@alex
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Both my son and I had a suggestion yesterday, though at the time there was no chaos or talk around the virus. Buying soap, using soap, trying to get soap and being tested is now a current constant! I wonder if we were both tapping into something there. Jane, I would be interested to hear your view on this unusual event.
Hi Marion,
thanks for your thoughts. A couple of things that came up for me in your reply, certainly not wishing to push my ideas, but something might come here for you.Of course there are many ways to look at dreams, but I do subscribe to Jane Teresas notion that everything in dreams represents an aspect of the self. As I understand it, when we dream of animals the theory is that we look at two things, the animal as an archetype AND the behaviour of the animal. So if I dreamed of a crocodile that was behaving in a placid way, I could interpret that as something that I interpret as dangerous or a threat to me has become less so, or is not a problem for me at the moment. I could not ignore the fact that the crocodile is violent and a predator because that is his nature, however he might appear in the dream. Your dream mouse was selfish and mean, but that doesn’t describe all mice, that describes how the mouse part, whatever he represents, is acting out in you at the moment for whatever reason. If mice are basically troublesome and they need to be caught and released, so it may be a part of you that you feel is troublesome and needs some form of release too and behaves in a selfish way for some deeper reason.
Dreams need dialogue, knowing that you did indeed give the mouse the main bit of toffee changes a lot. The basic premise of the dream seems to be that the mouse is acting out because it is not getting the food it needs and is still hungry. So I would postulate that the way in which you ARE feeding this aspect of yourself is not what is really needed. Or perhaps what is on offer at the current time is not what you want, perhaps its too sweet or serine? maybe it makes you feel mean in some way even, however it still seems to me that the motivation for the mouse behaving in this way because he is hungry rather than purely to be unkind. The toffee is great as a life saver but has little nutritional value.
Just ideas. I dream of animals a lot, I find them really interesting to work with in this way as totems. Most animals have many attributes, they wont all fit, the psyche seems to pick certain animals to represent specific aspects it can relate to well. Or it does with me anyway. I have some animals that I know very clearly now what they are talking about when they come, because they come often, the dream situation and the behaviours changes, but they are still talking about the same subject.
Enjoying this conversation. I will try to offer up a dream of my own soon, if anyone wants to see what they make of it.
Have a good day all,
AxxHi Marion, I wonder if I can offer any ideas on your dream please? I’m going to do this ‘if it were my dream’, so please feel free to contest any of it, or chuck it right out the window! Its your dream. The first question I would ask you if we were doing it together, is what qualities you attribute to the nature of the mouse and the cockerel? I will offer my interpretation with my own set of attributes, and what questions and feelings it brings up in me. Though I have a feeling most people would ascribe similar attributes to these animals, of course yours may be entirely different and that would change everything. I’ve tried to stick to the language of the dream and give the animals a voice as if they are totems, and just see where it takes me.
“There is a mouse, and it’s really hungry and there’s no food around at all,”
The animal is a part of you, Jung gave us the notion that animals represent our instinctual selves. The attributes you ascribe to the animal are representative of your own instincts. The Mouse, I would describe as a shy creature, small and timid, it often needs to hide in order to survive and lives by its wits. The part of you that is shy and timid, trying to survive is telling you through the dream that it is hungry. It wants you to nourish it.
“until I find a lump of plastic, which I realise contains something. I peel off the plastic to revel something like soft toffee, but most of it is useless, stuck to the plastic, anyway, the mouse is still hungry.”
In the dream you attempt to nourish this unseen timid part of you, with a “lump of plastic”, this seems in everyway to be the opposite of food, Indigestible, manufactured and fake. There maybe efforts you are making to nurture or nourish yourself with something that you really know to be of no substance. But you then notice that within this “plastic” or “fake” wrapper, the exterior, there does appear to be something that you could use to feed the mouse. In the dream you decide to unwrap it, to see what’s beneath the metaphorical layers. A toffee, this is something sweet. Sugar would certainly keep your mouse alive, it would revive him. This “sweetness” may be an aspect of yourself that you aren’t really acknowledging as having any value? When you find it beneath the plastic wrapper you don’t feed it to the mouse, and he has to try more extreme measures. You decide not offer that nourishing “sweetness” to the timid part that’s in hiding, you decide that it is “soft and useless”. Would this be a viewpoint you could relate to? That having a sweet nature, or that showing yourself some sweetness might be “useless” ? Its stuck to the plastic wrapper, maybe you haven’t fully found a way to uncover your sweet underlying nature yet. Or perhaps its the recognition that you need something “soft” to sustain you, that is still yet to be peeled from it’s plastic wrapper in someway. Though you have looked underneath and found its there, you can see it but you dismiss it and so your mouse” is still hungry”
“There is also a cockerel (at least I assume it’s a cockerel, actually I only see it’s feet, my viewpoint is not much higher than the mouse) the mouse gets the cockerel to stand in a scalding hot pool of water, ”
Then I thought about what kind of an animal the cockerel is. He is flash and showy with his bright plumes, he struts his stuff and is very confident, he is “cocky”. This could be another part of you, perhaps its an aspect that seeks to make sure that the mouse stays in hiding. However in your dream we see that the mouse is actually very much in charge. Although the mouse is smaller, your mouse gets your cocky cock to stand “in hot water”. If it were my dream I would be wondering who is running the show, although the cock should be able to look after himself, he perhaps walks the walk, we are after all looking at his feet, he in fact is driven by the starving, neglected little mouse, who very much wants you to know that something about this dynamic, gets you “in hot water”.
“my viewpoint is not much higher than the mouse” this part interests me, because its as if a part of you has realised by this stage that in fact the cock isn’t better than the mouse, he isn’t higher, he doesn’t have “higher” importance. It isn’t of higher importance to appear confident if really you are timid.
“I realise that the mouse is actually trying to cook the poor cockerel’s feet so it can eat it’s toes! I’m horrified, but the cockerel is oblivious to the heat and won’t move, it seems that it doesn’t really care . . . !”
If this were my dream, I would feel that the mouse part, the shy timid pard really wants to get noticed, it had to do something that horrified you to be seen, to shock you into seeing just how hungry he really is! He is showing you how powerful it is, how much control he can have even though he is small and timid. But that showy cockerel, who walks the walk, just stands there in hot water, in this predicament, he doesn’t even realise what’s going on! he doesn’t seem to care, I wonder because his function is to offer an attractive and confident display. The cock has many hens, he is seen as being capable and strong, he is often seen as hugely successful. If it were my dream I think I would be wondering if I was trying to put on a brave face, to show the world how strong I am, what I can withstand even, he’s in hot water and yet he doesn’t “seem” to care. When really there is another aspect of the self underneath that really needs nurturing, that feels small by comparison and will in fact, at this stage be so in need he can totally run the show and go to any lengths to be noticed and fed. It seems the mouse even seeks the demise if the cock! if he looses his toes or his feet, he wont be able to take any more steps in life. I would be wondering if the cockerel wasn’t standing so tall anymore and I peeled back a few layers, if I might find something sweet and soft within myself, that can in fact be very good at nurturing a timid little mouse. Something that fare from being useless that in fact is very very useful if I can prize it free from this “plastic” wrapper”. I think that my hungry little mouse would be very grateful of this being acknowledged. The mouse is a vulnerable animal, he lives by his wits, he’s always planning ahead, checking out what’s around the corner, what’s coming next. That’s a hard life. But the mouse is also but really really intelligent, hence why yours knows how to both create the ultimate downfall of the cock and get what he needs to be able to flourish.
I hope there’s something in here that might spark a few ideas for you. My intention isn’t to give you a diagnosis, its what the dream brings out in me really, which I think is the point in dream sharing, to see what the dream has to offer to everyone, and maybe the dreamer will find a little nugget somewhere in what others find that rings true for themselves too. Interestingly, I have been called by this mouse imagery myself several times over the last week which I s why I was keen to explore it at length really. I also have an inner mouse! I’d love to dialogue any of it with you if you would like.
Sent with all friendly intentions and love,
Alex x
Hello, thankyou to everyone for these interesting replies. You will be pleased to know my recall returned. A lot of things discussed here I feel are relevant to my own feelings also. Jane when you said ” oh, that was just a small one’ or ‘I know what that’s about I don’t need to record that” that’s a big thing, for me it is necessary to write them all down. I also think that all dreams have meaning, sometimes the most seemingly mundane dream has a lot to offer. I do find though if I neglect them for more than 4 or 5 days then my skills definitely seem to wane a little, and night by night the details fade a little more. In fact I have just been away to visit a friend in Scotland, to my horror I left my journal behind!!! each day I’ve been waiting for it in the post, the big details are there, but the finer stuff is out of reach already. I also need to lay in bed for a time before I get up, I read somewhere that you have to scan your brain in the first 12 seconds of waking to catch a dream, I think that’s true. Changing the radio station worked a treat, its a very generic station that doesn’t cause me any anxiety so I wake gently. I have recesntly been finding that I wake from a powerfull dream about 5am which is unusual for me. I have a disabled child so I wake often each night when he calls and most times even If I cant recall it, I do know that I have just woken from a dream. it is less common for me to be woken by the dream, but that is happening at the moment, im not sure why.
As people know I have an interest I am asked from time to time. I have found that often people are surprised by the amount of personal information that can be pulled from what seems to be a curious story. Yet they know there is something there as they brought it to me!
I can find it hard to judge at times, how much a person wants to know, as a casual offering can sometimes feel awkward, you have an idea of what might lie beneath but perhaps that person isn’t really a believer, ready or expecting the depth of what you would like to offer, so i might keep it vague.
I like it when friends send me a voice recording of their dream. Possibly much like when you have guests Jane, when you talk about it you use your own natural language and clues are everywhere, when it’s written down its more considered and things are missed I find. I love to immerse my self in the avenues of someone else’s dreams, i can see them in my own dreamer’s eye even, though of course they wont be the same, its impossible not to!
I also like the one simple sentence, but I really love to describe it to an alien!!
I think this often helps me to really uncover the symbolism of things, especially if i am getting stuck. What is this thing? or person? or place? what does it do? What does it look like? How does it feel? what is its purpose?
I often find an immediate parallel in this way.
Hi, I’m Alex. I’ve been working with my dreams as a regular practice for the last 5 years or so now, though I had other periods of doing so earlier in my life. I have always been a vivid dreamer and so its held a lot of interest for me. I think I get this from my dad he’s also a vivid and regular dreamer. We would share dreams with each other often as I was growing up.
I have been following Jane Theresas work for a couple of years and find her to be a huge resourse and support to the dreaming community. I’ve done the first of her courses and learned a lot.
I’m a mother of two boys, the eldest of whom has a disability so I’m happily an at home mum and carer for him. My life is busy, but my creative, personal and spiritual pursuits are important to me. I try to make time for these activities as much as I can but oftenI go all in for a bit and then life seems to take over. Like most of us probably. I’d love to be active on this forum though and look forward to getting to know everyone and your dreaming minds!
I’m an artist and have enjoyed exploring my dream world as a sketchbook journal for some time. I’m also very interested in divination and the creation of Oracles. We live in Wiltshire in the UK, curiously I think I probably live close to you Caroline?!!
Bye for now
Alex x
Well the hero I suppose is that idealised, supposedly infallible, high achieving, almost supernatural person. Because he is an aspect of me though of course he isn’t allways like that in dreams though he has that potential. So the part of me that can do anything, in my case, can create and be as prolific as my hero, will sometimes want to tell me he is struggling and ask for help. In real life the awake world, of course he is just a man, but in my imagination he is everything!
I were dreaming about Nazis and little girls a lot I might want to ponder on that, a lot! I also dream of cats a lot, for me I feel it relates to the female. Take a look at what happening to your cats in your dreams.