I'm stuck with the dream below, as often when big alchemical symbols come up... the dream has three parts that seem unrelated but I feel they're not. Thanks for any tip that could help me peel one layer off or offer an angle I wouldn't have thought of... Here we go:

I'm in an immense house, maybe on holiday, with all my siblings (4 of them in real life). they all stand on different steps of a staircase that turns left 90°. SO in a way they're in a kind of circle turning their backs to each other, and they're fishing. I watch this from above and think for myself that it'd make a wonderful picture. I don't seem to be involved with the fishing activity but I think there's a spot left vacant for me.

I find a beautiful fish but it's dead in the water. It's got a shiny and silver colour and shows a big lower belly, as if filled with water. I want to keep it and I pull it into a corner of the body of water then go. But I come back and get it out of the water for the night and it rests just under my wardrobe. I hope that it won't smell too much.

I'm looking for the one thing that will help me be whole and confident. I know I find it as I feel connected with everything, like I'm at the centre and ropes or elastic bands are extending from my body in all directions.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 37 uk

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

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? yes

claire,
Your closing statement seems to fit with the dream;
"I'm looking for the one thing that will help me be whole and confident".

The circle and the number 4, both symbols for wholeness and completion. The different levels of the stairway, the different stages of life and development. The fishing activity is an inner experiencing, seeking that true Self {fish}. The 90% degree turn to the left. Left is the 'hero/heroine' path of self discovery. My guess is you have already turned in that direction {"90%} and you are now seeking that one thing that will make you whole. That true self is beneath the wardrobe you wear in your ego waking life, hidden within the unconscious folds of the inner self. That true self seems to be 'dead' in the water.
But with every death comes a new beginning.

But where will you find that true self, and why are you now so focused on that?

The answer to the second part is you are at the beginning of that mid-life stage where reflection and inflection become more and more a part of life.

For the answer to the first part I turn to Joseph Campbell. His admonishment to his students {he taught for many years at Sara Lawrence University} was to "follow your bliss", that one thing in life that you love doing most. It is often within the creative aspects that we find our bliss. But it could also be in a higher cause, fighting for something that you deeply believe in, something that will benefit others. It may require sacrifices of self but you will gladly give to that cause. That is the path of the hero/heroine of myth, and the path of the individual who seeks balance and harmony in this life.

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world
Joseph Campbell

I get the sense you are at that stage of transformation. At 37 you are a little ahead of schedule {I was 42 when I first discovered my Bliss}. We all have second chances in life to do what we love most {the first chance coming early in life, late teens early 20s}. I believe your desire for wholeness is related to that bliss station Campbell spoke of. And is a part of the message of the dream. Have you discovered that bliss within?

gerard

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 58 Murfreesboro, Tn

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

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Hi Gerard,

First and foremost, please accept my thanks for this long and in depth interpretation. It must have taken you ages, and I'm very grateful...

Some of the images and symbols you give definitely ring a bell, while I'm not too sure about others. But I think I'll start this by saying that after posting my dream onto the forum, I actually took a day off and worked on it, with associations and I also did a shamanic journey to my spirit teacher to get her teaching. This was very insightful, and I'd say mostly complementary to what you've offered to me. And there's so much in it that I'm not sure where to start...

my siblings on different steps of the staircase as different parts of me, each turned into one of the four directions (E, N, W, S), or maybe showing different stages of awareness/consciousness. Yes, the number 4 and the circle, symbols of wholeness, yet I'm outside it, being 'only' a witness of it. I think you're right when you say I've turned into thae 90° direction, because in the dream I am at the top of the stairs and therefore after the turn/angle.

Thanks for your interpretation of fishing ("inner experiencing"). That i think is spot on because the day before I had the dream something big was said loud, heard by me and acknowledged... it was about fertility and motherhood and how terrified I am of being a not good enough mother... from this, of course, I associated the dead fish with the symbol of fertility, dead in the water, yet still beautiful. Seeing it in the water and taking it out is bringing this to consciousness... so yes, I hope that it won't transpire (smell) the waking life persona that I have managed to build for myself over the years...

If such is my bliss, it is certainly not too early... :) but i do feel that i will need this experience on my journey to wholeness, or something will be missing for the woman that I now am!

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 37 uk

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

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Y