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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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