Exhibit Fifty: 1st August 2002. Photo by Michael Collins
'Feet'
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 surprise, looking down at feet that feel like mine but clearly are not mine. My toes fan differently and these feet look male, yet I can feel my soles and toes spreading into the wooden floor, exposed and firm - the same feeling I get when I stand on a sun-warmed rock after a paddle in the surf. Anchoring yet free. Then I feel a subtle difference between these strange new feet. Yes, I feel it now. The left is colder, less sensitive. I feel a subtle imbalance I wish now to address.
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.
Your feet are your contact point with the ground. They can symbolise your grounding, your communion with the earth, your anchoring. They can also symbolise your standing (in the world) while what is under your feet may represent your 'under'standing of a situation.
In walking forward, your toes are the first part of your feet to reach the future. They may symbolise your extension into the future, your moving forward and testing of the water. If you feel glued to the spot in your dream or in this image, look more closely at the feet to look for symbols revealing reasons for your hesitancy to move forward. Toes may grip tightly in fear, for example, or toenails may be thick and overprotective, numbing necessary sensitivity as you step forward.
Feet may slip into a dream to alert you through word plays. Heels may symbolise heals, toes may be tows (tow the line, in tow, what you tow) and soles may be souls. Toenails may symbolise what nails you (to the spot). The Achilles tendon or heel may indeed reflect your emotional sore point. More subtly feet may play a feat or perhaps a defeat.
Your left foot may relate to your right brain, Yin, or inner world. Your right foot may relate to your left brain, Yang or outer world.
The Questions
Here are some questions the dreamer of such a dream picture might ask to work towards a 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!
- Whether or not you feel these are your feet, the best way to understand a symbol is to get into it, so slip into these feet and wriggle these toes. How do you feel 'wearing' these feet?
- Do these feet make you feel different in your personality? In what way?
- With feet like these, what clothes are you wearing?
- With feet like these, where have you been?
- Where are you going?
- What position is your body in? (Standing, laying down with your feet on the wall ...)
- The left foot is bluer. Imagine both feet were this blue. How would wearing bluer feet make you feel?
- The right foot is pinker. Imagine both feet were this pink. How would wearing pinker feet make you feel?
- Think about your answer to Q7. In waking life, which situation leaves you feeling like this?
- Think about your answer to Q8. In waking life, which situation leaves you feeling like this?
- Think about your answers to Q9 and Q10. Are these two situations linked in any way?
- The left foot tends to represent your inner world - your inner standing. Look again at your answer to Q7. What insight does this give you about your inner standing?
- The right foot tends to represent your outer world - your outer standing. Look again at your answer to Q8. What insight does this give you about your outer standing?
- Are your inner and outer standing in balance? If not, what adjustment needs to be made?
- What next step could you take to ensure a more balanced, firmer standing?
- How soon can you do this?
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