when the sugar and caffeine wear off...
Jan. 10th, 2005 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
artyartieI decided to post this to my regular journal, a little ruminating (and writing exercise!) on my dreams and a certain theme that seems to keep recurring...
A virgin can dream of the most carnal pleasures. A woman can dream herself into a man's body. Those constrained by gravity can dream of flight so vividly it seems like a memory. The living can dream of their deaths.
Freud tells us dreams are hidden desires and wants, and I have dreamt of those things and woken to feel the aching loss of what was never truly mine. Jung tells us dreams are gateways to a collective unconscious, to greater archetypes and I haved dreamt of myths and symbols. I have dreamt of insanities and absurdities, of things comical and sensual. There have been glimpses, however veiled and vague, of things which came to pass, and things which I hope never come to be. But these dreams of water and cold confuse me, and for one who has never lived much among either, I wonder why in dreams, they always seem to portend death.
Last night's was a 'little death' that had nothing to do with eroticism so much as my lucid mind 'returning' me to life. There was a plummet from a rocky cliff face, icy water, brilliant and blue and deathly cold, but it wasn't the fall, the rapturous fall which was indeed memory of dropping out of the sky. I had leapt into the water to save a life - someone I loved but didn't know needed me to save them - and I can't even remember if I rescued them or not. All I remember is the cold, the bitter cold seeping into every cell of my body even as it kept me afloat. Then there was silence, a soft pause, a change of scene, and then there was life again, swaddled in white, still burning with chill, unable to move.
I'm not sure what frightened me more - the fact that I could barely even move my hands or the cold that settled into my chest, a black hole of a nameless longing. In the Tarot, Death is transition, change, nothing to fear, and truly I do not fear these dreams. But I do wonder what they mean, the hidden truths at which my subconscious may or may not be pointing. Water represents emotion and the ice, the cold represents those feelings frozen, held in statsis, unable to move. Perhaps my mind is nudging me to learn how to swim.
Soon I'll settle back down for another night of sleep, another night of dreams and whatever lessons they have for me. My dreams may be gentle, light, even whimsical tonight, or they may again bring water and cold. Whichever they may be, I'll do my best to pay attention.
A virgin can dream of the most carnal pleasures. A woman can dream herself into a man's body. Those constrained by gravity can dream of flight so vividly it seems like a memory. The living can dream of their deaths.
Freud tells us dreams are hidden desires and wants, and I have dreamt of those things and woken to feel the aching loss of what was never truly mine. Jung tells us dreams are gateways to a collective unconscious, to greater archetypes and I haved dreamt of myths and symbols. I have dreamt of insanities and absurdities, of things comical and sensual. There have been glimpses, however veiled and vague, of things which came to pass, and things which I hope never come to be. But these dreams of water and cold confuse me, and for one who has never lived much among either, I wonder why in dreams, they always seem to portend death.
Last night's was a 'little death' that had nothing to do with eroticism so much as my lucid mind 'returning' me to life. There was a plummet from a rocky cliff face, icy water, brilliant and blue and deathly cold, but it wasn't the fall, the rapturous fall which was indeed memory of dropping out of the sky. I had leapt into the water to save a life - someone I loved but didn't know needed me to save them - and I can't even remember if I rescued them or not. All I remember is the cold, the bitter cold seeping into every cell of my body even as it kept me afloat. Then there was silence, a soft pause, a change of scene, and then there was life again, swaddled in white, still burning with chill, unable to move.
I'm not sure what frightened me more - the fact that I could barely even move my hands or the cold that settled into my chest, a black hole of a nameless longing. In the Tarot, Death is transition, change, nothing to fear, and truly I do not fear these dreams. But I do wonder what they mean, the hidden truths at which my subconscious may or may not be pointing. Water represents emotion and the ice, the cold represents those feelings frozen, held in statsis, unable to move. Perhaps my mind is nudging me to learn how to swim.
Soon I'll settle back down for another night of sleep, another night of dreams and whatever lessons they have for me. My dreams may be gentle, light, even whimsical tonight, or they may again bring water and cold. Whichever they may be, I'll do my best to pay attention.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 02:15 pm (UTC)You don't swim?
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Date: 2005-01-11 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 07:11 pm (UTC)