Tag: lesson | In your dreams …

The open door

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 1 Comment

Twenty-one years ago, I dreamed I was trying to get into a building by pushing through one of its solid brick walls. It was hard work that got me nowhere at all. All it did was exhaust me. I stood back, walked around the house, and discovered an open door. I realised that the door had been open all this time.

This short, simple dream helped me to see that there was a much easier way for me to get to where I wanted to be. I realised that I believed the way was tough, that I needed to push to achieve my goal. What an exhausting belief!

I believed the way was tough, that I needed to push to achieve my goal. What an exhausting belief!

I had this dream a year before I began my research into dreams, and my interpretation, while insightful and life-changing for me, was basic. If you brought this same dream to me for a dream therapy session, we would spend a full hour exploring the many concurrent levels of meaningful insight such a dream offers, and I would lead you through a dream alchemy practice to transform limiting beliefs that block your progress into more rewarding ones that open your way.

When I had this dream, I hadn’t done the research, hadn’t developed and tested the concept of dream alchemy, hadn’t seen or experienced the power of working with dreams at such a deep level. It was enough for me, back then, to stand back and look at where I pushed hard in life – and why – and then to look for the open door, the opportunity I was not seeing. And this approach worked quite magically for me.

Now, looking back with twenty years professional experience in working with dreams, I also see the building as me, the brick walls as my solid beliefs, my pushing on the walls as a readiness to breakthrough my beliefs (my illusions of reality), and the open door as the result of surrender to change.

Surrender to change

Each interpretation is correct. The same dream – any dream- can be interpreted on a physical level (pushing hard is exhausting you, there’s an easier way), a mental level (you have a belief that you need to push to achieve your goal), an emotional level (you have this belief because of the emotional rewards it gives you, and because you fear what will happen if you release this belief), and a spiritual level (surrender). And this is only a beginning. There are many other interpretation levels, each adding dimensions to the one emerging picture of why your life is the way it is at this particular point in time, and what you can do to change this, if you wish.

The journey – as the old cliché reminds us – is more important than the destination. A goal gives you purpose, inspiration, motivation, and a sense of achievement when you attain it, but it’s the insights you receive along the way that build physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual mastery.

No matter which goal you choose, the lessons inherent in the journey will be the same.

Choose goals that feel important and meaningful to you, or goals that feel fun and enjoyable, or goals that make you face your fears. Pick goals that are big, or small, long-term, or short-term, because no matter which goal you choose, the lessons inherent in the journey will be the same.

Twenty-one years ago, I walked through an open door. I no longer remember the goal I had in mind at the time of the dream, but the lesson was life-changing.

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Life lessons

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 1 Comment

“Are we meant to learn lessons from our dreams?” asked Cheryl, in an email I received this week. It’s a good question, both simple and complex, and one many people ask. So, are we meant to learn lessons from our dreams?

I’ve been watching Isobel, my eight month old granddaughter, learning to crawl. You might think crawling is innate, an instinct, but not all babies crawl before they can walk. Some progress directly from sitting to standing and walking, while others get mobile by rolling around, or shuffling on their bottoms, or scrabbling on hands and feet rather than on hands and knees.

Must you crawl before you can walk?

Newborns have an instinctive crawling reflex. If you place a newborn on her mother’s tummy, she will usually do the ‘breast crawl’, crawling up to latch on to her mother’s nipple. If you place babies onto their tummies in their first weeks of life, you will see little movements like crawling. Although they don’t make any forward movement, this action is believed to help protect them from asphyxiation when lying face down. The instinct seems to disappear after a few weeks, and since babies in some cultures never crawl, it appears that crawling is just one of many possible solutions babies find to satisfy a drive to get mobile before they work out how to walk.

Here’s what I’ve learned from watching Isobel learn to crawl.

The most important thing is the toy she wants to get to. It’s all about keeping her eye on the prize. Locked on all fours, swaying, getting nowhere, you can almost hear her thinking, searching for a solution. At least, that’s my interpretation of what’s going on!

Does this remind you of a situation in your life, now or in the past, where you know what you want to achieve, but you can’t seem to get it happening? Or you can’t quite work out exactly what to do? Or you just feel stuck?

What do you do next? Keep trying? Get frustrated? Look for a different solution? Give up? Feel like a failure? Cry for help?

What is the right thing to do? Is there a life lesson here?

Some argue for persistence. Stick with the formula, stick with doing what you’re doing, and you will eventually succeed. Others argue the opposite. If what you’re doing isn’t working, then you need to change what you’re doing.

Isobel might have found a different way to get mobile. She got pretty good at doing the roly poly, which, by adding a wriggle here and there, sort of got her to where she wanted to be, but crawling still intrigued her, so she spent more time swaying on all fours, thinking. And growing stronger. After a few days, she tried hefting both legs at the same time, and then finally worked out the cross crawl pattern – move right knee and left hand, then left knee and right hand. Now she’s building up the strength to go more than four little crawls at a time.

What can you take from Isobel’s story to apply to a situation where you feel stuck?

Is the resistance you feel actually assistance in disguise?

Are you really stuck? Or, like a baby swaying on all fours, are you really in training, practising and acquiring accessary skills, gaining strengths, developing and refining systems, even if all you’ve got is a feeling of getting nowhere? Is the resistance you feel actually assistance in disguise? Is giving up the best solution, or might today be the day when everything you have learned finally clicks into co-ordination and, quite suddenly, you achieve your goal?

“You can’t walk before you can crawl,” is a commonly quoted life lesson. Not necessarily true when considered literally. Generally true metaphorically.

I’m not sure what kind of lessons Cheryl was referring to when she asked if we are we meant to learn lessons from our dreams, but I do know that our dreams process our conscious and unconscious experiences of the last 24-48 hours, matching them to our past experiences before filing them away as ‘same old’ or ‘new’. So our dreams reflect our personal beliefs about life – the life lessons we have drawn and relied upon (same old), and new life lessons in the making.

The more we share and compare what our life lessons have taught us, the closer we move towards living our lives meaningfully.

The lessons I draw from my life experiences may be different from the lessons you draw, and the lessons you drew when you were ten may be different from the lessons you will draw when you are ninety. What seems right or feels right or works right for you may be totally wrong for me, but the more we share and compare what our life lessons have taught us, the closer we move towards living our lives meaningfully.

When you interpret your dreams, you understand the unconscious patterns of your life. You see how you live your life according to the personal lessons you have learned, and you see which of those life lessons are working well for you, and which are not. It’s never too late to learn (oh, that’s a universal life lesson, by the way), and if it’s meaningful life lessons you’re after, look into your dreams to understand your life, how it has shaped you, and how you can choose to shape it.

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Best excuses

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

“Sorry I’m late, Miss. The budgie died.”

That’s the second best excuse I remember a student giving me when I was a high school teacher many years ago. I taught biology and general science for two years, which makes the best excuse I ever received quite interesting:

“Please excuse Mark for missing his lesson this week. He sprained his tendril.”

It was hard to keep a straight face when I read Mark’s Mum’s note, but I did. Mark hobbled a bit getting to his seat, whether for real or for show, so I’m guessing his Achilles tendon was the tendril in question.

I didn’t receive a note when another student missed classes for a few weeks because he was in court, accused of shooting his mate in the neck. Fortunately for his mate, the bullet just grazed the surface, destroying a butterfly tattoo but leaving the spinal cord and windpipe intact. The mate had wronged my student’s girlfriend in some way. “I went home and got my Dad’s gun and aimed at his heart,” my student reportedly said in court.

So much for my biology lessons then.

So much for my biology lessons then. Though no doubt my student felt his heart was very much in his throat that day.

This all came to mind when a dream client alerted me to The great Aussie sickie rort, a segment on A Current Affair (Australian television, Channel 9) this week. A sickie is Australian (Aussie) for a sick day off work, for which you sometimes need a medical certificate from a doctor stating that you are indeed sick and not fit for work that day. The segment claimed that Australians take more sick days off work than any other country in the world, and that people who are not genuinely sick – who just want a day off – often get certificates from doctors who sidestep their professional ethics in these circumstances.

Is “I had a bad dream last night” a valid excuse to take a day off work?

The segment showed journalists fitted out with hidden cameras fronting up to a number of doctors, asking for a medical certificate for a sickie. In some cases they said they were perfectly healthy and just wanted a day off. In other cases they gave what they regarded as lame excuses. One was, “I had a bad dream last night”. (Apart from one doctor who said it was unethical and that his practice would be at risk, the others all gave certificates.)

I’m not saying that having a bad dream is a valid excuse to take a sickie the next day, although a bad dream can be extremely distressing until you understand why you had it and how this insight can help you.

Dreams, once understood, help us to see beneath the surface excuses we often rely on to save us from facing our fears or accepting life’s invitations to evolve.

What excuses do you hear yourself give, either in speaking aloud to others, or in that tiny voice at the back of your mind?

What excuses do you hear yourself give, either in speaking aloud to others, or in that tiny voice at the back of your mind that says, “I can’t do that because ….”?

Make a list of your excuses – those you know about and those you notice over the next few days.

Then look to your dreams for deeper insight.

What lies beneath your excuses?

How can this deeper insight free you to move forward – with no excuses?

PS Kindle news

Kindle! I’ve launched my first Kindle ebook today! For all of you who have been asking for Kindle. More to come.

I’m delighted to announced my launch into Kindle.

So for those of you who have been asking for kindle editions of my ebooks, we started today with How to stop bad dreams and nightmares which you can purchase from Amazon here.

The rest will follow!

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Misinterpretation

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

I have just watched a rather self-satisfied dog scare away a noisy garbage truck, as only he knows how – a volley of gruff barking and a telepathic “get off my patch or else” warning. Works like magic every Thursday morning.

That’s the dog’s experience anyway. That’s how he reads the situation, I imagine, judging by the look on his face and the wag on his tail as he returns to the business of snoozing the morning away. Little does he know the truck driver can’t even hear him above the grinding crunch of the truck’s innards beating a street’s worth of garbage into submission.

Her method never failed.

A cat I once knew had an even better magic trick. If she sat and looked at the front door in a particularly focused way, it opened. Her method never failed. Sometimes it took a little longer to achieve, perhaps – I imagined she thought – when the wind was blowing the wrong way and she needed to still her focus more. Little did she know that whenever I noticed her sitting, staring down the door, I’d reach out and open it for her. She was too intent on performing her magic trick to notice me.

We’re much better than animals at knowing what’s going on, aren’t we? We learn from our experiences, test our theories, get consistent results. We understand life and how it works, don’t we?

Are we just as blind to the hand that really opens the door?

Or are we just as blind to the hand that really opens the door, to what’s really going on behind the scenes of our conscious awareness?

That’s where dream interpretation helps. It allows us to see the bigger picture, to understand why we interpret – or misinterpret – our experiences in the way we do, why we see the world in the way we do.

So next time you’re busy making a big drama to scare an intruder off your patch, or wondering why doors aren’t opening for you in the way that they used to, look into your dreams to discover what’s really going on. That’s the power of dreams.

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Otherwise, other wise

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Bath time, when my children were very small, was great fun until the moment came to lift them from the water. They never wanted to get out. Eventually I found the happy solution.

“Who’s going to take the plug out, you or me?” I’d ask.

“Me! Me! I want to!” would come the unerring reply.

Once the water was gone, they were happy to leap out and move on to the next game. It worked until they were old enough to realise that I was giving them severely limited options and that it was me who was really pulling the plug on their fun.

A man once told me about a dream in which he was in a rowing boat on a calm lake when five tornadoes appeared. The tornadoes struck the water and spun it into gurgling holes, as if five enormous bath plugs had been pulled from the sand beneath the lake. He felt the dream was warning him that his money, invested in various projects, was going ‘down the gurgler’.

Our warning dreams motivate us to take action. But what kind of action should we take?

He felt the dream was warning him that his money, invested in various projects, was going ‘down the gurgler’.

Are our dream warnings accurate, or do they reflect our fears and beliefs? Was this man’s money inevitably going down the gurgler or was he projecting (and creating) this outcome based on his unconscious beliefs and experiences – his conditioning? Had the plug already been pulled or did he have more expansive options?

And, in any case, was this man’s dream about his financial affairs or did it reflect other valuable information he could apply to ensure calm waters in his life?

My children expected only one outcome: that the plug would be removed in the next minute and the water would go down the plughole. So the outcome always manifested. If they had been older they might have suggested we run more hot water, stay in the bath longer, get take-away instead of cooking dinner and still get to bed on time. They would have learned the lesson that other wise options always exist. Or they might have stayed in the bath until the water went cold and learned a different but equally wise lesson from their experience.

My children expected only one outcome: that the plug would be removed in the next minute and the water would go down the plughole.

Alternatives. Wider choices. Whichever way, we gain wisdom from our choices if we are open enough to learn the lessons they offer. Sometimes the wisdom is learned under happy circumstances (the hot water and take-away choice) and sometimes less happy circumstances (the cold water choice).

“Take the plug out? Otherwise what?” my children might have asked, had they been older back in the bath plug days. “Otherwise you will become other wise”, I may have replied.

To grow, to gain wisdom, we often need change. We need to challenge ourselves to explore the wider options of the otherwise.

If life wisdom is the path, there can be no wrong choices. Just different choices and different routes. But if we hold a vision, a goal, how can we find the best route, the one that delivers both the desired reward and wisdom?

Well, naturally our dreams provide the answers but how can we recognise them?

Our dreams are symbolic snapshots in time: picturing your current mindset.

Our dreams are symbolic snapshots in time. They show us ourselves – our conscious and unconscious beliefs, experiences, memories and feelings relating to life at the time of the dream. Specifically they show us (once interpreted) how our unconscious beliefs are affecting our waking life and where those beliefs originated.

It is our beliefs – especially our unconscious ones – that shape our future. Above all, our fears shape our future by limiting our choices. We tend not to take the path that requires us to face our fears. Pulling the plug seems an easier option.

Our dreams are blueprints of the future, projecting outcomes based on our past responses to life.

Looked at in this way, our dreams are blueprints of the future, projecting outcomes based on our past responses to life. In this way too, dreams can be said to be prophetic.

If the man’s tornado dream was indeed about his financial affairs then it may have been reflecting his fears and beliefs that his money would go down the gurgler, and such fears possibly may have created that result.

What was his dream advising him to do?

He may have saved money by withdrawing his investments if he was in danger of creating doom.

Otherwise he could use the dream to identify the negative fears and beliefs and change them, using dream alchemy practices. By changing the blueprint his projected future changes and the situation is defused.

Change the blueprint to change the future.

To change the outcome, change the belief.

To change the outer world, change the inner one.

Beware the warning dream otherwise you may miss the real gold.

(The deeper meaning of the dream: The five tornadoes represented five major changes – the winds of change – in this man’s life that, each time, had ‘torn’ his calm world apart. Water often represents the emotions. These changes had stirred his deepest emotions, even though all appeared calm on the surface. His dream reflected his belief, based on these experiences, that whenever things were calm, a huge change would sweep in and shake him to the core. This belief extended to his financial affairs, ensuring regular calamity. His dream required him to look back at those changes to reap the wisdom of the otherwise and to transform his beliefs in destructive change into constructive change.)

[Copyright Jane Teresa Anderson, August 2003. First published as a Dream Sight article.]

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Dancing yin to yang

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

In dreams I am a most spectacular dancer, and from each dream dance a great lesson is learned.

In night dreams I am the most spectacular dancer, always harmoniously partnered, cheek to cheek, heart to heart, soul to soul. Our weightless dances defy the gravity and clumsiness of waking life, as we move as one into every dimension of space until the dance ends and I wake up still smiling from the touch of the light fantastic. And from each dream dance, a great lesson is learned.

My earliest dance lessons came from my father as he waltzed me around the room, my little feet perched upon his.

My earliest dance lessons came from my father as he waltzed me around the lounge room, my little feet perched upon his big, dependable shoes.

By the time I was seven I had decided my life’s mission was to be a ballet dancer. On being told I’d probably be too tall, I thought I could be a choreographer. Either way, no money for ballet lessons soon buried that plan. Prancing and pirouetting around the bedroom did nothing to enhance my future career prospects.

Besides, I was knock-kneed as my dancing needs clashed with economical reality. I took up yoga and learned the art of freestyle dance instead. I have since learned that dance lessons fade to insignificance alongside the lessons of dancing. Step with me into my dancing dreams to see why:

My dream partner was dancing me as he stood firmly and fully on my toes.

I once dream danced with someone I knew from waking life. It was a kind of reversal of my father’s waltz routine. In this dream dance the man placed his feet on mine and we waltzed the perfect waltz. The strangeness of the dream was that instead of me dancing his balancing feet through the steps, he was in control of the dance. He was the one calling the tune. He was dancing me as he stood firmly and fully on my toes. On waking I realised that this man had indeed, in waking life, called the steps. He had often trodden on my toes, but I had not recognised this and so the dance had been perfect for my learning at that time.

Life is always in harmony and balance, even when it seems not to be so. What we need to learn about ourselves is reflected in our world. I needed to learn about issues of control and being controlled, of restriction and freedom, through the delirious dance of the trodden toes. We danced to the pendulum of extremes until the calmness of the middle path stilled the motion and the dance came to its natural end.

Yet people in our dreams are not themselves, but aspects of our own selves. My treading-toes dance partner was the part of myself which danced the tune of conditioned restriction and lovingly taught the lesson of breaking free. He was my outer world, my Yang. I was his inner world, his Yin. We danced, cheek to cheek, Yin to Yang in search of the still calm point between us.

Think of the Yin Yang symbol, looking like two tadpoles nestled into each other, opposites huddled together in balance.

Think of the Yin Yang symbol, for all the world looking like two tadpoles nestled into each other, top to tail, each complete with an eye at the rounded head end. Or perhaps the symbol is more of a sacred 69. One side is black with a white ‘eye’ while the other is white with a black ‘eye’. One is Yin, one is Yang.

They are extremes, opposites huddled together in balance. As you trace the black of one tadpole from the thinness of its tail to the abundance of its head, you see the white of the eye colour. What this means is that as we approach an extreme in our attitude or being (the extreme being represented by the abundance of colour) a seed of the opposite nature appears. At the extreme swing of the pendulum, an excess of Yang births the return swing of the Yin. By the time the pendulum reaches its Yin extreme, the seed of a new Yang birth springs into being.

In swing style, Yin and Yang dance the great pendulum arcs that ultimately deliver the mutual destiny of the middle path.

My tango dream: was I being too flexible, too laid back? Or was I over-extending myself?

In another dream of years past, I tangoed across the tiles, leaning back so far in my dream stranger partner’s arms that my body was suspended horizontal to the floor. I momentarily hovered only a few centimetres above the ground until I was lightly whisked and whirled back into the next staccato tango pose. The lesson from this dream dance was to find the balance between the extreme of being too flexible, too laid back and the extreme of expecting too much from myself through forcing over-extension.

One dream dance duo had me cart-wheeling, face to face, hands to hands, feet to feet with my tumbling dream partner. Childish joy, upside-down, right side up, round and round, dizzying we roller-coastered our cartwheel harmony until my partner finally let go and I finished in standing pose, one hand out-stretched, ready for my next dance partner to continue my journey. And so the great lesson of the cycles of life, the ups and downs, the rounds and rounds, the repetitions, the recurring dreams and the final achieving of the still point was energetically clothed as a dream dance. There I stood, in the quiet moment between one cycle of life and the next, between one lesson completed and another about to start, between one dance partner and the next.

Dance lessons fade to insignificance alongside the lessons of dancing.

May you soon find yourself dream dancing cheek to cheek, Yin to Yang, paradoxically stepping the duality of life’s one path strewn with the lessons of so many perfect dances.

[Copyright Jane Teresa Anderson, September 2000. First published as a Dream Sight article.]

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Episode 35 The Dream Show: Tsunami dreams and what they mean

Posted on December 11, 2009 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

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Have you ever faced a tsunami or giant tidal wave in a dream? (Yes, it’s me in the picture.)

Episode 35 of our free weekly podcast, The Dream Show, is now up. Listen here or on iTunes.

Have you ever faced a tsunami or giant tidal wave in a dream? What happened?

It’s a very common, recurring dream theme, so what does it mean?

Whether or not you’ve had this dream, there’s plenty of insight you can take forward from today’s episode to help soothe troubled waters in troubling times.

Listen to my story about a tsunami dream I had just before one of my books was published, and the lessons it taught me about how to handle my fears.

Troubling times, or changing times? It all depends on your perspective: did the global financial crisis affect you, and how did you respond? Listen to tips about what kind of dreams you might experience during a tsunami of a crisis, and how to work with these to create rewarding outcomes.

Listen here (episode 35).

Yes, it’s me in the picture. Well, me a few years ago. This image is one of a series in our PowerPoint show, A Dream Wave Story, a visual version of the meaning of tsunami dreams. Watch it here.

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Tag Archives: lesson

The open door

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Life lessons

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Best excuses

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Misinterpretation

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Otherwise, other wise

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Dancing yin to yang

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Episode 35 The Dream Show: Tsunami dreams and what they mean

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