Overwhelming Situations in dreams

The meaning of being overwhelmed by situations in dreams / dreams about being unable to complete tasks / dreams involving people from a specific time in your life

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The Dreams:
The past two nights, I've had dreams with a common theme in that I felt overwhelmed in them. In the first one, I am a kitchen worker of some type. I seem to be responsible for feeding a crew of men. In the dream, I am either working with or actually am a girl with whom I attended school with, from elementary up through high school.

I remember repeatedly trying to complete tasks, only to have another crop up and take my attention. For example, I was trying to make plates for some of the men and then realized I needed to make coffee but when I tried to make coffee, I looked over and saw all these trays of fruit (I remember cantaloupe in particular but there were other fresh fruits there too) and realized I needed to do something about them.

I woke from the dream in the early morning hours, and was unable to sleep afterwards for some time. I felt tired and drained.

The second dream, last night, has already retreated from my memory but I do recall feeling completely overwhelmed in it as well.

My take on the dream so far:

Anytime I have a dream with someone I know in it, I consider what I feel about that person in real life, to find clues of why I may have chosen them to represent something in the dream.

If I think of this person, I remember her as being extremely serious, extremely intelligent, very quiet, and somewhat dull. I believe she was also abused as a child so this is part of my memory of her. She also had psoriasis, which is a skin condition that I associate with emotional repression of some kind.

Also, I look at the feeling aspect of the dream. In both dreams, the main component was a feeling of being overwhelmed.

On the surface, it's easy to see that this dream is about my being overwhelmed in some aspect. What is harder to trace is the specific area of overwhelm. In my case, at this point in time, it could be a lot of things.

If I take into account the factors....who was in the dream, what was in the dream (serving the male and fresh fruit stand out) and the feeling aspect, which was overwhelm, my initial reaction to the dream, it becomes very symbolically rich.

My take on it all is fuzzy, at best, so far. I sense that I'm being shown ways that I distract myself, divide my energies and force the feminine aspect of being into service to the male aspect of doing. It points to male/female imbalance at an energetic level, probably from belief systems that started during the abusive part of my childhood. It also points to a lack of ability to access the sweetness in my life (evidenced by the abundance of fresh fruit and my inability in the dream, to focus on it long enough to serve any).

Lots to think on.

Update: 10/07/07

I've been pondering the significance of the old school mate who showed up in this dream. I can now see how perfect the choice was, and applaud my dreamtime intelligence in choosing her.

When I recount what I remember about her that stands out in terms of forming impressions, I could be talking about myself. I don't have psoriasis but, aside from that, all the other attributes apply - like my schoolmate, I remember myself as at that age and see that I also considered myself extremely intelligent (I remember crying on the bus because I got a B+ on some test - it was unthinkable that I'd get anything other than an A), I was even more serious than I remember my friend ever being, I had been abused as a child and I certainly had emotional repression.

So, looking back on the dream with this new focus, I can see that it was dealing with belief systems about myself that were set up in junior high school. It helps to know that because then I can work with that aspect of myself, specifically, and ask for more clarification and instruction.

I consider cellular release of inner child trauma to be vital where there are issues of abuse. I have met a few healers who know how to do this work, either on a conscious level or just instinctively, and hope that more in the healing field will recognize the importance of addressing core issues at a cellular level.

This is what I intend to do for that part of myself, that junior high self who was too serious, too smart and too repressed.

a good ritual for releasing past trauma