Search For Dream’S Deep Message
Dear Nancy: I’m a single mother with one son. I had this weird dream a week ago and it still bothers me. - Lisa
I’m in my parent’s yard, at the side of the house. I don’t see her but I know my mother is in the back yard. Suddenly a bull appears and begins to circle me. It never actually touches me but it keeps circling around. I scream for my mom as loud as I can until I lose my voice. She never comes. The bull continues circling, then stops. I make a break for it and run to the gate and manage to get out. I’m relieved and begin to tease the bull that I got away. He climbs over the fence after me and I take off running as fast as I can. I wake up in terror.
Dear Lisa: We often dream of our childhood home when issues in our current lives are similar to those we faced as children. Our dreaming mind uses these powerful images because they call up feelings and experiences from our past.
In our telephone conversation I asked about your relationship with your mother and you said, “She was aggressive and a bully!” Your dreaming mind used the image of the bull to represent your mother and her way of mothering. You dream of being in your childhood home, feeling “bullied.”
In working with dreams, we look for the “ah-ha” experience - the moment when, at a deep level, we know the dream’s message. When I asked if there is a current situation in your waking life that reminds you of this one, you cried, “Yes! I’m treating my son the same way my mother treated me, and I hate it!”
Your dream reminded you of how it feels to be bullied and emotionally abandoned by your mother.
Just when you think you have escaped in your dream, the bull climbs the fence and comes after you. Did you promise yourself you wouldn’t treat your son the way your mother treated you? The fence could be a symbol of this promise but it didn’t stop the bull. He crossed the line.
Habits can be changed. I suggest you connect with a women’s support group, trusted friend or counselor to help you through this. When we work through issues around our own parents, our ability to be good, conscious parents increases dramatically.
Readers tips: In previous columns I have referred to a dreamwork technique called dream re-entry. This technique explores the significance of intriguing dream images or figures.
Sit quietly and let your imagination go back into the dream. In this state, start a dialogue with your dream figures, ask who they are and what they represent. This can be an enlightening and profound experience.
If it feels appropriate, another step will help understand dream images on a deeper level. We can become them.
For example, it’s one thing to have a conversation with a wolf and quite another to know the essence of being a wolf from the inside, to view life from the wolf’s perspective and look back at yourself through the wolf’s eyes. We can feel what it is to be that strong, that intelligent, that loyal - qualities that are available and a part of us.