Last week I had a somewhat weird but also an inspiring dream. A friend of mine appeared in it. We were running away from a flood. I spotted a pile of sand and said to him: »Let's climb up this pile and then we are saved.« He said: »Oh, I don't feel like climbing. It's too strenuous. I will go around the pile.« I looked back at the threatening flood and decided to save my ass instead of trying to persuade him to take the hard way.
It was one of those situations in dreams that are hard to explain, but you know what you have to do and it is the only way out. I knew there was no time to go around the pile, since the flood was approaching too quickly. Losing any additional seconds trying to persuade him would have gotten both of us killed. So I climbed up the pile. When I got to the other side of the pile, I knew I was saved. I looked back and at that instant the friend was carried away by the flood. He died. I felt guilty for a second, but then a great feeling of reassurance set in. I did what I could for him, yet he was not ready to fight. His reluctance to make an extra effort cost him his life.
When I woke up from the dream in the morning, I said to myself. »Jesus, how stupid dreams.« Later however I started thinking about them and suddenly it dawned on me that the dreams were telling me something. The friend from the dreams is a friend from my real life. I have known him since my high-school years. He shares the same diagnoses with me, but he is too reluctant to do anything about his life that would change things for the better. I tried to show him the way many times, but he was never ready to work on his thinking patterns or to change his life style to a healthier one. It broke my heart to see him all miserable again and again and at the end of the conversation he would usually say that I worry more about him than he worries about himself. So I stopped chatting with him. I left him behind.
The dream was telling me that there is no need to have any guilt feelings about my decision. I still e-mail him, but going out for a cup of coffee with him is simply too exhausting for me.
I often try to interpret dreams that leave a great impression on me or those that reoccur often. I believe that such intense dreams usually try to tell us something. I normally use the Phyllis Krystal method to interpret dreams, but it doesn’t always work. This time I simply used my intuition.
You can ask me more about my dreams and the way I interpret them: bb.bukle@gmail.com
This is a very real and complex dilemma put into very simple words. Responsibility for oneself versus responsibility for others, drawing these lines is not always easy, especially if you replace the friend in your dream with a partner, child, parent.
OdgovoriIzbrišiThank you for the comment! No, of course it is not easy. Actually - if the other person is a partner, a child or a parent, one cannot stop seeing the person. Then there are other ways of drawing the line. For example with my parents I draw the line by seeing them less often untill I "recover" from their "negativity". As far as my husband is concerned I am very lucky, for we are both ready to find a good solution for both of us in each situation. But it hasn't always been that way. I had to learn to speak up - say what I want. As far as children are concerned - I am not a mother yet :)
OdgovoriIzbriši