Cow pat patter

Get a pen and a piece of paper, as you’re going to have some fun with this one while learning something about yourself and about dream interpretation. You’re going to chat with a cow-pat, a humble chunk of bovine dung – and no, you’re not dreaming this, and yes, it will make perfect sense if you play along.

Earlier this week, I was interpreting callers’ dreams on a radio show when a man phoned in with a dream about cow-pats.

“I dreamed I was driving alongside a fence on my farm and all the cow-pats in the ruts had changed into snow. What does it mean?”

“How did you feel about the snow?” I asked.

I’m going to leave his reply until later in this post, because this is the point where I want you to pick up your pen and paper and play along with me.

Imagine now that you are a snow-pat chatting to a cow-pat. This exercise works best if you do it fast, without really thinking. Just let your pen do the writing and keep your head out of it!

Arrange the dialogue on your paper like this, starting with the opening line I have given:

Cow-pat: Hello, snow-pat, how are you?

Snow-pat:

Cow-pat:

(Continue like this)

Let snow-pat reply – a simple, short sentence is good – and then let your pen move on to let cow-pat say something and continue in this way until you feel pleased with the outcome.

It’s best to do this without referring to an example, because I don’t want to influence you, but if you are having difficulty, have a look at this:

Cow-pat: Hello, snow-pat, how are you?

Snow-pat: Cold.

Cow-pat: You wouldn’t be snow if you weren’t cold, would you?

Snow-pat: I have to stay cold, even though I don’t like it, or I’ll thaw and disappear.

Cow-pat: You wouldn’t disappear – you’d become water and help plants grow.

Snow-pat: That’s your job, helping plants grow.

Cow-pat: How?

Snow-pat: You decompose and fertilise plants.

Cow-pat: Really? And I thought I was just a pile of smelly stuff people hate getting on their shoes.

Snow-pat: I guess you change for the better!

Cow-pat: Why don’t you then – change for the better, I mean?

Snow-pat: You mean thaw?

Cow-pat: Yes, move on, unfreeze your emotions and let them flow to help things grow.

(In this example, you might stop the dialogue here because you feel pleased with the outcome. You’ve received an insight about the importance of change or about letting your emotions flow to help you grow.)

If you’ve read this far without doing your own dialogue, stop and do it now. This way you’ll get maximum benefit from this article.

Okay, what did you learn from doing this? Even though this wasn’t your dream, the symbols (cow-pat and snow-pat) are deeply evocative, and it’s very likely that your unconscious mind has responded to these symbols in a creative and insightful way. Just imagine how much more powerful this exercise would be if you did this with symbols from one of your recent dreams!

One of the reasons I love talking to people about their dreams on radio is that we can all learn from each others’ dreams. Yes, it’s a way of sharing dream interpretation tips and techniques, and yes, it’s a way of discovering something about yourself when someone calls in with a dream similar to one you have had, but it’s also about gaining insight we can apply to our own lives. One person’s dream may be about facing fears, and we all contemplate new ways we might face our own fears and why we might benefit from this. Or another caller’s dream may be about the rewards that can come when you look at a problem in a different way, and we all might then contemplate the rewards awaiting us if we look at our problems in a different way. Every dream – whether our own or someone else’s – provides a ‘bottom line’ meditation on life and how we approach it.

Before returning to the caller, the dreamer of the cow-pat dream, to discover the meaning of his dream, here are some more examples of cow-pat/snow-pat dialogue. Do any of these resonate with yours?

 

EXAMPLE 2

Cow-pat: Hello, snow-pat, how are you?

Snow-pat: Pure as the driven snow – untouched, virginal.

Cow-pat: Just came down in the last shower then?

Snow-pat: Are you saying I’m naïve, wet behind the ears?

Cow-pat: Didn’t need to – you just said it yourself.

Snow-pat: I’d rather be naïve and fresh and new than old, dried and decomposing like you.

Cow-pat: Ah, but I have lived, I have experience …

 

EXAMPLE 3

Cow-pat: Hello, snow-pat, how are you?

Snow-pat: Like winter, icy wet. How are you?

Cow-pat: Like summer, baked dry.

Snow-pat: You could warm and dry me, I could cool and hydrate you – want to work together to create a better balance?

 

EXAMPLE 4

Cow-pat: Hello, snow-pat, how are you?

Snow-pat: Excited – waiting for children to discover me and play!

Cow-pat: No-one plays with me! No-one comes anywhere near me.

Snow-pat: Not even naughty children?

Cow-pat: Ah, I have been flung with malice from time to time.

Snow-pat: I’m glad you changed into a snow-pat in our dream – it’s better to make people happy than to make them cry.

 

When you do dialogues like these using symbols from your dreams, they help you to identify your personal dream symbols. If this had been your dream, you might have discovered that a cow-pat was your personal symbol for malice, and snow was your personal symbol for happiness.

But it doesn’t stop there. A dialogue usually moves beyond identifying bizarre dream symbols towards insight and transformation. The insight you get from doing this helps solve and transform the issue your dream was reflecting. Now you can see why dialogues are powerful dream alchemy practices. (Other dream alchemy practices include visualisations, affirmations, art work and more. Read more about dream alchemy practices in my book, The Dream Handbook, what they are and how they work.)

So, let’s now get back to the man who phoned into the radio station with his cow-pat dream.

“I dreamed I was driving alongside a fence on my farm and all the cow-pats in the ruts had changed into snow. What does it mean?”

“How did you feel about the snow?” I asked.

(This is really the same question used in the dialogue, where cow-pat says, Hello snow-pat, how are you?)

“The snow was so beautiful. I noticed its beauty,” he replied.

His dream shows he is beginning to see beauty in the everyday mundane, since, as a farmer, he sees cow-pats every day. There are extra clues in his dream.

The cow-pats were in the ruts, and we talk about being ‘in a rut’ when we feel stuck, perhaps in the every day mundane, failing to see the beauty of each day. There’s also a clue in the fence, since a fence is built along a boundary, to keep things in or to keep things out. A fence marks a limit of territory,  keeping things ‘safe’ perhaps on the inside, limiting stepping into ‘unsafe’ territory beyond. The dream suggests the farmer is about to overcome a limitation, reach into unfamiliar territory, and the key to this is in seeing beauty in the mundane. It’s about shifting his perspective, transforming the way he sees life, in the same way that his dream cow-pats were transformed into beautiful snow.

Now, YOUR insight into what cow-pats and snow-pats mean to you might be quite different from the insight to be gained by the farmer from his dream, but isn’t it wonderful to learn something from someone else’s dream? There may be a situation in your life – today or in the future – where you can apply this insight and see the beauty in the mundane. No doubt, when you do, you will recall the dream about the cow-pats and the snow-pats.

So share your dreams with those who care to listen, whether with one or two people you know or anonymously with many thousands on the radio, as this farmer did. Aren’t you glad he called?

 

You might also enjoy