The leashes that bind

Dreams, even when they’re scary, can be very playful. Some are laugh out loud funny, like Brig’s dream of taking her dog for a walk only instead of her dog what was on the end of the leash was a bit of lamb’s fry (offal). Deep and meaningful though the dream was, you’ve just got to laugh, and Brig’s co-presenter and anchor on Radio Mix 101.1FM Melbourne certainly made meat of that one on their breakfast show last week. It was an offal dream for Brig, but perfect breakfast fodder for the team, and we managed to get to the bottom of it pretty quickly.

Yvonne phoned the station with a dream of being a passenger in a plane, enjoying her trip until she looked out the window and noticed the plane had no wings. What was keeping it airborne? She looked towards the cockpit – chickens were harnessed to the plane keeping it aloft. That was fine by Yvonne until she remembered, in the dream, that chickens have clipped wings. She painted a playful picture, and look at those plays on words – cockpit and chickens. We’re ‘chicken’ when we’re scared, and Yvonne was pretty scared at the thought of being at the mercy of a band of wingless chickens. A wingless plane, wingless chickens, and yet the plane was safely flying along and getting somewhere.

Yvonne’s dream suggests she can achieve far more than she thinks and fears. She may fear that her plans and ideas don’t have wings, but they do. There’s so much more to Yvonne’s dream than breakfast radio allows time to say, but simply looking for word play is fun and gives a clue to the interpretation.

Rachel’s dream of dating a dentist who gave her a gift of a dental cup containing dental floss and mouthwash made us all smile, and she related to my brief interpretation about taking a new attitude to how she communicates – clean, clear, fresh, positive words and intent. “Yes,” she said, “that makes sense.” How playful of her dream to go for a dental hygiene theme to encapsulate this.

Andrea’s recurring dream was more frightening. She dreams of being smothered by hair while in bed, and sees a chest at the bottom of the bed with a light that pulls her down. She wakes up struggling for breath.

My quick on air interpretation was that Andrea’s dream comes up when she feels restricted during the day, as if she can’t breathe to claim her space to express herself, and that this ‘pulls her down’, depresses her. It was spot on, she could relate to it. There’s so much more to her dream, but notice again how helpful it is to look for word play. The chest at the bottom of the bed is also Andrea’s chest, the place where her lungs are situated, her breathing centre. Although she feels depressed about finding it difficult to express herself fully, there’s ‘light’ here, like light at the end of the tunnel. When we can get to the bottom of our feelings, we can see the light about our blocks and how to overcome them. I wonder whether Andrea also suffers from having too many ideas (head stuff, like hair), that she doesn’t know how to ground (make happen), so she feels smothered by too many ideas and no action. The chest is at the bottom of the bed, near Andrea’s feet, and the place for feet to be is on the ground. If Andrea can just ‘pull down’ one or two of those ideas and ground them – make them happen – then there’s light at the end of the tunnel!

And what about Brig’s dream of the dog that wasn’t, the dog that was, in fact, a bit of lamb’s fry? I won’t spill those beans in this blog (you can get to know Brig and her dreams by tuning into the show next time I’m on), but it does remind me of the time Michael and I took a dog we were looking after for a walk. The dog had been a bit porky, and he trimmed up in our care and was looking pretty good. He had a bit of arthritis in his paws, so he was a plodder to walk. On that particular day we took a slightly longer walk than usual, and we had to slow our pace to match his drag towards the end. Suddenly, home in sight, the leash slackened, and Michael said, “He’s picked up his pace, got a bit of energy now he can see home.” I looked back and there was the dog, still plodding along slowly and faithfully, a long way back down the road, while the empty leash trailed behind Michael. The next day we tossed his old fat dog collar and bought him a nice slim one, though I think the sight of us dragging a leash is all it takes to keep him plodding along. Strange creatures – dogs and humans – conditioned to believe in limitations long since gone.

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