Last time we saw how my dream brought me to understand how flippant I was with my repeated incubations.  I realized that the unconscious is a friend that one should not inconvenience.  It gives us the information that it deems necessary and then it’s up to us to make our decisions. 

God gave us conscious faculties, the intelligence with the capacity to reflect, analyze and judge and the feelings.  Using them, we can make a choice. So it is lazy to prefer to incubate a dream.  Help is provided by a dream only when our conscious means are no longer sufficiant to help us because the solution is beyond the conscious’ reach.

Here today is a beautiful dream that illustrates this.

This dream came to Anna at a time in her life when she faced a particularly difficult career decision, a perplexing choice between two completely opposite positions :

Dream

I am with the Virgin Mary, whom I know to be my close friend.

Mary asks about what is going on in my life. When I tell her of my pending career decision, Mary insists that we go to see a psychic named Ruth. I am reluctant to see a psychic.

But Mary assures me that this one is so good that years earlier she has predicted the immaculate conception, Mary’s marriage to Joseph, and the resurrection of Jesus.That makes me feel more comfortable.

When we meet Ruth, I am very impressed – Ruth is everything an enlightened being should be.

I pose my career-choice question to the psychic, only to get this response :

- What a wonderful opportunity you have, and I know you’ll make the right decision !

The dream does not give any answer, but it exerts a stimulating effect on the dreamer, who by then has understood that the decision belongs to her. Even the best psychic cannot help her. And why would she do it, since Anna has within her the capacity to make her own decision ?

What a wonderful opportunity to trust one self and take the decision without incubation !

Bibliography

Dreams, Tonight’s Answers for Tomorrow’s Questions, Mark Thurston, Harper and Row, Publishers, San Francisco, p.99

Illustrations

I thank the artists for their illustrations listed in order of their presentation :

Perplexed woman : befully.com

Mary : Sonia Rolland, Miss France, actualite-portail.free.fr

A psychic : love-whoami.blogspot.com

Announce to Mary by the English painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rosetti, 1828-1882

Resurrection by the German painter and engineer Mathias Grünewald

The psychic Ameline: lesmeilleursvoyants.fr

Castle on River, 1820, by the German painter and architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel

This question can seem curious.

Before attempting to see how the unconscious reacts, we should first look at how the conscious itself reacts regarding incubation. 

Generally, what do we do, when we discover the natural and beneficial process called dream incubation?

At first, we try it and we are thrilled that it works. 

We rush to ask many questions at the same time and receive several answers during the same night.

This makes the dream interpretation very complicated or almost impossible, because we cannot discern which scenario answers which question. So it’s important to ask only one question per night.

Often, night after night, we start asking systematically our dreams all kind of questions.  

-should I sell my house and move somewhere else?

-for what city should I request my transfer?

-is a certain transaction I’m contemplating advantageous?

-what can I do so that my son will get along with my boyfriend?

All questions are possible.  That is the position of the conscious. 

We imagine the dream as a machine to foresee the future and to serve us.  This harassment of the unconscious reflects our conscious desire to exploit it. This greedy attitude, which characterizes our western culture is completely wrong and the unconscious points it out quickly through a dream.

I had  this attitude myself, when I first started analyzing my dreams alone.

I made an incubation and received a dream which I interpreted. But I had doubts about my work and I wanted to know if it was correct or not.

I asked for another dream, so that I could be sure. The next day, after analyzing this subsequent dream, I doubted again.

And asked for still another dream.

I got one and you will see how the unconscious reacted facing my repetitive incubations.

Here is my dream

I’m a guest at an friend’s place.   She is an old lady. I sleep in a room that has three beds. 

I’m very annoyed because one night I slept in a bed, the next night in another one and the third night in the third bed.

I’ve already soiled two sets of sheets and now a third one.  I feel puzzled at my off-handed behavior.  It’s really not fair, I’ve had no consideration for my hostess whom I’ve given three times the work .  I feel appalled that I took advantage of my old friend’s kindness.  I was negligent, I should have been more attentive.  I woke up feeling so sorry, apologizing to this old lady , wondering how I could have been so casual.

Interpretation

The sheets

They wrap the sleeper and insure a comfortable sleep. For me they represent the dreams.

The 3 beds

A bed can represent the place where one makes love but for me, at that time, in regards to the question asked, the bed is the place where I sleep, the setting in which I abandon myself to the unconscious.

The 3 beds represent the three successive nights and their respective questions, asked in spite of the fact that I had already been answered in the first night’s dream.

My friend, the old lady

Who is this very experienced lady who provides the dreams ?

The old woman is often an image symbolizing the unconscious.(See note 1)  Kindly, yet firmly the old lady made me feel that my repeated incubations were a lack of consideration in regards to her.  She had already provided me with the sheets in the first bed,  the dream on the first night, I had already received the answer I needed.

It was ill-mannered of me to soil three sets of sheets thereby requiring additional work on the part of the lady.

This made me understand that through my dreams I’m given the necessary information and It’s left up to me to decide how I will use it. 

I felt that my friend, the old lady was telling me:

- You have to manage by yourself, you’ve already received more than  your due, you’ll get no additional indication.  Be satisfied with what you were given, you asked for too much.”

When I woke up, I was so confused that I promised myself not to do that again. I never forgot this lesson.

In the next text, we will see how the unconscious, reacting with severity can “tell a dreamer where to go” and refuse to answer.

Note 1

In French people’s dreams, England, being on the map to the left of France, is often a representation of the unconscious world.

The queen represents the ruling activity of the unconscious, which is feminine, in opposition to the conscious masculine world.

Illustrations

I thank the artists for their illustrations listed in order of their presentation :

Cloud : ac.reims.fr

Cloud : comitefetes.martillac.fr

Cloud : linternaute.com

Cloud in the sky of Montreal : flickr.com

Femme perplexe : olivierkaestle.blogspot.net

Femme douteuse : pixers.fr

Sheets : cotemaison.fr

Sheets : Anne de Solène :

Sheets : berceaumagique.com

Queen Elisabeth 2 : effetimages.blogspot.com

Queen Elisabeth 2 : news.de.stars.com

Queen Elisabeth 2 :leblogdechoncon.over-blog.com

Queen Elisabeth 2 : mesprincesses.romandie.com