Exhibit Forty-Three: Selected from Michael's Dream Sight Gallery, 1st February 2002. Photo by Michael Collins
'Portals'
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 get a feeling of safety, comfort and warmth surrounding me as I stand here on this sandy rock looking down through the portals all the way to the ocean. As I imagine walking down towards the last portal I feel the sun on my back and a welling anticipation of the cool breeze and refreshing splash of water at the ocean's edge. Further out to sea, beyond the shadow, I get the feeling of ease: dabbling in an open boat, birds singing and sandwiches packed for lunch. Somewhere between the comfort of here and the ease of there I am aware that I feel uneasy about the cold shadow of sea separating the two.
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.
Whenever the land meets the sea in dreams there is a meeting of the conscious mind (the land) and the unconscious mind (the sea). Water in dreams tends to represent your conscious emotions while the ocean represents your unconscious emotions as well as your unconscious thoughts, beliefs, memories, experiences and wisdom. Just as the ocean wears away rock and sand to sculpt new shapes, so your unconscious mind is a strong shaping force of your conscious world. No matter what you set out to build and do, your unconscious mind is more powerful than your conscious mind at determining the outcome every time. Water beats rock hands down.
To achieve mastery over your waking life you need to explore your unconscious mind, find pathways into it, understand it and, where necessary, change it. When your dream leads you into the ocean, pay attention. It is leading you into the workings of your unconscious mind. Valuable stuff. Invaluable stuff.
The shadow on the sea most likely symbolises the shadowy areas of your unconscious mind. All the things you don't want to know about that you keep in the shadows. Hmm. Where there are shadows dreams will lead you. Explore the shadows. Throw light on them to see them more clearly. They help you to understand your life.
The shadow thrown by the stone wall most likely symbolises the shadowy side of yourself you are more conscious of. Walls keep out danger and threats but they keep out good things too sometimes. They also keep the dark, shadowy parts of yourself hidden from the view of others.
The shape and structure of the building is the result of the struggle between your conscious plans and your unconscious plans, or your conscious beliefs and your unconscious mind.
Doorways - in this case open portals - most likely symbolise opportunities for movement and change. In this building the portals direct your vision and focus, creating a long passageway effect. Passageways and hallways in dreams can symbolise the birth canal. This freeze frame dream suggests the birth of a new way of thinking and being if the dreamer follows the opportunities presented in a focussed way and is prepared to enter into some shadowy areas of the unconscious mind along the way. On the far horizon of the freeze frame dream, the sun beckons enticingly. What was old (the ancient building) gives birth to the new (what arises from exploring the unconscious mind). Way to go.
If you see the portals in this freeze frame dream more as squares than open doorways then the interpretation shifts. Are you boxed in? Do you need to think 'outside the square'? Is your focus too narrow and confined? Square shapes and straight lines in dreams can symbolise rational thinking (where fluid, rounder shapes symbolise intuitive, creative and holistic thinking). When interpreting the meaning of the symbols in your dream, be guided by your feelings about them.
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!
- Are you here alone, or with someone? If with someone, who?
- Why are you here?
- How do you feel when you place your hand on the wall?
- If you turn around and walk away from this scene, what feelings does this give you?
- If you walk in a straight line down towards the last portal, what feelings does this give you?
- If you climb on top of the lintel above the middle portal, what feeling does this give you?
- What do you gain by climbing on top of the lintel?
- What do you lose by climbing on top of the lintel?
- Has this building been used by others? Who, when and what for?
- If you are with someone, what message do they whisper to you?
- If you hear those who have been here before, what message do they whisper to you?
- Someone awaits you beyond the far portal. What message will they whisper to you?
- Listen to the roll of the ocean. What message does it whisper to you?
- What is the shadow (thrown by the wall) through which you must pass?
- What is the shadow (in the ocean)?
- Which of the many journeys presented by this freeze frame image do you choose?
- What waking life situation does all of this remind you of?
- How do your answers to these questions help you to understand this waking life situation?
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