Blue_Opossum

Morning of August 31, 1969. Sunday.



I am possibly in an unknown region of southwest Florida near a smaller lake, though it could also be inclusive of partly distorted (memories of) areas of Chipmunk Coulee where I had moved from in Wisconsin (though I had lived in Florida before, prior to that first move as well, until around three years of age). There are not many events; mostly just shifts of mood regarding the vivid imagery over time. Regarding this dream, I had written a story (a few versions over several years, in fact), but the later utilized implications were not known at the time of my dream. Thus, my dream was seemingly sending a rather ambiguous message, or so it seemed at the time, if you consider I did not consciously “grasp” the main scenario of “surrender” vs. “stay away from my territory”.

As well as the somewhat familiar lake scenery, I am also on the outskirts of town and in a clearing near the perimeter of a dense forest. There is some sort of local legend of a witch living deep in the forest, likely near the center of it. A large shrub has a white flag tied to it seemingly to indicate that the witch claims the forest as hers. It is on the edge of the forest and to the right of a tree.

Later on, the meaning seems to be different and I then get the idea that the white flag means that the witch is “surrendering” to progress and encroaching property developers. (I never actually see the witch; I only hear friends speaking about her and her flag - and I assume her to be of the Halloween-associated “bad witch” type.) I probably had developed the idea of the white flag from movies, but perhaps I did not perceive it as meaning to surrender. In fact, again, in my dream, it seemed a bit ominous as a sort of “obvious” visual warning (and perimeter marker) to “keep away” at first - the opposite of the “real” meaning. I see the outcome as obviously incongruous, perhaps during a time of slower learning processes where dreams are often inherently wrong about real-life associations due to not yet knowing societal associations or certain word meanings. One possible association from years ago related to occultism and superstition “surrendering” to consensus or modern mainstream society.

Some of the imaginative detail seems to have come from the idea of playing golf, oddly enough. (I did not really watch golf on any regular basis, however.) The flag in my dream was, at one point, vaguely similar in appearance and orientation as in golf (though with no number and not a pennant as in some cases with golf). You also see people hit a ball into the woods (or just on the perimeter) in some golf games.

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Update Wednesday, 20 January 2016: This dream is of the liminality type because the main theme is relative to a perimeter, or implied barrier on level ground (in contrast to lower or higher “barriers” or setting features). This is a lifelong but sparsely recurring dream design and type of setting. It seems to be relevant to metaphorical divisions of consciousness concerning the dream self’s level of access and other aspects of consciousness in the dream state. The forest here is the “Enchanted Forest” of the deepest imaginative state of the dream self (my most desired dream setting), where “magic still works” - “magic”, here, being analogous to apex lucidity. The white flag first implies “do not go in”, later to imply “I surrender”. It is almost as if the power of creativity and imagination, along with individuality (here presented as a form of isolation) is succumbing to consensus, or more specifically, the fully conscious self. On a much simpler level of possible meaning, it may represent the state between waking and sleeping (the clearing representing wakefulness and the forest representing the dream state).

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