The feel or fear question

The feel or fear question.

“Where do you feel or fear this in your life?” It’s a simple question you can use when interpreting a dream, and one that can yield deeply rewarding insight, but at first glance it looks a bit odd. After all, isn’t fear a feeling?

Let’s start with an example.

If you dreamed of driving a car and reaching a block on the road, you might ask, “Where do I feel blocked in my life, or where do I fear being blocked?”

You might find it easy to relate to feeling blocked, and be able to point to a situation, perhaps in your work, perhaps in your personal or spiritual life. You can then explore the rest of the dream to discover more about the block that you’re experiencing in waking life and find ways to free your path.

Or you might be quite confused, because you are not feeling at all blocked, and you may even be making speedy progress and feeling quite elated about it all. At this point you find it difficult to relate to the dream. This is where you focus on asking yourself where you fear being blocked in your life.

If you sit with this question for a while (or use other pointers in your dream to bring you clarity), an answer will emerge. You might realise that you fear being blocked at work so much that you put in extra study, hours, and energy to thoroughly ensure that you anticipate all possible blocks and do whatever you can to ensure your fast forward progress.

That fear is frequently more unconscious than conscious.

That’s why it can take some digging to recognise it as a force that drives your more conscious behaviour.

Or you may be more consciously aware of the fear as a driving force, but you haven’t related it to the intensity and passion of your efforts to try to control life outcomes, and the downsides this more extreme approach can bring.

Dreams reveal aspects of your conscious and unconscious experiences, feelings, beliefs, attitudes, and habitual behaviour patterns. They can help you to identify situations where you are driven by your unconscious fears, feelings, beliefs, attitudes, and habitual behaviour patterns, and they help you to understand why. They also provide material you can use to reprogram these unconscious drives, as well as to offer healing and resolution.

So yes, it is an odd question, as fear is indeed a feeling, but the question is a dream interpretation tool that delivers.

Once you’ve identified the theme in a dream, throw semantics and logic aside, and ask yourself the question. “Where do you feel or fear this in your life?” See where it takes you.

You’ll know when your answer is on track, because you’ll feel it deep in your bones, and you’ll feel it ripple across your skin.

Sit with it awhile, then return to your bag of dream interpretation tools and dig in to unearth the rest of your dream’s gift.