Ocean Dip
Phillipa
The Old School 1994

~~~~~~dream~~~~~~

I can see my old school. It is going to be demolished and used for Aborigines. I feel I want to write a book, starting then (present time) and going back to my childhood (the beginning).

~~~~~~

I had been, and still am, going through enormous changes in my life, including a change of residence to another town, our children leaving home and my husband planning to retire. In reality I had often thought of one day writing a book about my life to leave for my future grandchildren.

Phillipa brought her dream to our regular Dream Group, and in the ensuing discussion she came to the conclusion that the old school being demolished was symbolic of the old Phillipa being demolished.

I have broken away from the old way of thinking. Three days earlier I dreamt I was driving along looking for Enderley Drive. It was near the Italo Club. Through the Dream Group I realised that Enderley Drive was the 'end of the drive' and that I had broken away from a lot of the old Italian ways, symbolised by the Italo Club. It was the Aborigines that stood out in my life-changing dream because I couldn’t understand why they should be there. Through our discussion I learned that they were symbolic of ‘origins’. I knew that, as the dream suggested, I would have to write the book and go back to my origins.

It took Phillipa eight months to take action and start her book. Meanwhile other dreams highlighted the changes that were taking place within her. When she was ready she spent two solid months writing. When her book was finished she contemplated writing a follow up too.

Since I started writing the book I was surprised at what I discovered about myself and my family. It has given me a better understanding of my relatives, and I learned things I hadn’t known. I can finally put it all behind me. All the past is contained in the book. I feel detached and separate from the person in the book.

I can now appreciate and be truly grateful for the good things that happened and at the same time the bad things no longer hurt and I can let them go. I am now on a path of constant learning.

Jane’s Interpretation

Since I was part of the Dream Group which helped Phillipa to interpret her dream, little further comment is required. What is particularly special about Phillipa’s dream is that it can be seen in two short but significant parts. The first part is the symbolic dream image of the old school being demolished for Aborigines to use, while the second part is the accurate, on-the-spot interpretation of the dream. Phillipa essentially interpreted her own dream while still in it. You can’t get more precise than that!

In writing her book, Phillipa took her life apart, brick by brick, demolishing the fabric of who she had become and exposing the foundations, her beginnings, her ‘original’ native self. She returned to her roots and, freed from years of conditioning, rebuilt herself according to her new perspective. Few are courageous enough to do this.

River 11
Moni
The Letter 1994

~~~~~~dream~~~~~~

Mum and dad came to visit us. We lived in a shop at the end of a long hallway. The hallway must have belonged to us too because it had a big, antique wooden entrance door at the front. My letter to them was sitting on my desk and I was very aware of its presence. They were talking to us, but mostly to the children as if nothing had happened, although they did seem to be going out of their way to be ‘nice’. I realised I had two choices. I could slip the letter into the litter bin, since their attitude seemed to have changed, or I could give it to them. Leaving it sitting on the desk or quietly posting it later was not an option.

Dad was being particularly gentle at that moment, but I had no doubt as to what needed to be done. I handed the letter to him and said ‘You have to read this’. He looked away muttering ‘No, it’s OK. I don’t have to. I can’t read well’. He then added ‘Give it to Mum’, as if in avoidance. I repeated, quite firmly ‘No Dad. You have to read it’.

~~~~~~

Maybe my upbringing wasn’t so different from many others of my generation and English background. Some of the situations I encountered through childhood and beyond are the stuff of many a laugh-til-I-cry television sit com.

My father was the overly aggressive, overbearing, stick-in-the-mud type, whose favourite life avoidance pursuit was to sit glued to the telly while he ate or drank whatever was handed to him with rarely a comment. He had a rather paranoid streak which made it very uncomfortable to bring friends home from school. When I was about seven or eight I had the misfortune to befriend a girl whose parents were actively involved in the ‘Ban the Bomb’ nuclear protest marches. The criticism leveled at them and at my poor friend behind their backs made life less than sweet. In my teenage years I brought home a friend who happened to have a Polish surname and whose father was called Adolph. After weeks of Hitler jokes (yes, I did know that Hitler wasn’t Polish!), it became easier to meet at her house.

My mother was an intelligent woman who chose instead to be a dumb martyr in her husband’s presence and to bury whatever personal power she might ever have developed in the name of ‘keeping the peace’. This was a ploy which we were all expected to embrace. Our purpose was to keep anything controversial, such as our opinions, from our father, thereby not only preventing his anger and ‘keeping the peace’, but also protecting our mother from ever having to face her fears in true relationship with her husband. We protected Mum and, in return, she pampered Dad. I don’t remember a single hug or cuddle from Mum after the age of toddler-hood, beyond the goodnight peck.

Except, or course, I didn’t always play the game, wanting to fight my own battles with my parents and to have the freedom to express myself as a separate person with my own thoughts and ideas. Although my siblings had their share of traumas, I most definitely qualified for the ‘black sheep’ label. I could tell the sheep from the goats though, and knew my true role: scapegoat.

All this is understandable. My parents lived in a rented room in a house when I was born some nine months after their marriage. Life was undeniably tough for them in every sense of the word. They hauled themselves through life and ended up doing very well in financial and material terms. I’m sure they tried very hard to relate to me, but they never grew beyond the stage of pointing the finger at me whenever their life was difficult. In their eyes, I had caused their financial and relationship problems by being born so early in their marriage. I was told this repeatedly, from a very early age, in the heat of many a moment as well as in the cold light of day. Fortunately, and to this day I don’t understand how, I was exceptionally endowed with a belief in myself that was strong enough to say ‘No, I know that isn’t true’, quietly to myself. With a weaker constitution I might have grown up believing them.

But understanding a situation is one thing, and still needing love and approval, especially as a child, is another. I excelled at school and at university which made them very proud of me, but criticism never lagged far behind. Our relationship staggered, through our occasional meetings, from one argumentative visit to another, and from one polite, avoid-it-all letter to the next. My poor father had very much hoped that I would go and do all the things he hadn’t been able to do, as he had often told me. Yet, whenever I did achieve these things, envy reared its head. Expectations were dual: I was expected to be different, to achieve, to ‘be a man’, I guess, even though I was a woman, yet at the same time I was expected to pay for the trouble I had caused for the family through suffering, not through success. My mother put all my success down to good fortune, not to hard work: ‘The trouble with Moni is, she’s lucky and always lands on her feet’. She urged me that ‘Manners maketh man, not brains’. My father was stuck between wanting to tell the neighbours how well his daughter had done and telling me that ‘Little girls should be seen and not heard’. Success, in any of these ways, would always be undermined by my failure to achieve the opposite! I learned the meaning of ‘tall poppy’ this way!

Many years passed, measured by our docile, safe-news-only, air-mailed letters which criss-crossed the oceans as I went adventuring the world they’d never seen. I walked my fine line between fulfilling their dreams yet fuelling their resentment, carefully culling my reports home, editing my life because my reality would have been meaningless to them.

A few weeks before my dream, my parents came to visit me. I had been encouraging them for many years, but the trip out to Australia is, of course, one that requires some fortitude and commitment. My children were by now in their early teens, a handful of years younger than I was when I left home. I myself was older than my mother had been when I had departed the family nest. My parents adore children and, although I was not silly enough to believe that they would come all this way to see their daughter alone, I had hoped that their joy at seeing their grandchildren would open up the possibilities for a better relationship between us. Surely, I believed, after all these years and by virtually jumping a generation in time since I had last seen them, any hard feelings must have disappeared. In my own mind I had long since forgiven both of them for their previous words and actions, and harboured no ill feelings towards them. I had hoped that in the wisdom of their more mature years they might have come to a similar view. I was looking forward to their visit, but I was not entirely convinced that it would go as I wished. I prepared myself for the very best and for the very worse, so that, whatever happened, my world, as I had since built it, would not tumble around me.

So they arrived, and at first it went well, but time passed and they started to slip the odd recrimination about the past between the lines. Their resentment showed and it became obvious that, in their minds, I was still their child and should behave accordingly, with due respect to their expectations. Theirs was the privilege, being the parents, to pass judgement and question my actions back through the decades. Mine was, in their opinion, to listen and take note.

During the third week violence erupted. My father forcefully flung me against the wall and held me in a vice-like position because, apparently, he had disagreed with some mild statement I had made over dinner. Words flew in all directions and even my mother, until then relatively placid, struck out with clenched fists a number of times at my husband. Her punches were meant for me, but my husband stood in the way and I don’t think she ever saw anyone but me. He took all the punches and later had the bruises to show for it. He asked her, while she was hitting out ‘Why are you punching Moni like this?’ and she replied ‘Because she’s my daughter. I can do whatever I like with her’. That said it all.

They packed their bags, told us they were leaving the next morning and shut themselves in their room. I was scared for our safety and wondered what physical damage my father might do to our car or our house. Thankfully our children were away from the house at the time. With my permission, my husband gave them two choices: they could sit and talk it out or we would book them into a hotel, send for a taxi, and they could leave immediately. After an attempt at a talk which became violent again, we ordered their taxi and they walked out of my physical life, probably for ever. As they stormed out the door I managed to get my mother’s attention for long enough to say ‘I know you find communication difficult, so I will write you a letter. You may read it, you may throw it in the bin, but I will also send copy to my brother and sister. If you throw the letter away and ever find yourself wishing you had kept it, ask them for a copy. They will keep it for you. All you will have to do is ask.’

It’s one thing to have dealt with a matter inside your mind, to have made the attempt to understand and to have forgiven everyone involved, including yourself, for the past. It’s one thing to continue your life and to have learned from yesterday. It’s quite another to find yourself confronted with people who have not let the past go, and who either wish to constantly retrace it, or whose behaviour and attitudes towards you, because of the past, need to be dealt with somehow. You can make peace in your mind, but what do you do when the person standing opposite you, or lashing out at you, does not have peace of mind? They are really crying out for answers and you are denying them, either by turning the other cheek or by stepping into your old shoes and playing the game according to their rules. Perhaps the only way to address the issue is to address the issue, but how do you do that when the person is screaming at you and hurting you? Words cannot be heard and subtlety is nowhere near the starting line.

I felt I had to write the letter. Nothing could be more painful than that last day when all hope of ever reconciling, or should I say building, a relationship with my parents disappeared along with their taxi. I had never had the kind of love and support that I had wanted from my parents, and now it seemed I never would. I hadn’t realised, until that point, how much I had lived in that hope.

My husband and children, my true family, are entirely loving and giving in ways which I never knew were possible. For a few days all I could do was sit in a chair, completely stunned. I wrestled with myself. My philosophy had been to understand, to forgive and to let go: to move ever onward, having learned and thanked whoever was involved for what the conflict had taught me. Yet I also felt I needed to write the letter, to face their confrontation and answer their questions in plain language.

I finally decided the letter had to tell the past from my point of view, since this was something I had never done. They would never have listened without rage, and perhaps they wouldn’t read the letter either, but I knew this was my task. I was selective. I picked out the good memories from my childhood, although they were difficult to find, and I balanced these with the bad memories. I tried to explain how I felt at different times and finally described how I felt about our relationship dynamics looking back with hindsight. I empathised with their situation and asked them to stand in my shoes and empathise with mine. I gave answers to all their questions, replied to their accusations and told them that I only ever wanted their love.

Finally I said that both, or either of them, would be welcomed with open arms in the future but if, and only if, they came in peace.

It took me two days to write the letter and I felt better. I then wondered whether I should just throw it in the bin, as many a psychotherapist would recommend, and continue at ease with my own life, having expressed myself on paper. Something told me this would be pointless. I had effectively done all that before, bar the actual writing, and yet, confronted with my parents in person, the conflict remained as fiery as ever. I believed I should post the letter, owing it not only to myself, but, ultimately to my parents as well.

Since the letter was couched in strong terms and I was mentally and physically exhausted, I decided I should at least sleep well and reconsider it when I was refreshed. The letter could sit to one side for a while.

I had the dream that night.

I could look at the dream symbolically, perhaps, and say that I needed to bring all the things in the letter to my own attention too. Wherever vestiges of my parents’ attitudes remained buried in my own personality, they needed to be prised out and examined in the light of my letter: like looking at my own reflection in a glass whenever I look at my mother and father. The point was taken, but the dream begged for more.

In the dream, the situation was for real. I didn’t know I was dreaming, so the question was crucial: should I hand the letter over even though they were acting as if nothing had happened and were being incredibly sweet, or was the content of the letter of such great importance that it needed to be delivered, no matter what? Faced with the situation and confronted with their sweetness in the dream, I knew Dad had to read the letter. I felt that gave us the only chance, albeit a slim one, of ever having a truthful and open relationship. They could stand there and be shiny all over on the surface, but our relationship would never penetrate deeper and touch the heart if we did not have the courage to look honestly at our past, shrug our shoulders in wisdom, release the burden, and start again with compassion. I’d had enough of superficiality. It was depth and honesty - or nothing.

On waking I knew that since I had made the decision in my dream to hand over the letter, believing the situation to be real and being totally satisfied with my action, that I should follow through and post the letter. I had no doubt at all about this. The dream did not add fuel to my fire; it added concrete below my feet. I felt steady, grounded and ready to take back what was mine: my full power to be who I am and to be entitled to say what has to be said. Above all, as in the dream, I knew that this was the only chance I would ever have to stake my claim for an honest and loving relationship, even though that claim might never be read, or taken up.

The moment I released my letter into the mailbox, later that morning, my shoulders lightened. It was as if I had been carrying another person all my life, and now I had only myself again. My energy soared and I couldn’t stop smiling for days.

Three days after posting the letter I dreamed of my uncle, my mother’s brother, who had died the previous month. He accompanied me on a walk, a much needed break. The road was quiet and something was explained to me at great length as he walked to my right, nudging his pushbike along as we talked. In answer to my question, he told me it was a five hour walk to his house. I was tired and sighed ‘I don’t think I can go that far, even though I want to’. Very kindly he explained that I couldn’t go that far anyway, as this was territory beyond my entitlement just yet. Whereas I was tired he was fresh and youthful. He took me to a room and sat beside me while I caught up on the sleep I needed. He seemed to be there to give me love and support, with a readiness to stay with me a while, until it was time for him to move on.

On waking I could recall none of our deeper conversation, but I felt refreshed, grounded and settled. I felt as if much had fallen into place.

I have not had one second’s regret at my action, in our out of my dreams, and am eternally grateful for the courage which that dream gave me. My life has improved and opened up in many ways, especially in areas of asserting equal rights in all my relationships. My husband has more empathy towards my upbringing, since I had underplayed the old family dynamics because they would have seemed unbelievable to others. His witness has been my gain, in belief that my perception of my past was not distorted, and that family life, as I knew it was largely unloving.

I have not heard from my parents and don’t expect to for a long time, perhaps never. They have written a couple of letters to my children: items of family news with no mention of my husband or myself. I feel I have extended the offer or a true relationship and can do no more. In my heart I love them, since I can see only the backgrounds they grew up in and the knots in which they have unwittingly tangled themselves; but loving them is one thing and deciding not to accept the hurt they offer in return is quite another.

Jane’s Interpretation

This is a good example of role playing in a dream, of putting ourselves on the spot, discovering how we really feel about something and then trying it out. The emotional response in the dream is usually a fairly accurate guide as to what needs to be done in waking life. The content of this dream clearly related to the problem that Moni took to bed, so the dream scenario is more literal than symbolic. Her options, in the face of her father’s change of attitude, clearly run through her mind and she does not hesitate in carrying out the decision that is ultimately right and healing for her.

As always, other people in our dreams commonly highlight aspects of ourselves and naturally Moni’s difficult relationship with her father over the years would have created aspects of her own character. In some cases she would have picked up his way of being and would now have to work at recognizing these learned characteristics and deciding which to keep and which to let go. At the same time she would have built up a whole array of defensive behaviors or opposite attitudes to her father, the true origin of which could be properly assessed and valued by facing herself as her father. Moni’s dream symbolically shows the need to come face to face with the ‘father in Moni’, rather than to pass the buck.

The obviously symbolic part of the dream is the setting since it did not relate to Moni’s home. A shop, in a dream as in life, is a place of choice: we survey a range of options (goods for sale) and choose to buy or not to buy. The hallway in a dream can be suggestive of a rebirth ( a long passage). The big antique door suggests that this issue of confronting or dealing with her father is an old one. Perhaps the door has been locked for a long time (antique, old), or perhaps the heavy old door is an allegory for the defense system Moni had built around herself.

While the dream’s main purpose was to act as a vehicle for Moni’s unconscious to role play and decide upon the action which was right for her, it beautifully illustrates the deeper symbolic aspects of a dream which have the potency to extend the life changes beyond addressing the relationship between two people and into the realm of healing and transforming the psyche of the dreamer.

Ocean Dip
Barney
Shot! 1994

~~~~~~dream~~~~~~

I was approached by my friend Mike, who said that he needed help to blow up his boat. I was more than willing to help him, and we went in the boat to Green Island. I gave Mike the instructions for blowing up the boat and how to handle the police later on.

The plan was that once the boat was detonated, we would jump into the water and swim for the island. As we jumped out of the boat I was shot. I woke up, and feeling quite shaken, I looked for the blood, then realised that this was only a dream.

~~~~~~

For a start I didn’t believe in this dream business at all. Before this dream, I don’t recall ever having one. I thought dreaming was a lot of rubbish. However this dream shook me up, I can tell you, so I went to see my friend Heather just so I could share the experience.

I really feared that I was going to be hurt. What stood out for me in the dream was that Mike came to me for help, when normally he always went to Paul, a very close friend of his. I felt that his approaching me was a strange action.

Heather said that my dream seemed to say that I was ‘green and impulsive’ and that I ‘isolated myself because of this type of behavior’ (Green Island). She knows me well. I couldn’t see the point, to tell you the truth. I didn’t make any effort to change until after I had a bad experience that seemed to fulfil the dream. That is, not until a week later when my impulsive actions got me into a fight that gave me concussion. Then I could understand the dream.

Personally, I’m one of those people who call a spade a spade and will use my fists when necessary. When I think people are having a go at me I’ll drop them very quickly, or, I used to, before the dream. Mind you, I always give them fair warning: I’d speak once, then bang!

The fight, the concussion and seeing his first ever remembered dream fulfilled in the way that Heather had predicted was the turning point for Barney: 

I started to change. I began to think before acting, and find that this pays off. I’ve decided that anyone can make an enemy, but not everyone can make friends. At times I have felt bored now that the excitement has gone, but found that people showed respect for my new laid-back attitude. This change was helped when I found people condemning the mongrel who hit me from behind, and admiring my self-control in not fighting back. Still, I wanted to get him, and was more or less waiting my chance, when I had three dreams that calmed me down. The effect of these dreams has caused a big change in my outlook.

Three sweet dreams! In one I was with my young brother in Heaven. He died with leukemia, aged twelve when I was fifteen. I never cried and refused to do that. Since the dream, when I knew that he was alive and happy, I have been at peace with myself.

Another dream was lovely too. I heard beautiful music and was aware that I was floating about one foot above the bed. I told myself to wake up and I did. I cried for the first time since my brother died and felt happy.

This happened very fast for Barney:

It was one week from the dream to the fight, then I had the three lovely dreams within the next two weeks.

Jane’s Interpretation

Everyone dreams, but not everyone recalls their nightly experiences. There are many reasons for this, but in Barney’s case it’s possible that he has been running away from himself for a long time. Fast, impulsive action without time for measured assessment of thought or the deeper levels of feeling, is a common self-avoidance way of life. In the end this can only be self-destructive, as shown in the dream.

In interpreting Barney’s dream I would firstly ask him to describe Mike, because the dream concerns not only his relationship with Mike (self-destruction?) but also the Mike-like aspects of Barney. In what ways is Barney like Mike and in what ways does he play Mike’s opposite? How could Barney benefit by killing off (shooting) the part of himself that plays Mike’s games, that acts according to Mike’s instructions? How often does Barney follow the Mike who lives in his own mind? Yes, the dream shows taking leads from Mike, or acting in Mike-like ways, is ultimately self-destructive. Before this dream, presumably, Barney saw Mike as friendly with Paul and unlikely to approach him. In the dream he realises there is a closer similarity or connection between himself and Mike than he thought. This is what brings him to his senses.

The beauty of Barney’s first dream is that it causes him to slow down, to pause for thought, to begin to weigh up life’s conflicts rather than to act impulsively. As soon as he allows these moments of reflection into his life, he is ready to meet and heal his past. What is amazing in Barney’s case is how quickly he allowed repressed grief from his brother’s death to surface, opening himself to peace after so many years of avoiding the issue. What a life-changing gift.