Amanda Kelly - The Ivory Gate of Dreams

If the sub-consciousness gets hold of an experience you have already gone through in former times to resemble the new experience, the dream shows up with scenes of the past time. You sit and wonder why you suddenly dream of your childhood. During daytime, you might not have recognized in the whole that something has a strong relation to the past. An example: someone is ready to fall in love. Then a dream rises up in which “a family member appears along with this person.” Therefore one remembers a sister or a brother, the father or the mother and starts pondering about them mentally. The dream wants to point out directly that there is a community between the object of desire and an experience of the dreamer´s past time.

What is the meaning of the above-mentioned doorway, or as Sigmund Freud has called it, the watcher, in connection with the dream interpretation? We have learnt that the sub-consciousness transfers important information to the consciousness in the shape of a dream. A story expresses itself through pictures, like in a movie, and passes over to the consciousness. However, there is a kind of censorship on the way to it. This censorship works for us and holds back scenes of the dream that would be too cruel for us to bear; if it is the case that we have not yet achieved the appropriate growth to deal with it. For example: A man had been beaten by his parents as a child and now, as an adult he watches a scene like that in a supermarket or somewhere else. At night the dream-power tells him a story about his own childhood, about how he felt when this happened to him. If this man never dealt with the problem of having been beaten as a child, the dream might arise in the shape of a nightmare, which the watcher holds back at the passage between sub-consciousness and consciousness, because it is not yet time for the man to work out the trauma. The dreamer has successfully inhibited the cruelties all over the years and does not want to be reminded of it now, just like in the past. Probably his parents never told him they are sorry about what they have done to him.

In the following the different types of dream will be explained. It is possible that several different types of dream appear during one night.

The Finishing Dream

WHAT TYPES OF DREAM DO EXIST?

It may seem some kind of peculiar to begin with the explanation about the meaning of the finishing dream, though there is certainly the opening dream as well. My intention is to lay down in front of you the fruits of work with dream interpretation in advance. Like a confectioner who is going to present the pastries to you before he sells it.

Keeping up with the example of the man, whose trauma, namely a not processed injury of the soul has never been worked off: caused by the inhibition lasting for years, his sub-consciousness now feels forced to produce a new dream, a total different dream, different from the nightmare which the watcher has kept back. The nightmare would have shown children who are crying because they had been beaten. The new dream would possibly show a farmer threshing corn off his wheat. The dreamer would not understand the meaning, but at least think about it. If the man´s inhibition of the experience of being beaten is very strong, he might think that wheat, as well needs to be hit to bring out corn and later becomes bread for the people to eat. He might think that this is a general fact in life. His parents might have been so powerful that there had been no questioning about the reason or a demand for apologising. However, the sub-consciousness will never agree with such a kind of viewing things. It has got a high level of moral and its desire to open our eyes on acts like this will linger on, until we are ready to deal with it. It wants to make clear to the man that his parents ought to tell him they are sorry about it, or he would never speak to them again. Its aim is to lead a better life. If he continues with his parents as if nothing ever happened, he might eventually beat his own children one time, although he did not want that. After the forceful break-out the man might get the strange feeling, as if not he himself had done that, but a different powerful energy.

What would happen to the man, if he started to spend his time intensely with his dreams? He would make up his mind why a dream appears in which a person was threshing corn. He could conclude that corn is young, too and is obtained from the bosom of the wheat. At best, he would reflect that he had also been beaten when he was young and talk about the incident with his parents. If his parents were in the position to remember that and tell him how sorry they feel about it, this dream would never rise up again. If he does not have a close contact to his parents, or they had already passed away, and he is unable to talk about his mental hurts with them no more, a quite similar dream is going to appear, probably after a very long time. The farmer again threshes corn but his wife praises his painstaking piece of work in the dream. At this point, the precious task of the dream and the dream interpretation starts, which lends us a hand in everything that keeps us busy and is a companion an entire life long: the dreamer has assimilated the experience of his childhood. Just because of this addition to the dream, when something positive happens, as the farmer´s wife honours the industry of her husband, the hard work on the trauma comes to the close. The man possibly often thought about forgiving his parents long before, but a feeling of anger and hate still lingered on. If, however, the finishing dream with its positive touch appears to him, he can be sure that he could forgive his parents throughout the deepest levels of himself. From now on, he will be able to continue his life undisturbed.

A lively example of a finishing dream and the work on traumata people need to master, delivers the following story. A woman was the victim of rape. At the age of 27 she was raped by a very strong man in an unbelievingly brutal fashion. She was that frightened that it took many years until she went to the police to tell what had happened. The man was already known to the police for several crimes. She recognized him in the archives of the police office. When the man who committed the rape had received the notification, he gave order to a friend to phone the woman and urge on her to withdraw the notification. If not, he would do her even more harm. The woman was so intimidated by the phone call that she wrote a postcard to the police officer to ask him to stop the investigation. She also explained why she has done that, but as everybody knows: where no plaintiff, there is no judge.

The woman never had a dream of the rape but her daily life was very much disturbed by thoughts of anger and hate. She felt annoyed by the fact that this criminal was to get away without punishment. Sometimes she felt completely depressed just to think of the rape, mainly because of the brutality the man had carried out on her. She mistrusted strong men in general since then, however married a strong man 12 years later when she was 39. Her marriage lasted only a few years until she got rid of her husband. At the age of 45 years she fell in love with a very lovely man. He was not strong, on the contrary he was rather weak and soft. After one year, they had an argument over his desire to move to another town. She was beating him after she had pushed him down to the floor and held his arms tightly together, just like the man once did who committed the rape to her. The relationship did not last very much longer. Her great love had left her. The woman felt very sad after he was gone. A friend of her lover told her that he could not forget that she had beaten him. She was always dreaming of him. Every dream ended like the other: “He had vanished all of a sudden.” Deep down in her mind she knew that it was her fault that he was gone. She again reflected about the rape and her thoughts revolved around a solution for her life to go on happy and free.