The goat and the cobweb

Here’s a puzzle. What’s the connection between a cobweb and a goat? If you’re already searching for an answer, you’re in the right frame of mind for interpreting a dream. I’ll give you some more clues:

Sandra phoned Loretta & Moyd’s Afternoon Show on Radio 4BC this afternoon to ask me about her dream featuring – you’ve got it – a cobweb and a goat. In her dream, she was going somewhere with her husband when she suddenly had to get a cab and go back home. In the cab, she looked down and saw that her feet were covered in cobwebs. She looked again, and saw an adorable little goat, sitting at her feet, with a blister on his nose. What does Sandra’s dream mean?

I’ll refine the puzzle: What’s the connection between feet covered in cobwebs, and a goat?

In case you’re not there yet, I’ll come at it from another angle:

What’s the connection between Sandra having her journey cut short (having to return home), and a goat?

Most dreams have a repeating theme, and if you can identify this, you’ve got a good starting point for interpretation. Since Sandra’s goat was adorable, it was most likely a pet goat, and pet goats are usually tethered to keep them close to home. Sandra’s feet were kind of tethered by the cobwebs or, at least, she must have walked through a potentially trapping spider’s web to have cobwebs clinging to her feet.

At first I thought Sandra’s cobwebs suggested she’d been standing still for too long in one place (metaphorically), long enough to gather cobwebs, and though this may also be true, the dream shows Sandra’s journey cut short by the need to take a cab home, as if she can only get so far because she’s tethered.

In the very short time that we have on radio to interpret a dream, and without being able to clarify aspects of the dream with the caller, looking for out-of-the-box connections that repeat in a dream can shine a light on the dreamer’s situation. At the time of her dream, Sandra probably felt restricted or tethered, especially around her direction. In the dream, her journey was cut short, so there’s a sense that she has direction – she knows where she wants to go – but she’s not getting there.

When goats aren’t tethered, they roam free and far. Goats can climb mountains and follow paths other animals, and humans, find difficult. Goats can journey a long way on very little. Sandra’s dreaming mind chose the symbol of a goat, no doubt because she does know, deep down, that she is capable of reaching her goal. (Is this word play, a tethered goal a dream goat?) So what’s holding her back?

Could it have anything to do with the blister on the goat’s nose? I wonder if Sandra had the feeling, in the day or two before her dream, that she had poked her nose into something she shouldn’t have. Or that she’d followed her intuition (followed her nose) and got burnt, either recently, or in the past, and this experience has held her back from setting out again.

What would you set as a dream alchemy practice here? I’d suggest the following visualisation if Sandra would like to achieve the goal she identifies with this dream: Sandra, see the blister on the goat’s nose vanishing, then look down to see the cobwebs gone and feel a wonderful, warm, dancing sensation seeping into your feet. Open the car door and dance wherever you wish, led by the adorable goat, sniffing the wind, following his nose which happens to lead you both to exactly where you’d like to be (picture where you’d like to be).

As with all dream alchemy, as we rewrite the story using our personal dream symbols, we simultaneously rewrite our unconscious mindset around the issue and the waking life outcome.

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