We tend to dream of war when we are experiencing inner conflict. Sometimes it’s easy to identify a conflict, for example, finding it difficult to make an important decision or struggling in a relationship and being unsure of how to act.
At other times it’s harder to identify an inner conflict, for example when we battle on with one point of view or goal, determined not to look at other views or options. In this case the conflict is pushed into the unconscious mind where it plays out in dreams, leaving the cool-in-control-we in charge of waking life. In charge, yes, but going in the best direction – not necessarily so.
In your dream you are “in the middle” of a war. Where, in your waking life, do you feel caught in the middle of a conflict or situation?
The main features of your dream war are bombing and crashing planes. Planes fly in the air. They are designed to spend most of their time out of contact with the ground. In dreams planes sometimes represent the way we think (the air of our minds, invisible thoughts that hold us up), perhaps our ‘planes of thought’.
Dreams often use word play and so planes may take off when we feel something is taking off in our life or they may land when we feel we are finally manifesting a big idea ‘out of thin air’. They may crash when our plans, ideas, beliefs and hopes crash.
Planes that crash do not reach their destination, so crashing planes in dreams may reflect plans and attitudes that are ‘bombing out’, when we are failing to meet our chosen goals.
It’s not always appropriate to fulfil all our goals. Circumstances change. We change. The way we used to think back then may not be the best way to think today or in the future. Crashing dream planes may represent goals or ways of thinking that are no longer serving us, the ones we need to let go.
On the other hand, crashing dream planes may be warning us that we need to do more to keep them in the air if we want to reach the destinations we have chosen for ourselves.
In your dreams the planes crash into the ocean. The ocean often symbolises the unconscious mind, or your emotions. It’s interesting that you survive the crashes, despite the panic. It’s possible that your planes are crashing because they are too ‘airy’, because you spend too much time ‘in the air’, in thinking mode and not enough time in the water, in emotional or feeling mode. That you live when your plane crashes into water suggests you need to balance thinking and feeling in order to live. (Notice you did not use the word ‘survive’. You said ‘live’. Perhaps you are currently just surviving, but to do more than survive, to really live, you need to get in touch with what you feel.)
On the other hand it may be emotional issues (the ocean) that are pulling you down, crashing your goals.
So, which is it: the need for more emotional input or the need to stop emotions pulling you down? That’s the conflict, isn’t it? Are you caught in a head versus heart battle?
Your planes were dropping bombs as well as crashing. You may be dropping bombs in your own path, sabotaging your best plans, programming yourself for not reaching your goals, all because you’re caught between head and heart.
Your red Virgin Airlines plane may be a clue. What three words would you use to describe what Virgin Airlines stand for? Write these down. Do these three words also describe something you stand for? If so, why might you be in conflict about this?
Red is a colour often associated with anger. Is this conflict causing you anger? Is anger pulling you down? Are you dropping angry bombs?
You don’t say whether these three dreams came within days of each other or whether they were more spread out. War dreams repeating over a few days may reflect a war within your physical body, bacteria or viruses at war with your antibodies. If this turns out to be the case, there is a twist in the tale as illness usually has an underlying emotional cause. Working with your dream will reveal that cause.
Gut Reaction Poetry
The title of your free-form poem is “About the Bombing”. Keep it going for 5 - 10 minutes.
How to do this
Take a blank piece of paper and a pen. Set a timer for somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Do not allow yourself to think! Start by writing the title as your first line and just let it flow. Keep on writing even if your poem seems childish or nonsensical. No rhyming or verses unless it comes out that way! The only definition of ‘poetry’ here is that you’re not writing sentences and you’re not using up all the space on your lines. Let your words find their own shape on the page.
How does this work?
By not thinking, by keeping the words flowing, you are letting your right brain and unconscious mind do most of the work. They created the original dream so they know what these symbols mean for you. They will reveal. You will be surprised.
More details on Gut Reaction Poetry as a Dream Alchemy Practice in: “Dream Alchemy” by Jane Teresa Anderson, pages 324 – 327.
Jane Teresa Anderson
