Tag: denial | In your dreams …

When you wake up crying

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 64 Comments

When you wake up crying real tears, or simply feeling profoundly sad for no apparent reason, it’s because you have finally touched upon some buried grief through a dream. You may have released it all, or there may be more to come. Either way, this is good and healing. (Don’t you always feel much better after a cry?) Even if you don’t remember the dream, rest assured that tears are better out than in, and although you may become more aware, in the next few days, of a past event that caused you grief, you are well on the way to finally letting it go and moving on.

There will be times, in your past, where you were unable to express your grief, or where you felt you should try to hide it.

There will be times, in your past, where you were unable to express your grief, or where you felt you should try to hide it. Perhaps ‘boys don’t cry’, or you were advised to ‘keep a stiff upper lip’, or you accepted a hurtful situation as normal or something to be endured, so you packed grief away, out of sight. Or perhaps the only way to get through a situation was to pretend to yourself that it wasn’t happening, or wasn’t important, or that you were coping wonderfully, or needed to smile for others, or that you had already healed.

The deeper wound still hurts, affecting how you live your life.

These, and other forms of denial, are like bandaids. They work on the surface, but the deeper wound still hurts, affecting how you live your life.

One day the grief finally breaks through – perhaps accompanied by a dream of a dam bursting, or a tsunami breaking – and you wake up crying.

If you can remember your dream, look for clues about your grief, as understanding the past will help you to accelerate your healing.

What age is the child?

Look for a young child or younger person who seems sad, or hurt, or trying to cover up his or her feelings.

What age is the child?

Ask what happened for you at that age, or that number of years ago. It doesn’t matter whether the child or person looks like you. He or she most likely symbolises the event or your hurt.

Also look for historical markers in your dream, perhaps cars, houses, clothes, or numbers that help to give you a time period to explore.

When you have found the source of your grief, do this dream alchemy practice:

Visualise hugging and comforting yourself as you were back then, or hugging and comforting the child in the dream.

Close your eyes, and visualise hugging and comforting yourself as you were back then, or hugging and comforting the child in the dream. Let her cry all her tears dry, then let her smile and laugh and grow strong and happy. Tell her how wonderful her life will be now that her tears have washed it all away, and see her growing, before your eyes, changing and becoming a strong, happy, powerful, and relieved new you. Merge with her in your mind’s eye, and take her, fully healed, into your heart.

[Extract from 101 Dream Interpretation Tips, Jane Teresa Anderson]

Consultation services

Mama Mia! Flying & falling dreams

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

“Married at 22 to a jackass, I spent 10 years with a cheater, and 10 years dreaming that I was falling. I never hit the ground, and I knew I was dreaming, but there it was: falling. And, it was scary.

After that divorce, I found a gem of a husband who looks after me and treasures our love. Guess what? Now, the dreams are of flying. I am flying, and I’m good at it, and I know it’s a dream and I don’t care because it’s fun.”

Laurie posted this on mamamia.com last week when I was guest blogger talking about recurring dreams. There were over 100 posts as Mia’s readers shared their dreams, and I spent some time replying, interpreting, giving tips. (Read them here.)

There were over 100 posts as Mia’s readers shared their dreams.

I replied to Laurie:

“Isn’t it enlightening when you spot the metaphor in the dream? Often we can only do this in retrospect, as we are so often blind – in denial – to our situation at the time.

Dreams reflect the unconscious, and it seems you had an unconscious belief in falling (in not flying), low self esteem perhaps (and falling ever lower), until something happened to reverse that thinking, and you transformed that negative unconscious belief. You saw the possibility of flying, of having higher self esteem, of reaching a higher potential.

You wouldn’t have stayed in that 10 year marriage unless it matched your unconscious feelings of falling.

Good work, and congratulations!

Here’s something interesting: If I had heard about your falling dream way back then, as well as exploring your dream to understand it, I would have given you a visualisation. I would have asked you to visualise yourself back in your dream, only this time to fly out of the fall, to grow wings and fly up and up and out of the dream, and to summon up a wonderful feeling of high self esteem and limitless possibilities as you did this. It’s what I call a Dream Alchemy practice. It’s a way of working with your dream symbols (e.g. falling) to change them; a way of reprogramming your unconscious beliefs from negative to positive by speaking the language of your unconscious (which we know, from your dream).

What would have happened if you’d done this? You’d have automatically seen the light and broken free earlier. But hey, here you are today, and life is wonderful. Enjoy your wings.”

Read my guest blog and replies to mamamia’s dreamers.

Consultation services

Reveal your saboteur

Posted on March 16, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 2 Comments

Tom and Kim both dreamed they were running late for their plane.

Imagine that both Tom and Kim had the same dream. Each dreamed he was on his way to the airport to fly to another city for a work meeting when he realised he had left his ticket at home. He wondered whether he had time to go back home and get his ticket, or whether he would miss the plane. The dream ended there. What does it mean?

The in-depth interpretation depends on how Tom and Kim each felt in their dream, and this applies to most dream interpretations.

Tom felt excited by the challenge.

Tom felt panicked by the delay, and then excited by the challenge. The adrenalin rush of racing back home to get the ticket in time to catch the plane would put him on a high that would energise him right through the meeting, and impress his work colleagues with his ‘can do’, risk-taking, adventurous approach.

Kim felt relieved and took the afternoon off.

Kim felt immediately relieved. He was off the hook with a perfect excuse. Forgetting his ticket meant he didn’t have to face his colleagues. He fleetingly wondered whether he had forgotten his ticket accidentally-on-purpose, but dismissed the thought as soon as he realised he could now spend the afternoon relaxing and playing golf.

Tom and Kim’s dreams were about why they have been experiencing delays in achieving their goals. Both dreams reveal a saboteur element: both Tom and Kim are creating the very delays that daily despair them. “Why,” they each moan, “does life keep blocking me?”

As you can see by examining their dream feelings, Tom loves the thrill of an obstacle course and believes the challenge of the added difficulties gives him a performance edge and wins him praise.

He unconsciously creates delays to experience a high because he believes he needs the rush to perform, and craves praise for achieving against the odds.

Kim creates delays to safeguard himself from pressure.

Kim, on the other hand, fears achieving his goals or facing up to his abilities, whether or not he’s equal to the task.

He unconsciously creates delays to safeguard him from this pressure, though he won’t admit this to anyone – including himself – in daily life. Sometimes he catches a glimpse of his modus operandi, but then swings denial into place deftly with his golf clubs.

Here’s the tip. When you write out a dream, add your feelings. Make sure you don’t write about how you would feel if this happened to you in waking life. Write the feelings you felt while you were in the dream. Then highlight the feeling words, and link them together in the same order to form a flow.

For example, Tom’s would read: panicked -> excited -> high -> energised -> impressive -> risky -> adventurous.

Kim’s would read: relieved-> excused-> dismissive->relaxed.

Do this for your dreams, and ask where this pattern is playing out in your life. You will see your life in quite a different light. Once you are aware of this pattern, you have the power to change it.

[Extract from 101 Dream Interpretation Tips, Jane Teresa Anderson]

Consultation services

Psychedelic sunglasses

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 5 Comments

Once upon a view, back in 1972

“Will dream interpretation involve digging up my past?” asked Adrian. “I want my nightmares to stop, but I don’t want to go opening up any old cans of worms.”

It’s a common concern. Many people have invested years into burying and forgetting uncomfortable experiences, preferring to look ahead to a bright future, unhampered by unsettling memories. It’s an ideal, and it’s achievable, but it only works when you first make peace with your past. When you are at peace with your past, you can focus freely on today and tomorrow. When you are not at peace with your past, it distorts your vision of the future and affects how you respond to the world.

You don’t get peace by burying discomfort. You don’t get peace by denying your past experiences. Burial and denial simply move your discomfort from your conscious mind into your unconscious mind, where the experiences live on in a more subtle form, powerfully influencing the way you automatically (unconsciously) respond in your every day life, while you go about your life under the illusion that you’re in conscious control.

Think of it this way.

Imagine you were born in 1964. Now imagine opening a cupboard filled with sunglasses. There’s a pair for every year of your life, starting from 1964. Each pair has a label identifying the year, and each pair reflects the fashion of the time. There are huge aviator glasses, tiny John Lennon spectacles, diamante-swept frames, wraparounds – a veritable history of sunshade eyewear. Pick a pair, any pair. 1974, perhaps. Since we’re imagining you were born in 1964, you would have been ten years old in 1974. Imagine looking through your 1974 glasses. Let’s call them Tardis sunshades. Time travel glasses. When you wear your 1974 sunglasses, you see today’s world through the eyes of the ten-year-old you were back in 1974.

What you might see? How much did you understand about life when you were ten? As that ten-year-old looking at your life today, how much would you understand? How much would you misinterpret? How would the attitudes of your ten-year-old self affect the way you see your life today?

Let’s be really simple here. Imagine that, at age ten, you were a shy child, afraid to speak up for yourself because your parents always reprimanded you for expressing an opinion. You learned to keep quiet, fearing the consequences. Now fast-forward to today, and here you are, looking at your life today through those 1974 eyes. How are you going to respond to life? Quietly and shyly, for fear of being hurt if you express yourself.

If you have grown since 1974 to understand where your parents were coming from when they reprimanded you for speaking up, you may have reached a sense of peace about your upbringing. At peace with your past, today you speak up without fear of being hurt in return.

If you have not had the opportunity to look back and understand, you carry that fear into your life today. You may still be quiet and shy, or you may tackle your fears head-on every day, ploughing ahead, speaking up, but somehow always expecting people to respond negatively. You may cope with this by building defence into your speaking up, delivering watertight arguments, or developing a thick skin to repel the barbs you expect to receive in return. This is what happens when you are not at peace with your past, when you bury or ignore your childhood experiences, erasing them from your conscious mind but succumbing to their power through your unconscious actions and attitudes.

Imagine popping on sunglasses from other years. Pop on your pink 1985s to view your life today. It’s like time travelling from 1985 into the future – today – and trying to understand what you see. Your only experience is the sum total of your life until 1985, so you interpret everything you see today in 1985 terms. If 1985 was the year that your fiancé left you and you vowed never to trust a woman again, you will see your wife of today with distrust through those pink 1985s.

In reality, most people handle their painful past experiences in several ways. They may find peace with some experiences, keep others alive by retelling the pain, and bury or ignore others they would prefer not to face.

Imagine picking up last year’s Tardis sunglasses to view this year. In reality, some areas of those lenses will be unchanged since 1974 if you have not updated your views since then. Other areas will be recently updated reflecting shifts in your perspective or new experiences. Still other areas will be strange blends between 1974 and 1985, perhaps, an outcome of experiences blended from those two years. All in all, last year’s specs provide a time trippy psychedelic perspective on your world today.

Now imagine taking off today’s sunglasses. What? You didn’t realise you were wearing sunglasses? Of course you are. The world you think you know today may be quite different from the one you experience through your psychedelic lenses.

This is where dream interpretation comes in. Your dreams reveal the make-up of those sunglasses you wear today. Your dreams, once interpreted, show you the difference between the way life is and the way you see it. Your dreams pinpoint experiences from your past that affect the way you experience your life today, especially highlighting those experiences you thought you had successfully buried. Your dreams, once interpreted, help you to remove your sunglasses so you can understand your past, and, in understanding, find peace.

In this way, dreams are the route to peace through understanding, and that route may include opening and examining a can of worms or two to clear your vision. Fortunately, when you look closely at those worms through ever-clearer lenses, you finally see them for what they always were – angels in disguise. And that’s where nightmares stop, and beautiful dreams begin.

[Copyright Jane Teresa Anderson, Aug 2007. First published as a Dream Sight article.]

Consultation services

Tag Archives: denial

When you wake up crying

Related articles you might enjoy

Mama Mia! Flying & falling dreams

Related articles you might enjoy

Reveal your saboteur

Related articles you might enjoy

Psychedelic sunglasses

Related articles you might enjoy