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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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