I was with my son who I consider to be a calm and considerate boy. I was aware that we were in imminent danger associated with a dam on the brink of bursting. I was mindful that we needed to get to the top of the dam to survive the outburst.
With this in mind we drove upwards to the highest ground possible and then climbed on foot until we got to the very top of the walls. In the rain and mist my son disappeared and I was in a panic to find him. I ran to the top of the wall and then faced a high chain-link fence that I somehow managed to climb. I looked up and could see that the top of the wall was starting to crumble. A big, inflatable rubber ring encircled the reservoir wall and was starting to inflate in an attempt to hold the water back. The ring was in a (stupid) red and white stripe like the ‘Where's Wally?’ scarf in those kids’ books.
I now found myself in a corridor of a building that I identified as a prison or mental asylum. I tried many of the doors to try and find my way. I had to find my son and get out of there before the dam burst and drowned us both, but the doors had no handles.
Then I heard someone coming from the direction I had just come. Two men were approaching me. One was obviously a prisoner or patient and in the semi-darkness I identified the other as a warden (although not dressed as one). I felt they were going to grab me to imprison me.
Before they could say anything I pushed them through a doorway (the one they had just come through) and managed to close it behind me. I now took off up a corridor in a panic to find my boy. I heard the guard’s voice calling out that they had found a teenage boy. A part of me was relieved to hear this but the larger part of me was filled with dread because I believed they had locked him up and I wouldn't get to him in time to save us both. In that state of panic I woke up.
A great way to approach a dream is to look for opposites.
You have:
Calm, considerate vs panic
And:
Locked up vs find way out.
A dream will often indicate opposites when there is a need to find a point of balance in waking life. At the time of this dream it is likely that you were trying to deal with a situation in a calm, patient way but feeling on the verge of panic.
In the prison-mental-asylum part of your dream a prisoner-patient appeared to be about to grab and imprison you. ‘Patient’ may be a dream pun on being ‘patient’ as in calm. The dream suggests that patience is imprisoning you – or, at least, leaving you feeling a touch insane.
At the start of your dream you were accompanied by your son who is calm and considerate in your eyes. This shows YOU in ‘calm and considerate’ mode. You were dealing with imminent danger, a dam on the brink of bursting. The dam suggests a feeling you were damming up, as water tends to represent the emotions. You were trying to stay calm and considerate, to rise above it to survive any (emotional) outburst.
What was happening for you emotionally at this time? Sometimes we are so calm that we successfully submerge our feelings so deeply that we cannot name an emotional issue. Ask yourself what situation you felt you had under pressure, or under containment (like a dam) at this time. For example, you might have been holding a financial debt in place but struggling against the odds. The dream dam may also have been a pun on ‘damn’. Is there something you refer to as that ‘damn …’, ‘my damn mortgage’, ‘my damn headaches’, for example?
Your dream anticipates an outburst and your approach is to stay calm, but this does not work. In the dream patience becomes imprisoned and panic reigns.
When your son disappears, you naturally panic. When you lose your sense of calm, the dream suggests, you do not know any other way to cope except to panic. Being overly calm keeps panic in balance, but once calmness is gone there is only panic. The solution is a middle path – neither too calm (too patient) nor too panicked. Sometimes ‘calm’ can mean ‘without feeling’ rather than peaceful.
The dream shows that when panic enters the picture the old walls crumble. What walls? The walls you have built to contain the pressure. You notice the safety/ security system is somewhat lacking – a Where’s Wally coloured inflatable (safety) ring.
What does Where’s Wally mean to you? Do you sympathise with the Wally character or is he quite unlike you? A ‘wally’ is someone made to look stupid, isn’t it? And you use the word stupid here: “a (stupid) red and white stripe like the Where’s Wally …”. My feeling is that the dam is about feeling stupid or being made to feel stupid or doing everything you can not to let it be known that you sometimes feel stupid.
At the end of your dream a voice calls out that they have found a teenage boy. Of course this is your son, but think again: could the dream be reminding you about your own teenage years? Were you made to feel stupid, or ‘a wally’, as a teenager? How hard have you worked to hold back (dam up) your feelings about that? If you had to reach deep into your past, or deep into your feelings where would you find Wally?
Of course your dream is not saying you are a wally! Dreams reveal our own beliefs about ourselves, usually stemming from childhood. Knowing that we can see which beliefs are outdated and let them go.
You will find it helpful to read ‘Tidal waves and tsunamis’ in Dream Alchemy, pages 44-9.
Visualisation:
Visualise standing on a lookout above the dam and pulling a lever which opens the gates to release the pressure slowly and safely into a dry, thirsty series of smaller lakes. As the pressure gradually releases, watch the water flowing into the smaller lakes where it nourishes seedlings and causes rapid and beautiful growth of trees and flowers surrounding the lake. As you visualise this, summon up a feeling of relief and a deep sense of inner wisdom and comfort.
How often to do this:
Do this visualisation 20 times a day for a week, ten times a day for the second week and twice a day for the next month.
How does this work?
This practice will ensure that change occurs for you in the best possible way – a positive healing transformation. Your dream expressed your waking life situation using dream language – the language of your unconscious mind. By reliving the dream with changes, or by transforming one of the dream symbols (or by reliving and intensifying the dream in the case of a dream with a positive ending) you are using vision and feeling to reprogram your unconscious beliefs.
More details on Visualisation as a Dream Alchemy Practice in: “Dream Alchemy” by Jane Teresa Anderson, pages 329 – 330.
Jane Teresa Anderson
