Back rooms and descent

[boccaderlupo]

I dreamed we were being driven around what I perceived to be Los Angeles, a place I've never visited in the waking world. It was sunny, the sky clear, and the buildings seemed to be made of hardened plastic stacked crates. People will sunglasses on balconies. Then it was evening, and we were being led through the back rooms of restaurants and onto darkened streets lit by torches.

"I don't get this place," I said to no one in particular.

*

I dreamed we had to rappel down a sheer metal wall into what seemed like an elevator shaft, myself and a firefighter I know who often looms as a archetype of action and authority in my dreams. I'm not great at climbing, but someone else was manning the rope and let me straight down. It was not a falling sensation, but a gradual lowering, and at the bottom we found people crushed under myriad concrete blocks. We had to sift through the debris and pull them out. One guy, an older man, beardless with little hair and almost emaciated, scampered out and fled when I lifted some stone; I was astonished that he could have survived underneath the crush, let alone nearly unscathed. I continued to search, my friend on my left. Now there was just corpses and bones, and what seemed like rotting meat mixed with old trash and vegetables. My friend shouted to me over the din and confusion, and then we were being gradually pulled back upwards into the light.

Comments

[sdi]

I have visited Los Angeles. I don't get it, either.

[brenainn]

I've enjoyed reading about your dreams over the past year. I'd like to look more into dream interpretation. My dreams are normally incoherent nonsense, the kind of thing you'd see in a low budget independent scifi or horror film. But sometimes, they seem more meaningful, like someone (a god? spirit? guardian angel? subconscious forces?) is trying to tell me something.

[boccaderlupo]

Thank you. I hope if nothing else they provide some wry amusement.

I've never been much into dream interpretation per se, but read some Jung recently. Although he advanced this idea of archetypes, he seems emphatic that in the end dream analysis is idiosyncratic; if I understand him aright, the analyst needs to coax as much detail from the dreamer over a long period of time, to determine an individual's symbology. I think this makes a lot of sense. Though there may be no common glossary of dream symbols, I think each individual has their own constellation of recurrent themes, that can then be interpreted through mediation and reflection. Thus, dream journaling. I would not be surprised in the least if one's guardian spirit or other divine forces seek to manifest their presence in their dreams, but I think it requires extensive introspection to understand what is trying to be communicated.