Exhibit Twenty-Five: Acquired by the Dream Gallery 31 May 2000
'Extraordinary Steps'(with thanks and apologies to M C Escher)
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?
I feel torn between wanting to explore the steps and wanting to move into that future world which already exists in the yellow, glimmering light. I feel I can touch whispered conversations way over there where I should be too. And yet, at the same time, the yellow is a distant mirage of an untouchable parallel world.
Now I feel the pull to solve the mystery of the steps. I am surprised when my frustration at walking the upside-down steps suddenly folds inside out and I find myself standing elated on the reverse side of the staircase looking out towards the magnificence of the pink sky. I feel the stomach-churn adrenalin rush of the height and lurch at the prospect of a flip-side journey down into … ah … the sheer breath-stopping claustrophobia of walking through the blue upside-down.
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.
Stairs in dreams usually symbolise how we move between the various levels of our being. Below ground level can represent the unconscious. Ground or base level in the dream world often represents our physical being (body). The next level up then represents our mental or emotional level (mind) and the top level is our spiritual existence (soul). In this way, the dream staircase can show us how we access and feel about these inter-connecting levels of our being.
Steps in dreams can symbolise the steps we take to get from one situation to another, or the steps we habitually use in an argument or the links we forge to create our perception of how life is. Dreams can help us to see the steps we have built for ourselves, to see where they lead and to help us to build new and more appropriate approaches.
Stairs and steps can also symbolise metaphoric climbs such as moving up to a 'higher' career or study level or feeling emotionally high. They can also symbolise a move 'down' from a higher position or an emotional low.
Negotiating an Escher-like staircase is a fairly common recurring dream. The dreamer usually starts out by climbing the first flight of a staircase only to be confronted by an upside down second flight. The dreamer will usually try to climb the second flight upside down and will usually succeed. The stairs and paths become increasingly more complex and difficult as the dreamer becomes incredibly flexible and athletic. The usual outcome is that despite the increasingly extraordinary feats of the dreamer, the journey is never completed. The dreamer usually thinks, during the dream, that the feats required of them are ridiculous and unfair. This is frequently underlined by the presence of other dream characters who are not faced with the same complications as the dreamer: they climb the stairs straightforward and get to the top. This dream usually reflects an unconscious conditioning of needing to prove worthiness, to win approval or to please others. The dreamer has usually experienced a lack of approval which seems ordinarily available to others (love, respect, whatever). The dream reflects the extraordinary feats the dreamer feels they have to perform to win their birthright to equality.
The deeper symbolism of this freeze-frame dream image is an exploration of the flip-side, reverse-side or unconscious side of the dreamer's conscious world.
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 did you enter this scene? (Bottom, top, yellow area, blue area, pink area?)
- Where did you want to go first?
- Why?
- Which parts of the image are solid and which are airy?
- Which step did you stand on first?
- How did you feel when you stood on this step?
- If you started climbing from the bottom of the picture, how did you feel when you came to the upside-down stairs?
- How did you negotiate the upside-down stairs?
- What feelings did this bring up for you?
- Which situation in your life now brings up these same feelings for you?
- What happened when you got to the top?
- Where did you go next?
- If you started climbing from the top of the picture (in pink light treading on black stairs), how did you feel when you came to the slide which led to the upside-down stairs?
- If you could gather together all the white, wispy lines in the picture and form them into a new picture, what would that picture be?
- How did you negotiate the upside-down stairs?
- What feelings did this bring up for you?
- Which situation in your life now brings up these same feelings for you?
- What happened when you got to the bottom?
- Where did you go next?
- Whether you started at the top or the bottom of the stairs, how did you feel when you completed your journey?
- What had you learned?
- How can you apply this learning to the life situation you recognised in Q10 or Q16?
- Which next step would you like to take in your life?
|
