a girl and her dreams

A few weeks ago, I had a dream that I was in a box style modern house on a hill, it was surrounded by windows, and I was sitting at a desk covered in papers, stacks of books around me. It was almost pitch-black outside, no artificial city lights, and it was cloudy – so no moon. The only light I had was the light within me. My dream body felt like it was held down by a lot more gravity than we are subjected to in the corporeal world, and that wasn’t my only challenge. People from my past that I have been hurt by were on my property like a colony, it was an invasion! It was kind of silly they were all there together though, many of them don’t even know each other. Dreams are so weird.

A little about these people; it has taken years to heal from some of the experiences I had with them. This dream was reflecting how I have felt invaded by the chronic fatigue, exhaustion and depression that comes with healing from the devastation. These people were not nice. But when the memories come back to haunt me, I do the work to let go of the toxic energies. I have released the final remnants of my resentment, and now I just want my dream space back. I have had to learn to protect my energy not just in life but also in dreams, and to move on without looking back. It feels amazing to take my power back. But this dream said: Even after fully letting go, there will always be residual feelings that come up. Memories don’t really truly go away forever, do they?

One of the most important people I’ve learned from is a man I met in my early 20s – over 20 years ago. I have dreamt about him many times since we met, which I am writing more about in my book. It was more like an “incident” than “meeting”. Or even more like an emotional accident that ended in total loss for me romantically. What made it tragic the most is that he was my childhood dream, literally. As a little girl, I had claircognizant intuition and visions about this particular man, or at least what he looked like.

It happened while my parents drove us down the highway when we were moving from up north, above the arctic circle, down to where I live now on the West Coast. It was a 3-4 day road trip, I saw many aspects of him, creating an entire personality that developed in my mind. I would go as far as saying that I bonded with the idea of him, there on the highway – in the car – in my creative vision. I even knew his name.

I guess eventually I forgot about that entire little phase of my childhood. I assumed he would only ever be a figment of my imagination – until he found me online. I was not prepared in the slightest for anyone with that face or name to ever find me. First of all, it was a shock. It was almost disorienting. And I couldn’t very well just strike up a conversation with him about my “childhood vision” that he appeared in. That would be weird.

I agreed to meet him. I had high hopes. Sadly, upon meeting in real life it wasn’t hard for me to read his mind, and see right through his act, those high hopes were gone pretty quickly. The little girl inside of me knew she had lost her prince. One of the ways I worked through this huge disappointment and heartbreak was through dream work. In fact, it brought me to a place in my life where I examined my relationship with my dreams and realized I needed to invest more in them.

I set an intention after that disaster, that at 45 I would start my book about the dreams I had been documenting all my life. Now that I am 45 and actually doing the writing, I have put in place additional intentions for this blog and future dreams. I think that’s why I had this dream about the dark hill, the night, the lonely house. It was a big message; it was me checking in with myself and realizing I am starting to create space where those feelings once filled.

I kindly and politely asked them (in my dream) all to leave, and they would not. What was worse it that they completely ignored me and then when I went back to my desk in the house to ignore them – they laughed at me. These are the kinds of people who won’t give you the attention you deserve, but don’t want you to pay attention to anything else.

When I’m faced with complex emotions in dreams, I often end up fighting like a powerful ninja warrior. The thing is I’m just fighting air and gravity. This was a battle between me and my anger, and to make it even more intense, gravity held me back from defending myself. So, all I had to combat these forces with was my mind. Sounds a bit like the Matrix.

Finally, I lifted myself up through the air and then swooped down like a crow over the earth and through the crowd. They still wouldn’t leave. I circled around the vicinity, unsure exactly of how effective my flying skills were from a bird’s perspective. I couldn’t justify wasting my time with them anymore, I wanted to expand on my dream.

I made some final rounds above the house and gave them a serious warning to “vacate the premises”. Looking down from aerial view it was hard to see through the thick blanket of dormant clouds. I made my final descent, back towards the ground. I found the earth and got up close to it; I caught glimpse of liquid neon light trickling down the hill between the cracks. The light was symbolic of what my dream was highlighting: my feelings, higher senses, and power. The light was pretty deep and buried. I could smell the soil it was so fertile, rich and robust. My whole body swept across it as I scaled the property in low flight, my body skimming the surface of the ground. I was pushing away bad energies; I could feel the softness of the dust being whirled onto my cheeks. This burnt me out and I went inside the house and retracted from bird in flight mode to human at my desk position.

It was eventually clear that the point of the dream was to allow myself to feel anger, I was being provoked by these characters and there was a lot of repressed frustration coming up. Examining emotions in dreams for me is different than in the real world, there is less to distract me from getting a clear understanding of how I have been affected. I think when I my heart was broken 20 years ago; I just shut down completely. But if I’m honest, what actually hurt me the most was being led on -even if it was just a few weeks. I can take rejection just fine. But that was mean. It hardwired my brain – and my heart. It made it hard to trust.

I guess I still have not climbed out of that dark time, as was evident in this dream I had. In real life I have always been very happy to be alone but being alone in this house in my dream I felt lonely like I never have before. The darkness is usually a protection for me in dreams, but in this case, it was dangerous place in myself. I actually became furious that my land was being threatened, like a dragon livid that humans were lurking in my lair. The message I was getting is that the pain that has been buried for too many years has finally surfaced. Pain is essentially going to explode in the form of anger if it isn’t handled properly. I think froze those parts of myself in time, and now I am required to thaw.

Dreaming I was diving like a mad bird was empowering. After calming down at my dream desk and looking out the great wall of windows, I began to find the return to waking life.

I didn’t manage to get the crowd off my dream property, but I found peace. They at least knew not to come in the house. That was good enough at the time.

I’ve been reflecting on this dream and had a sequel to it which I’ll work on writing about this weekend. I’m taking it slow at 45. I love writing about these dreams though it is challenging in new ways not just intellectually, but I feel things in my body while writing and when away from my laptop.

I hope to be writing more in depth about dreams that go beyond my new little cave of darkness. For now, this is a new phase, so the seed has just been planted. Starting small and building up is better this time. As a child I went from massive to what I have now. It’s…just the way it is.

Dreams are amazing. Even the dark ones.

a girl and her dreams

(image: 20 Modern Hill House Ideas: Inspiring Designs for Sloping Landscapes)