Exhibit Thirty Nine: Selected from Michael's Dream Sight Gallery, 1st August 2001. Photo by Michael Collins
'Water Pipe'
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 am drawn at first to the slippery, wet surface of the wall, cold to the touch yet exuberant in the quenching first splash of the returning tide. It belongs underwater, exposed to the drying sun for only as few hours as the wall-living micro-algae can survive without water. I feel the moment of danger, the crisis of faith: if the tide does not return, the algae will die. The rush of water, suddenly and surprisingly bursting through the hole, is felt as relief tinged with slight admonishment for having questioned my trust in the tides. Of course there is always the tide, the swing from the extreme dry of yang to the extreme wet of the yin, the full light sun of the ebb to the cool, underwater shade of the flow. And, in-between, the feeling of restored faith that the tide always turns, that the ebbed flows, that the awaited returns.
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 wall in this image is made of metal, as this a shipwreck. The round hole is the old porthole and the wreck is submerged in sand.
A wall may symbolise a limitation, a barrier or a boundary. It may define the shape it holds (or, in the case of a wreck, the shape it once held), or it may be a fortification, a defence against invasion. In the case of a ship, the wall's function was to keep the vessel watertight, to keep it afloat and to enable it, in a streamlined way, to make a journey. If this was a dream, and you were aware that the wall was once part of the body of a ship, some of these functions might be symbolically meaningful to you when applied to issues in your waking life.
Metal can symbolise "mental" as dream symbols sometimes represent similar sounding words. The metal here is rusted. The symbolism of rust is easy to fathom (oops- that pun slipped out and then was kept to illustrate the workings of the dreaming mind!)
This is a wreck! There is little need to underline symbolism here. Who or what is wrecked in your life? The process of answering the questions in the next section will illustrate the symbolism of the ship's age and way in which it was wrecked.
The porthole is a window. A window may symbolise a view or perception of the world or of an issue. In this freeze-frame dream image, the window provides a view when the tide is out but becomes a door (letting water in) as the tide returns. The old porthole here may symbolise a change of function, a 'hole in the wall', a break in a defence, a means of easing of tension or pressure or a welcome.
Dreams love to play on words. Blitzing for word associations on a symbol in a dream often reveals an answer that is personally meaningful to the dreamer. A blitz list on 'port' might start: left (port on a ship is always left); 'portly'; 'home' (in port); alcohol; computer connection (port); school bag (Australian slang) … and so on. It may symbolise "import", especially as water is rushing IN through this opening in the image. Perhaps "import" can be extended to "important". Or it may allude to portal, or "porte" (French for door), again especially as the window here is functioning as a door for the water.
Never underestimate the cleverness of your dreams to play on words that deliver meaning. These symbols are being created by your right brain, unimpeded by left brain logic while you sleep, combined with the huge resources of your unconscious mind. You are both the creator of your symbolism and the detective in search of uncovering its meaning. This is partly why you get a real goose-bump feeling of recognition when you crack a symbol's meaning: you recognise something you've once known (re- cognition). All crossword and cryptic puzzle addicts should practise on their dreams!
Water, in dreams, generally represents your emotions: those you are aware of and those you have repressed into your unconscious. Look at the water in your dream and ask yourself, "If this water had a feeling, what would it be?" Your gut-reaction answer usually names the emotion or feeling your dream is addressing.
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!
- If the water flowing through the porthole had a feeling, what would it be?
- If the sand (bottom right of the image) had a feeling, what would it be?
- If the blue water beyond the porthole had a feeling, what would it be?
- If you stood with your body touching the wall to the left of this image, how would you feel?
- If you stood on the other side of this wall (the side facing the sea), how would you feel?
- Is there a situation in your waking life now where more than one of your answers to the above questions is evident?
- Name the situation that came to mind when you read Q6.
- What is the age of this ship (when was it functional)?
- How old is this wreck (how long has it been wrecked)?
- What was the function of this vessel?
- How did the ship become a wreck?
- If the ship was not wrecked here, how did it come to be here?
- Look at your answer to Q8. If the number of years is within your life span, think back that number of years and then think back to yourself at that age. For example, if you felt the ship was 40 years old and you are now 55, then ask yourself what was happening in your life 40 years ago (when you were 15) and when you were 40. Was there any wrecking (emotional wrecking or health problems for example) at either of these times? Or was there any ending of old ways and beginning of new paths (i.e. leaving the remains of the old self behind, symbolised by the rusting shell of the old ship).
- Still considering your answer to Q8, if the number of years is beyond your life span, how would you describe the feel or personality of the ship's era? For example, was it an aggressive vessel of war, a prim Victorian liner, a rough and ready pirate ship or a rescuing refugee or immigrant ship? Where, in your life now, does this description apply or form an issue for you?
- Look again at the water rushing in through the porthole. With all your previous answers fresh in your mind, how can you relate this movement of water to what is happening in your life now?
- Look at your answer to Q1. Compare this to your answer to Q15. What insight emerges for you from this?
- If the wreck were your teacher, what one sentence lesson would it deliver to you?
- If you had to move the wreck to another place and choose what to do with it, what would your answer be?
- How can you apply your answers to Q17 and Q18 to your waking life situation, taking them as metaphors?
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