This is the other strange feeling dream:

I am driving (my current car) with windows open in an urban area and have three hoodlum type black men with me. They have little education or social skills (I feel compassion as I write this). I think the two in the back seat are sleeping. I am not sure where we are going. I think I missed a turn I should have taken. I continue driving, taking a few right hand turns, as if going back around, to get to some location. I am now at a t-intersection. I see a muddy road before me. It is set just in front of a wide, dirty waterway. I ask the man next to me if this is the right road. He tells me it is. I turn right, even as I wonder over the slipperiness of this road. As we continue on, the muddy road beneath us disappears into the dirty, sewer-like water. It is as if the car is floating along the side of the waterway, where the road was. I grow some concerned, wonder over the power of the water, in which the car is helpless to maneuver, stay afloat. I am also aware of feeling a force or presence that is as if guiding, even if my dream ego self does not like where it is going. I feel helpless to control the vehicle, yet the car is not sinking. We come to a T-intersection in the waterway, with a large cement wall to our front. Unable to turn the car, it floated straight ahead into some sort of grill made of steel rails that is like a drainway for the water. There was not a physical crash sensation, just finding the vehicle up against these rails, which some reminded me of a prison cell.

I am wondering if it has something to do with putting myself in the shoes of others. I work with many blacks ... and I feel their energy/emotions. As I got to the end of re-writing this dream in Word, I imagined I felt the emotions of the man who was in the passenger seat with me, as if he wanted me to see how many black men in our society feel in life ... a soul thing. And, now, I am weeping what feel as his tears. Wow. Can he be part of my injured animus? Must be, right? Of course. Has to be. Hard to see, sometimes.

Ah, ah... I think maybe this is about the removal of more hardness. For that is often what I see and feel in the black population of people I work with. How they have learned to be steely, in a sense.

Kristi

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Feels less strange, now.

Again, how often I need to be reminded: It really is always about us, and not the other ... for anything we see in another is a reflection of the whole, of which we ALL are. I too have known and lived life through a steeliness. Is this what the man-made sewage ways of my dream creates in our souls...does it all harden us until finally we cannot stand the pain any longer and must become soft again.

Not sure my words right now will make sense to any other, but I understand them/feel them.

Kristi

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This dream somehow makes me think of survival and instincts. Also of:'blood can tell'. Some things are uncontrollable?

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Hi Mask,

I can see why the dream may have you think of survival and instincts. I grew this way in my childhood, from instinct and the need for survival/protection of myself ... this is, in my opinion, not unlike many black folks (seen in my dream), still, in our society, feeling the pressure of the history of their treatment in this country years ago, which still lives in the collective psychic soils of our country (in black and whites alike). I always resonated/related with the plight of the black man in our country, even as a child, and wept the tears that told so, then. They, like me, I felt, were disenfranchised by society. While I did not live in "the slums" (sewer like areas) as a child, "MANY, MANY" blacks did. This dream may be telling of feelings of being society's "throw-away," and how difficult (slippery) these feelings are. I think ending up stuck at the grill in the drainway may be showing that I must deal with these feelings.

Kristi

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When I woke from this dream, it was with a very tangible, very visceral feeling of being pressed down upon ... as was the child I was ... to not speak, to not be, to not have feelings, an opinion, or a voice.

Kristi

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Kristi,
Without any knowledge of the personal information I do know of you I would most likely see the 3 black men as representing unconscious masculine aspects that you are beginning/need to begin 'opening up to'. The lack of education would be the conscious' lack of education you have of these aspects, or not completely acknowledging them. You have recognized one aspect of these unconscious conflicts {anything unresolved remains in conflict until it is resolved}. What aspects these represent would be the question and to what extent do they have on your psyche and personality.

A clue could have to do with all the right turns. It has been established that directions taken in dreams often have mythological associations, archetypal associations. Joseph Campbell spoke of the often told and varied 'left hand path' of Native American mythology. My impression of Campbell's view of the right hand path would be a direct opposite of the left hand path which is an inner thing. The right hand path would be a social duty association. That may be speaking to personality traits.
Three aspects of the same thing, as we could say, residing in the unconscious until realized, or acknowledged {you know of one from the dream}. And you are 'going back' around. This could have to with earlier lessons/experiences in life also, as a warrior or even as a child. There is the muddy road, those unconscious aspects yet to be realized/acknowledged, or acted upon {they could be positive qualities}. With every 'right turn', representing a social decision perhaps, you find a slippery road to travel.
That does sound like what society has to offer for someone like you and I who are as much interested in the inner self as the outer.

There is a digression, muddy water or unclear vision, to even deeper aspects. Being beside the waterway {in the car/you} may be your active participation in this psyche process of self realization {self-realization,what I believe to be one of the prime function of dreams}. You are looking into that deep unconscious for inner guidance and personal growth. And by doing so {an act of 'Individuation'} you do realize, receive now knowledge about yourself.

The power of the water is the power of the unconscious. We could say of the unconscious psyche, if there is an acknowledgement there is that psyche energy beyond the norm of most human ability to experience {which I whole hearted believe in}.

You are helpless only if you do not get in touch with these inner resources. In the waking conscious life, unconscious forces can control the person, in fact do control most everyone to some degree.

Personal NOte: I look at my life and can see the associations with my father and my actions in my 20s that were largely unconsciously motivated.
These are those powerful waters, the unconscious influences that have control over the conscious life.

While there are those aspects that may unconsciously driving you, your conscious consent to follow the 'hero/heroine path' provides a guiding hand, and the dream so much say so {feeling a force or presence that is as if guiding, even if my dream ego self does not like where it is going." You may be helpless in some ways in this journey of self but you are not sinking because of it. You are learning.

The T intersection. A road that ends into another primary road. Usually such a primary road would be entering into a new aspect of the journey. You are drifting, up against the railings, perhaps at a stand still of sorts. Since it is not a 'physical' crash and it is a waterway we may be looking more at an emotional event than anything. Imprisoned are these emotional aspects.

In the last paragraph you state, "Ah, ah... I think maybe this is about the removal of more hardness."
I would go in that direction in looking at this dream. Hardness would be more a masculine aspect. A personal hardness having to do with personality.

Jerry

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Jerry,

A long response. I am not able to presently consider or respond to the whole of it. However, the last three paragraphs stand out (most) for me.

For what it is worth, as I understand, the direction "right" (in dreams) is also symbolic of bringing something into consciousness...

That is what occurred here, in a big way.

I did feel this dream was forcing me to look at something...these aspects of self. As I have shared before, I most always come away from my dreams WITH the psychic energy that needs to be worked out. By the day's end, after this dream, I was on hands and knees, weeping and praying to the Goddess...and wakened in the morning doing the same, still. Later, Her love moved through me like a steady and fragrant stream, toward my patients at work.

Yes, hardness is one of the areas being adressed. I as much said so as well, when telling of the sense of embitteredness I have felt - something I was greatly unconscious of in earlier years of my life. But hardness is not the only area, IMO. I must also consider the causative factors and bring healing to those issues as well. Is this to what you are referring when you suggested there are other unconscious aspects to discover? The three men? I am thinking of Clarissa Estes' telling of the tale of Blue Beard, here. Perhaps I will read it again before sleep.

Steps are taken over night, but rarely the miracle of overnight cures. There are levels and layers to things. And it takes time, I remind myself. I try not to push myself, as I have in the past. For I found that such can also be an act of dominating one's self. Yet, the double Aries in me keeps me forever making effort. I am being guided well. I trust that.

As much as I would like to not still be speaking of the feelings around my birth mother (for, sometimes, I just wish I was done with healing it all)...there are still levels of fear and sadness (grief) and anger. I have spent a lot of time doing inner work toward resolving the issues with my father, but lesser with my mother.

I was "pressed down upon," in a big way, by my parents. I inherited a lot of hardness. This was my experience. This I could not have told you as a youngster or in my earlier adult years, for I wanted always to only to acknowledge the light and love and not the dark and places where we think there is an absence of love. I express that as I do, for I find that the more I can face the difficult feelings is the more love is able to move through me...the more I learn, as you alluded to. So, I know now, there is love and light and wisdom in the dark, too.

It is also worth noting that this dream came on the same evening as and just after the dream of "Some Old Spooked Place in Me."

Lot's of cleaning out going on, currently.

And I did dream just last night of a voice telling that a significant clearing/releasing would occur soon/was underway...I had the feeling sense that it had to do with masculine aspects. Goodness, I think, haven't I already had my share! The dream following the message, went on to reveal more of this.

I wrote more than I thought I would ... and rather unorganized in thought process...just letting it come as it does without trying to control right now.

Thank you, Jerry, for the time you've taken to respond to this, for the added insight. More for me to look at in your words, tomorrow.

Kristi

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Something dawns on me this morning, that I did not connect with when writing last night. Last week at work I had an experience with a co-worker, another rehabilitation therapist who is quite a few years older than myself, about60. Like me, she is also a former correctional officer. We have often grated on one another's nerves, being so much alike, yet not liking some of what we see in one another. Last week, her behavior was pushing my emotional buttons significantly. I found myself feeling very hurt by her lack of sensitivity, her "I have to be in charge" attitude, her walking over another's words with her own, etc. - and did realize that it was ME, too. having looked into this mirror all day long, there were quite a few tears when I arrived home in the evening, seeing how it is that our energy affects others ... that mine clearly has affected others (whether or not they are conscious of it) the same way hers affected me on that day. Of course, this is also a reflection of the way I have treated my own self. I know one of Jesus proverbs is to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, yet it is also true that what we do actually do to others, we do also do to our own selves...

This may be more of it.

Kristi

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Kristi,
Isn't amazing how little we actually realize about ourselves until we meet someone just like us? The only difference, one that is most important, is you are consciously working on those negative aspects. And I see it as very appropriate to quote a Jesus phrase since it is the spiritual aspect that ultimately defines who we are {If we could only remove the religious dogma that blurs the message}.

Jerry

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It is amazing, Jerry, and often humbling. Yes, thank you, I am doing my very best to work through the negatives. Yes, if only we could remove the dogma...and see the simplicity and truth of his teachings.

Kristi

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