Dreams & Personal Symbols
by Starcat
By paying attention to the dreams you have each night, you can enhance your self-knowledge and gain clues that help you live a more meaningful and joyful life. After you begin keeping a dream journal, or regularly sharing your dreams with a loved one, you’ll notice certain patterns or themes that tend to come up again and again. The things or events that recur in your dreams can become potent personal symbols. Your inner self is wise, and will send you messages meant to help guide you.
What do I mean by this?
In waking life, I’m a good driver. We live in the country, so we rely on car travel to get us where we need to go. When I worked full time outside the home, I drove 40 miles each weekday to get to and from my job, even in the winter. I learned to drive with caution and confidence.
In my dreams, however, I simply can’t drive worth beans.
Every time I find myself behind the wheel of a vehicle in the dreamlands, something goes awry. Recent driving dreams include bumping into a whole line of cars in a tunnel; no one was hurt, but I was bemoaning the time it would take to deal with all the insurance paperwork and consequences. In the dream, I was rushing to pick up one of the kids and I realized I’d be terribly late. I was so glad when I woke up and realized it wasn’t real. In another dream, I was driving a huge truck, and ended up driving it right up onto the top of a car carrier at an intersection! These are just a couple of examples, but it’s been an ongoing theme for years.
What does it mean? Well, I tend to have these dreams when my ego self feels like things are out of control in my life. I’m supposed to be the driver, right? The one in charge? Maybe not.
My driving dreams have helped me realize that my everyday life goes more smoothly when I don’t try to be in control of every little thing. The energy of control is stressful and when I’m in that mode, I end up with results that aren’t what I wanted. Instead, if I release my attachment and go with the flow, I find myself arriving just where I wanted to be in the first place – or somewhere even better.
BlackLion often dreams of participating in and creating games, which is a passion of his in waking life. It reminds him to be playful and have fun. It also helps him with the framework of interpersonal relationships. When he communicates with people, there are agreed-upon guidelines like the ones that form the framework of a game. He’s learning to play by the rules of his own personal values and negotiate how they interact with those of people he cares about.
What personal symbols or metaphors are coming to you through your dreams? If no examples spring to mind right away, take some time this week to notice if there are any symbols that show up again and again. If you don’t easily recall your dreams, you can look to your daydreams or most cherished goals to find themes that pop up often.
Now examine them to see how they might relate to your waking life. What messages are being sent to you from your deep inner wisdom? How could applying this advice enhance your experience?
Take time to play with your dream symbols, trying out different interpretations. It’s your own inner world, and there are no “right” or “wrong” answers. Dreams provide you with an unending supply of ideas, questions, and advice that can deepen your connection to your intuition. Experiment with your own dream symbols, and see what unfolds.