The Secret Language of Dreams

There is no more perplexing code than that comprising the various arcane and occult symbols and metaphors sent to us nearly every night, while our eyes are closed and our brains are, seemingly, on auto-pilot. The surrealistic landscape of our dreams, the hidden codes that reveal our deepest emotional traumas, our deep-seated fears and longings, and, more rarely, reveal future events--this language forms a pattern of communication between ourselves and some shadowy, unknown Infinite; the "Universal Consciousness," so to speak. On the surface, in the most simple analysis, dreams are simply a portal to a surrealistic world, one that can encompass everything from supernal beauty and intrigue, to eroticism, to horrors beyond the mind's ability to reason. Up is down, black is white, and nothing, no two events, seems to fit together rationally.

We may dream we are falling, presaging our fear of being in a situation, prey to circumstances beyond our ability to control (some claim this dream to be a fear of sexual awakening). And, if you hit bottom before you wake up? The old urban legend is that this precedes dying in your sleep.

There are dreams of drowning, dreams wherein we find ourselves standing stock-still, unable to move, suffused with terror at the hideous, unseen thing that is coming, just around the corner.

Dreams of flying are said to be representative of sexual liberation or discovery; dreams of falling presage disaster (and, if you hit the bottom, does that mean you are going to die?); dreams of being naked indicate a fear of exposure before the world; you may dream that you are standing naked in a classroom; or you may find yourself at work, suddenly realizing that you are in your underwear, or nude.

Rotten food may presage ill-health. A mansion may be the representation, in a metaphorical sense, of the inside of your skull. You get the idea.

Drowning may be a symbol of frustration as your problems swallow you. Alternately, coming up from the water may indicate being "reborn"; baptism. Are you "glued to the spot"? You may feel, if you dream of being stalked by danger, and not able to run, as if something terrible is about to occur, something from which there is no escape.

And, perhaps it is.

Dreams give us a greater perspective on the present. They can also predict the future.

People have dreamed of their "dream houses" before ever moving into them. You might dream of a chance encounter with an old friend. Soon after, you either meet them again, after years, or they happen to call.

The dead are said to be able to communicate with us..in dreams.

A dream of a ghost, in Greenbriar, West Virginia, alerted the woman's mother that the ghost's husband was responsible for her murder. It is sometimes said that the dead that has "crossed over" do not communicate in such a manner. Regardless, there are myriad accounts of the dead returning to loved ones nightly, often with messages, sometimes about serious financial matters, to impart.

Dreams are a surreal world, but they are a code, too. Dream interpretation by those blessed with such a gift is a valuable skill.

A psychic reader was called by a distressed woman to interpret her dream. In the dream, she was in a house, one with an upstairs and downstairs. Outside, the storm raged, and lightning bolts streaked across the sky. [1]

On the walls of the house were old pictures, some of the scenes she recognized, some she did not. [2]

She was downstairs, with a man she was becoming romantically attached to. Upstairs, her current lover brooded in an unseen room. (Note: The "haunted room" trope, in a dream, often suggests lurking misfortune for the dreamer.)

This particular dream haunted her. The Dream Interpreter was perplexed as to how to "read" it.

On the one hand, it seemed to suggest the "house" as her head. Upstairs, the Ego, Self, "Conscious Mind," was where her devotion to her current lover resided. In a prophetic sense, though, this "haunted room" could spell trouble. The staircase is the "bridge", the pathway between her ego, conscious mind, and the desires and fears, the Id below; that which lurks downstairs, a strong, repressed sexual desire for the object of her fascination.

The lightning bolt--the symbolic spark of "life," desire, animation, and also the symbol of the Divine Will, sparked outside, in the darkness, animating her passionate urges. [1] On the wall, the old pictures indicate memories locked away, future possibilities, but also the reflection of what others may perceive of her, or be trying to tell to her. [2]

The above reading is entirely symbolic, of course. The other possibility is that the dream is a literal past-life memory, which often occurs. The subject, unable or unwilling to fully unlock those memories, will live with them buried in the subconscious mind. There, lurking like a sleeping sea creature, they will eventually emerge, poke their head above the water, influence the dreaming or even waking mind unconsciously. There, they will be colored, reinterpreted, and envisioned through the prismatic lens of our modern conscious awareness; distorted, yet, with their essentials intact. Thus, a dream of a husband lurking upstairs, while a lover hides below, may signify an event that, at some time in the past life of the dreamer, actually occurred.

A search for "closure," nearly always unconscious, is the karma that compels the dreamer forward. They may, unconsciously, begin to attract to themselves the events and occurrences they experienced before--unconsciously seeking fulfillment of their thwarted desires; or, to relive the tragedy and pain of that past occurrences, in the manner of releasing a particular psychic trauma, "unlocking" it, and being able to let go.

To that end, they may manifest those things they deeply desire--or, conversely, that which appalls them, over and over again.

To wit, many or any or all of these things may be occurring. The dreamer relating the dream was satisfied enormously by this explanation. The dream interpreter was pleased as well; however, the fact that he also felt the dream related to a real, true, perhaps tragic event, even a murder, was not a fact that he ultimately related to the client. The fact was, was that he saw the husband lurking upstairs, with a dangerous weapon in hand.

The final denouement of this presumed historical situation is unknown. Suffice to say, it could have not turned out very well. Or, so says the dream interpreter. As for the dreamer, once she fully realizes and accepts the truth of what has occurred, she will finally be freed. It is then, and only then, that she can step through the doorway of the Golden Circle, open her eyes, see the sun that was casting dancing shadows on the wall of the Platonic "cave" in which she was residing, and stride boldly and confidently into the rising sun of an Eternal Dawn.

Notes.

1. The lightning bolt was the weapon thrown by the mighty Father of the Gods on Olympus, Zeus, known by the Romans as Jupiter. Also, in the novel and movies of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the Creature is invariably brought to life by lightning--electricity, a galvanic battery, etc. As a mysterious, ill-understood, but universally utilized force, it is a constant theme of fear, dread, and fascination to the subconscious mind; a powerful, universal agent, a "Divine Spark."

2. The image of old photographs displayed, hanging from a wall or on a shelf, can also be a representation of the spiritual realms--perhaps a literal form of communication between Spirit and the dreamer. After all, all of the faces in a Victorian photograph, for instance, are long dead. But, their image, the illusion of them, a representation of how they looked in life, has been captured via a split-second flash and preserved on a photographic emulsion. The dream can represent the beginnings of mediumship.

The previous articles on dreams: "These Dreams" and "The Cenotaph":

Tom Baker website: