Author

Subject: sinking.. but not drowning

chris

07:45 18/05/2003 

It was New Year’s Eve, a night for partying with friends but I was on my own on a boat moored to the side of a wide river or canal. There was a bridge in front of the boat and another boat on the other side of the river. I suspected my friends were on the other boat.

I was feeling lonely. I hung my legs over the edge of the boat and was aware of the bustle of happy people all around me. I pulled my phone out and held it out on the palm of my hand, staring at it as if willing it to ring. Suddenly the boat lurched and I jerked back to stop from falling off. My phone flew from my hand into the water, as if in slow motion. I saw it rest for a moment on the surface before it began to sink. In that split second I had a thought that if it did not stay in the water for too long it would still work so I jumped in and grabbed it. But as I grabbed the phone in one hand, something fell from my other: I think it was my wedding ring.

I was going under very fast but had decided to sink in order to get the ring. I expelled all the air in my lungs so I could drop faster than the ring. I got the ring but was unable to stop my plummet. I took a few breaths then realised that I really didn't have to worry about breathing. At no time did I panic.

I made my way back to the surface and onto the boat. I began to inspect the damage on the phone. It was still working, but not properly. I couldn't be sure that my friends could reach me any more so I decided to leave the boat and this time dived into the water fully clothed and swam for the bridge.

Under the bridge I was accosted by a very good looking guy. He was partially submerged in the water up to his navel. He said he was employed by my father. He wasn't happy with me. I shrugged him off and made my way to the other side of the bridge.

I began to walk on the water and demonstrated my control by leaping out of it and floating above it and doing somersaults and jumps: like a dolphin. Finally I climbed out and once again checked my phone. It was still working but a little damaged. The rest is quite foggy but I do remember being on a cliff with a narrow winding track that led to the bottom through a very dry windswept landscape.

Dream edited for easier reading - JT, 2005

2004

Jane Teresa's View

Jane Teresa Anderson

Overview Interpretation & Dream Alchemy Practice suggestion

OVERVIEW INTERPRETATION

Hi Chris,

Your dream starts with a situation where you were feeling lonely, missing out on the fun, out of communication. The beginning of a dream often helps you to identify the situation in your life that your dream is addressing. Where in your life do you feel that communication is lacking, leaving you feeling lonely?

In your dream you will your phone to ring. What you’re doing is saying, “I need communication!” Your dream then takes you on a journey to try to provide that: to communicate with you about this issue.

Water, in dreams, often represents your emotions or your unconscious mind, so you go deep into the water/ emotional areas in your dream. On the way you realise you have lost your wedding ring, suggesting perhaps that this is about lost communication in your marriage.

You found breathing was not a problem – there was no panic. Much as we avoid delving deep into emotional issues it’s often the case that things are nowhere near as panicky once we’re in! In fact, there is only good to be gained from exploring emotions.

From the depths of your emotions you realise your phone is working, but not properly. In other words, your communication (in your marriage?) is still happening but not ‘properly’.

In the dream you feel your friends will not be able to reach you. In other words, you feel that support and encouragement is not reaching you.

Next you swim for the bridge. Bridges are often significant in dreams because they link one side of a river/road/ track/ land to another. Bridges are links. We cross bridges to get to the other side. In dreams we often cross bridges when we go through major life changes. In your dream you were under the bridge. Like ‘It’s all water under the bridge now?” perhaps?

You meet a man who looks good but is not happy with you. You shrug him off. He works for your father. People in dreams represent our own beliefs, so this man represents a belief within you that ‘works for your father’. What beliefs have you tried to follow to keep your father happy? As your dream shows, deep inside you are not happy with yourself for trying to please your father in this way. Why? What has it cost you or prevented you from doing or being?

Wonderfully you shrug him off then perform miracles and cross the bridge. Yes! Your dream shows you shrugging off those old beliefs and indicates that THIS is indeed the key to performing miracles. Now you can focus on acknowledging the damage (your damaged phone) and to building new communication systems that work for you. Mending bridges, perhaps?

DREAM ALCHEMY PRACTICE

Affirmation:

Here’s an affirmation using your dream symbols:

“I walk on water and cross the bridge with ease and joy. My mobile phone works perfectly.”

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.

ORIGINAL THREAD

Below is the original forum discussion on this dream, contributed before Jane Teresa's 2004 interpretation.

Chris

06:55 22/05/2003 

after this dream Ive had another where I was on a horse riding along side my dead mother...(she was alive in the dream) ... we were in a vally of some sort .... not sure where we were heading... for some reason I thought the dreams were linked. PLEASE HELP... IM confused

Gloria

16:28 23/05/2003 

Hi Chris. If you think the dreams are linked, good chance they are. Could the second be a continuation of the first? The first one ended with you being on a cliff with a narrow winding track leading downwards and the next dream had you in a valley.

Looking at the first dream, I see that it was New Year's Eve but you weren't with your usual friends. Are you making a new start in some way and feel like you're going it alone? There is quite a feeling of aloneness in the first part of the dream. Even the means of connecting by phone was taken forcefully from you. As you also dropped your wedding ring, I wonder if this feeling of aloneness is connected to your marriage. Is there a communication problem with your husband, or have you split up? No need to answer any of these questions publicly of course, they are just food for thought.

If this doesn't fit, then on reading the rest of the dream/s, it might refer to your father's widowhood in some way.

It's interesting that you say that you 'decided to sink in order to get the ring,' then found that you were plummeting even further. It's as though rescuing the ring didn't stop your fall but then wonder of wonders, you are able to breathe under water and eventually emerge with phone, ring and life all intact. Swimming fully clothed could be a reference to feeling a need to cover up, or protect yourself. Was your good looking guy - your male counterpart, or the masculine part of you, (I'm assuming here that you are female) naked from the waist up? I'm wondering if you are feeling vulnerable as a woman somehow?

Your father expressed his disapproval via a third party. Is this an issue for you, indirect communication? If so it might indicate the meaning of the silent phone symbolism.

Still, you shrugged off this disapproval and went and did all of those magical manouvers in the water. He is not going to hold you back.

There are a lot of references to water and yet at the end of the first dream you mention a dry, windswept landscape. If water represents your emotions, then you appear to be exploring your emotions every which way. On a boat, plummeting to the depths of the river, playing like a dolphin, even trying out a miracle or two with the water and then, at the end, without emotions (the dry windswept landscape).

Bridges and boats can be seen as a means of moving from one state of awareness, or understanding, to another. You chose to leave the relative safety of the (stationary?) boat to dive into the water, encountering someone who you ignored, in spite of his good looks and apparent authority, to frolic and play joyfully.

The different types of landscape in the dream and the various ways you are negotiating them can be seen as a metaphor for the journey of life, its various up and downs and the ways in which you individually respond.

I connect horses with power, strength, adventure and freedom. Is your mother recently deceased? The second dream sounds like she is a very positive support for you as you traverse the valley.

Hope there is something here for you.

Love, Gloria

Chris

03:08 28/05/2003 

thank you so much... there is alot that you hav said that rings true... I'll take a closer look at this tonight and get back with what I think.. thanks