Jerry

I am in a room with several people. There is an Arab sheik sitting on a sofa and he is very relaxed. He is dressed in the most exquisite robes and headdress. The robe is of the finest cream wool, as is the headdress which is bound round his forehead by a golden circlet made of silk, maybe. He is a very good looking man, mid-thirties, quiet, gentle, urbane, very well educated (I somehow know all this). Also here but in the shadows off to my left (I am hardly aware of them) is another man - the sheik's vizier - and two women both with a veil pulled demurely over their faces.

The sheik is here to negotiate a bride price with me for a woman who never appears in my dream at all. I ask who the woman is and he replies she is his much-loved mistress, but now the sheik's family are insisting that he make an arranged political marriage and the mistress must go. The sheik wants me to marry her. In my head this seems like a very sensible arrangement and I admire the sheik's concern for his mistress, it seems an excellent idea, but underneath I have a deep sense of disquiet. Something is very wrong with this plan and I have no idea what.

I turn to my left and one of the women has moved up right beside me and is lit in a golden light. She is wearing beautiful blue robes and has let her veil fall. I know two things instantaneously: firstly is that she is quite ordinary to look at and secondly that with just one look into her eyes I am deeply and hopelessly in love. She steps up to me (or me to her?) and we wrap our arms around each other. The sensation is like walking out of a bitterly cold winter's night and into a warm light-filled room filled with people I love and who love me. I belong here. I am home and it is wonderful!

I look up and see the sheik standing. He is shaking his head sadly and I say "I'm sorry, all it took was just one look." The sheik smiles and says "I know, I know, that's all it takes. Just one look."

The sheik and his vizier (and maybe the other woman) leave and my lover and I remain behind.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 - Aotearoa/New Zealand

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David,
This dream reminds me of something I recently said to a person in a conversation about my not being married for 18 years {my 3rd marriage ended in 1992} and how I only needed my creative Self as a substitute. I described this creative aspect as my 'mistress'. Here is how I would look at this dream {with a possible personal bias intertwined}. Your dream is so much like my own situation, minus the literal marriage.

It is understandable that you 'know this' {"I somehow know this"} because this is you. Not literally of course because you are not an Arabian sheik. But the metaphorical references describe you, the headdress {thinking aspects}, most exquisite robes {persona-ability to confront personal issues}. The younger man suggests personal foundations. You have encountered the 'shadow' and discovered the power of the feminine. The two women would be your wife and the creative Self.

The other man- that other self that has to engage the social world of obligations {to society}. The feminine aspect is at times veiled, even unavailable {veiled}. You have to bribe that other self to retrieve this most beloved part of you {creative}. The 'politics' of life are a divisive wedge, the social requirements. Society says you must be married the social obligations and ignore the 'mistress' {creativity. You can not accept this plan because social duty is not who you are.

Turning to the 'left'. That is archetypal. In the hero's journey the left hand path is one of adventure. The right hand path is giving in to social duty. The one woman is actually the two loves in your life. Your wife and your creative Self. You may have to engage the social obligations {everyone has to engage the dragon to some degree} but that greater Self always returns 'home' to its natural place.

You have confronted your '{shadow', rejected the social dragon and have accepted the greater Self as your love and lover.

You have the most interesting dreams. Although my interpretation may have a bit of my own personal tint to it, I do see it as legitimate to who you are and where you are in your life. Your 'sheikdom' is your creative Self. And the wonderful woman you live with {literally}.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 60 Murfreesboro, Tn

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Jerry

It's interesting about the sheik being "me". You are right and it is of course me, but it doesn't fit my self image all that well. I was raised in an age when when to regard yourself as special or different in any way was completely unacceptable. When I was a teenager I remember mentioning to a friend of my father's that I was interested in music as a career he said "You know that you will be a traitor to your class (as in: English upper-middle class!) if you do that." Those days are I hope, gone.

I am sick. A left-sided sickness. Sore throat (left tonsil), left ear, left sinuses! I am not feeling very well at all - ugh! In a way that I don't understand my sickness feels "dangerous" in a similar way to my dreams.

Last night I had very dangerous dreams. It was very long, complex and recursive (dream within a dream within a dream ...) and all notion of linear time had just vanished. I have forgotten much of it. There were two instances of me in this dream, one was a cool observer watching the dream like a movie, and the other actually taking part in the dream. Although I knew I was in very dangerous waters (literally and metaphorically) I wasn't frightened at any time. These should be nightmares, but they aren't!

I'll tell four extracts that I remember well.

1. I am in blue-green sea water and I am swimming in a huge tidal surge or wave. The water is very cold and very turbulent and I know I am in serious trouble. There is another man here, I can't see him, he is very calm and wise and reassuring. "We need to go this way. The shore is this way. We can do it." I know we will get out, but I also know I have trespassed into a place I should not be, I have come too far and that it is very very dangerous here.

2. I am on the high street of my old home town and I know the huge wave is coming here. The people on the street seem numb, uncaring, just standing and staring. I am going quietly from one to another giving instructions, getting them to move up the hill to safety, helping where I can. I find an abandoned hearse and I start loading it up with people and driving them up the hill to safety and then going back for more.

3. I am high up in a high-rise building. The area is completely wrecked, very unsafe and is filled with hundreds of refugees. I am trying to explain to them about two books. One is a red book ('The Passion of the Western Mind,' I think!) that changed my life and the other is a white book. "Listen to me, there are not two white books" I am shouting. "One was published in America under the title "Cash Out" and the other in Europe as "CERNA," but they are the same book." The white book contains all the dreams I have been having. I can open the pages and "see" them and I know that I can even walk into them, if I wish. People start asking crazy nonsensical questions which I know are impossible to answer.

4. I am walking, many floors up, through a large old abandoned building. At each step I take cracks appear in the white floors and walls and ceilings. I am destroying the building with my steps. This is essential but very very dangerous work.

All these dreams were connected somehow into one long saga, but I can't remember how!

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 - Aotearoa/New Zealand

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I think it is impossible to interpret dreams for anyone else without projecting yourself into them to one degree or another. That's just accepted as far as I am concerned. Jung himself talks about that at length. It doesn't mean that the interpretations aren't helpful. They are, at least I find them so. Thank you!

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 - Aotearoa/New Zealand

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