I’m taking an ongoing spiritual class taught by an old couple (man, woman); setting seems to be a church meeting room. At one point a young man asks me to participate in an additional weekly peer meeting, but I’m not sure I like his manic energy.
At the end of the last class, the couple closes with a ritual in which we each come up to the table before which they stand, receive warm hugs from each of them, and they give us some thin, wafer-like (corn?) chips. I hug the woman, then the man, who tells me they decide, based on how people feel at this point, if they will have an ongoing class. I note that I feel sad at the ending, a feeling that I sense from much of the class (this feeling stayed with me for a while post-dream).
I go downstairs to retrieve my laundry, and in a small back room see a flat gravestone in the earth with a woman’s name – recalling the dream later I think, “It started with an ‘L’…was it “Lemniscate? Is that even a word?”
Post dream, sipping my Guyusa tea, I look it up:
Definition oflemniscate
: a figure-eight shaped curve whose equation in polar coordinates is ρ2= a 2 cos 2θ or ρ2= a 2 sin 2θ
History and Etymology forlemniscate
New Latin lemniscata , from feminine of Latin lemniscatus with hanging ribbons, from lemniscus
Ha, well my dream recall fluctuates a LOT. Currently because of Jennifer Dumpert’s Guayusa oneirogen experiment, I’m more motivated…even so my dream recall this morning was “hmm, something about playing games with people, including a specific former coworker.”
Cool dream, very cryptic. Not really sure what to make of it, but a few things stand out, the most prominent being the feeling of sadness that was not only echoed by the other dream characters, but also persisted after the dream was over, Whenever I have dreams with emotional carry over like that, I know to keep my eyes peeled, and that something important is trying to be conveyed by the dream. Many of my premonition dreams (dreams of clarity) have ended this way.
You use the word “ongoing” twice to describe the group, and the mathmatical symbol, also looks like the symbol for infinity, or a perpetual ongoing.
You feel sad at the ending, and others as well, and I wonder if that sadness may be the determining factor in having another class, which becuas of so many people feeling that way, they decide to end the ongoing meetings.
This may be paralleled by the gravestone symbol, a death to something that was supposed to be continually ongoing (death to lemniscate, death to infinity)
I wonder if the dream is commenting on something in your life that was believed to be permanet or ongoing, but ended up stopping. Possibly the ending of something social, or relating to family ormfriends,becuase of the group gathering setting. Possibilythe ending of a belief, becuase of the spiritual setting.
I think the man and woman couple in the church is the divine couple Jungian archetype. They are there for you, to guide you. Sounds like you’re owning that laundry/sad feelings. What ever has passed away continues on in infinite.
I’m not sure what my original motivation for sharing this dream was, but generally if I want people to try to interpret my dream for me I’m explicit about asking for that, which I did not do here.
People are always, in my opinion, free to interpret a shared dream as if it is their own, and talk about what comes up for them. “If this were my dream…” is a great approach, it’s called “projective dreamwork.” The dreamer can hear that and maybe it resonates, maybe it doesn’t. Saying things like “what I think your dream means is…” or “sounds like you are…” is problematic at best, and likely to be received as invasive or rude.
Jeremy Taylor, who sadly passed away in 2018, was one of the few pioneers of group dreamwork in this country. In terms of people out there teaching a group process, for many years it was Montague Ullman, who was a psychiatrist, and Jeremy, who was a Unitarian Universalist minister. Their processes are quite different, though they do have elements in common, most famously the use of the phrase “if it were my dream.” For Jeremy, the point of this is that when commenting on another person’s dream, you never try to tell that person what their dream means, or say “you” or “your dream.” You always own your projection, as Jeremy would say. In fact, he calls his process Projective Dreamwork, to acknowledge that whenever we have an idea about someone else’s dream, it’s a projection.” [LINK]
Everything said here by others about what my dream might mean is 100% about them and may or may not reflect in any way what my dream means to me.
Not sure either . It was wrong of me to assume that you were interested in people commenting on it by posting about it in a public forum where people often comment on posts.
If that’s the case I hope you’ve learned from the error of your ways. Regardless, I’ve become more careful about what I post on public forums.
My previous post includes some useful information on best practices on how to go about commenting on other people’s dreams. What you do with that information is entirely up to you.
As far as I can tell there are no ground rules for dream sharing in Night Club, and it’s a completely open container – so anyone can show up and say whatever they want, however they want. That is certainly one approach to dream sharing, but not one that is currently of interest to me.
I dont see how it is problematic or rude or invasive, do you think you may be projecting those things onto other peoples words?
I do think this is 100% true. I think it is an infantile way of viewing the world when you only see things in black and white and absolutes. I think a more mature way of viewing it would be to say there is often a level of projection that takes place. But there is also intuition, and other things factor into dream interpretation. I would not consider it a science, more of an art.
How is that useful? Using words “what I think” and “sounds like” already imply that the writer is accounting for projection.
Again I think thats flawed logic. If you want to live in that land of mirrors where everything is a projection, go for it. But I think most rational people realize that life is too complex for a one size fits all approach.
When military veterans have reoccuring nightmares of their Humvee exploding and them losing their legs, I think it would be really foolish to tell them “well if this was my dream, I would imterpret it as ______”. If you have never had that dream experience, you cant know truely how you would interpret it, becuase you havent actually dreampt it. When most people share something they are looking for insight, not psychobabble, or defensive Intellecualization. I am sorry if you found my post or anyone elses here rude or intrusive or problematic. I think an ego always looking for problems, will find them everywhere.
This is the most important part of my previous responses. If anything I said is of use to you or anyone else, great! If not, toss it over your shoulder and walk on.
I truly do not have time to get bogged down in long arguments over this. I’m getting a little tuckered out here! Evidently your style of interaction vis-à-vis dream sharing is working beautifully for you, and that’s wonderful! Have at it. People will select in or out of this thread, dream sharing, or the forum in general based on how much they resonate (or not) with the culture, style of interaction, and substance of what is being discussed.
I have friends and a group elsewhere where I can do deep dream sharing that works for me. And that’s where I’ll be putting most of my energy and attention when it comes to dream work.
And with that, I bid you good night and sweet dreams.
I think it is wise when you feel overwhelmed or bogged down to retreat, and even wiser to go inward. Might be helpful to meditate on what part of the mind is consitently seeing problems where they may be non existant, it may be a similar mind or the same that is feeling bogged down and seeing arguments in the enviornment that are non existant?
Actually, that’s probably what I have. Make it 1/5th.
. It was wrong of me to assume that you were interested in people commenting on it by posting about it in a public forum where people often comment on posts.