Excerpt: A long post. Here I am describing a discussion I have had with a young woman. It shows how interpreting one's dream necessitates getting to know them. At first, I was mistaken in my explanation and only when she shared more information about her life I could pinpoint the hidden message. I suggest that you read the post thoroughly and see for yourself how objects in the dreams stand for psychic elements that comprise our personality. This post will also help you to succeed in the contest I will announce of on Friday.
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I have had a repeating dream with the same motifs -
The dream takes place a few hours to a day before my wedding. Nothing is ready except for the people who received an invitation and are about to come. I did not arrange a venue or a D.J, and what bothers me the most is that I am not even ready, that is, I do not even have a wedding dress, there is no one to prepare me for my big day. There is something I do regularly in the dream when I discover that I do not have a dress (while wearing jeans and a shirt) - I go to the big closet in my bedroom, climb up on a chair and look deep inside the wardrobe for a white dress I remembered is there (In reality I do not have any such dress). I cannot find it and think of something white that I can use as a dress but in vain. In one dream I decided to cancel everything and notified my mother that there will not be a wedding because I don't like the environment. A sense of frustration and missed opportunity accompanies the dream.
Another time (last night) I decided to go against all the odds and find a dress for myself (I know I will have to compromise and I am ready to). I look at my watch and see that I have one hour left until the wedding, which is supposed to take place at 4:00 PM (an odd hour for a wedding), I open the phone book and look for every bridal salon that can fit me a dress even though I know it will not be perfect. In this dream I am mostly restless, anxious, stressed, and feel that there is no time (compared to the previous dreams in which I was desperate and passive and willing to give up and cancel everything).
I am almost 26 years old, in a four-year relationship, and there is no wedding on the horizon. I'm also not worried about it at all because the whole event makes me nervous, so I prefer to postpone it as much as possible.
What do you think? What does this reflect? What is the message of the dream?
You write that you are not troubled at all by the fact that there is no wedding on the horizon, but the dream reflects your stress and confusion. Hmm ....
So, either the pressure and the confusion are inside you and you repress them so that only during the dream can they come to the surface, or you "take" the pressure from someone else around you. I'd go for the former. You have thoughts or at least vague feelings about your situation.
The wedding is not ready, there are only invitations, which symbolizes your telepathic message towards your spouse saying: "I want to marry you, I invite you to commit to me as I am willing to commit to you." But there seems to be no answer. Reality does not reflect back your desire to accept a similar commitment. And it makes you nervous. You are running around, once passive and sometimes tense.
There is a time in the dream in which you search the high shelves of the closet (= a deep and high part of you) to get an answer - is my partner willing and ready to commit to me? But even there you cannot find the commitment (= white dress). You are afraid that if you accept the situation as it is, you may be late (= 16:00).
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All in all, the dream reflects the mess that is raging inside you. You must decide - or really relax about the whole thing, let life happen at their own pace and then be surprised (= a surprised wedding). Or ask (in reality, not in a dream) your spouse whether he is willing to commit to you. Is it possible that you are afraid to ask him and be refused? (= Facing the bridal salon knowing that the dress, i.e., the answer, would not be perfect).
First, I was very impressed by the way you interpreted my dream with reference to details that I did not think were so meaningful in the dream.
Interestingly, I did not think in that direction, I tried to understand what is reflected in my life, perhaps other concerns but after reading your reference I checked again with myself what I really felt about this wedding issue.
There's something that does not work out for me. My partner and I speak with great openness about a shared future and a wedding. That is, we are both sure that we will have a common future, only the subject of the event itself - the wedding makes us both nervous. The point is not to test whether my partner is willing to commit because I am sure about that; the point is that my way of thinking has changed with regard to the wedding because of him.
In the past, when I thought about what this day would look like, I saw only good things in it, joy and excitement and beauty. Today, when I think I should organize such a thing and invite family, friends, and acquaintances to this day when "I am at the center" is really hard for me. All around me I see a lot of girls my age getting married or already married, and I am hesitating about the whole issue. When that happens, I'm stressed and answer that a wedding is not on the horizon (which also makes me nervous).
It must sound ridiculous that I give so much importance to the issue, but it stems from my desire for perfection and uniqueness. I do not want to do something that everyone does and participate in the regular "routine". I'm aiming for something on a different level. This, of course, is accompanied by the fear that I will not be able to realize it which leads to my resistance. Do you see the dream reflects any of those feelings?
Your feedback helped tremendously. I am taking back my comment about the commitment of your partner and goes to the second option of my interpretation (which is also related to commitment):
Let us assume that everything that happens in the physical reality is a reflection of your inner reality. That is, your desire (and your partner's) for the specialness of the event, your fear of being part of a production line, the desire for perfection, and as a result pressure and worry and stress about the wedding event (and therefore its delay) are an expression of something else.
That something is a commitment. The commitment is to the inner self (reflected, apparently, as your spouse). That is, you want an event of a certain kind but are afraid that you will not be able to realize it. In other words, you are afraid that you will not be able to commit to the image you have inside about a relationship. The dream tells you that your resistance to the event of a wedding is a hidden fear of having a "regular" relationship, a relationship in which you will have to compromise (similarly to your compromise on the dress), a relationship in which you betray your inner self. You are afraid (and probably your partner too) that changing the status to "married" will not meet the standards you demand of yourself for a quality relationship. You know that a relationship (much like the wedding event itself) is much more than what is seen on the surface (music, venue, food) and therefore the importance of these things in your eyes is lesser (and therefore they do not appear in the dream).
What is important to you is the content (= guests) and what bothers you is the dress (= purity, values, whiteness). You care about the higher, spiritual, essence (a wardrobe you need to climb). You are afraid that the essence of the wedding (and of the relationship) will be lost.
In conclusion, I would certainly say that the dream reflects the tension on the surface about the marriage ceremony. But yet again, remember that the wedding ceremony symbolizes something else.
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Is it possible that you are avoiding taking ownership of what you rightly deserve, the wedding ceremony, which is actually your life? The dream reflects a state of mind of stress and worry that appear when you have to make decisions about the dress (= intrinsic value, as mentioned). Why does stress appear? It is certainly not because of the dress alone. Therefore, it seems that the tension is caused by the need to take ownership about life. As you said - you do not want to be in the center. And perhaps this is the greatest gift that the wedding ceremony will bring you - to be in the center, to feel that you deserve it, that life is committed to you, that life supports you and back you up.
Yes, I'm afraid I will not be able to commit or realize the image I have about the relationship after the wedding. That's exactly it. I and my partner talked about it, but now I see it clearly. Even the word "married" raises concerns. Today, our relationship is really different from what we see in other couples. We do not belong to the so-called herd, and I have a fear that when we get married it will change. Suddenly we will enter the box titled a "married couple", and begin to adopt this dynamic that I recognize in other couples.
I am a person who takes responsibility for her life, I initiate and lead processes and am not afraid of changes. Do you recognize in the dream a mental state of stress and concern when I face a decision?
I do feel worthy even without the wedding event that will put me literally in the center. I do not need that. Just as I do not need to receive gifts or someone to pamper me or surprise me on my birthdays in order to feel loved and important. So maybe it's the tension of being in the middle between the person I am and the society's expectations?
I'll share a small and simple example and even a little silly. On my last birthday, they kept asking me how I was celebrating, what my partner prepared for me/bought me, how he surprised me, etc. And the truth is that we did nothing but I felt uncomfortable to disappoint all the curious people. So I lied. However, you are right when you say that there is much beyond the marriage ceremony. What does cause me discomfort?
Your assertiveness (this is the title I am giving right now to your ability to make decisions, initiate changes and lead processes) in conjunction with the feeling that you are worthy, are real. But at the same time, there are, and the dream shows it clearly, feelings of tension, pressure, and uncertainty.
Seemingly a mystery.
You see, you operate in your life from the mind, the rational, the ego. (This does not mean that you do not have intuitive parts, but that the dominant component is the ego). As long as you are involved in making decisions on current affairs - earning a living, studying, managing a home, managing people - you are definitely capable of reaching successful results. The problem begins when you are required to make forward-looking decisions (a future relationship) that require emotional involvement, that strongly influences your life and that of others. Then you (the ego) are at a loss. Your ego can not get the information you need to make an informed decision. However, because you've trained your ego to make decisions, it tries hard to get you this information. And when he does not succeed it:
- Tries harder, pressing itself, get nervous, afraid; or
- Gives up, becomes passive.
And that's exactly what happened to you in the dream.
You say that you feel worthy without an event that will put you in the center. That you do not need to be pampered. But who exactly feels worthy? Only the rational part of you. And it sounds very good for you to live outside the kitschy romanticism. It is uncomfortable for your ego to receive, to be nourished from the outside, to allow the luxuries of life to reach it. And why? Because the ego used to create things by itself, maybe even fight for them. And when there is no struggle, it becomes not real, without substance. Your ego (=you) is not willing to receive effortlessly.
This, in my opinion, is the opposite of feeling worthy!
But such receiving is real. And such allowing is the actual living outside the box!
You will have to begin an internal process of releasing the mind. You will have to learn to trust yourself, to believe in the goodness of the world and that your ego does not know everything.
The things you wrote definitely resonate with me. Indeed, I have always been strong in making decisions that involve cognitive, rational, issues. To this day I thought that it serves me only for the better. I certainly need to learn to let go and let new things enter my life with much less rigorous scrutiny on my part, without fear of being challenged. As you wrote, this will enable me to trust myself, more than I do today.