Help with a dream that has stuck with me for years

[101N]

Hi I’m new to the forum but I’d appreciate someone else’s take on a dream I had in college that has stuck with me for years that has finally driven me to post on a forum. Thanks in advance =) I had lain down to take a nap because I was very tired from working nonstop to finish a crazy amount of work. It started like most normal dreams. I “woke up” and I went into a room. I saw my mother and my father. They were painting a mural on my brother’s bedroom wall. My mother told me to help my father. He was painting the grass. I felt slightly useless since they seemed to have things under control. I started trying to mix together different chemicals to produce some kind of artistic effect on the mural but somehow I caused a chemical reaction that started letting off poisonous gas and I couldn’t breathe. I dropped to the floor trying to get clean air but there were even more fumes down low. I grabbed the container with the chemicals and tried to crawl to the sliding glass door but I was dizzy and I dropped the container. It shattered everywhere. I managed to open the sliding glass door and got some fresh air. My mother was annoyed with me for breaking the jar and sent me away. This is when it got weird. I walked out of the room and was in this gigantic really grand looking hallway with marble floors, columns, walls etc. The atmosphere of the dream changed completely. I don’t remember feeling much of anything. I saw a set of huge marble stairs and went down them only to find myself in a room that looked like the lower level of a ship from around maybe the 1600’s. Picture stereotypical Mayflower. There were no sides on the room though. Instead there was a luminescent thick whitish grey fog at the edge where the walls should have been. The lanterns on the poles were making everything flicker. What I noticed most was the smell. It was the smell of dampness and rot. I found this odd since I don’t normally dream with scent but it was extremely vivid. I turned around and I found an old man standing at the bottom of the stairs. He was simply standing their watching me. I don’t remember feeling startled even though in real life I would have been freaked out. I looked at the man and I told him that I recognized the smell. The old man simply said yes. I looked at him and remarked on the fact that I always have such strange dreams. Up until this point I hadn’t even realized I was dreaming. Then I said that I think I’ve dreamt this before. To my knowledge I have never had this dream before but in that moment I was convinced I had. Then I asked him where this place was. The old man simply stood at the bottom of the stairs looking at me. He seemed almost amused by my comments. “You should know that,” he said, “you’ve been here before.” Then I jolted violently awake. This was such an odd dream and it has stuck with me for years because it was just so weird. There wasn’t much to the first part but the second section with the old man was just way out there. I literally felt like I was slammed back awake and it stuck with me for days afterword. I don’t remember feeling like the dream was eerie while it was happening but I definitely felt like it was eerie after I had woken up. I felt like I was supposed to understand/get something from the dream but I don’t know what. I also felt like the old man knew me even though I’ve never seen anybody/anything like him before in my life.

[Sambrosia]

That is a really cool experience. I have no idea what it means, but others might be able to offer some suggestions. I have a feeling if it means anything, you will have to figure it out on your own. That doesn't mean others won't help you in the right direction. My suggestion would be to look into lucid dreaming, and figure out if you want to undertake the task of inducing lucid dreams. When you reach the point that you're able to have a stable LD, you should try asking your subconscious what it meant. Or summon the old man in a dream and speak to him again with a clearer mind. I think you would be blown away with what answers you can get from yourself. And I say 'yourself', because remember that everything in your dreams is a product of your own mind. You'd be surprised at the things you didn't know you know. Oh, and the fact that it's still on your mind so long after it happened tells me that it's probably something worth pursuing.

[Wakinyan]

There’s a theory that our unconscious can be distinguished into two parts: The personal unconsciousness (u.) which is sort of a back yard of our consciousness, and the unpersonal u. where innate patterns of behaviour reside with universal symbols and ideas. If so some dreams seem to belong to the personal u. and some others to the unpersonal or collective u. Most dreams belong to the former and a characterized by familiar environments, figures and symbols, for instance one’s parents, work place and so forth. Dreams from the lower regions are on the other hand characterized by mythological or collective images, sometimes called archetypal images. And while we usually have associations to contents in dreams from our personal u., we seldom do to images in dreams from the collective u.. However, dreams with archetypal images often make a big impression and we carry them with us for a long time, with a feeling that it is important. Archetypes always make a big impression, whether projected unto others, or discovered in art, or dreams. Since we lack associations or personal understanding of the images in archetypal dreams, we can turn to the “collective associations”, to see what humanity has had to say about these recurring symbols. But to be able to do that, one has to be an expert in literature, religion, mythology, folk lore, and so forth – which I am not, unfortunately. A more unexpected source for archetypal images Carl Jung found was alchemy. There were two kinds of alchemy, one where the alchemist tried to make gold, and the other where the alchemist was a mystic trying to make the philosophers' gold, which wasn’t a metal, but a spiritual goal. There are numerous books from the hundreds of years of alchemical struggle, filled with archetypal imagery describing the inner journey projected onto outer processes. This dream is not untypical in my experience, in that it seems to begin in the personal u., and then the dreamer journeys into the unpersonal parts of his own inner world; from the familiar environments with familiar people to a place he has not – at least not consciously – visited before, where a man he has not seen before greets him. So I came to think of the old alchemists, because mother and father is making art. “The Art” is mystic’s work (opus), it is often called simply "the art"; and the dreamer has to mix different chemicals, which is exactly what the alchemists’ did while performing their art. But the dreamer is unsuccessful (which is quite expected because he is very young) and let loose a poisonous gas – that is Mercury, the most central figure in the art of alchemy, to some even the inventor of the art. He is both the devil, the helper, and the goal itself (archetypes are paradoxical). Mercury is let loose and makes the dreamer to drop his container. The container is the vas, the most important tool in the alchemists’ laboratory; that is where the work is done. And as Adam and Eve, and many other archetypal characters in different stories, the failed dreamer is sent away by his Mother/Father. This is an essential part of the hero's journey, because he cannot become an individual if he is not separated from his parents. Being cast from his personal environment, the dreamer comes to a place he has no personal relationship to. This is very typical, most adventures start out with something like this. The strange place reminds him of a ship, because the ship can be a symbol of life’s journey; and it is from the 1600’s, which funny enough is the peak of the mystical alchemical tradition in Europe. The walls are replaced with grey fog – once again one come to think of Mercury – and there is a foul smell, the smell of something rotten. Now this is yet again an alchemical reference if you will. That which is rotten and black and unpleasant is called nigredo and it is the first step of the journey to the philosophers' stone. Fact is, that this room itself is a vas, and in this place there is a man who is symbolizing the art; he is of course a representation of the archetypal image The Wise Old Man. When the real Father/Mother has cast him out, there is a possibility to develop and inner spiritual authority; that is why heroes never have parents (alive). As long as we are our parents’ children we will not develop our own individual potential. It is a big dream filled with archetypal imagery. I certainly understand the impact it had. Very interesting, thanks for sharing.