Validation For Your Beliefs

Thu., July 25, 1996

Nancy Huseby Bloom

Dear Nancy: This dream has me bewildered. It came around the time I was breaking up from an unhealthy relationship.

This relationship lasted a year even though I knew it would never work. My ex-partner is an alcoholic and very abusive. After every cruel episode he would apologize and beg for my forgiveness. - Lee

I am watching an 18-month-old boy pushing a monkey on a swing. He knows he’s going to hurt the monkey and I run toward him, begging him to stop. The monkey falls and is extremely hurt. Then another monkey runs up, hits the first monkey and runs away.

The hurt monkey lifts its head, as if it’s trying to get up, and then falls back, dead. The little boy feels bad about what he has done and lies down next to the dead monkey.

I am devastated that the monkey is dead.

Dear Lee: Dreams with injured or dying animals usually depict something that is injured or dying in ourselves.

Monkeys are generally thought of as being lighthearted, sensitive and mischievous. Are you feeling the death of these qualities in yourself? A difficult and abusive relationship can certainly injure those parts of our psyche.

The little boy is abusive to the monkey and is probably symbolizing your partner. It is showing him as the cruel child. It is the immature quality in him that wants to hurt others and then feels bad and asks for forgiveness.

The second monkey could be showing you that you also hurt yourself by staying in this relationship.

The unconscious is constantly attempting to bring to consciousness truths about our inner and outer lives. Dreams such as these, even though frightening, validate our feelings and confirm our perceptions about our life.

With the truth in hand, we can make appropriate changes.

Tips for readers: Having family or friends to share your dreams with can be extremely valuable. Dreams come alive in the retelling.

When sharing a dream, many new insights and details may be remembered and revealed. A friend can offer a new perspective or valuable insights you might miss on your own.

Formal dream groups give the dreamer a wonderful format for in-depth dream exploration.

Don’t forget to involve your children’s dreams in family sharing. This can be a valuable tool in deepening the family’s emotional bonds and understanding of each other’s fears and trials. It can also help to work out conflicts within the family as they arise.

By sharing dreams within the family unit, children will grow up learning to value not only their dreams but also their own deeper thoughts and feelings.

Regardless of whether you share your dreams with your family, friends or within a dream group, you will find your knowledge of dreams and your relationships enhanced.

This column is intended as entertainment. But psychologists who work with clients’ dreams say that dreams can hold a tremendous amount of significance; a particularly disturbing or repetitive dream may indicate the need to see a therapist.

xxxx Due to the volume of mail, Nancy is not able to use every dream. If your dream is not chosen for this column, you can have a personal phone consultation for $30 per dream. Dream work for use in this column is free.

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