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
All content on this blog is the copywritten material of Neva J Howell. Linking permitted but DO NOT post or reprint without permission.
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
Showing posts with label dreams about childhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dreams about childhood. Show all posts
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Dreams about Snakes and Fresh-Plowed Fields
All content on this blog, unless otherwise indicated, is the copywritten material of Neva J Howell. Linking permitted but DO NOT post or reprint without permission.
More medicine dreams
Back from vacation and what a glorious time we had at the beach. Gulf Shores before the 4th of July, lovely. Any time between July 4 and September 1, a traffic nightmare. The ocean always rejuvenates me even while She tends to make me sleepy.
OK, I had mentioned the dream I had before leaving for vacation so that's what I'll be sharing today. I've dreamed of snakes before. In fact, a recurring dream of my youth was of being in a pit full of snakes. This dream, in hindsight, had both literal and spiritual meaning. My childhood was not a peaceful one but also, Snake is a Totem bespeaking transformation and great change. My life, particularly in childhood, was transformationally abusing and I spent the rest of my childhood and quite a few of my adult years thus far, healing that trauma.
DREAMS ABOUT SNAKES:
Any time I dream about snakes or see a snake at a significant time, I always know big change is coming or required. I know that something drastic is about to shift in my reality. It has always been this way for me. What snakes mean to you, you will learn over time if you do not already know. However, while individual meanings of dreams about snakes may vary, the Snake Totem is about transformation in general. As the snake sheds its skin, the snake totem comes when we need to shed a part of our life that no longer serves or something we've outgrown. In my case, snake often comes to illuminate my fears as well and help me work thru them.
THE DREAM:
I'm walking down the road with my mother and my step-father, Bo, who died in 2004. Sometimes, when people who have passed appear in my dreams they represent my feelings about that person or some wisdom of that person that I need to see, or they can represent a conflict unresolved with that person. In this case, though, my step-father was literally there. His essence was there from the other side. How do I know this? Hard to explain. It's a feeling, both in the dream and on waking, that the energetic essence of the person was truly there, and not just a representation or symbolic image of the person. It was wonderful to see Bo again. He suffered in his passing and it was glorious to see him happy, smiling, at peace. He was enjoying his walk with my mom but it soon became clear he was there to assist me.
I noticed that there was a deep drop off to the right. (This road we are on in my dream is the road I grew up on. It is the road where my grandmother and grandfather lived and where I experienced a lot of abuse and other effects of living with an alcoholic parent, as well as suffering the effects of living in poverty. It is the road I used to walk down, to get in the stream and catch tadpoles. It is the road I used to ride up, listening to the tractors in the fields as a small child and mimicking the sound, over and over....doo-wacky, doo-wacky, doo-wacky.) In other words, this wasn't just any road. This was a very significant road for me to be walking down in the dream.
As I noticed the drop off, we all decided to go left (Bo leading) and cut thru a freshly plowed field. Bo and Mom went up at a different place in the field than did I. I was separated from the but could see Bo looking back at me every once in a while, smiling, as he and mom continued to walk and chat peacefully. There was awareness in his glances at me that went beyond casual. He knew what was going to happen and was checking to see how I was doing, along the way.
This was not just any field either. There used to be a house there and I lived there with my parents and sisters at one time. So I was walking thru where I once lived.
Suddenly, Bo looked back and yelled that he saw a rattlesnake. He was yelling and telling me where the snake was in the field and which way it was going. All the while, he smiled. In the dream itself, I thought he was doing spiritual work. He continued to talk and walk with mom but kept checking on me.
At that point, I saw the snake. It was monstrously huge. No rattlesnake was ever that big, anywhere. The snake was up above me in the field but put up it's huge head, as if looking for something. I knew it was looking for me, sniffing me out energetically. I saw that the neck of the snake was wounded fatally. There was a gaping bite with exposed flesh and bloody meat. I knew, when I woke, that this was another warning for me about my own neck. In a previous dream, KISSING MARCIA CLARK, the same side of the neck was highlighted. However, the warning is getting more severe because in this one, the wound was deadly.
I didn't mention before but I actually have some scar tissue on the same side of my neck, on the inside, as is being highlighted in my dreams. It is from a very severe infection I had a few years ago. I know it is tied into rage, anger, bitterness, and resentment. Those are the feelings I harbored when I got sick, the ones that weakened my immune system and allowed infection to take hold and keep me sick for a solid month. I've mentioned the antidote before.....I'll mention it again because I believe it saved my life. And gave me another chance to look at my communication issues, my throat chakra imbalances. But apparently, I'm not doing that well enough because this second warning was downright scary to me, physically speaking. I have been building up my own immune system for quite some time now and know that it is in danger still so the significance of this dream is not lost on me.
WHEN A DREAMTIME MESSAGE POINTS TO PHYSICAL HEALTH ISSUES: So, how do I know the wound on the snake's neck was representative of a physical problem with my neck rather than strictly being symbolic of repressed and/or improper communication? First of all, I have an actual physical concern about that area of my body already so that's a clue. Second, I knew it on waking and I trust those instincts. They come just as I am emerging from sleep and if they are there before conscious thought can interfere, I trust them.
Continuing the dream......I see this monstrosity of a snake turn it's head and look at me. It heads toward me. I try to run and hide in a building that suddenly appears in the freshly plowed field. The only thing I notice about this building is that it has several coke machines. I am hiding when I see the snake on a bicycle. It is headed straight for me and I am terrified. I know it is going to bite me in just a few seconds. I see it ride up to me, with a hood over it's head so i can't see it and it is sniffing me out. I wake before the bite.
MY TAKE ON THE SNAKE DREAM SO FAR: This dream has a lot of levels and I'm sure I'll only be scratching the surface of what it holds for me but here are a few areas of awareness around the dream.
1. Because the dream takes place in an area rich in history for me, I assume it is about more than present concerns. It is reaching back to other times in my life.
2. Because of the increase in physical injury to the neck in this dream, when compared to the Marcia Clark dream, I realize that my health is in jeopardy if I do not make the changes that Snake is suggesting.
3. Because my stepfather came from the other side to help, I know this a very significant dream that I should wrestle with, as Jacob with the Angel, until I glean the truth of it for my life.
DREAMS ABOUT FRESH-PLOWED FIELDS: If you consulted a dream message guide, you might find that walking thru fresh plowed fields would be symbolic of new beginnings or something along that line. In this dream, however, that is not the sense I get. All aspects of the dream landscape and contents must be taken into account to determine the meaning of any one specific within the dream. In this case, because it is a field that literally represents years of my own childhood, I wasn't sure "new beginnings" would be the meaning so I asked within.
The term "plowed under" came when I tried to describe the field. Plowed under. That's different that a new beginning. It is more turbulent, more agressive than a new beginning. I could literally visualize the little house that used to sit on that very field being plowed under. But what does it mean in this context?
As I walk thru that significant field, the huge snake appears. The presence of Bo, further up in the field with my mother, becomes highly significant at this point because he is interacting with me about the snake. Somehow, I am certain the snake carries a warning about my physical health. So Bo is there to direct me. And I notice he isn't disturbed. He is calm and smiling as he calls back to me, telling me where the snake is. At first, I logically deduced that Bo was trying to help me avoid the snake. Looking back at the reality, I'm not sure about that. I think he may have been trying to prepare me for it, but I don't know that he ever suggested how to avoid it. So, I think the fresh-plowed field represented the need for a total destruction of past behaviors and patterns from that time in my life, to save my health.
So, the snake finds me. I'm terrified, trying not to move at all so that maybe it won't know I'm alive. Wow, that's a powerful statement I didn't realize I was making....
trying not to move at all so that maybe it won't know I'm alive
That sentence could well describe my childhood years. Years of fear, supppression and abuse. I well remember trying to be so quiet that Daddy would not think about me when he was drunk. Trying to will myself into invisibility. Trying not to move at all......Wow. This brings tears. The significance of the fact that we, the snake and I, end up almost exactly at the location in the field where the house of my childhood actually stood, and across the street from another house where I also lived, does not escape me. It was as if I were standing in one part of the past,
across from another part and having yet two other parts on either side.
On one side of this field is my grandmother's house. On the other side, is a house I lived in as a baby.
Knowing the depth of healing and transformation that snake usually brings, the sheer size of this one coupled with the location, signals a tremendously important dream healing taking place, or at least the strong potential for deep transformational healing.
BIZARRE SYMBOLOGY IN DREAMS: Why was the snake on a bicycle? Why was it wearing a hood? Sometimes, I think bizarre elements such as these are added to make the dream so vivid that we are sure not to forget it. Other times, the bizarre elements themselves carry even more information. That's the case this time. When I remembered these two elements, I knew they reminded me of something. When I asked what that was, the image I got was from the movie "E.T." where Henry Thomas is riding the bicycle with E.T. on the back, with that hood over his head (or maybe the hood was during another part of the movie.....can't remember where it came in but it was amalgamated in the dream). He was taking E.T. home, finally, where he would be safe. I know this is the message of the snake. Terrifying as it was, it was trying to take me home to myself.
The fact that the dream ended before the snake bit me is also signficant. I think dreams stop when we reach out threshold of tolerance for change. A snake bite in a dream is one of the most powerful consciousness shifting events I know about. I've got enough to chew on now, but if I don't start listening, the snake might bite me next time.
More medicine dreams
Back from vacation and what a glorious time we had at the beach. Gulf Shores before the 4th of July, lovely. Any time between July 4 and September 1, a traffic nightmare. The ocean always rejuvenates me even while She tends to make me sleepy.
OK, I had mentioned the dream I had before leaving for vacation so that's what I'll be sharing today. I've dreamed of snakes before. In fact, a recurring dream of my youth was of being in a pit full of snakes. This dream, in hindsight, had both literal and spiritual meaning. My childhood was not a peaceful one but also, Snake is a Totem bespeaking transformation and great change. My life, particularly in childhood, was transformationally abusing and I spent the rest of my childhood and quite a few of my adult years thus far, healing that trauma.
DREAMS ABOUT SNAKES:
Any time I dream about snakes or see a snake at a significant time, I always know big change is coming or required. I know that something drastic is about to shift in my reality. It has always been this way for me. What snakes mean to you, you will learn over time if you do not already know. However, while individual meanings of dreams about snakes may vary, the Snake Totem is about transformation in general. As the snake sheds its skin, the snake totem comes when we need to shed a part of our life that no longer serves or something we've outgrown. In my case, snake often comes to illuminate my fears as well and help me work thru them.
THE DREAM:
I'm walking down the road with my mother and my step-father, Bo, who died in 2004. Sometimes, when people who have passed appear in my dreams they represent my feelings about that person or some wisdom of that person that I need to see, or they can represent a conflict unresolved with that person. In this case, though, my step-father was literally there. His essence was there from the other side. How do I know this? Hard to explain. It's a feeling, both in the dream and on waking, that the energetic essence of the person was truly there, and not just a representation or symbolic image of the person. It was wonderful to see Bo again. He suffered in his passing and it was glorious to see him happy, smiling, at peace. He was enjoying his walk with my mom but it soon became clear he was there to assist me.
I noticed that there was a deep drop off to the right. (This road we are on in my dream is the road I grew up on. It is the road where my grandmother and grandfather lived and where I experienced a lot of abuse and other effects of living with an alcoholic parent, as well as suffering the effects of living in poverty. It is the road I used to walk down, to get in the stream and catch tadpoles. It is the road I used to ride up, listening to the tractors in the fields as a small child and mimicking the sound, over and over....doo-wacky, doo-wacky, doo-wacky.) In other words, this wasn't just any road. This was a very significant road for me to be walking down in the dream.
As I noticed the drop off, we all decided to go left (Bo leading) and cut thru a freshly plowed field. Bo and Mom went up at a different place in the field than did I. I was separated from the but could see Bo looking back at me every once in a while, smiling, as he and mom continued to walk and chat peacefully. There was awareness in his glances at me that went beyond casual. He knew what was going to happen and was checking to see how I was doing, along the way.
This was not just any field either. There used to be a house there and I lived there with my parents and sisters at one time. So I was walking thru where I once lived.
Suddenly, Bo looked back and yelled that he saw a rattlesnake. He was yelling and telling me where the snake was in the field and which way it was going. All the while, he smiled. In the dream itself, I thought he was doing spiritual work. He continued to talk and walk with mom but kept checking on me.
At that point, I saw the snake. It was monstrously huge. No rattlesnake was ever that big, anywhere. The snake was up above me in the field but put up it's huge head, as if looking for something. I knew it was looking for me, sniffing me out energetically. I saw that the neck of the snake was wounded fatally. There was a gaping bite with exposed flesh and bloody meat. I knew, when I woke, that this was another warning for me about my own neck. In a previous dream, KISSING MARCIA CLARK, the same side of the neck was highlighted. However, the warning is getting more severe because in this one, the wound was deadly.
I didn't mention before but I actually have some scar tissue on the same side of my neck, on the inside, as is being highlighted in my dreams. It is from a very severe infection I had a few years ago. I know it is tied into rage, anger, bitterness, and resentment. Those are the feelings I harbored when I got sick, the ones that weakened my immune system and allowed infection to take hold and keep me sick for a solid month. I've mentioned the antidote before.....I'll mention it again because I believe it saved my life. And gave me another chance to look at my communication issues, my throat chakra imbalances. But apparently, I'm not doing that well enough because this second warning was downright scary to me, physically speaking. I have been building up my own immune system for quite some time now and know that it is in danger still so the significance of this dream is not lost on me.
WHEN A DREAMTIME MESSAGE POINTS TO PHYSICAL HEALTH ISSUES: So, how do I know the wound on the snake's neck was representative of a physical problem with my neck rather than strictly being symbolic of repressed and/or improper communication? First of all, I have an actual physical concern about that area of my body already so that's a clue. Second, I knew it on waking and I trust those instincts. They come just as I am emerging from sleep and if they are there before conscious thought can interfere, I trust them.
Continuing the dream......I see this monstrosity of a snake turn it's head and look at me. It heads toward me. I try to run and hide in a building that suddenly appears in the freshly plowed field. The only thing I notice about this building is that it has several coke machines. I am hiding when I see the snake on a bicycle. It is headed straight for me and I am terrified. I know it is going to bite me in just a few seconds. I see it ride up to me, with a hood over it's head so i can't see it and it is sniffing me out. I wake before the bite.
MY TAKE ON THE SNAKE DREAM SO FAR: This dream has a lot of levels and I'm sure I'll only be scratching the surface of what it holds for me but here are a few areas of awareness around the dream.
1. Because the dream takes place in an area rich in history for me, I assume it is about more than present concerns. It is reaching back to other times in my life.
2. Because of the increase in physical injury to the neck in this dream, when compared to the Marcia Clark dream, I realize that my health is in jeopardy if I do not make the changes that Snake is suggesting.
3. Because my stepfather came from the other side to help, I know this a very significant dream that I should wrestle with, as Jacob with the Angel, until I glean the truth of it for my life.
DREAMS ABOUT FRESH-PLOWED FIELDS: If you consulted a dream message guide, you might find that walking thru fresh plowed fields would be symbolic of new beginnings or something along that line. In this dream, however, that is not the sense I get. All aspects of the dream landscape and contents must be taken into account to determine the meaning of any one specific within the dream. In this case, because it is a field that literally represents years of my own childhood, I wasn't sure "new beginnings" would be the meaning so I asked within.
The term "plowed under" came when I tried to describe the field. Plowed under. That's different that a new beginning. It is more turbulent, more agressive than a new beginning. I could literally visualize the little house that used to sit on that very field being plowed under. But what does it mean in this context?
As I walk thru that significant field, the huge snake appears. The presence of Bo, further up in the field with my mother, becomes highly significant at this point because he is interacting with me about the snake. Somehow, I am certain the snake carries a warning about my physical health. So Bo is there to direct me. And I notice he isn't disturbed. He is calm and smiling as he calls back to me, telling me where the snake is. At first, I logically deduced that Bo was trying to help me avoid the snake. Looking back at the reality, I'm not sure about that. I think he may have been trying to prepare me for it, but I don't know that he ever suggested how to avoid it. So, I think the fresh-plowed field represented the need for a total destruction of past behaviors and patterns from that time in my life, to save my health.
So, the snake finds me. I'm terrified, trying not to move at all so that maybe it won't know I'm alive. Wow, that's a powerful statement I didn't realize I was making....
trying not to move at all so that maybe it won't know I'm alive
That sentence could well describe my childhood years. Years of fear, supppression and abuse. I well remember trying to be so quiet that Daddy would not think about me when he was drunk. Trying to will myself into invisibility. Trying not to move at all......Wow. This brings tears. The significance of the fact that we, the snake and I, end up almost exactly at the location in the field where the house of my childhood actually stood, and across the street from another house where I also lived, does not escape me. It was as if I were standing in one part of the past,
across from another part and having yet two other parts on either side.
On one side of this field is my grandmother's house. On the other side, is a house I lived in as a baby.
Knowing the depth of healing and transformation that snake usually brings, the sheer size of this one coupled with the location, signals a tremendously important dream healing taking place, or at least the strong potential for deep transformational healing.
BIZARRE SYMBOLOGY IN DREAMS: Why was the snake on a bicycle? Why was it wearing a hood? Sometimes, I think bizarre elements such as these are added to make the dream so vivid that we are sure not to forget it. Other times, the bizarre elements themselves carry even more information. That's the case this time. When I remembered these two elements, I knew they reminded me of something. When I asked what that was, the image I got was from the movie "E.T." where Henry Thomas is riding the bicycle with E.T. on the back, with that hood over his head (or maybe the hood was during another part of the movie.....can't remember where it came in but it was amalgamated in the dream). He was taking E.T. home, finally, where he would be safe. I know this is the message of the snake. Terrifying as it was, it was trying to take me home to myself.
The fact that the dream ended before the snake bit me is also signficant. I think dreams stop when we reach out threshold of tolerance for change. A snake bite in a dream is one of the most powerful consciousness shifting events I know about. I've got enough to chew on now, but if I don't start listening, the snake might bite me next time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)