spiritual with the accumulated language and analytical skills of the left.

The guy that you think should be on your side, the American fighter, he is out to destroy me just like my boss. He was the president of the company and should have been encouraging me and helping me. And, then additionally you would expect or I would expect that I would fight for myself no matter what, but somehow we adopt these patterns that we’ve experienced people shoveling at us and we tend to repeat these patterns in a self-destructive form because that seems to be the type of response that is required just to survive in the environment we live in. And, yes, this sounds crazy, but it is reality.

The creature who has been hiding in the cave finally makes an appearance and it is this very brilliant White Dragon. This is my spirit that is finally coming fourth after many years of hibernation. The old man had been the force that seems to have guided me all along to the point where I could finally reach a sense of self worth that is strong, powerful and ready to soar - a force to be reckoned with - as it flies over the top of us I can see this is definitely a strong force.

Why a dragon – the year I was born was the Year of the Dragon 1952 - I always like this association– they can fly. With the website I feel like I am flying again – similar to when I first started selling - you get a strong confident feeling when you know you are good at something. This is one thing that a Catholic education fucks up - we were taught when we were young that it was sinful to have pride - they did not make the distinction between a prideful confidence versus hubris. Hubris can be reckless and thoughtless, but it is hard to accomplish much of anything if one does not have a sense of self confidence and pride in your work or skill.

My friend Jack decides to go back to the airport and he kind of just disappears from the aircraft and I am left alone. This is somewhat similar to a previous dream about ‘Jungian Individuation’ where I am told “I have to do it by myself”. But now–I have to land the aircraft by myself. I have to bring the plane in, therefore I have to learn how to take the controls over in such a way that I can make it a successful landing i.e. Have a Successful Life. However, I have not been trained for this job, I don’t even know to put the landing gear down. So, I have to do it by intuition and I seem to have some difficulty with getting tangled up in the wires, but somehow I do end up on the ground safe again. When my friend caught up with me I was already on the ground.

The electrical wires and telephone wires might represent the search engines organization and marketing that apparently I have all tangled up right now on my website.

Then I am walking along the pathway with the older gentleman and the third guy who never said anything in the airplane speaks up and claims that he owned a parts warehouse in Washington DC - like he was supposed to be one of the original developers in a certain industry which would give him some sort of prestige. Then, the older gentleman tells me that is not true, that he never owned a warehouse, he was just a sales representative.

This somewhat correlates to my ex-boss’s position who was always lying about who he really was – here is a perfect example of this -  when I first started working for him he claimed he owned 51% of the company and that is partner had the remaining 49% of the shares, therefore he had the final say on everything and I would be wasting my breath trying to convince the Vice Pres. to oppose any of the President’s methods.

Twenty-two years later in a conversation with the vice president, I found out that this wasn’t true, that it was it was a 50/50 percent deal and that my ex-boss did not have the final say on everything. What a mindfuck! But, to look at another way my ex-boss could never be who he really was, he had to keep changing based on what he had told others. He’d tell different people different stories about a certain fact, I don’t know how he kept it all straight but I know I caught him in quite a few lies and I’m sure other people did to.

When you have to deal with a person like this, you end up becoming a false person yourself, living in their world. You have to pretend you don’t know they are lying – go along with their games when they have power over you, like a boss/ President of a company. You can never present who you really are or what you really think, unless of course you’re strong enough to end the relationship (employment) early on which unfortunately many of us are not.

And then, of course, we have another river in the dream that must be crossed. But first I have to get myself across this highway that is made for bicycle traffic only–my ex-boss was an avid bicyclist, therefore I have to dodge these type of characters before I can cross the river.

Then on my way to cross the river, I run into the old gentleman again and I have to say goodbye to him. He is being pulled away from me on an automatic walkway going the opposite direction and I want him to be with me to guide me on my journey however part of me knows that I have to make the decisions from now on from my conscious mind which is a more direct route and expedient versus the collective unconscious method of the imaginary mentor. There is no one from this point on to guide me, I have to use my own intuition to make a success of my life from this point forward.

The pedestrian bridge represents the normal way one is supposed to adopt to be successful in life, however this bridge was shut down for me early on in my life because I was surrounded by people who did not know how to teach or guide another person because they themselves were dysfunctional. So this path was shut off for me. The rage and alcoholism in my household closed down the first few decades of my life – and my real spirit was forced to hide in the mountain (subconscious).

I have to crossover a bridge that seems somewhat like climbing Mount Everest, it has a very steep incline and I can’t even see the other side of the river. I can just see the bridge goes for quite some distance, but I know no I have to cross it and proceed to move forward. The fact that the bridge has no ending seems to say that I’m aware that life will be a struggle to the end and there’s never a point in time where I will be able to look back and say everything has been said and done it’s a infinite continuum that never stops.

The empty parking spaces – not many people are choosing to walk over the bridge by trying to interpret their own dreams.

Copy Write @ Very Cool Dreams Company March 30th, 2015

To go to artist's Ciruelo Cabral's website click on the link  in next line - caption links do not work

Link to  The White Dragon Hobsyllwin by Ciruelo Cabral www.dac-editions.com

The White Dragon Hobsyllwin by Ciruelo Cabral www.dac-editions.com

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The Spark of Life  -  Spirit Reunites with the Mind and Body      - Dream from 3/10/2015

This dream is about the 'energy' that can be derived if one manages to reconnect their 'spirit' to their 'mind and body', and the obstacles encountered when one tries to discover a new path mid-stream in life. It is a very difficult road for most, but necessary to go down if one wants to have intrinsic satisfaction with their work life when disoriented during their initial career selection process.

The Dream:

I am getting off of an airplane and I purchased a new suit at an airport shop. I go to the curb at the airport trying to catch a cab or shuttle then decide to take a bus, but I only have some foreign currency from Africa. I think about walking and I am wondering and asking people what direction Eastern Avenue is in which will take me home. I have to go through a downtown section where I encounter several homeless street people. Then, I come to a river that I have to cross. There are these barges tied together, like a pontoon bridge, that I have to traverse.

Halfway across the barges there was a gap between two barges and it was a rather wide gap –four to five feet with the barges moving a bit on the waves. People were expected to jump across this gap. The first guy to jump was an older guy like myself, but he was in good shape and he look like he was really a successful type person, athletic and lean. He makes it , but has to defy gravity to do so – his feet land on the opposite barge, but his body is at a forty-five degree angle over the water, but he has the power to lift himself up staying stiff in that position until he was erect on the opposite barge. The next guy made it also, and then a woman tries, but falls in the water and it’s ice cold– I could feel the chill.

I decided not even to try because I didn’t think I could make it. My knees are bad I figured that there had to be in another way. I go back and I walk across the barge back towards the airport but another gap had developed blocking the return to the airport. I yelled to the attendant on shore ” You’ve got to do something”. Two people, a man and woman, try to jump at this point and don’t make it but manage to swim up to a boat slip where the attendant is waiting to help them out of the water.

Then, I become really outraged because I am trapped on this barge in between these two gaps– but something happened and suddenly I am on the other side. I am going back towards the airport and I am still outraged. I feel that ‘they’ know I really want to ‘tell somebody off’ because of this really f____-up system just to get out of the airport.

I am yelling at this guy who was a porter. I feel he is one of the people that is involved with getting people across the river where everybody’s falling into the river. The porter gets angry with me and becomes confrontational. He is angry with me for yelling at him. Finally, it dawns on me that he’s a lower level guy that has nothing to do with the messed up design and that he is not personally responsible. I realized upper management would be responsible for this mess-up, but I have already upset the hornet’s nest. Now, he is serious and he gets in my face and it gets to the point where I know I’m going to have to fight him.

However, this other young guy sees what is going on and realizes that it would not be a fair fight because I am much older and the porter is young and muscular. The second young guy knows karate, goes up to the porter, pulls down his pants and throws him into the river. As the Porter is floating in the river you can see his butt sticking out of the water and he is wearing action figure underwear (Batman). Everyone is laughing at him because the situation was just hilarious.

Then, I decide to spend my money (now the money is good?) to take a cab and I’m down at the cabstand. The cab section was busy with guys yelling and whistling–I think someone might have been talking to me, but I was not listening– I was in my own head looking over the downtown area and I can see a way to get through the city to where I can take a bus. I start asking people along the way to the bus stop how to get to Eastern Avenue. Again, I realize I have to go through the rough downtown area.

The city is supposed to be LA, but I’m in Washington DC and I become a little disoriented as to which city is actually there.– So, I am not sure of the route I should follow. I have to go through this downtown area and there’s something that divides the city into two; like one of those parking structures where you can see the cars on the other side of a half level, but it is impossible to access the other side. I am not quite sure I’m going to make it to the other side of the city, but I do keep on asking people if they know how I could get to Eastern Avenue because I know that bus line will take me to where the main bus terminal is located and then to my house at 900 Fair Oak Ave.

I finally make it back home and I go downstairs to tell my mother and brother about my adventurous day. When I get down stairs they are in the basement. They’ve cleaned and waxed the floor and everything is sparkling. It looks like a model home.

Then all of a sudden, I have a psychic feeling that there is a huge separation between my mother and myself emotionally and physically in the dream. She is on the other side of the basement and as I start to walk towards them I realize I wasn’t supposed to walk on the floor until the wax or polish had time to dry. I didn’t want to ruin their flawless job. However, they had polished themselves into a corner and we’re stuck. They couldn’t get out of the basement because they had polished from the doorway into the back of the basement and we’re kind of stuck there so we can’t leave together.

But, then somehow we got out of the basement back door together and we’re in the backyard going to the upper back door that led to the upper part of the house.

There were these bright white particles floating in the air, pollen I guess, or something that came out from the plants or flowers. It was either spring or autumn, I could not discern at first which season it was– I knew that the plants were a seasonal type. The particles we’re blowing around–then I realized it must’ve been autumn because it was kind of chilly outside–refreshing, and it stimulated that sensation that winter is coming.

We walked up the stairway, my mom had these donuts and god they looked really good – they have a lot of icing on them –and then I remembered I was on my anti-sugar diet. But I really wanted one and I think I was about to take one, but resisted the temptation at first. Then I lost control and ate one. I had made the decision to go ahead because they look so good and I figured I would just get back on my diet later and not tell anybody that I ate the donut. Somehow, I would deny it was I who ate the missing doughnut.

Main message or point of dream

I end up on the front porch of our house with my mother, brother and Jimmy, a neighbor I grew up with. Jimmy says, “Imagine those white particles at night” because the particles would glow, and he asks what they were.

I start to explain to everyone, but I didn’t know quite how to explain it– I seemed to understand the process conceptually, but I am not sure of the details. I explain they were part of the plant, but I wasn’t sure of the name of the plant part. I wanted to call them pistons –pistols (the stamen) – but I knew there’s only one piston (the stigma) and there were several of these little stems (filaments) inside of the flower that have pollen on the end.

I am explaining that particles were like superconductors for the sun that bought a massive amount of energy into the plant. Somehow, I am very sure, conceptually, that these little particles soak up massive amounts of energy  from the sun and transferred this energy. Then, some of these particles emit an electrical charge, a spark that looked like a miniature bolt of lightening. – it was extremely bright – blinding – just like a bolt of lightening - thus proving my point. I think the dream kind of ended at this point.

Psychoanalytic dream interpretation

In the beginning of the dream I am getting off a plane and I buy new suit– After my breakdown, I came back to LA to begin a new life– hence the new suit. I have foreign currency – my old career will not get me where I want to go any longer and my new career of interpreting dreams is not profitable at this point. So I’m not quite making it financially, therefore I have to walk through the gritty part of the city or bad neighborhood because I cannot pay for a cab or bus. I am a little baffled, currently, as to where to head with my business plans and I am not sure in which direction I should head in the dream.

Encountering the homeless people, perhaps I have a fear of ending up like this.

I keep on asking people where Eastern Avenue is. And, I ask many times. I think this is a metaphor for what I am currently doing in life – I go to various classes, such as Wordpress and I ask questions. I have started asking questions on the support sites of software vendors and some people I know – I was extremely hesitant to do this in the past. There was a fear of asking questions – possibly having something to do with the negative response from an alcoholic father when I ask for help – often it was met with rage. Therefore, it was safer to remain ignorant and not ask questions.

Now, I am finding that the support representatives of companies, like Wordpress , Google, Hostgator and Hootsuite, make every effort they can to help you learn about their products.

The gaps in the barge system might represent the precarious position that a major change or shift in your life can cost –you can fail, falling in the water,– or get stuck there in the middle. Finding yourself is not an easy path.

Not wanting to jump– I decided not to go back to sales after breakdown - I figured that there had to be another way to make a respectable living.

Big gaps between the barges are the risk one must take in discovering your real self. I won’t jump at the first gap – when I started to recover from my breakdown–everybody thought I should go out and get another sales job – that seemed to be the logical course of action. But, I knew I could no longer do this– every fiber in my body said “go another way”. I guess, I knew I would fail if I went back into sales– my heart was no longer into that. Therefore, falling into the water would have been a foregone conclusion.

In the dream, I go back to find another path back home. This path is, also, blocked by another gap. My guess is at the second gap is the difficulty in finding another road to being successful in the sense that I would be doing something to survive that I felt connected with– something where I would be satisfied with my output– Intrinsic satisfaction where I would be proud of what I do and I am driven or self-motivated. (An ideal world.)

Also, I just get back to the other side of the river without knowing how or why. If someone asked me how I was able to get this website together – there was not a well thought out plan – I just kept trying different things and enough of them worked that eventually I accomplished my goal.

It was just about three years ago that my therapist suggested I write a book on dreams, then I thought a website might be a better was to distribute the information and one thing led to another. – The old 1,000 mile journey begins with the first step, but there is no way to explain exactly how you got to the end – you just end up there after trying a lot of things. Therefore, in the dream, I overcome some of the obstacles suddenly without reason; like getting off of the barge or out of the basement.

The first guy to jump could be the “A type” personality who can go on no matter what to achieve success– like myself when I sold computers. He could also be the part of me that has succeeded, partially, because I have manage to put this website together despite many obstacles. He defies gravity by pulling himself up where many others would have fallen into the water from this position. Two years ago I did not know what a blog was– now I have this website, Facebook page, a Twitter account, and I am learning how to use HootSuite.

Some of my friends do not even have a Facebook account. So, in a way I defy gravity – plus the topic of my website has never been tried before ( To the best of my knowledge.) – sticking my own dreams out there with all the character flaws, and trauma, much of which I hate to admit– I find it embarrassing. However, I think it will help others to see that this kind of trauma happens to many of us. It is often thought that we are the only ones that has these problems; therefore, they have to hide them. The reality of it is many of us deal with these or similar problems.

I am furious when I finally get off the barge– it was as if they, society, is structured to prevent people from finding an alternative path - society does not seem to care if you feel satisfied with your work or not. I felt that going back into sales would only lead back to depression. It takes time to discover where your true spirit lives, people would be much more productive– enthusiastic about their work if people would’ve been steered to find their true spirit from the beginning. (Again, in an Ideal World.)

I am simultaneously into cities– Los Angeles and Washington DC. My new life where I feel I’m finally connecting to my spirit is back in LA– but I also have to reconnect with my past – where my spirit originally existed– but was crushed early on by trauma in the Washington DC area. It is my opinion that one cannot just block out the past. The past must be reconciled consciously with whom you are now in order to reconnect with your personal spirit. Blocking the past would be like covering a serious wound with a bandage so you cannot see the wound and then ignoring it. An infection will probably grow underneath the bandage – the same thing happens with wounds to the mind and spirit.

There is nothing in society that facilitates finding an alternative path– it seems to work against you by building ‘dividing walls’.

The division of the city could be the difficulty in reconnecting the past where the spirit was crushed - to the point where the Spirit is coming back to life.

The division could also be the subconscious where the Diabolic, or shadow side, wants to hold on to the anger and desire for revenge against those who have harmed me versus the spirit that knows to truly grow I have to let go of those past wounds and forgive. (And that’s a big divide) That is hard to do, but now I can see the more I let go of the negative desires, and the more in touch I get with my true self, the more I grow and come closer to finding my way.

The night before this dream I had seen a clip of a video on Facebook where a guy defends a woman on a bus or subway. The hero is just sitting across from the woman when this other guy, the assailant, comes up and starts to verbally accost the woman. The assailant has his back to the guy or hero that is sitting across from the woman. Apparently, the guy who was sitting thought the woman needed assistance and reached over to the assailant’s waste and just pulled his pants down. Then, the hero stood up to confront the assailant who turns to confront the hero. But, the assailant must’ve realized he was at an extreme disadvantage with this pants pulled down around his ankles, plus he was smaller than the hero, so the guy just walks away with his pants down around his ankles in humiliation. It was pretty funny to watch. So, I assume this is where the karate guy came into the dream to defend me. This scene in the dream probably represents the dual sides of me that is either poised to attack people who offend me – while simultaneously poised to defend those being bullied.

This is a good example of how a current event, that doesn’t appear to be meaningful in context of your conscious life, gets woven into a dream by your subconscious at night when it processes what appears to be extraneous information.

The distance I sense with my mother is most likely myself still trying to process her death; I cannot reach her in the basement. And, I moved back to California, so I feel the distance with my brother in Maryland.

Both my mother and brother are stuck in a corner of the basement–my mother was and my brother is cut off from their emotional lives to a large degree. My mother always had everything neat and clean and the same with my brother–everything always looked good, well organized to the outside world. But emotionally they were shutdown and I was too. However, I acted out–occasionally I could not keep everything penned in –I would use drugs and alcohol as a release and after I became sober it was sugar and sweets - milkshakes and donuts. And, let’s not forget about the anger and rage. Therapy, alcoholics anonymous and the dream work have helped me find my way back connecting my spirit with my mind and body.

My dad’s workroom was down in the basement– it was not a bright cheery spot– the opposite of how the basement appeared in the dream–after his death my mother revived some of her life – she was able to recover some of her spirit. Also, making the basement sparkle perhaps is cleaning up the past and letting go; forgiving my father for his faults; like the alcoholism and rage.

The confusion between spring and autumn–I sensed it was spring because part of me is coming back to life after having my emotional and spiritual life frozen in a multi-decade winter– my spirit is beginning to reconnect with my mind and body and I am doing creative things like building this website and interpreting dreams.

But then, I realize it is really autumn, and a chill hits me, I am 62 and growing older, beginning the final quarter so to speak of my life or at least I’ve chewed my way through a good portion of the third-quarter - autumn. But, there are these particles floating in the air that are great source of energy. I am excited about life again– I stay up late at night frequently, like I did in college– 2:00 am is often bedtime. I have so many things I want to do - I can’t get everything done. And, the motivation is coming from internal sources, not from external pressure. So, I am in two seasons simultaneously hence the confusion, just like I am in two cities.

Interpretation of Main Point of Dream

The particles of energy floating in the air are the energy and power that can be released by reconnecting the ‘spirit’ to the mind and body. I am receiving the benefits of this 'energy' from the work I have done reconnecting the spirit, represented by the sun, with the 'mind and body' represented by the plant. The growth of the plant represents the growth in my life and spirit. My being so sure of myself in the dream comes from having experienced this process in life.

It takes a lot of effort to get to this point, especially if you are a trauma survivor– having to cross rivers and going through the middle a somewhat dangerous city. But as I began this quest, the energy came to give me the strength to meet these obstacles. There are setbacks like getting stuck on barges, but then something will happen as a result of your effort and suddenly you will find yourself over the obstacle.

The river could be the emotions that must be dealt with and the dangerous city could be my own mind having to deal with a darker aspect of my shadow/diabolic side. The river and city represent the risks involved when you decide to discover yourself by taking a difficult direction in life.. Normally, in my dreams water represents emotions. When trying to change your path in life, my experience was that I definitely had to deal with many of my emotions, which has been a difficult task for me - especially the rage and anger issues.

Of course, I had to have a donut worked into the dream, probably because my mother was in the dream and she would always solve a crisis with desserts and treats. I actually have been quite good on my anti-sugar campaign, but now finding that I am eating things that have sugar in them that I did not associate with sugar. In reality I did not eat a doughnut, just in the dream. Perhaps, Freud had a point about ‘Wish Fulfillment’.

Copy Write @ Very Cool Dreams Company September 10, 2011

Copy Write @ Very Cool Dreams Company 2/27/2015

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At The Ravine – “You have to do it yourself” 1/26/2015 Date of Dream

 Leading Meeting – Meeting Cancelled

This dream depicts the  Jungian 'Individuation' concept which was developed by Carl Jung. 'Individuation' is a process in which an individual differentiates from others having their own personal beliefs and opinions - and a personal direction in their life essentially, becoming the true self.

I’m at the house I grew up in and there’s going to be a meeting there of some social club. Apparently, they all owned boats - some boating group and they’re older people and I’m younger at the time. I knew nothing about the group and what they did but they expected me to lead the meeting for their club.

I’m getting dressed and I’m having trouble figuring out what to wear. I had two pairs of pants one pair was short pants and others are long. They were a brownish color and a plaid shirt, but the belt was pink. I thought the pink belt was strange, however, the clothes seemed to match ok. And that’s what was there to wear, didn’t seem to have a choice. So, I go along with it, but something feels out of sorts – I do not feel comfortable dressed like that. Then I’m having trouble holding my pants up for some reason even with the belt - everything kept falling down and I’m trying to hold them up while I’m getting ready for the meeting. I had some notes on how to conduct the meeting. I was baffled with the whole event.

I don’t really want to lead this meeting but I feel like I have to, I am under some pressure or obligation to do so. It is getting closer and closer to the meeting time and I don’t feel ready, I feel very unprepared.

Then I go outside and I am in a place, like a churchyard style setting, like at an AA meeting where people are gathered around prior to the meeting - small little groups talking amongst themselves. I do not mix in.

The Fall

Then it’s time for the meeting so I go back in the door, and I’m back in the living room of my house. The meeting is going to be held downstairs in our recreation room. And it’s about up a flight of 10 stairs down in a split-level house - the biggest break was between the living room and the record recreation room.

My grandfather, who is in the state he was when he was 84 years old and had cataracts, was at the top of the stairs as I was approaching the stairway. I was holding a bunch of papers and had a glass in my hand. Then all of a sudden I can see he’s going to fall down the stairs and I cannot grab him. I’m thinking I would just have to drop my glass and spill everything on the papers and I hesitate for a second and he falls. The fall is like he’s falling off a cliff with all his arms and legs outstretched not like you would tumble down stairs - it is a long fall to the bottom (Wile E Coyote style - infamous for his long falls to the bottom of canyons). Because of my grandfather’s fall, the meeting has to be postponed and I’m wondering at that time "Why don’t these people who belong to the club lead the meeting?".

At the Ravine

Then it is time to pick up the chairs and clean up the meeting room. Currently we had to put everything in order the way it was prior to the meeting set up. But then the scene switches to a remote desert canyon setting. Somewhat of a mountainous area with large dirt hills and we have to walk way back around some ravine to the building to put the chairs and other stuff away.

Then the cast changes and everyone is young, and we are sitting around the top of this ravine. Suddenly, I noticed the ravine is very steep and goes down hundreds of feet. You would die if you fell. I become a bit frightened and decide to move out of my position and get back up on the road. As I go to lift myself, pushing up with my hands behind me, the earth starts to crumble and give way. As I put more weight on it gets worse. It is a precarious situation and I freeze up for a bit.

I asked for help from the guys around, but they say I have to do it myself. And at first I feel like I can’t. I feel like they should have been wiling to help, but then I know what they mean – that to make my way in life I have to figure it out by myself. But I start to move my arms to push myself up. At first I feel like I’m moving in air, there’s no traction and I am not moving toward the top to safety. My arms are peddling away but I’m not going anywhere. I feel it is not working, but suddenly without feeling any transition I begin to move up into a safe position and suddenly I am safe. I was kind of surprised I made it because I never felt I had control – I just moved out of harm’s way, but I did it through my own actions.

Then everyone is moving towards the gate in a high chain-link fence. We had to lock up the place after putting everything away. Outside the gate, I run into my brother, and apparently we had driven separately. This place is out in nowhere and there there is a railroad track in front of us - every thing is surrounded by these barren dirt hills and the roads are in between the hills. The roads cannot be seen from our position, but I know where I parked my car along the side of a road, but my brother seems to be unsure of where his car is parked. (Which is the exact opposite of the way it had been in real-life) Until now, I am becoming in control of my life.

Psychoanalytic Dream Interpretation - Jungian Individuation

Resolving difficulties about childhood with alcoholism.

'There is someone in my head, but it’s not me - the 'false-self'

I have to lead the meeting that I know nothing about, the boating social club. Perhaps this has to do with having to live a good part of my life disassociated, with a major disconnect between my spirit from my mind and body. Without my natural life force being present due to trauma childhood - even though I appeared functional making over hundred thousand per year at times in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, I was not really connected to the work I did or the people I associated with.

I felt stuck in my sales job of 25 years for various reasons just like I was stuck with having to lead the meeting for the social club in the dream which I knew nothing about nor was I interested in what they were doing.

This, also, I believe metaphorically synchs with the wardrobe mismatch. I was not match up to the role I was trying to act out in life. It doesn’t fit right and it ends up tripping me up in life. And with the pink belt, I suspect something is wrong, but just go along with it because it goes with the ill fitted pants.

I go outside the house and it’s in an AA meeting type setting at a church which is an all too familiar setting. I have been to thousands of AA type meetings over the last 34 years. This represents the fact that I grew emotionally and experientially after I left home. I ran away from home when I was 27 and moved to California. I became sober and basically lived my life for 25 years trying to fit into a society where I did not feel like I really fit in.

It is time for the meeting and I reenter the doorway from the churchyard and I enter back into the family living room where I grew up. I went back to Maryland when I had my breakdown about 10 years ago, represented metaphorically by going back into the living room - my act had really “fallen” apart – “major depression”.

I am my grandfather in this part of the dream – my grandfather falls – and I had a major fall in life -a setback. The meeting had to be cancelled – my life was put on hold for several years after the breakdown. The other connection is that I held onto the papers and glass and hesitated as my grandfather fell – I could not let go of things. I held onto the anger, rage and fear over my wife’s affair and the exploitation at work. Therefore, I fell. I could not forgive and wanted revenge which blocks my way on moving forward in my life.

This is my maternal grandfather who lived with us growing up – My grandmother had MS and was in a nursing home from the time I was five or six.

I always attributed my ability to sell as coming from my grandfather’s example. My grandfather would talk to anybody, anywhere and make friendly casual conversation at any time. He used to take my brother and myself to baseball games in the late 1950s and early 1960s to watch the Washington Senators play at Griffith Stadium. (Times gone by) My grandfather would start conversations with the guy at the ticket booth selling the tickets, the guy who took the tickets, the guy who sold the souvenirs, and the guy at the concession stand. He was a rather simple person. He had been a union printer for the Washington Post – but pretty much at ease with himself. You could tell he felt like he fit in with society – I never felt like that, I never felt like I fit in. But I learned how to mimic his behavior so it appeared like I fit in. I never had any deep talks with my grandfather about what was really going on in life. I don’t think he existed at that level, but he was a “good” man. In the 15 to 16 years my grandmother was in the nursing home he went to visit her every day.

My grandfather’s fall represented the end of my sales career which I kind of owed to my ability to mimic him. This ended the meeting which ended the “false-self” stage of my life.

Then the dream becomes like the end of an AA meeting where we put away all the chairs and clean up the facility which we used for the meeting.

But the location changes to a remote location or desolate area where life is a bit more arduous. It is a long walk back to the building where the chairs are stored. We had passed a ravine on the way to stack the chairs. And, then we were suddenly around the ravine sitting down around the ‘edge’ and now everyone was suddenly young.

Sitting on the edge of the ravine represents risk. The risk of changing my life and doing something I think there is a need for and can be accomplished. Creating my website on dreams using psychoanalytic techniques has never been done before and when I explain it to most people they think it has a snowballs chance in hell on top of being ludicrous to begin with.

Suddenly, I realize the danger in the dream and I ‘freeze up’ with fear that one could fail at life again – falling to their death. I realize I have to move, but I froze and expected help from the guys around me. But, I am told that I have to do it myself. This is the part of my subconscious that knows that I have to take the responsibility and risk to take action. I will have to suffer the consequences if I fail.

Jungian Individuation Process

I have to get myself out of the dangerous position. I have to make it myself and get myself onto solid ground. For years, I thought someone had to help me or tell me the secret or the instructions. I was looking for someone to perhaps coach me through life because no one ever had. Someone to give me instructions on how to be a success or succeed or what to do with my life. And only now have I come to realize that this connection with life has to come from within. And, to come from within one has to be in contact with their spirit or their natural or true motivating force in life which is the 'individuation' process.

Normally, ones parents are supposed to give some guidance here. But due to chronic alcoholism with my father no such message or information was ever forthcoming.

My brother was a year and a half older and always gave me guidance and helped me get out of some of the financial situations I got into. But we are very dissimilar when it came to lifestyles. He always pick the safe and less adventurous path –I was always drawn to something that would make me feel or experience something transitional.

I experimented with drugs, I moved 2,500 miles away from home, wanted to study things that opened my mind rather than things that would get me a job. I was the alcoholic and he was not, I got depressed and he didn’t. My brother never swayed from the Catholic faith and I’ve become agnostic/atheist depending on the day.

Individuation Itself

At the end of the dream, I know where my car is and he doesn’t know where his is -this is the exact opposite of the way it was in reality. Until now, that is. I think I have finally found myself and what I am doing now with the dreams is something I feel connected with. I have come into contact with my spirit - I know where my car is - where my life is going. I am less dependent on my brother tracking down things for me and helping me keep things together.

My brother has historically been in my dreams more than any other figure in my life. I looked to him and not my father because my brother was always mentally present. Now, I am finally beginning to handle this control function. This is why no one would help me get up at the ravine, I had to do it myself. I am becoming autonomous– or what Jungian’s would refer to as going through the “individuation” process.

I’m prepared to move forward in life. Okay, that’s enough for tonight.

Copy Write @ Very Cool Dreams Company September 10, 2011

Copy Write @ Very Cool Dreams Company 1/29/2015