Dream, March 2006I dreamed I was on some kind of a cruise/expedition ship. We had stopped along a shoreline where people had gotten off to go and hunt for crystal gems. I had stayed on board, but was down at a large boarding hatch next to the water, and was looking across at the shoreline along with another person in the same space. I chanced to look around the hatch area, and saw a huge crystal specimen propped up on a ledge to the left side of the hatch. I thought very briefly that I could take that crystal formation for myself, but immediately a voice inside my head told me that it surely belonged to someone else, so I must not take it, and that if I did, the person there would see that I had done so and be a witness that I was a thief. I felt guilt for even thinking it could be mine, and went back to watching for activity on the shore with a sigh.
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After waking up and thinking about this dream, I realized what all the dreams about crystals have been trying to show me. The crystals all represent opportunities that I may choose to take or not, and the context of each dream reveals my attitudes about opportunities!
In many past dreams I have been in areas that were seismologically unstable; there are crystals in plain sight in the most unstable places in fabulous variety which I would love to collect, but I can see that the ground is slowly sinking down and falling into an underground abyss; I feel and hear small tremors; gas rises from cracks in the soil. I yearn after gorgeous specimens on the brink of being swallowed up, but stay back on solid ground, fearing an impending volcanic explosion, full of regret to see the beautiful crystals be lost forever under the earth.
This kind of dream is about remaining in a solid, stable situation rather than “risking life and limb” (as I perceive it) to attain a very desirable but ephemeral opportunity. That accurately reflects my past tendency to hold onto the seemingly stable situation at hand (job, living arrangement, whatever) instead of going for rewards that do not appear to be as safe and stable.
The dream about staying on the ship rather than going out to hunt for opportunity-crystals even gives me the choice to take an opportunity that is right at hand without having to go search and dig; however, my belief is that if it is right here in front of me, it must belong to someone else and is not meant for me. Even if an opportunity is right under my nose, I believe that it can't be mine; it's owned by someone else. I fear that witnesses to my taking such an opportunity would condemn me as a thief. And even considering that it was MY dream, I could have made the crystal be there for me, for the taking! The dream was to show me that my basic assumptions were running my show.
So, it seems that I have two main impediments that keep me from taking advantage of opportunities:
- I believe they are too risky; and
- I believe they belong to someone else.
I know that I have more work to do on letting go of stable situations, but I think I can work some on the concept that an opportunity can belong to me… Not everything should belong to everyone else!
This is an odd thing, but as I’ve been writing this, I feel like I am in the fifties… a woman trying to make her way in the fifties. Even the way I’m writing feels slightly stilted, as if I am limiting my vocabulary to what a young woman back in the 1950s would say. What’s that about??? Maybe I am harboring the limiting beliefs of my mother, who was a young woman in the fifties when she got married and gave birth to me. My mom has always been strongly in favor of holding fast to stable situations rather than stepping out to new adventures.
I know of course that I must deprogram others’ attitudes that are stuck in my mind in order to discover the limits (or lack thereof) in my own life… so here's another thing to work on!! ;o) Oy vey. Well, we can’t work on ‘em till we know what they are, can we? Sigh!