Dream Dyad

Dream:

I am with a woman who has a device that sprays water. She is showing me how she sprays it to clean walls and things in a house. She hands it to me and says I can try it too. There is a dirty area over a door and I begin to spray it. It starts to clean the wall. I realize that once I start spraying, the process will be never ending and so I stop and tell her I don’t want to spray it anymore. Now I am next to some water. There is a little 2 or 3 year old girl on the edge who is getting ready to swim in the water. I think that she is too young to swim. I ask the lady how old the girl is (I assumed it was her daughter) and she says, “I don’t know.”

Dreams offer images, scenes and feelings to help us see how we are living. A dyad in a dream can show us opposing places within is. It is an opportunity to see and feel how we are living our life and how we could be living our life.

My homework that came from this dream dyad is to imagine going between spraying the water to clean the wall and then being the little girl standing on the edge of the water, ready to jump in.

In the dream, the minute I start spraying the water I get this heavy feeling in my gut. It’s a feeling like – oh I can see where this is going… the wall is getting really clean but then there will be another one and another one. There is no end to it. It’s a sinking feeling and it’s a familiar feeling to me. In the dream I tell the woman I don’t want to spray any more. I am feeling that in my life as well.

As I do the homework, I feel that sinking - in my gut feeling which is contrasted with the feeling of excitement of being on the edge, next to the water. The little girl is my soul self, that part of me that is ready to jump in the water. The dreamwork is helping me to recover this girl. Part of helping me to recover her is the process of showing me how I lose her. I lose her when I go this sinking – in the gut feeling.

The Cut:

Dream homework can help us see where certain feelings manifest in our life. As we experience the same feelings in our waking life, it is called “the cut.” I feel the sinking – in my gut feeling when I look at my never ending “to do” lists: my house that needs to be cleaned, laundry that piles up, appointments that need to be made, dinner that needs to be made, bills that need to be paid, and probably the biggest one of all… trying to manage other people’s lives. It can feel so overwhelming. The feeling of spraying the water in the dream matches the feeling I often have in my life. This feeling is the opposite of the excitement of the girl who is ready to jump in the water. In the dream I tell the woman – No. I don’t want to spray the water anymore. The same thing is happening in my life. Of course, the house needs to be cleaned, laundry needs to be done, dinner needs to be made etc. etc. but maybe it doesn’t have to be done perfectly. Maybe I can delegate some of it. Maybe it doesn’t always have to be done at all. And maybe I don’t have to manage everyone else’s lives.

As I let go of spraying the water, the excitement of my soul girl will have a chance to emerge. There are places in my life where I can feel that excitement emerging. In the dream I think the girl is too young to swim. In worrying about her, I can not become her. I think that the woman in the dream is the girl’s mother but I am mistaken. The woman who is busy cleaning and who feels that sinking feeling can’t know this girl. Now when I feel that uneasy sinking feeling in my gut, I know that it is time to stop spraying the water. It is time to stand in the excitement as the girl, ready to jump into the water.