The clues in dreams

I've been interested in dreams for along time. What are they? Why do we have them? Why are they called 'dreams'? Do they mean anything or are they merely the equivalent of an overnight electro-chemical rebalancing process?

I have a vague and shifting memory of a dream I had last night. I have to sit still for some moments in order to recall fragments. I am finding that the more I recall, the more I recall.

I was in a large, dark room, walking through a group of young people who seemed to have been there for some sort of meeting. A film was showing but there seemed to be no screen. Something was happening but I was removed from it.

I had been trying to retrieve something from a back room. It was filled with electronic equipment and computer screens and was apparently well-used. It's purpose was at once obvious but indeterminate. I became locked in. Momentarily frightened, I tried to force my way out but the door would not budge - the handle seemed not to be working as it should. 

I tried a number of times to use it properly but it would not let me.

Suddenly, I found a key beside the door (it was something I couldn't see but it was clearly meant to let me out: it felt like a favour). The door pivoted back towards me I walked out but for some reason I couldn't articulate, I needed to go back into the room. The door had become heavy, almost immovable, and a large cylindrical canister now blocked my way. Eventually, as much as I shoved against its weight, the door closed, pushing me out.

I walked through the group of people and out into the night. I remember that it may not have been night when I entered but I can't remember going into the building.

There were three or four cars parked in the vicinity and I expected mine to be there as well. It looked and felt like a scene from a fifties film noir gangster story. Perhaps elements of the television series "Fargo" had bled into my dream.

My car wasn't there. I ran along the parking spots, staring through the haze of night but couldn't see it.  Someone had stolen my car. I became agitated and angry. How dare that happen!

I had found myself in what seemed to be the playground of my old primary school but many years after I had left. I spoke to the two or three people who were outside, asking if they knew anything but none did. 

How long were you in there? asked a man who had his face turned away from me.

Only ten minutes,  I snapped back. Surely not enough time to steal a car with these people around, I thought.

Well, at least you have all your materials to continue your work, suggested one woman, whom I didn't recognise. I found myself carrying a heavy satchel.

I exploded.

I don't care about my fucking work. Don't you get it? Someone has taken ... and here I can't remember the exact words I used but they had this meaning ... my ability to go where I want! Don't you fucking understand? I shouted into the dark night.

I think the anger in my voice and the sheer intensity with which I shouted brought an end to the dream and I woke up.

 

I lay awake for some time trying to decipher what that might have meant.

Why did this dream come to me right now? I believe this is important. It seems to me that dreaming is the way our unconscious communicates with our conscious because, most of the time, we are immersed in our conscious existence. In this state of conscious alertness we are unable to access our unconscious minds, which are just as much a part of us as the world our conscious senses brings to us.

While our dreams are not usually literal "plotlines" of activity and experience, they are full of metaphor and symbol and these can often speak to us in more powerful ways than the consciously perceived events and facts we encounter while awake.

After some time, during which I tried to commit my dream to memory (I used to write down my dreams - perhaps I will return to that practice) and to decipher what it might mean, I came up with a working theory:

• I have not been taking control over parts of my life and am unconsciously angry with myself about that.
• I haven't found what I've been looking for (the tech-filled room) and I have to close that door rather than go back there. 
• The fear I felt is really the fear of looking somewhere else.
• The people in my life are not the arbiters of my future.
• My dreaming car is a metaphor for my dependence on external elements to take me where I want to go. In reality, my dream anxiety and anger at having that taken away mirrors my fear of facing new changes in my conscious life.
• The drive to move comes from within.

All of these thoughts found tentative handholds in my wondering brain last night and now seem to be solidifying, strengthening, placed up against the moments of my lived experience.

It has been a 'dream' of mine since I was very young to one day become an 'adult. I believe that adulthood is not a state at which one arrives. Rather, it is a state of mind that one forms throughout life. Last night's dream has perhaps provided me with another clue to what it might mean for me.