Hi Jerry,

I've been reading Jung now for a year and had some great insights but not much luck in interpreting my dreams although I keep a record of all the dreams I can recall. So I'd really appreciate any insight you could provide into this dream.

I'm backpacking in Switzerland and I visit some people at their home in a rural area. They talk about a water system they have but they're boring me so I leave. I wait out on the road and then go back into the house and decide to leave again. I overhear someone say I shouldn't leave alone. I walk up a gravel road, it's night time and I'm wearing my motorbike helmet. When I get to the top of the hill I take off my helmet and find that I've arrived at a large open-space bar with unruly zombie-type drunks everywhere.

I walk through the bar area and go to a man at a cashier window. He says I should get out of here quickly as I'm not safe. He arranges for someone to escort me to my hotel. When we get there, one of these zombie-type drunks jumps out and attacks but I don't think he attacks me.

Any insight you have into this would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Tim

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 39 Sydney

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Tim,
When interpreting dreams you must remember the dream is about YOUR emotional life, past and present. The older you get the more your dreams will focus on the past and the emotional 'baggage' you accumulated, those that are unresolved and need attention. Dreams are symbolic with the symbols pointing to you and those aspects that make up who you are, primarily the emotional experiences that need resolution in your evloution. At the age of 39 you are that beginning stage of mid-life and will be having more dreams about your past, and the accumulated baggage. This dream does seem to be fitting that role.

The backpacking in Switzerland may represent examining emotions that have been 'frozen' within your unconscious. The people you are visiting would represent those aspects that make up who you are, the rural setting those aspects outside your primary attention in your conscious life {the city would represent those primary aspects you give attention}. Water in dreams are usually symbolic of some aspect of the unconscious. Your system is something you felt as boring and have given little attention to. But with age your unconscious, via the dream. will try to force these unresolved emotional conflicts upon you {the house is your inner house}. The voice you hear in your dreams are your inner voice, the unconscious self speaking to you. The dream speaks to you in attempt to inform you of those unresolved issues {and sometimes positive issues that have left an impression}. Dreams are therapeutic in that they want to help you resolve those issues that need resolution.

Being instructed not to leave alone may suggest there is something within your unconscious you are afraid to confront {fear of danger}. The helmet is something that protects the head which would suggest there is something within the unconscious {nighttime} you are protecting. Alternatively the motorbike would represent a need to give these emotional aspects their freedom, to be let out so you can consciously understand them and receive resolution. But to do this, and a reason you are wearing the helmet for protection, is to face those zombies within, those dead aspects that cause fear and represent an 'emotional' danger to your conscious self. The drunk aspect may suggest there is something within that is 'intoxicated', feelings helpless about something or some experience in your life.

Realizing the need to confront these 'zombie' aspects {unconsciously within the dream, and something you need to do consciously} you must face them {pay the piper at the cashier's window}. Apparently there are strong reasons you do not wish you confront these emotional aspects since within the dream the dream warns you it is not safe. Within your whole self with all that makes up who you are {hotel} there is one thing that is an threat. It has yet to 'attack' you consciously {I don't think he attacks me} but there is the threat.

Two possibilities I see within the dream. One are the deeper aspects of some type emotional conflict that you are afraid to let out. This would involve real life experiences. What are the 'zombie{s}' from your past? Look to childhood for possible answers if there are such 'zombies' lurking within.

Because all dreams address at least two aspects of your life there may be recent waking experiences being addressed. The backpacking in Switzerland may have something to do with this aspect. Have you been on such a journey? Or is there something about such an experience that frightens you? If not a recent experience to Switzerland, look at it as a metaphor for some other recent experience where there was fear. The unconscious aspects would be something caused from early life but the experience could be recent. Rural areas may be involved. Being alone may also play into the scenario. Perhaps feelings of being alone.

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This is off the subject but the dream reminds me of a story Jung told about a patient who had a dream that turned out to be prophetic {dreams are very seldom prophetic, they compensate what the dreamer already knows but may not realize or understand}. That dream involved the patient taking a trip to Switzerland {I believe it to be that Scandinavian country} and him climbing a mountain. The dreamer was excited about the 'freedom' he felt and in the dream let go to enjoy the freedom even more.
Knowing the man had actually planned ab trip to go mountain climbing he warned the dreamer about the risks and 'letting him go'. The man did indeed take the trip and fell to his death climbing a mountain. Of course 'knowing' a dream is prophetic is difficult at best and to determine a dream has such a warning is taking a risk that most experienced interpreters of dreams seldom will do.

Are you planning a trip to Switzerland to go backpacking? If so be very weary. Otherwise take the dream as a normal function of the psyche where it is trying to help resolve an emotional issue, past and/or present.

Jerry

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

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Hey Jerry, many thanks for your interpretation. With regards to the Switzerland connection, I think it has something to do with the fact that I've been reading Jung and he was Swiss.

As for addressing issues from my past, this is absolutely relevant to me as over the past few months I have explored and uncovered a lot of buried experiences and their emotional effects. I'm still uncertain though what I am looking for or what I'm afraid to deal with. Last nights dream had a similar message but I wasn't able to uncover what I need to explore, maybe you could help me? At the moment I'm looking for why the child in me insists I continuously eat junk food and my lack of power as grown man around this issue.

Dream: I'm doing some gardening in a woman's back garden. In a wheelbarrow she has a heavy brown sort of straw rug and she asks me to shake and pull out the old dirt. She shows me what to do but I can't distinguish between what is the dirt and what is the fabric that makes up the rug. I shake out some stuff then give up. I move onto something else and at the other side of the garden Bono (from U2) is cutting the hedge. Germaine Greer (Australian feminist) comes out and talks with him.

My spin: Continuing from the last dream, the dark and heavy rug symbolises a part of my self. It's part of the baggage I carry around with me (wheelbarrow). I need to clear out the old dirt but I can't distinguish it from the rug itself and so I give up.

I can't see any significance in the second part of the dream but just a heads up, my background is I'm Irish and have been living in Australia for the past 10 years. Bono is someone I admire as living life to the full.

Can anyone help shed some light on this dream or what I should be looking for?

Thanks in advance,

Tim

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 39 Sydney

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Tim,
Thanks for the response. As for what needs to be explored may not only be any traumatic events in your life, but also basic life learning experiences that helped form your personality and self. There is almost always something within childhood {early childhood being the most important years in forming who we are in later years and as adults} that is either hidden, forgotten or not realized that leans itself to those foundations in life. A recent study {Our personalities may be set as early as 1st grade} supports the idea that early life experiences are paramount in shaping who we become. A deep, well examined investigation of your life starting with your earliest memories may offer help in understanding what it is you need to discover that is relevant to who you are, and why you are that person.

As for what dreams will reveal is usually a general outline of any experience{s} that have former who you are. Your dream does not point directly to your childhood but that doesn't mean there are not those experiences that need examination. The dream may be pointing to your current exploration in recent months of your life. Initial dreams often set the 'stage' {dreams are a stage for your life with the characters and actions either aspects of yourself or relevant people, places or experiences important in your life} for future dreams. The 'new' exploration you have set out on may be what the dream is addressing, setting the stage for what you need to learn about your past and yourself. The backpacking could represent this new 'adventure' you have set out on in exploring those conscious and unconscious {as reflected in your dreams} experiences, exploring the 'load' you have already accumulated in life. In later life we begin to realize we must pay {cashier} for those experiences/decisions that proved to be of a negative nature. But there are always reasons {again, often to be found in early life} for why we made such decisions to begin with. Those life decisions may not have been a direct result of early life experiences but the experiences at least lend themself to what you do in later life. A common sense thing.

As for your most recent dream.
Gardening is a 'cultivation' or digging into your past. This would be considered an anima/feminine aspect {manly men do not engage in such activities}, the inner search being a standard feminine quality. A rug 'covers up' the flooring or foundations of who we are. The dirt is the personal 'dirt' that is shaken when this exploration of self is engaged. 'She', the feminine aspect that is engaged in the inner exploration, is seeking to distinguish between the the 'fabric' of your true self {those qualities that make up who you truly need and what to be} and those negative aspects/experiences/events that tend to make you less than who you should/need to be. You need to uncover {the rug} these negative aspects to realize/understand what they are {the exploration you are consciously engaged over the past several months}. Although you have begun the 'shaking' you have yet to discover the 'dirt' that is there.
Note: two reasons come to mind as to why you have yet discovered any dirt.

• 1: you have not gone deep enough to discover these experiences


• 2: you are looking for something that is not there

The first would be the most logical explanation and the second something you think for some reason is there but either is not or is not as serious as thought. There have been cases of 'false memory' that were not actual experiences but were 'planted' {something that gets into other areas that probably are not relevant to your story/life}.

Bono is someone you admire, and is also a person who has discovered his true calling {his humanitarian endeavors as well as his creative aspects}. Both of these aspects are feminine qualities also, perhaps reflected by Germaine Greer being a part of your dream {a feminist being someone who is actively seeking and defending those feminine aspects}.
Note: After 'Googling' Germaine Greer I learned of her 'brave and bawdiness' language and sexuality and of her 'trouncing' Wm. F. Buckley a mainstay of masculine identity} in an interview. The 'trouncing' may be relevant to your need to overcome masculine aspects. The sexuality could also in some way be relevant.

My overall impression is you have just begun your journey 'inward' and have yet to expose all there is, the dirt as well as the positives, in your life that needs to be exposed so to be that true self {as is Bono}. What you are engaged in is the early stages of what Jung called the Individuation Process, a self analysis, a self discovery, analyzing your own psyche and life. Such an undertaking is often the path found in mythology and the Hero Journey. The message being we are all 'heroes' when we actively engage in a self examination to discover our true being and 'purpose' in life {as Bono has done, as an example of the hero within}. Here is the cycle you will find yourself in, the various stages of 'different levels' of the hero journey The Monomyth.

There is some really good news in all of this. At 39 you have begun your journey to wholeness at a relatively early age. I was 42 when I began mine and ave been on that path for 18+ years. My true self, teh bliss in my life is the Myths-Dreams-Symbols website and my great interest in dreams and exploration of the deeper psyche. Perhaps the inclusion of Bono says something important about your journey. Is there a 'creative' aspect or spiritual {both 'feminine qualities} in your life that has yet to be fully explored? Perhaps something in early life that was 'pushed aside' because of early life experiences.

Look at those early life experiences and determine what might be there that needs to be 'uncovered'. This is where you need to begin since it is where you began your life in teh first place. If you will post the results {those things you wish to share} then perhaps we can find a path to a self discovery that will shorten your search.

Jerry

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

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Thanks so much Jerry, this is fantastic!

Tim

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 39 Sydney

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