Extreme dreams

Here’s a great tip for when you’re feeling stuck and need some guidance to move forward. Most dreams, when you look at them closely, have at least one pair of opposites. For example, your dream might involve slow and fast, or high and low, or noisy and quiet, or long way round and short way round. Look for these opposites, and write them down.

If the opposites don’t jump out at you straight away, look at the personalities of any people in your dream. Dreams usually highlight people with opposite personalities or approaches to life.

For example, one person in your dream might be someone you consider very flexible and open-minded, while another person in the same dream might be someone you consider rigid and closed-minded.

Not all dreams contain pairs of opposites, but most do, so have a really good look.

When you find a pair of opposites ask which opposite best describes you or a life experience you are encountering right now. Then ask what you think about people who tend to be in the opposite corner from you on this. Finally, ask if you were ever in that opposite corner before you ‘swapped sides’.

These pairs of opposites define issues that your dream is processing. Something is only an issue in your life if you tend towards one extreme opposite (or corner) because you find something about the other extreme uncomfortable. For example, you might tend towards being too flexible because you haven’t had good experiences with rigid people and don’t want to be like them. Or you might tend towards being too rigid because being too flexible in the past seems to have created difficulties for you.

What’s the solution? The solution is to identify the issue (in this example, the issue is how flexible or how rigid to be about something in your life right now) and then to balance your approach by finding a mid-point between the two extremes. For example, it’s usually best in any situation to take an approach about half way between too flexible and too rigid, a place where a bit of both serves you well.

Dreams help you to identify issues you have been blind to, issues that are affecting your life in a negative way. They help you to see where your life needs more balance. It’s up to you to follow that cue.

[Extract from 101 Dream Interpretation Tips, Jane Teresa Anderson]

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