Well THAT Was Strange...What Does It Mean?

It can be a startling experience to discover that the process of dreaming doesn’t stop when we wake up in the morning. We can watch the events of our waking lives unfold and see them, not only as literal incidents, but as metaphors that are parts of an ongoing dreaming process. To many Westerners, this is a foreign concept. The fact is that the dreaming process goes on non-stop throughout our lives.

Here’s an example: A man was driving from his place of work to a large public building where he was to have a corporate meeting with executives of another company. He had to take a stretch of freeway to get to his destination, and while on the highway, the hood of his car flew up—even past the extra safety catch that all car hoods have—and completely blinded his view of the road. Fortunately, he was in the right lane and was able to pull over without incident.

This was a “waking dream” that fell under two of the categories of important dreams. First, it was a bizarre experience that had never happened to him before. Second, it shocked him. Both the bizarre nature of the experience and the shock of it put it in the category of waking dreams that often deliver messages of importance.

His first order of business was, of course, to deal with the incident objectively: He needed to get to his meeting on time, and he also needed to have his car hood repaired.

But he is an individual who understands dreams, and he analyzed the experience from the perspective of dream symbols and metaphor. This is how he interpreted his incident: On the way to his “destination” he was “blinded” by a temporary “obstruction” from his “vehicle.”

All the way to his meeting—now driving slowly so the hood wouldn’t pop open again—he thought about the warning he received: something about being blinded by his vehicle. Metaphorically, his “vehicle” was the proposal he was about to present at the meeting, one that he was hoping to use to “drive” his company in a lucrative and productive direction. As he thought about his proposal, he suddenly realized that there was a flaw to it that could potentially undermine its effectiveness. His plan had looked so good on the surface that he had been “blinded” by his initial confidence in it. But there was definitely something "malfunctioning" with it.

When he got to the meeting, he quietly added an addendum to his proposal which solved the problem. The proposal was accepted and ended up being a good arrangement for both companies.

Dreaming goes on all day long; it’s only that we tend to ignore the signs. Often, we are so startled by an event like this that we become upset and emotionally invested, and we don’t have the presence of mind to step back and look at the experience as a metaphysical occurrence. But when we do, we are often given information and warnings of real value.

Do you have a comparable experience? Share it if you like, or just add a comment. Let's talk about this!