‘Dreams are as simple or as complicated as the dreamer himself, only
they are always a little bit ahead of the dreamer’s consciousness. I do not understand my own dreams any better than any of you, for they are always somewhat beyond my grasp and I have the same trouble with them as anyone who knows nothing about dream interpretation. Knowledge is no advantage when it is a matter of one’s own dreams’
—
CG Jung, Analytical Psychology
~
The part that I highlighted in bold, ‘
they are always a little bit ahead of the dreamer’s consciousness,’ rang very true for me, because I had a dream, probably about five year’s ago now, that, although the meaning behind it is clear enough, it is still beyond my own level of consciousness, even after the approx five years since I had the dream. But I will share it below —
The dream was of a bird’s eye view of the village I went to school in. I lived in an even smaller village about 5 miles outside of it, but the village was very close to my heart, as I would walk up and down the streets during lunchtime during school with my friends, and I visited friends who lived there. In fact, I even moved with my dad and my step-mum into a lovely flat on the Main Street for a few month’s, before I walked out on my dad a week after my 16th birthday, when it was legal for me to do so.
But the dream I had, was years after I had even visited it, but it was still very familiar to me and I recognised it immediately in the dream, even though I saw it from literally a bird’s eye perspective.
At first, it was just any other regular day that I saw down below me, the only strange fact was that I was looking at it from down below. People were just going about their regular day, crossing the street and what not, doing their shopping. I could see all the way from one end of the village to the other, since the Main Street was only a few miles long.
Suddenly, I noticed a commotion going on in one part of the street - an old man had collapsed, and within a couple of minutes, a small crowd had gathered around him. Away from the immediate vicinity of the man, other people continued with running their errands, while this small commotion continued. Eventually, after about 10 or 15 minutes, an ambulance arrived and took the man away.
And a couple of minutes after that, the village activity continued on as it had.
And that was the dream. It was as simple as that.
The meaning it quite clear - emotions and feelings are felt completely different, depending on the perspective you look at it from - tragedy happens within that vacuum of experience.
Yet, even five years or so later, I still have not managed to live by what the dream was trying to tell me, and I still experience my emotions as if I was experiencing it at street level myself.
In fact, there is a whole universe of emotion tights exists within my tiny little head, even though, that frustrated or anxious energy would not be needed, if only I could experience life from a bird’s eye view.
I’ve thought about painting a picture of what I saw, of the village street and the man collapsing and the small crowd gathering around him, while village life carried on.
There are trees that lined the Main Street and it looked particularly nice during Xmas time, when white lights were hung up to sparkle amongst the branches.
Here is a photo from the last time I visited said village. I took it because there was a cute old man with his cute little dog.