Tag: food | In your dreams …

The power of taste

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Maybe I should open a patisserie. I recently tasted the most delicious concoction of a cake in a dream. Architecturally it was a stand-out, a creamy white abstract puff atop a stack of four dried figs.

I passed the cake around for everyone to taste. On closer examination, I noticed the figs weren’t figs after all. They were biscuits shaped like figs.

Freud might have taken a sexual approach to interpreting my dream – a creamy puff atop a phallic stack, and figs too?

Contemplating my dream the next day, I closed my eyes and imagined biting into the cake, just as I had done in the dream. I wanted to connect with the taste. I waited a few seconds, nothing. I persevered. I believed. I knew that if I had tasted it in my dream, I could access the sensation again. And suddenly there it was. Carnation evaporated milk. Quickly followed by a vision of my favourite childhood biscuits: fig rolls.

“When I grow up I’m going to have a cupboard full of Carnation evaporated milk, and drink whole cans whenever I want to.”

My dream symbol began to make sense. Puddings – as desserts were known in our family when I was small child – were sometimes served with Carnation evaporated milk. The can was placed on the table, two holes punched in the top, and, if we were good, we were allowed to pour an extra spoonful and – the best part – drink it straight from the spoon. Not two spoonfuls, just one.

“When I grow up and have my own home,” I remember saying on one such occasion, “I’m going to have a cupboard full of Carnation evaporated milk, and drink whole cans whenever I want to. And I’m going to have lots of packets of fig rolls and eat as many as I want.”

Fig rolls were my favourite biscuits, and a very rare treat in our house. Whenever we went visiting relatives, Mum would remind us of biscuit etiquette just before going in, “One fancy and two plain.” Our relatives would look quite astounded when they passed the plate a second time and we selected two plain tea biscuits each despite their encouragement to have another chocolate digestive or custard cream. We understood about the cost of fancy biscuits, about being polite, and about being healthy, but when our cousins, subject to different family rules, happily plundered the fancies, it niggled. It more than niggled me when there were fig rolls on the plate.

In my dream, I had more than a measured spoonful of Carnation evaporated milk whipped into my cake, and not one but four fancy fig biscuits. I shared my cake and still I had more.

I was able to look at the rest of my dream and understand the cake symbol in context.

Memories are often filed away with associated smells, tastes, and other sensory details.

When a dream symbol presents you with a taste, smell, texture, or unusual sound or colour, close your eyes and invite the dream sensation to return. Memories are often filed away with associated smells, tastes, and other sensory details, so reconnecting with the dream sensation can unlock those associated memories and throw light on the meaning of your dream symbol.

Thanks to a taste sensation, I now understand my dream. As an aside, my tastes have changed, and there are no cans of evaporated milk or packets of fig biscuits in my cupboards. I don’t fancy them at all. But wait a minute! I always include dried figs and a dollop or three of creamy yoghourt on my morning muesli. So I guess I have lived happily ever after, after all!

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Cheese, alcohol, movies and dreams

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Does the movie you watched last night, the cheese you ate after dinner, or the whisky you knocked back all evening affect your dreams? Might a hot night, a thunderstorm, a full bladder, a rattling window, a screeching mosquito, or a headache explain away a weird dream?

Think of the movie as having prompted issues that need your deeper attention.

Yes, and then again, no! Let’s start with the movie. If a movie really affects you, your dreaming mind will often process the parts that resonated with your emotions, personal issues, beliefs, and life experiences. Your dream may or may not use some of the symbols from the movie, but whatever the dream, do not dismiss it as caused by the movie. Think of the movie as having prompted issues that need your deeper attention.

How about that cheese or alcohol? The idea that cheese causes bad dreams is an old wives’ tale, though body sensations such as indigestion, thirst, cold, a full bladder, a blocked nose, and numbness can get picked up by your brain and woven into the storyline of a dream.

Body sensations such as indigestion, thirst, cold, a full bladder, a blocked nose, and numbness can get picked up by your brain and woven into the storyline of a dream.

So your indigestion might turn up in a dream as a python coiling around your waist, the thirst as a shift in scene to a desert, the cold air as a passing ghost, or the numbness as a lost limb, but these will vary from person to person and from dream to dream. Again, the important thing is not to dismiss your dream as caused by the cheese, cold, or thirst, but to ask why your dream has chosen a certain symbol or way of processing the sensation. That symbol is meaningful, as is your dream. It tells you about how your mind works, and that’s the object and power of dream interpretation.

The rattling window might become the sound of a roulette game in one person’s dream, a cattle train speeding by in another person’s dream, and a trash bin being emptied in someone else’s dream. How the dreaming mind interprets the intrusion, and how it goes on to incorporate it into the dream storyline, delivers meaningful insight about the dreamer.

Binge drinking can knock out dreams for a few hours, but if you sleep long enough you’ll experience more intense dreams towards morning.

So never dismiss any dream.

Oh, about the alcohol. Binge drinking can knock out dreams for a few hours, but if you sleep long enough you’ll experience more intense dreams towards morning. It’s as if the dreaming mind has to squeeze all the dreams in at the end of the night, once the worst of the alcohol is out of your system.

These intense dreams are ‘REM Rebound’ dreams. (REM refers to the Rapid Eye Movement sleep phase where we do most of or dreaming). Too much alcohol blocks REM in the early hours so, come morning, it’s rebound time. And, yes, those dreams are meaningful, so don’t dismiss them.

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

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Video dream interpretation: Kitten curry

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Ingrid Arna asks me about her dream of eating kitten curry in this new short video. I hadn’t heard the dream before, so you can watch the process as we go – Ingrid describing her delectable 3-kitten gourmet dish, me asking key questions and interpreting, Ingrid responding with how the interpretation relates to her waking life, and some dream alchemy.

When I have a guest on my weekly podcast, The Dream Show, you get to hear the same process over a longer period – often 40 minutes. In today’s video you get a much shorter version and the opportunity to watch our responses, rather than just listen.

Which format do you like best, podcast or video? Why?

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Comfort zone: the things we do!

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Comfort zone: the things we do!

When was the last time you stepped out of a comfort zone? What did you do? How did it feel? How did the experience enrich your life?

We create and inhabit comfort zones to protect ourselves from facing our fears. We erect boundaries beyond which we prefer not to step. Often, though, the greatest danger lies inside the comfort zone, as this dream (posted to our old dream forums), portrays so vividly:

“I was nursing a baby and the baby was me. She was tired so I put her on my shoulder and she started to drop off. Then I got the idea of putting her into a 2 litre milk bottle, a nice cosy place I thought! The milk came up to her chest. She obviously found it comfortable and dropped off to sleep.

But then I kept having problems. I realised I had to take the lid off or she would suffocate. The milk was slopping into her mouth and making her cough, and I thought she might get chilled too.

I was walking round a tourist area and wanted to sit down for a coffee but I was too preoccupied with the baby.

Then I wondered how I was going to get her out of the bottle again. I would have to cut the top off. But she looked fairly comfortable and was soon asleep so I left her there.”

Did you notice all the references in this dream to comfort zones? There’s the ‘nice cosy place’ which she found ‘comfortable’ and where, despite the obvious dangers, she remained comfortable.

The things we do! This dreamer really wanted to explore unknown territory (the tourist area) and was on the verge of realising that her familiar comfort zone was so restrictive it was potentially suffocating. Even though she could see solutions, she ultimately settled for what seemed ‘fairly comfortable’. She was limiting her potential, and probably not achieving her desires, by suffocating in a comfort zone instead of stepping out into new territory to grow.

If you ever need encouragement to step beyond a comfort zone so you can grow, personally and spiritually, remember the baby in the milk bottle.

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Radio 2UE: Rat race or mouse trap?

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Stacey dreamed of rescuing mice from danger

Stacey phoned Radio 2UE last week when I was interpreting dreams on Andrew Daddo’s show. She’d been dreaming the same dream every other night for 6 months, and wondered why.

In each dream, she rescued some mice from danger, then kept forgetting to feed them. She had rescued them from one danger and now they faced another: the danger of neglect.

“Do you have mice?” Andrew asked her, meaning vermin.

“I’ve had pet mice in the past,” Stacey said. “I rescued them from someone who was feeding them to a pet snake.”

“So how do you see the personality of mice?” I asked.

“Cuddly and in need of rescue,” she replied.

“And six months ago, when you first had the dream, what was ‘cuddly and in need of rescue’ in your life?”

It turned out that six months ago Stacey had realised she needed to make a change around work. She decided to rescue herself from the dangers of a stressful job and start a new business, one that was more nurturing for her.

She launched straight into a new business, and has been having the dream every other night since.

Her dream suggests she may be in danger of exhausting herself through her new business – falling into an old trap of rescuing others perhaps – neglecting herself, forgetting the intention behind her lifestyle change. It’s one thing to make an outward change and leave the ratrace behind. It’s another to let your unconscious programming lead you into the same old (mouse)traps.

Stacey could relate to this interpretation. It’s time for her to nurture herself as well as her business, and one way to do this may be through re-evaluating a need to rescue others. If all her energies go into her business, or into rescuing other people, she’ll become exhausted and the business will fail to thrive.

It’s all about balance and right nurturing. The moment Stacey finds a to way create work-life balance, her recurring dream will stop, and she’ll have the energy she needs to grow her business successfully. She can open the way by doing a dream alchemy practice, visualising setting those mice free to live in lush countryside where they can eat to their hearts’ content: a life of danger and neglect instantly transformed into a life of safety and abundance.

Where do you channel your energies? What are the results?

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Are we there yet?

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Are we there yet?

“Are we there yet?” It’s the third time five year old junior in the back seat of your car has asked the same question. You only left home ten minutes ago and with 150k still to go that’s another umpteen times you’re going to field the same question. Try telling him life’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey. In fact, try telling that to yourself too.

“Are we there yet?” is a common dream theme. How many times have you dreamed of trying to get somewhere but the journey becomes increasingly difficult?

Have you dreamed of trying to get to the airport to catch a plane only to be delayed by traffic jams, lost baggage, lost tickets and all manner of unhelpful people?

Have you dreamed of walking in circles around an unfamiliar city looking for an elusive bus stop?

Have you dreamed of walking along a simple path only to find your feet turn to lead, the ground turn to glue, or your muscles turn to jelly? You move in slo-mo, slogging against the resistance, getting nowhere fast.

Have you dreamed of trying to complete a simple task that just gets more and more complicated? You might have a meal to prepare for five people that turns into a banquet for one hundred, but you don’t have enough food, or enough time to cook it all, or enough pots and plates, or the right recipes to suit the occasion. The goal – or destination – of producing the meal seems increasingly remote as the task – or journey – gets increasingly arduous.

Take some time to think about dreams you’ve had where the original goal or destination became increasingly remote as the journey or task became increasingly challenging.

Or have you dreamed of a goal or destination that slips away forever, the last boat that leaves without you, the plane you’re flying that crashes, the child you’re shepherding that drowns before you can deliver him to his destination, the prize you were hoping for being rewarded to someone else?

These dreams all reflect your progress through life whether you’re consciously working towards specific goals or letting life lead you where it may. When you are delayed in your dream, you may be unconsciously putting obstacles in your way in waking life. Who would do this? We all do, at some point. No matter how much we want to reach a goal we may unconsciously fear the success that comes with reaching that goal, or fear the expectations others will have of us, or fear the risk of failure if we get too close to actually achieving the goal. When awake you may bemoan the fact that certain goals seem to be slipping away from you, or that opportunities you’ve been seeking seem more and more remote, but if you examine the details in your dreams for clues you’ll find the major delay factors begin and end with you. You’ll find a hidden agenda that’s operating to keep you in your comfort zone, even though that zone doesn’t always feel that comfortable to your conscious mind.

You may go round and round in circles in your dreams when you go round and round in circles in your waking life, covering the same old ground in the same old ways that didn’t work for you last time so probably won’t work for you this time either. The details in your dream will reveal why you do this. They might reveal a fear of change, a lack of self esteem or certain limiting beliefs that relate to past experiences.

The glue feet, slo-mo dream often reveals, when examined for details, your doubts or hesitations about reaching your goal, or unconscious beliefs about life being tough, or about having to work harder than other people, or about the need to earn a reward through putting in hard work, or about other people being more likely to put resistance in your way than help you forward.

The dream of the task that gets more and more complicated also reveals, when examined in close detail, your various beliefs about setting, accepting and achieving goals, and what drives all these beliefs.

And those dreams where the goal seems permanently removed – the boat that leaves without you, the crashing plane – often turn out to offer clues about how you unconsciously sabotage your own goals, though they may also reflect a growing understanding that a certain goal is no longer appropriate, and it’s time to let it go and put your energies into a new life direction. As always with dreams, it’s the details of your personal dream that provide the clues to the meaning of your personal dream.

Here’s the magical part. Oh, but I do have to tell you, magic is not for the faint-hearted!

How would you like to be done with the journey in the quickest possible way and get to your destination or achieve your goal sooner? How would you like to turn round to the child in the back seat and say, “Yes! We’re there now!”

I’ll tell you how to do this, in just a moment. If you lack courage, this is not for you. To reach your destination or achieve your goal sooner, you must be prepared to face the challenges you have been avoiding until now. You have been avoiding some of those challenges by taking increasingly circuitous journeys around the tough bits of the path you don’t want to face. No wonder you haven’t reached your goals! Until now you may have been too accepting of deeply anchored beliefs about yourself, such as I’m unworthy, I’m not clever enough, I deserve hard work, I don’t deserve to receive help, people always stand in my way, life doesn’t support me, life’s meant to be tough … and a whole host of other likely candidates. Both your dream journeys and your life journeys can teach you these things about yourself and give you the opportunity to have a Eureka moment and make the change that smoothes your journey towards your destination. Are you ready to face your home truths, or would you prefer to stick with the long journey for a few more decades until you feel more ready to accept the challenge?

If you’re ready now, here’s what to do.

Apply dream alchemy. Visualisations work best. If you have the slo-mo dream, visualise (when you are awake) yourself back in the dream only this time feel your body moving freely. Completely reverse the heavy glue feeling and see and feel yourself making fast, light progress. Add plenty of positive, uplifting feelings. Repeat the visualisation throughout the day and for several weeks. What will happen is that things will begin to shift and change in your life. The visualisation works at a very deep level to change your beliefs and you find yourself more willing to accept the journey than resist it. In accepting it you meet the challenges you had previously hoped to avoid when you slammed on the brakes. The short, sharp way through to the joy of reaching your destination is open to you. Take it, face it, learn from it, and collect your prize. (In some cases you may find that when you face these challenges the old goal loses its appeal, and you choose a new one, more appropriate to the ‘new’ you, instead.)

Apply dream alchemy in similar ways to the other types of Are we there yet dreams. See and feel yourself catching that plane, finding a straight line path to the bus stop and catching the bus, successfully preparing a banquet for your guests or calling in a chef and sitting down at the table with your guests to enjoy the feast, saving the plane from crashing, or seeing the child bob up from the water laughing, ready to continue the journey … and so on.

I have applied many of these in my life over the years, and I have witnessed the wonderful achievements of many clients who have done the same.

Oh, and there’s one further resounding truth:

When I was at university, decades ago, I had a recurring dream of missing a train. I’d arrive at the station and see the long-distance train at the platform but it would always take off while I was still waiting in line to get my ticket. On the night before our final exams began, I went to bed feeling satisfied that I was as ready as I would ever be to sit the exams. That night I dreamt I caught the train. I jumped into the carriage and sat down opposite a man. I sat there laughing out loud, looked him in the eye and said, “I caught the train!”

I woke up from that dream realising I had finally reached my goal. I had finally qualified for my ticket and got my seat on the train. As one journey came to an end, a new one, one with a new long distance goal, had only just begun.

And that’s how it is. Every time you reach a destination, one journey ends and a new one, towards a new destination, begins. Life is about change, not about standing still. Life is about challenge, not about falling asleep while deservedly resting on laurels. Life is about the journey, and the destination, and the journey, and the destination. Life is flow. Are we there yet?

(copyright Jane Teresa Anderson, May 2007. First published as a Dream Sight article.)

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The Dream Show: Episode 17 Chinese past life?

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (30.8MB) | Embed

Belinda dreamed she was a Chinese woman living in ancient China, distributing food to people in need. It felt life a past life; was it? A commemorative gold medallion featured in the dream as well as several coins. Listen in to discover some ancient wisdom buried in this dream, wisdom applicable to Belinda’s life today. How can she use the insight gained from this dream interpretation to create practical positive change? Listen to Belinda’s responses.

Listen.

(This episode of The Dream Show was released in August 2009.)

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Tag Archives: food

The power of taste

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