A Violinist's Dream: Concluding Post

I’ve been examining the dream of a violinist who dreamed that he was supposed to be participating in a graduation ceremony at a college. (Scroll down to see my last posts.) He and I went through the various steps of coming to an understanding of his dream symbols as metaphors. What follows is the restated dream:

Reassembled dream

I have gotten where I want to be inside of myself. Inside of me I have created a highly respected institution of higher learning. It’s a means to get where I want to go. It’s a lovely setting that is easy to negotiate. It’s a place to listen. I’m here to participate in a program. I am joining a part of myself that is an organized group to make beautiful sounds. It’s a new beginning for me, a celebration of a milestone. I thought I might be too late to participate. I also didn’t have the right equipment. I didn’t have anything to make music with. All these parts of me should have been on stage, but we were just with the listeners, sitting in a fixed position where we couldn’t move. I was even isolated from my group. I was handicapped with no room. I was uncomfortable. It was impossible to do what I was supposed to do. I wouldn’t even be able to read the music. The leader in me was the only part of myself who was where he was supposed to be. He was quite knowledgeable, but arrogant. This was normal for him, although many parts of me wouldn’t understand him. He was talking about books and this was in a part of myself that was highly respected.

The dreamer’s own take on his dream

When the dreamer confronted his dream retold in this fashion, he identified with it, but had trouble deciding exactly what it was about. He could see it as an assessment of two possible areas of his life. The theme of not being able to participate in a potentially pleasurable milestone was one he related to. And the part about the leader within himself being arrogant brought a sense of sheepish recognition. His first comment was, “I think all of us who work hard enough to succeed professionally in music, are constantly driving ourselves to the point of exhaustion. We are never satisfied with what we have accomplished. We always think we have to be better. Even if we do something notable, we don’t really appreciate it. And, yes, there is a sense of arrogance connected with it. We don’t ever let down. And the thing that drives us is knowing that we can be better than we are.”

But there was more that this violinist got out of the dream. He also saw the same pattern being acted out in his marriage. He told me that he sometimes drove his wife crazy by never relaxing and just enjoying life. For him, acting on the message of this dream could bring major life changes.

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