Restriction, Achieving, Descending, and Sonar in Bath Stall

I wake hearing (remembering) the words my analyst spoke to me just before I left her home in the afternoon, “Breathe, and know you are loved.” I find that I am laying on my side, elbows bent and forearms crossed with each hand holding the opposite upper arm, as if bracing myself, gently but intently. I review the dream/memory, trying to find the words to describe the feeling space. It is just a feeling space, with no images. I feel some aspect of my mind/psyche as if restrained by some force. There is a restriction or subduing. Some mental construct or mind pattern that I am trying to go beyond…that I am trying to be free of, need to be free of. It almost feels as if my mind is drugged and like there is a set of beliefs that say, “You can’t, you are not supposed to, you are not meant to ____________.”

(When I recorded the dream, I wrote the following: I think of my brother Mark when I consider the above dream, how he used to beat me and tell me I was no good, could not, would not be able to _________ , that I would fail in the Army, etc.)

I see a woman who asks with a certain feeling of I need to know, “What rank did you retire at?” “Master Sergeant,” I tell her. “I knew it!” She responds. I imagine she envies me, is jealous of some of the characteristics in me, some of the things I have accomplished and achieved.

I am in a large building that feels to be a place of teaching and learning that feels somehow connected to my military experience, yet is not of the military. Through the dream, I make several trips down an enclosed stairway, using a hand-held air balloon to go down. The balloons rest in the hallway. Instead of walking down the stairs, I just grab hold of the right size air balloon and descend in the open space formed by the winding wrap of the stairs. Each time I do this, I am aware of one or a couple of men being with me, also descending with an air balloon. On the bottom level, there is a classroom that I come and go from a few times.

I use the women’s restroom at some point. There is a long row of open stalls, without doors. I think it is odd that there are no doors. Each stall is very large and like a compact bathroom within itself. I enter into one stall and kneel on the floor in front of a small device that looks some like a sonar dish for a few minutes. Then, I sit on the commode and find that it can spin around in a circle like an office chair would do. I am looking through my toiletry bag which is on the floor just in front of the stall area. I feel some ‘out there,’ out in the open. Another woman, also with dark brown hair enters. She goes into a stall next to me and also sits in front of a small sonar dish. Bathing, I am trying to shave my legs, but my electric razor is not working as it should. The hair on my legs is about an inch or more long, and fine and sparse appearing.

Kristi

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 43, Kansas

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The first part of what I shared above tells that some deep work is underway, as is evident from other recent dreams, some of which I’ve posted here. The feeling of being restrained is not dissimilar to what was shared in the sewage waterway dream. I have generations worth of familial issues adopted as a child that I am working through. Abuse, neglect, domination. I’d thought I was done with some of the things showing in my dreams … but, still, I am refining, healing, more.

Regarding the language/beliefs that said, “you can’t,” “you are not meant to,” I consciously responded by saying, inwardly, “Oh yes I can, watch me.” And for many years did just this, excelled in sports, academics and my military career. However, beneath the pretending to be “so good,” “better than,” I actually felt “much less than,” inside. I have had a competitive streak, I see it in me still. A part of me that sometimes still covets what I see in others, is jealous of qualities another may possess. All such feelings, I believe, are born from wounding early in life.

The next part may be showing that I am (actually) in this process of coming down from some inflations I have held of myself. I did carry an air during my Army career of being “better than.” As I said, beneath that, I was really hurt. I think the classroom is symbolic of my reflecting on and learning and growing from all of these things.

The restroom … an interesting one. Instead of toilet stalls, there is a row of bathroom cubicles, like office cubicles. The sonar/radar/satellite dish thingie… Might it be showing that a part of me worships a technical approach/world too much. If this is true, it is inwardly more so than outwardly. That is a good way to describe the feel of this restroom, it has a technological, space saving slant, is not very allowing for creativity, heart and soul. It is sterile, as in institutional feeling. It's openess… there has been a lack of privacy in my life … a lack of feeling my space as “my space,” sacred to me. As it is a bathroom, obviously of cleansing and elimination. My attempting to shave some too long hair on my legs that I am having difficulty with is perhaps showing the endeavor to balance more of the masculine and feminine. It is worth noting that the only electric razor I ever owned was a waterproof one and I did use it in the shower/bath. The last time I ever used the electric razor, I was still in the Army. My second husband gave it to me. It never did work well, even on short hair. I never used it much. So, I am not sure why I am not just using a razor. Might it be showing that I am still unconsciously coming from an approach that my former husband did (something I learned from him, way of treating myself, etc.). Do I still have this in my toiletry bag? Why a revolving toilet? I am not certain. Am I spinning around on some cleansing/elimination issues? I am a bit stumped on this bathroom scene.

Kristi

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 43, Kansas

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Female

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Hi Kristi,

Possible the open stalls mean bringing out into the open some repressed or unknown feelings. Bathrooms seem like places where we put unwanted stuff, that we try to flush or wash off.

Kneeling before the sonar may mean a desire for wholeness, the circle or mandala, representing the yin and yang, opposites in harmony. Sonar also gives you help with direction and navigation.

Opening the toiletry bag may be the act of bringing out into the open this repressed feeling.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 32, Montana

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Hi Sam,

Thank you. So often one reads dream "dictionary" definitions and find that open bathrooms or stalls are said to indicate a lack of privacy. It has rarely ever meant this for me, yet I still sometimes go against my intuition and try to stuff myself in that box. Yes, I always see bathrooms as places of cleansing/elimination...and...opposite to what I said above, as spaces where things are made evident to me, revealing what has been "under my clothes" (under wraps) so to speak. No hiding in the secrecy afforded one when behind a stall door, but out "in the open." I did understand that this was about making some certain feelings evident. I have a whole lot of this going on in waking life. Much emotional healing currently...makes me rather exhausted, physically.

Ah, yes!

I had immediately called it a sonar dish when sitting to write the dream, yet it could have also been a satellite or radar dish. Yes, all have to do with various forms of communication ... detecting, descerning, receiving. Sonar, being of sound elements would, I suspect, have more to do with sensing/feeling, than the other two. I actually thought of it being a form of seeking guidance, showing how I am trying to find my way through my darkness...that's one of the things I do when I am on my knees, praying for guidance. All such devices communicate with some larger source, as reflected in your comments of the dish's "circular" nature. The yin and yang, opposites in harmony, another way to say, "balance the masculine and feminine."

Kristi

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 43, Kansas

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes