OVERVIEW INTERPRETATION
Hi Carol,
As your dream started back in your hometown in Wales, it is taking you back to your earlier years to look at how your experiences back then are affecting a situation in your life today, probably your feelings about the course you are about to do as this is featured in the opening of your dream.
Your ticket number was 51. Are you older than 51? If so, what happened when you were 51? Or, and especially as your dream is back home, were you around in 1951 and, if so, what happened for you then? What does 1951 mean to you? Alternatively, have you ever lived at a number 51? Contemplate the number until you link it with an event or experience in your life. In dreams numbers are usually accurate but lack qualification, so you need to work out whether the 51 is a year, a number of months ago, a bus number and so on.
Why a red ticket? A ‘red ticket item’ is a sale item – an item offered at a reduced price. Money in dreams often represents values or self-esteem. You have paid for your seat but it has been re-sold to someone else. Back in 1951, or when you were 51 (or whatever time period the 51 refers to) did you feel your self-esteem devalued or reduced?
A seat in a dream is often your seat in life, your place and your right to a place in the scheme of things. Your right, in your dream, has been sold out from under you. Where, in your waking life, do you feel as if your place has been sold out from under you without consultation?
What else does the colour red mean to you? Red is stop or danger. It’s a red flag to a bull (a taunt). It’s the colour of blood, vitality and life force. If you are aware of the chakras red is the colour of the first chakra (located at the base or ‘seat’ of the spine!) the energy associated with health and material security. Do any of these feelings for red fit in with what happened in 1951 or when you were 51?
In the dream you went out the back to discuss your lost seat with the course organiser (with whom you had issues in waking life) and the herbalist. You noted that the herbalist had the same name as your daughter. ‘Out back’ suggests going back in time (to look at your past experiences) or the back of your mind, looking deeper behind the façade.
Which three words would you use to describe the personality or approach to life of the course organiser? Which three words for Debbie, your daughter? Compare your lists. Are they similar or very different? Do the course organiser and Debbie represent extremes, for example, perhaps you see the course organiser as rigid and Debbie as flexible. A pair of extreme opposites represents an issue that is a problem for you. In this example the issue is how rigid or flexible to be: life doesn’t work well when you are too rigid and it doesn’t work well when you are too flexible. The solution is always to find the middle path, but the problem is that we usually have experiences and beliefs from our earlier years that make it difficult for us to walk that middle path. Usually this is because we so abhor one of the extremes (e.g. rigidity, in this example) that we cannot bear to move towards it, even at the cost of the losses we endure for living at the other extreme.
Notice the words in that last sentence: “the cost of the losses”. Your dream is about the costs of losing the seat you paid for. Have you identified the issue these two dream characters represent? Think back to when you were 51, or to 1951 and ask yourself how that issue affected what happened for you back then.
How did you feel about your seat being at the end of a row against a wall? Did the wall give you a feeling of security or would you have preferred a more central seat? The end of the row may symbolise your position at the extreme end of an issue rather than at the middle path. Were you walled in, or did you feel as if you had your ‘back up against the wall’? In the hotel you were told to get into the bed that was also placed near a wall – across the corner between two walls. Dreams do present visual clichés sometimes. Might this suggest you were feeling ‘cornered’? The clues are weighing in favour of a picture of you living at one extreme of an issue, a situation which now has you up against a wall, cornered. How can you find the middle path?
The woman who had bought your seat claimed to have purchased it through a religious group. What part did religion play in your life in 1951, back in Wales, or when you were 51? Your dream shows you losing your place, perhaps losing your self-esteem or personal values, to a religious group. Are you still struggling with this? Do you tend to put religious issues before personal issues? Do you carry a belief from childhood that religious or spiritual matters come before personal matters?
Seat number 51 was crossed out. Cross, anger? Cross, religious cross? How do you see anger or religion or both as a player in losing your seat, or in forcing you to an extreme, up against a wall, in a corner?
You were told that you “didn’t pay”. This may mean emotional payment, a belief that you need to “pay the price” for a situation. For example, you might feel that you need to pay the price for leaving the church, for making a stand, for marrying the ‘wrong’ person. No matter how much you pay you can’t buy back lost self-esteem. It’s not for sale. It’s a god-given right naturally due to you, but you have to know that it’s okay for you to have it.
The single bed has the feeling of being left in a relationship, forced into a single life, or perhaps a reminder again of childhood years when you slept in a single bed. The covers may represent your efforts to cover up your real feelings, but I feel they represent many religious or spiritual disciplines that you have explored as a way of finding meaning and comfort to replace feelings of personal loss. The different colours suggest different approaches especially as you then move on to see all the different religious groups selling their disciplines in the mall.
You couldn’t straighten the covers because you’re finding it difficult to reconcile all these approaches into one unified religion or spiritual discipline perhaps. Help came in the form of pulling all the covers off the bed, exposing them for what they are. So it’s no surprise that you then find yourself in a mall where the religious shops are exposed (they have no fronts and they are open).
In the final shop you saw three women, one a mother, one a daughter and they were not behaving in a church-like manner. They were also playacting. In your discussion over your ticket there were three women, one a mother (you), one a daughter and the outcome there was not a spiritually loving one. Your dream suggests it’s time for you to review your religious and spiritual choices, to see how your past choices have been coloured by your past experiences and to find a middle path that restores your personal self esteem while also rewarding you spiritually.
DREAM ALCHEMY PRACTICE
Affirmation:
Here’s an affirmation using your dream symbols:
“I always have the best seat, the seat in the centre with the best view. It is mine by right.”
How to use your affirmation/ and how often:
Say your affirmation out loud and with feeling 30 times a day for the first week. From the second week say your affirmation out loud and with feeling once in the morning and once before you go to sleep for three more weeks.
How does this work?
This works by communicating directly with your unconscious mind using its own language, to transform the belief your dream is revealing.
More details on Affirmation as a Dream Alchemy Practice in: “Dream Alchemy”, by Jane Teresa Anderson, pages 331-333.
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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