OVERVIEW INTERPRETATION
Hi M,
There’s a sense in your dream of luck with you wondering how long this luck can continue. As you said when the second car was sliding towards you, “I remember thinking that this time we won’t be so lucky”. Before looking at the rest of your dream, how often does the issue of luck come up in your life? Do you consider yourself lucky? Do other people think you’re lucky? Do you fear your luck running out? Are you really lucky or are you successful because you put in the effort or because you are talented? Do you feel you’ve got away with something recently – had a lucky escape, or series of lucky escapes as in this dream?
Is it time for you to re-evaluate the difference between luck and rewards for efforts or talent?
In your dream you escape all harm, even though you feel fearful. Even when the hyaena’s jaws are clamped around your arm you don’t feel the pain, you have time to notice her “nice” spots and she didn’t actually crush your arm as you had expected.
The only casualty in the dream, apart from you suffering feelings of fear, was the baby, but you don’t mention whether the baby was alive or dead when he was pulled from under the wheels. Judging by the rest of your dream I imagine he would be alive. Dreams tend to repeat themes and as your arm remained uncrushed by the hyaena’s jaws, I feel the baby would have remained uncrushed by the four-wheel drive’s wheels. You were fearful of looking, so you didn’t discover that he was probably unhurt. Could your dream be alerting you that your fears in life about your “luck” or success as a result of effort or talent might cause your luck to slide? Is your dream showing you that your fears are unfounded but may influence your future if they remain unchecked? Or is it showing that fear is only fear, and that although things may seem to be sliding into calamity around you, all is, in fact, quite safe?
I wonder what would have happened if you’d stayed in the tent? Would you have escaped crushing? Would you have suffered too much from the stress of the fear?
What is the tent in your life now? Do you go camping a lot? If so, what does your tent represent to you personally: relaxation, back-to-basics, taking a risk, cramped living, adventure? If, for example, you decide your tent represents freedom, then ask yourself if you feel you have had a lucky run of freedom but fear your freedom is about to be crushed.
If you’re not a camper, what could your dream tent represent? It could be a word play: your intent (you’re in tent) about a matter. It could be a temporary way of life. It most likely symbolises fragile as it contrasts so dramatically with the big heavy vehicles and animals in the dream. What feels fragile in your life now? What feels big and heavy, like a continuous potentially crushing onslaught?
Where do you feel your life might lack protection and security? Where do you feel you’ve been lucky without strong protection until now, but you fear this luck running out? Where do things feel like they’re sliding around you?
By now there will be a voice in the back of your mind whispering the answer. What does it say? Money running out? Job pressure or pressure to become a parent weighing down on your freedom?
There were three car slides. Can you relate this to three events or threats, each more momentous than the last? The third car was a truck or four-wheel drive. A truck may relate to your work as it is a work vehicle, although it may simply have been the dream’s way of emphasising the growing size of the threat. You also saw it as a four-wheel drive which is interesting because we often shorten this to ‘4WD’ which the brain ‘speaks’ as ‘forward’. In your dream the 4WD was then reversed, as if you are trying, in the dream, to stop forward motion, to go back, to stop the potential crushing.
How old was the baby? If, for example, you feel he was about six months old, then ask yourself what was new in your life (born) six months ago. Why might you feel that is under threat now? How does turning back the clock help? Are you fearful of this six-month old project/ job/ relationship/ idea growing? Are you fearful of it running out of luck? What can you do to secure or protect it?
Elephants never forget. Could they represent a horde of memories you have about crushing experiences? Hyaenas have a horrible laugh. Have people laughed at you in the past? Are you fearful that your apparent run of luck is going to be crushed in the same way it was in the past and that people will laugh at you? Yet your dream shows that there is no real harm, except for the drain of fear.
I have given my associations to elephants and hyaenas. What are yours? Choose three words to describe the personality or life approach of an elephant and then do the same for a hyaena. Look at your life now to see where these traits are challenging you (look within yourself for these traits too) and see what you can do to secure a sense of calm.
DREAM ALCHEMY PRACTICE
Writing Exercise
Now, set a timer for 15 minutes and start writing or typing as fast as you can – with no room for thought – a story titled “Securing the tent”. Just let the words flow – a kind of stream of consciousness. Stop when the timer sounds. Read over your story at leisure. You will be surprised how much you learn from this.
How does this work?
By working with dream elements and symbols in writing form you are communicating with your unconscious mind in its own language to create change, to explore your feelings and to resolve and heal past issues.
More details on various writing exercises as Dream Alchemy Practices in: “Dream Alchemy”, by Jane Teresa Anderson, pages 337-338.
Jane Teresa Anderson
You can consult with Jane Teresa or her Dream Team and receive your interpretation by email within five working days.
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