but what’s the answer?
Friends, what do you think of this?
I had the strangest dream early this morning. Often I wake a 3 am, in dreaded anticipation of that 4:15 alarm that goes off, reminding me I have a scheduled date with my daughters, boot camp. When I wake at that time and allow myself to drift off to light sleep, often I have strange dreams. I thought I’d share this one because I find it quite telling.
My husband and I were standing atop a bridge and beneath us was a river, a river that we were to jump into and swim downstream to get to wherever we were going. We had been discussing how we were going to do this, as usual, I came into this dream smack in the middle of whatever was happening.
He stood to the right of me, took off his socks and shoes and jumped. I knew I had to go; suddenly my oldest daughter was standing to the left of me, I said something about needing to go. I picked up a shovel to my right that we needed for some reason and tossed it into the river. The water was clear, and I could see the shovel landed straight up. Worrying about other people getting hurt on that shovel, I quickly jumped in so that I could retrieve it.
Before I jumped, I said something to her about moving fast; we need to get going, I was terribly concerned, no, terrified of someone hurting themselves, and it would be my fault.
I jumped.
I landed in water that was ankle deep now, and I was not the least, hurt. As dreams often change, the water was now to my chest, and cold. I had to put my head under in order to retrieve the shovel, and I did so. When I came back up for air, with the shovel in hand, I opened my eyes after taking a breath of air, only to have a bridge before me and several behind; my daughter was no longer my daughter, but now my sister. I yelled to my sister to jump; she could not hear me because my voice was worn and gravely.
When I looked to my right, there was a man and his family ( his family was NOT with him, but I knew he was with family ) H was in a canoe, headed toward me. He appeared to be busily looking for something, nervously searching. He had one of those wide-brimmed, straw hats on his head, and he moved as if concerned almost fearing what he was searching for would not be there. Calling again to my sister who was no longer there, I turned to look behind me, and it appeared the same as what was before me.
What?
Now, both directions had a bridge every 50 feet or so, and there were suddenly several boats drifting on the water.
Where was my husband?
I began to panic.. ( In real life I have an awful fear of being lost, not just out in the woods lost)
In my dream, I said to myself: “go figure, even in my dream my H tries to put distance between us so that he can find time to text or call)
I stood in that river looking North, looking South and could not remember which way I was supposed to begin walking in that cold water.
I decided to myself ” even though this is just a dream, it’s a sign. I’m going to …..
The backup alarm went off.
This, That, and Maybe More 
I have had some doozies of dreams on occasion, even before I discovered the affair. I can’t even begin to figure what most of them mean, but I have on occasion had very clear cut dreams, like running into the skank and having it out with her. A lot of times I’ve woken up clearly remembering my dreams, I even blogged about the alligator one! I’ve looked up some of the things in my dreams on dreammoods.com. More for fun than anything else. xoxo
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Dreams are crazy, aren’t they? The one I posted about, I don’t remember them anymore. Even though we supposedly dream always. (?) I don’t know. This one in particular just really “woke me” to reality. And that is,
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It can be fun. I often wonder, if on days I wake up discouraged or depressed, I’ve had a dream I don’t remember.
What about people dying in their sleep? Do you think they became shocked or frightened in their sleep and had a heart attack?
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I don’t know about that – I always thought dying in your sleep is the best way to go…
My husband always said he never really dreams, but the other day he woke up after having a weird dream and he actually remembered it. I forget now what it was but I remember it was really strange and we laughed about it – When I typed my comment about the alligator dream, I had totally forgotten what it was about, I had to go back to my blog and re-read it!
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Do you, Can you sent a link to the alligator dream? I’d love to read it!
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Newlease, I apologise for the rather academic answer to your question.
please find an excerpt of a short paper I wrote a few months ago. Let me know what your thoughts are.
In regards to infidelity, I have heard from people about quite a few variations on #6. In regards to the universal symbols, you might be able to shed more light on what it means to you.
Let me know…
Although there are Internet sites and books available that discuss symbols that might aid in explaining a dream, dream interpretation is more than knowing symbols as these are different depending on the culture, language and age of the client. Some symbols however, seem to be universal such as a king (father), nature (mother), departure (death), water (birth). Parents are often represented in a dream by its opposite (a stranger of a different race), according to Alexander (1948).
Dreams protect sleep through providing solutions to internal hurdles
1. Intrusions can be stimuli that are physiological needs (being hungry and thirsty or having to go to the toilet). The dreamer dreams that they are eating or drinking or visiting the toilet and the dream is successful as it gratifies a need.
2. The dream can prevent disturbance of sleep caused by the need to engage in unpleasant duties. The dreamer dreams that they are doing homework, are at work or at school and fully functioning.
3. The dreams of children are wish-fulfilments. Young children often report to have had a dream about them getting a reward. Something they desire.
4. Adults can have a desire for vengeance and because dreaming about hurting someone is not acceptable by the dreamer, the content of the dream is distorted and disguised. The hurting of someone is an unfulfilled wish and by dreaming about it in a disguised way the dreamer’s conscience is not disturbed.
5. Dreamers who have a guilty conscience, dream about unpleasant experiences such as enduring suffering and punishment (this is self-punishment).
6. Trauma: Schur (1972) in “Freud: Living and Dying”, addresses the topic of “the repetition of traumatic events in dreams”. The repetitiveness of the dreams is explained by Freud as an attempt to undo the traumatic event. The dreams are compulsions to attempt “to restore an earlier state of things” (p. 325).
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Please, do not apologize, in fact, I am thrilled with your response. Interesting your talk of repetition of dreams, I often have like dreams in different variations.
This one… I’ve never had before. The scenery was unlike anything before, it wasn’t even a familiar place, or known as a familiar place. For instance being at my mom’s house in my dream but it looks nothing like hers.
We were just there suddenly, a place I’ve never been. And I knew what we “had” to do, although in my dream I didn’t know what “it” was but I knew we had to be somewhere to do something.
Strange now that I think more about it, I assumed it was just about my husband disappearing.
He hasn’t done this lately, but about a year ago before things got better when things were awful, he would often “disappear” For instance, we were at the fair, got something to eat and found a table to sit and watch the crowd while eating our food. He got up to get napkins, and it took about twenty minutes, he came back making no mention of why it took so long. Or, (this one kills me because I figured out the reason much later) We would go to the grocery store (by the bank where “she” works) the minute we pulled into the parking lot he had this grand idea where I would go to the pizza place to make a salad while he went to the grocery store to gather items we needed to stalk up on.. meet at the car when finished.
Of course, I was first to finish my task; I’d sit in the car fuming and feeling helpless, like a jackass, too humiliated to go looking for him. I felt as if I’d be wandering the store while he and whoever hid behind shelves of paper towels or condiments while they giggled at their clever secret and watched. I had no idea about her work at the bank at that point. He would return with a carton of eggs and a convoluted story as to why it took so long.
Anyway, I figured it was as simple as my PTSD and him disappearing to make a call, send a text or meet for a quickie in the local bathroom.
Do you have any analysis?
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I am no expert. I think most dreamers figure out by themselves, like you, what this is about. It is often fear-related, as that is what occupies us during our waking hours.
Finding out that a person you love betrayed you is traumatic. The repetition of the themes in various scenarios, I think tell us what has been most painful and what is still triggering anxiety.
I believe that when the dreams change and are no longer trauma-related, healing is happening.
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I once had a dream about “being lost” and coming into a deserted town, like an old western set. Suddenly, a horse ran out in front of me wild eyes and crazy. A jack Russel came out, grabbed that horse by it’s reigns and drug it back to where I’ve no idea.
I entered it onto some site I was a member of, (the dream actually with my permission, became part of a book, the analyzer was writing. He was spot ON its analysis He told me who represented what, bottom line, I was being bullied by my “boss” and I knew what I believed and should have been doing, but felt threatened, small.
My Husband was my boss.
There was more specifics but the analyzer was spot on with all that he told me about this dream I submitted.
Crazy, right?
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