dream | Brea's Air

A symphony of sound, light, colors and movement, floating through a world seemingly without end, willing or not – we all dream eventually.
Dreams hold us all in their sway at some point. Not knowing if we’re dreaming or awake, the images so vivid – so realistic – and sometimes… so terrifying.

I believe that most of the time, dreams are little more than our own brain’s way of dealing with all the stuff that is going on around us, every day. It’s the culmination of the GIGO effect (Garbage In – Garbage Out). All the information that you’ve had to deal with throughout the day, is revisited while you sleep. Mashed up, and presented in a form that you identify with, it’s played out during your slumbers.

Either to delight, puzzle, or terrify you.

These dreams are more likely to be forgotten, or not remembered at all, once you awaken for the day. It’s not that bad, your brain worked through the stuff it needed to, and you can now go on about your business. And usually, you’ll feel better about a situation, or have an answer to a question that was puzzling you, or – if the dream was fear-inducing… you’ll be more alert and aware of what’s going on in that given situation. It’s all good.

But – then there are the dreams that simply won’t leave you alone.

The ones that will wake you up out of a hard sleep – sweating, shaking, crying, or in more extreme cases, jumping out of bed, swinging at an invisible foe.

And the dreams that are so vivid, and so super-realistic, that you can’t forget them when you wake up. These are the dreams that you want to lay back down and fall right back into them. And that almost never works, so you end up sad/frustrated.

Some dreams are not just recycled garbage, waiting to be processed into something new and useful.

Some dreams are messages.

Whether from your own subconscious, or from an outside source, these dreams linger. They haunt and stalk you. Every time you close your eyes, night after night, for weeks on end, it’s the same thing… maybe there are small changes, but the root plot doesn’t alter its course.

Sometimes it feels as though they hunt you. Waiting for you to fall asleep, they lurk, ever in the shadows of your brain… and when you finally settle comfortably into the sleep/dream cycle… BAM! There they are.

I’ve been having some of those lately.

I’m not quite sure what they mean… but I’m listening. I’m aware, even if I’m not awake.

Sweet dreams.

I’ve been dreaming about mirrors lately. Oddly enough, the rooms that I walk through are covered floor to ceiling in sliding mirrors, but I don’t see my own reflection in any of them. As though I’m not really there, or as if I’m looking through someone else’s eyes.

So, being the research geek that I am, as well as being a pagan that sets a lot of store by the internal psychological meaning behind dreams, I went and looked up what it could mean, on a dream interpretation site.

Here’s what I found:

“Mirror To dream of your own reflection in the mirror, suggests that you are pondering thoughts about your inner self. The reflection in the mirror is how you perceive yourself or how you want others to see you. You may be contemplating on strengthening and changing aspects of your character.

To see a fogged mirror in your dream, signifies a hazy concept of who you are and confusion in your life goals. You are lacking clarity and purpose and questioning your self-identity.

Reflection To see your reflection in your dream, represents your true self; it is time to look within. The reflection may highlight both your flaws and positive attributes. Learn from your flaws and how to improve them. At the same time, appreciate your good qualities. Alternatively, your reflection indicates how you want others to perceive you.

If you see a strange figure or something other than your own reflection, then it suggests that you are undergoing some identity crisis. You are not sure about who you are anymore.”

Basically, then, I’m being told that I’m cracked, and having an identity crisis, and I’m not sure how I want others to perceive me, with a sense of being watched, while I look for clarity and purpose.

Phew.

For a minute there, I thought I was going to find out I was in real trouble!

Actually, I know this stuff, that I’m searching for something, looking for a piece of my identity, one that I thought I had a pretty good grasp on. It slipped through my fingers while I was busy looking the other way, and forgot that I had some momentum going. I put down what I was working on, to catch up with other things, and lost the groove I’d hit.

I’ve also been working on family issues that have me pretty tied up in knots. Not because of obvious verbal sparring, but because in my family, it’s all done around corners, in undertones, posed in inuendo and sideways cracks that have been presented as backhanded humor.

BUT, that’s not the topic of the day.

The topic of the day is Dreams – and Interpretations.

Yeah, I believe that dreams are our brain’s way of working out issues while we sleep. I also believe that we can get messages from other sources while we dream. Including, but not limited to, Deity, and loved ones that have passed on.

(There are times when I really wish I had stayed with my psychology major in college, and then I remember that… oh, yeah, they would’ve hated me, cause I mix science with magick and paganism)

Ah well, it works for me.

90% of my dreams I feel are mostly the GIGO effect. Garbage in – Garbage out. It’s the flotsam and jetsam of the day’s occurrences all glommed together in a story, or in simple flashes, that flit through my brain and don’t have anywhere to stick. They don’t mean anything, it’s just my mind’s way of filing stuff away.

Imagine a large warehouse, full of filing cabinets. Rows and rows of them, but no people. Simple paper airplanes, fluttery butterflies, swooping small birds, and little dark thunder-boomer clouds hover in the air above the filing cabinets, and drops of ideas and pictures, flowers and parachutes, errant thoughts- fall into the open drawers of the cabinets. Drawers open and close by themselves, as the drops fall in. Making a soft clattering noise, rather like rain on a metal roof. This is my dreaming brain.

But then there are the vivid dreams. The full, technicolor, scene by scene, movie length visions – that feel so real. When I wake up, I’m not quite sure where I am, because I’m still experiencing the tail end of the dream, and wishing I could get back into it, or shake it off completely, depending on the tone and quality of the dream/nightmare.

These are not GIGO.

These are messages, and I have to figure out what it means for me, or it gnaws at me for days, until I either have the dream again, or I research it, or work it out in my head and heart, so that I can understand it.

I think I almost have this one worked out, after writing this post. It helps me to put my ideas down, this place is my sounding board. Allowing me to bounce the ideas around, get them down, and out of my head. When I can see them laid out before me, it’s easier to understand.

A friend and I talked about seeing things in the “Gestalt” tonight. It means seeing the picture as a whole, not as the sum of its parts. And as I’m writing this, the Gestalt is becoming clearer and clearer, and I’m not just looking at mirrors.

The Dreamer is beginning to wake. Just a few more minutes, please? And then I’ll get up, promise.