Every month, Jungian analyst Stanislav Raevsky deciphers the pictures you saw in your dreams.
Dream of Gennady, 48 years old
“It is one long dream divided into many nights. In it, I go somewhere, change from one train to another, less often – to buses, electric trains. Everything is kind of messy. I have some goal, but when I wake up, I don’t remember it. I’m preoccupied, I’m afraid of not being on time, they announce a landing, I push people aside, I run, the train leaves, I catch up, grab the handrails, at the last moment I jump into the vestibule. All over again the next night.”
Read more:
- 10 keys to our dreams
Interpretation of sleep
The incessant race of our life also captures the world of our dreams. Where are we running so desperately and recklessly, why is it so important for us to be on time and not stay on the platform? Is it because two-thirds of the sadness of parting goes to the one who remains, and we would not like to experience sadness? Or maybe we are afraid to feel helpless and confused, like a child who has been forgotten in the bustle of departure. Or the memory of our ancestors awakens in us about how terrible it is to lag behind a tribe wandering through the desert, because those who lag behind are doomed to death. Or was this pushing people on the run reflect the evolutionary struggle for the opportunity to become the only spermatozoon that reaches the egg?
The paradox is that such dreams help us wake up, wake up from the sleep of the eternal life race. We run all the time, yearn to do everything, and as a result, we cannot enjoy anything. This race and this run create an illusion of meaning, allow us not to feel our own emotions and not to sympathize with others, not to ask ourselves the main questions: who am I, why am I running, what will happen if I stop? In the middle of life, when it becomes more and more difficult for us to run, these questions are more insistently knocking on the doors of our consciousness. If we do not answer them, but continue our run, we may miss the point. Remember, in the cartoon “The Engine from Romashkov” one character says: “If we don’t see the dawn, we may be late for life.”
Read more:
- What does the dream mean: “I’m falling into the void”
In the eternal haste, in the eternal attempt to catch up with the outgoing train of life, we lose the main thing – our happiness, depth of perception, peace and freedom. How often do you want to return the outgoing love, youth, missed opportunities! But our task is different – to let go of this train, because everything we are chasing is already in us, and only the race prevents us from seeing the value of our own soul. Shall we try to stop and let the train leave without us? Such a proposal at first causes great anxiety. Then we can wait, catch our breath and make sure that nothing terrible has happened to us, and then look around. What surrounds us? If the station, you can go to the city. If this is a stopover, then, descending from the platform, we may notice a path that will lead us into a forest or a field … It is likely that we will find ourselves in a world where different roads open up. And perhaps we will even understand that the departed train was not ours, and we ended up exactly where we should have been.
What does sleep mean? Have you had a dream that worries you, puzzles you, or recurs? Do you still remember what you dreamed about as a child? Write about it in the “My Story” section. Stanislav Raevsky will try to decipher your dream.