Jerry,
Thank you for your response.

I HAVE given birth before. This will be my second child. My daughter is almost 3 now. This pregnancy has been tiring. We moved when I was about 4 months along and are still in the process of getting set up in our new home. Our van has been having engine problems for the past month or so, so we are restricted to using public transportation. On my own during the day with a 3-year-old, getting her stroller on and off the buses and trains, etc. has been exhausting.

In the days following this dream I have given some thought to its meaning. I think the dream speaks of my anxieties concerning our lack of preparation for the baby's arrival. He will be here in two months and I feel like we are ill prepared. If he were to come now we would be scrambling around trying to get what we need. Not having a vehicle has not made any of this any easier. In the months leading up to this dream I had tried often to talk to my husband about what needs to be done, but he seemed overly stressed with his new job and unable to process anything that I would bring up. It was much easier for him to deny the imminent arrival of our son than it was for me to deny it. After all, I can feel him moving around inside of me. Interestingly enough my husband suddenly "woke up" to the reality of the baby coming soon the day after I had this dream! We spent the weekend working hard on preparations and I am feeling much better.

Another anxiety I have been having concerning the birth involves my personal birth training. For my first birth I prepared for a hypnobirthing birth, and my birth was amazing. My birth preparation involved setting aside about an hour every day for months prior to the birth to perform self-hypnosis, or deep meditation. I haven't been able to set aside a single moment for meditation up until now, and I am concerned about what the birth will be like.

Mellinda

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 29, San Francisco

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

Mellinda,
It does seem I hit on several aspects of your actual waking experiences in my interpretation. As for the stress I would recommend the meditation as a lifestyle endeavor and not just during pregnancy. And your husband finally realizing the coming birth is real and being more supportive is a positive.

Getting into specific symbols and their metaphorical reference I can see where the dream references 'shaking your husband' to wake up would be associated to his finally waking up to the fact there is a baby coming. You have been trying to come to his senses so the dream points to the emotional stress that created. A lot of your dream seems to be very much straightforward as symbols go and that may related to your age {29}. You are still very much in the formative years of adulthood but beyond the years of adulthood 'innocence', the learning years of being on your own. In my experience in working with dreams the symbolic references at your age will be more likely to reflect actual waking life stresses of the moment and not a reflection of the past as with older persons. Al least for the majority of people.

I sense in your last post a positive attitude. A weekend working 'together' on needed things, solving at least some aspects of the problem causes your stresses. You can continue that positive attitude if you go back to your meditation. You know it works, that's a 'no brainer'. Not to do so will reveal the power of the negatives, revealing a case of not having a brain.

A major focus of Jungian psyche is on the 'metaphysical', an aspect that is a part of every human psyche. When you meditate you touch that 'deeper' part of yourself and that is always good for both your physical and psychological health. The affect is a product and process within nature. We only need to discipline ourselves to participate in conservation with our 'other self' and meditation, as well as dreams, do just that. When you examine your dreams and try to sort through their meaning you better gain a better understanding the actual experiences dreams are referencing in your waking life. Dreams are about the emotions. A primary function of dreams is to help resolve emotional conflicts. Dreams define the conflicts in primarily symbolic/metaphorical language but in a way that 'enlightens' the mind when examined. And if done so as a tool for 'introspection', the soul. You need not fully understand the meaning of a dream because just the participation in working with the dream is therapeutic. Dreams are therapeutic by nature and they can help heal. Taking a little time to examine ones inner self helps our objectivity. We get so 'subjective' we no longer notice the real values of the inner life. I'll use a quote Joseph Campbell a second time in the last two days, it seemingly fitting for both occasions.

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances without own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Jerry