River 21
Akira
Where Am I? 1990

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

Looking at myself in the mirror I was unable to see my image. I remember the feeling of panic as I was rubbing the mirror with my hand trying to clean it and yet still I could not see my image. I knew there was something desperately wrong and I just didn’t know what to do.

~~~~~~

I felt that I had lost control over my life. I was tired, losing weight, felt stressed and was confused. I felt that I was here for a special purpose, but that I was not fulfilling this purpose. I was beginning to feel a victim of life.

I was becoming more and more reclusive and had put my family on hold, as I always put Simon’s wishes before my own. I didn’t know how it had all happened but I was losing my identity, my individuality, and I was living my life through Simon, in his shadow so to speak. I was aware that I had allowed this situation to develop, but I felt powerless to change anything.

I had a number of dreams similar to my mirror dream during early 1990. I think there may have been two of these. In the first one my image was a little clearer and in the second one, it faded altogether. These dreams signalled a turning point in my life.

The dreams were straightforward to Akira, and needed little interpretation. Quite simply:

My image, my form, was literally fading away. The dream left me feeling so shocked that I knew I absolutely had to take action. I guess I knew that I would leave my body soon if I did nothing. Although I am not afraid of dying, I knew that I had work to do that I had not completed, even though at this stage I didn’t fully understand my purpose here.

I had always been into natural therapies and had a lot of success in connecting to my higher self and greater wisdom through the use of flower essences and gem therapy. I wrote to a friend, a flower essence practitioner, in whom I had confided for a time and who had made up a number of flower and gem remedies for me in the past. He sent me yet another remedy. This time my greater attunement, as a result of this, led me to a naturopath who had recently moved into my area. I made an appointment for a massage.

During the course of the massage, my newly found friend tuned into my body and discovered that I had lost most of my muscle tone, that I had a serious pancreatic enzyme deficiency, and later told me that she had felt I was just a few days away from leaving my body. Because of my enzyme deficiency I had been digesting only a quarter of my food intake.

I spent the next several months seeing her on a regular basis. Over the next two years or so I gradually built myself up again, with proper food combining, herbal and mineral supplements, digestive enzymes, exercise and so on.

These changes were actually the result of a series of dreams. Following on from the ‘mirror dreams’ I received many dreams of guidance in how to deal with my day-to-day situation and interactions with others. Foods I needed to eat, supplements I needed to take, gemstones to use, flower essences to take, and so on, all came in dreams.

As my body became stronger, gradually my mental and emotional strength grew as well. I began to take greater control of my life, but this took quite a long time. Eventually I left Simon, as I felt I just could not really be myself so long as I stayed with him.

I travelled and had never felt quite so free. It was the first time in my life since I was a teenager that I had not been in a relationship. There was just me and I realised that life was exciting and that I could do whatever I liked!

I dreamt about Mexico, and Chichen Itza and the Yucatan Peninsula, and I knew that one day I needed to go there and connect with that energy. This I did during the time Simon and I were apart. I felt that during this trip I connected to and released a lot of past life stuff and connected to a lot of wisdom in Mexico.

In time I returned to Simon, who had needed the break as much as I did to review his life and decide what he really wanted. This time it’s different.

I had a dream, early in 1991, that we had decided to go to Fiji for a holiday. So we did, and I realised when we were there that there was a lot more to this holiday than I had first realised. I knew that connecting to the energy of that place was for the purpose of bringing into our awareness ‘stuff’ that was deeply repressed and needed to be dealt with. Over the next year or so, as a result of this holiday, a number of personal issues were dealt with. Sometimes I see the old patterns creeping in, but I am more aware and can mostly deal with the energy before any uncomfortable life situations manifest themselves.

My only regret is that it took me so long to take many of the actions that followed the dream. My final action in taking my own space and travelling was absolutely one of the best I have taken in my life. During that time, I always had the love and support of my family and we became close again during this time I was on my own. I met and made some wonderful friends, I developed more confidence in myself and felt more self-worth than I had in years. And my health was great, too!

I see my family when it feels right, taking space when I need it. I am much more in control. Back with Simon I am now much stronger and know that I am fine, on my own or in partnership.

Jane’s Interpretation

What we see in dream mirrors can be quite enlightening. We think we know who we are until we see ourselves reflected back, looking quite different. A mirror enables us to look at ourselves much more objectively, and although waking life mirrors can lie, and we are clever at seeing what we want to see, or of focusing on the negative, our dream mirrors tend to reflect a more honest, if symbolic, picture. In dreams we truly see ourselves because the unconscious deals in home truths. If you see a mirror in a dream, gather courage and have a look!

Akira’s image had disappeared. She saw herself as fading away, losing her identity. No-one was there. She acknowledged in the dream, perhaps for the first time, that something was desperately wrong, but the dream also showed her that she had lost control over her life because she no longer knew what to do. Awareness is always the first step. Once awareness of a problem is transferred to waking life consciousness, further dreams usually reveal the necessary direction and guidance. Acceptance or acknowledgment prepares us to take successful action. We need to know where we are before we can measure the next step.

Ocean Dip
Dee Dee
Courage 1987

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

Everybody was telling me what I should do, what I shouldn’t do and what I was supposed to say to different people. I told them to get off my back and leave me alone.

~~~~~~

My marriage was full of arguments and rows at the time, so I interpreted the dream as meaning I had to stand up for myself and not let my husband do all the decision-making for me. It took six months to put the dream into action, but it changed my life.

In the dream I had the courage to tell people to get off my back, so I finally told my husband that there would be no more arguments or rows, and that I could make my own decisions for myself. I asked him to let me do so. Everything just seemed to fall into place after that.

Dee Dee’s dreams came to her rescue again in 1994, encouraging her to make a further important stand:

I dreamed I was on a deserted island which was being flooded by sea water. I could not get off the island no matter how I tried. I was stuck there.

At the time of the dream I had been wearing myself into the ground with fundraising and helping out at school. I was having bad migraines and the dream feeling of being flooded by sea water was an image of my life. I felt the dream was warning me that if I did not slow down with that I was doing, my life or my world was going to collapse or cave in on me.

I decided to slow down before I burnt out, so two months later I stopped helping out at the school. Although I regret upsetting my youngest son very much because of this, I feel quite happy with my action.

Jane’s Interpretation

The power of role-playing in a dream pays off again. All Dee Dee had to do was identify the situation she needed to stand up to in her waking life, and then do it!