{"id":162,"date":"2010-12-02T08:25:52","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T08:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/the-biography-of-a-dream-symbol.html"},"modified":"2010-12-02T08:25:52","modified_gmt":"2010-12-02T08:25:52","slug":"the-biography-of-a-dream-symbol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/the-biography-of-a-dream-symbol.html","title":{"rendered":"The biography of a dream symbol"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nautilus.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>If you are keeping a dream journal, a great game to play from time to time is to track the evolution of a familiar symbol or theme. <\/p>\n

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You’ve been dreaming of the bear, or the fox, for years; how has your relationship changed? You often dream of running into construction on the road; are you getting through, taking a detour, grinding to a halt, or remembering you can fly? Again and again, you find yourself exploring a dream house that has more rooms or levels than your regular house; can you make a floorplan, marking its changes?<\/div>\n
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I made it a homeplay assignment for members of one of my active dream circles to come prepared to present the “biography” of a dream symbol.<\/div>\n
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Steve tracked his dream encounters with the bear starting with a scary brush with a giant grizzly back in 1994, in which some of the tension lifted when he was reminded that “all mammals like to be close to warm bodies.” In a later dream, he found himself snuggling with a big black bear in bed, which would have been more enjoyable had the bear not recently been in the trash, so that it stank<\/i>. In the most recent of his dreams, Steve was playfully skipping along with his children in the tracks of a friendly bear walking in the snow.<\/div>\n
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Jill told us she was going to speak about the “cross-over” theme in her dreams. She did not mean “crossing over” in the sense of the transits of the departed; she meant situations in which she had to cross over an obstacle ranging from a mountain to a busy street. Though the details of the five dreams in which she flagged this theme were richly specific and individual, the common theme emerged in a most interesting way in her narration. In the first dream in the sequence, from five months ago, she needs to cross over a man-made mountain with rubber boulders; she manages this easily, even dancing with friends on the top. In a later dream, she has to cross over a golf course set in the side of a steep hill to get to where she wants to be. In the last dream in the series, she must cross over a busy and confusing city street and make a loop through alleys where she begins to lose her way, until three men appear to play helpful guides. We noted a promising transition from needing to deal with a series of challenges or obstacles created by men to men figuring as helpers. This seemed gto resonate with major life transitions over the same period.<\/div>\n
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RUNNING OUT OF ROAD<\/b><\/div>\n
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I came to this circle intending to speak about my evolving visionary relationship with the red fox over many years, though that story could easily fill a whole book. After hearing Jill, I opted to talk about a different dream theme, which I defined as Running Out of Road.<\/div>\n
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It’s been a recurring dream theme for me, over decades. I’m on a road that becomes progressively more difficult or simply more rustic. In some versions, I run up against construction, a barrier or a brick wall.<\/div>\n
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 In the most recent dream of this kind, the paved road ends and becomes a kind of farm track that in turn peters out. Now I am driving my car cross-country, over rocks and through little streams. Soon I am on an upward slope that is getting steeper and steeper, while the rocks are becoming enormous boulders. My car is doing very well but finally it stops atop a huge boulder on a near-vertical gradient. I get out of the car and inspect the situation. I calculate that my car can make it to the top with just a little help. I need to find one or two people to give a push. This can be managed if I go to a nearby village and ask for help.<\/div>\n
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I found this dream enlightening. In my current work, on many fronts, I have reached a point where I am very willing to ask for help and cooperation from others who can help to grow the dream school and join me in new creative ventures.<\/div>\n
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I also noticed, exploring this theme, that our dream histories are non-linear. They circle and spiral around certain themes. In the past, my dream self has resolved the challenge of running out of road by getting out of the car and picking it up like a cardboard dummy and carrying it to where he needs to go. On another occasion, confronted by a vertical, seemingly impossible cliff, my dream self was pulled up by an ally above that revealed itself – when he reached the top – as a mountain lion.<\/div>\n
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We never want to forfeit the rich detail of an individual dream, which may offer specific insight and guidance on multiple levels, relating to the possible future (for example), to the state of our mind and body and relationships and\/or to our parallel lives in other times and in alternate worlds. But it’s fun to track those repeating and ever transforming personal themes and symbols.<\/div>\n
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In approaching symbols, we want to remember the very useful distinction Jung made between sign and symbol. A sign stands for something known; a symbol connects us with something we do not yet know. So tracking our symbols becomes an excursion into mystery.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are keeping a dream journal, a great game to play from time to time is to track the evolution of a familiar symbol or theme.  You’ve been dreaming of the bear, or the fox, for years; how has your relationship changed? You often dream of running into construction on the road; are you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,24,13,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-dream-interpretation","category-dream-symbols","category-jung"],"yoast_head":"\nThe biography of a dream symbol - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/the-biography-of-a-dream-symbol.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The biography of a dream symbol - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you are keeping a dream journal, a great game to play from time to time is to track the evolution of a familiar symbol or theme.  You’ve been dreaming of the bear, or the fox, for years; how has your relationship changed? 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}