Exhibit Nineteen: Acquired by the Dream Gallery 26 November 1999
'Ocean Sundial'
Feeling The Picture
Your feeling reactions to a dream are keys to its interpretation. These are my feelings. If this were a scene in your dream or life, how would you feel about being there?
My immense visual pleasure at this image was slightly marred by two aspects that I wanted to change. Firstly I wanted the shadow beneath the sundial table to be less black, and secondly I wanted to move the sundial either to the centre of the picture or to the right. This intrigued me because I prefer visual asymmetry, so I knew this irritation, this blot on an otherwise perfectly pleasing image, was symbolically at odds with my unconscious.
Putting these two imperfections aside, I found myself jumping into the sensual touch of placing my hands on the solid, cool, polished surface of the sundial table while smelling the salt-cleansed ocean air. The touch of the marble and the smell of the sea combined to anchor me in a moment that has forever been and forever will be. The feeling is one of returning to what really matters to recollect my bearings somewhere between the ancient and the unformed, where all is known and all that is light is possible. The feelings are those of familiarity, remembrance, anchoring, comfort, soaring replenishment, transcendence and all-knowing.
The Symbols
Symbols in your dreams often relate to your personal memories and associations, so always consider those first. Then let your mind play with other, more general possibilities. They will not all apply! Just open your mind and notice where the symbol seems to fit and make sense of the rest of your dream.
The sundial may symbolise time, measurement of time, ancient time (it is not a modern clock), or linear time progressively shadow-swept notch by notch, minute by measured minute. It may symbolise cyclical, repeating time, shadow-tracing the sun's daily circling and each morning's comfortably predictable sunrise. Or perhaps the sundial symbolises the folly of our misperception, as it is we who speedily circle the stationary sun which has never, ever risen. Or perhaps you have personal associations with sundials: memories of a country you have visited, a 'time' in your life, a garden you planned or a place of meditation.
The marble, being rock, may symbolise ancient times or transcendence of the ephemeral. Rock can symbolise ancient truth, what is 'rock-solid' within you or what forms your immovable (yet also inflexible) foundation. The marble has been polished, perhaps symbolising, through the shining depths, the multi-layers which have formed your deepest core self.
Circles or round shapes (e.g. the sundial table) generally symbolise completion and wholeness, often associated with healing. In contrast the pointed shape which throws the shadow may symbolise getting the 'point', or may be 'pointing' out a direction or focus.
The ocean usually symbolises the unconscious or the collective unconscious, though the sea may have personal associations for you. The horizon can symbolise our far-seeing, the future, the past, our personal boundaries or perceptual limitations. But where is the horizon in this picture?
The sky often symbolises conscious thought (air), deriving its colour as a reflection of the ocean (of unconscious thought).
The Questions
Here are some questions the dreamer of such a dream picture might ask to work towards a complete understanding of the dream.
Try these yourself: just give your 'gut reaction' answers to the questions - your answers will surprise you in the insights they deliver. The key thing to remember is, "Don't THINK about your answers - give quick gut reaction replies". Your unconscious will deliver.
If this process can work powerfully for this image, consider how infinitely more powerful the insights are when the image comes from one of your own dreams - direct from your unconscious!
- Where is this place?
- What is the time?
- If you answered a time of day for question two, now ask yourself which year this is.
- What is beneath your feet?
- How did you get here?
- Are you comfortable viewing the sundial from this angle?
- What would you like to change about your viewing angle or the picture?
- What is the sundial resting on?
- What is the pointer pointing to?
- What is the point of this sundial?
- If this sundial had a personality, what would it be?
- What is hidden in the shadow beneath the sundial?
- Which situation in your life now does this sundial remind you of?
- What kind of time does the ocean know or measure?
- Why is there no horizon in this picture?
- What message does the ocean whisper to the sundial?
- What does the sundial reply?
Synchronicity Note:
I had chosen two very different but equally compelling images for Exhibit Nineteen. I decided to let Synchronicity reflect the most pertinent one for the final choice so I decided to go to the Welcome Page (www.dream.net.au ) for a randomly selected quote. The quote that greeted me left me in no doubt. It was (from "The Shape of Things to Come"):
"Are you ready to break your conditioned thoughts of cause and effect, of past and future, of flowing time?"
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