Meaning of weird political dream?

[JoannaB]

Ok, for this dream I am curious what others might make of it - it just was such an odd dream. Link to my dream journal entry: Hair Restraint and Why Capitalism Failed in Poland - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views A few pertinent details: I grew up in Poland but left it as a child and certainly was never involved in its politics. Capitalism did not fail in Poland, Communism did. The woman does not exist in real life. I studied political science in college but am not using my degree and am not really following politics much. Speaking up is important to me, and I left another online forum because of censorship issues, and that may be pertinent to this dream. The main thing happening in my life right now is that I am trying to get lucid in my dreams and am in this dream competition on DV. Before going to bed I posted this thread to DV concerning the issue of truthfulness http://www.dreamviews.com/extended-d...m-reports.html. I am a wife and a mother of two small boys. I work full time and my boss is also of Polish origin. I have short hair and do not use any hair restraints nor encounter any on a regular basis. Not sure what else may be pertinent. Does anyone have any other thoughts on my weird dream as linked above given all that extra info about me or just given the contents of the dream?

[JoannaB]

I may have a new insight on the hair restraint: I do have a nervous habit of pulling my hair literally when I am stressed. I wonder whether that is part of why the prisoner had a hair restraint? Another idea: Even though the prisoner was male and Caucasian looking, I wonder whether the hair restraint was not in some way like a Muslim woman's hair being covered? There are other religious traditions where the hair has to be restrained or covered somehow. So maybe the prisoner was a religious political prisoner of some sort?

[Athanor]

Because most dreams contain an incredible web of detail that’s related specifically to the dreamer, the background information which you provided allows for a more accurate interpretation although generally, probably no dream forum is really an ideal location for the full exploration and analysis of a dream; usually, only some broad ideas can be tried out to see if they might fit the personal circumstances of the dreamer in a reasonable way as based on dream motifs as opposed, say, to fixed symbols. Overall though, it looks like the dream, on analogy, is in some way taking you back to your “origins” (the dream takes place in Poland) and to the influences of that time which might be affecting your current life but not in the best way possible (a police state is suggested by the dream, i.e. a certain “repressive” inner “state of mind”). The attractive woman is pictured by the dream as being in a political position of power in this inner “state”. So far, it appears that the dream is trying to balance out a conscious attitude that you mentioned in which you believe you are not “political” (not using your political science degree, don’t really follow politics that much). The dream could be saying instead that basically, you are in reality involved with issues related to power and “government” as related to yourself and others (one definition for “political” is: concerned with power: relating to the balance of power in relationships, especially in a group or organization). The fact that the woman does not exist in real life supports the idea that we are dealing with an inner psychological figure who influences your day-to-day life as opposed to her being a figure somehow related to outer political issues for example. Similarly, although you believe that speaking up in your outer life is important and you feel strongly about censorship, apparently there may be some kind of inner “censorship” which is very active and powerful (the woman who is complicit in applying the “hair restraint”). The woman is charismatic, likely meaning in this approach to your dream that in some way, you find the practical effects of this inner figure very pleasing and perhaps a little inflating at times, just like crowds can become enamored with repressive dictators who spout off nationalistic rhetoric. Perhaps the “fake dream” incident may have directly or indirectly stirred up a kind of recognition that something “fake” might be going on inside yourself related to the idea that a certain truth is being denied too often. As a side-note to the “fake dream” discussion, analyst Marie Louise von Franz once described an incident where she asked a client as usual to provide dreams for their therapeutic sessions together. After a fairly lengthy period of providing dreams for discussion, the client triumphantly declared that the whole idea of analysis and therapy was a sham because he had “made up” every “dream” that had been presented to that point. Of course, as von Franz pointed out, any fantasies (e.g. the client’s fake dreams) come from the psyche as do dreams, and describe precisely the same unconscious matters that dreams do as well. The “fake dream” incident which you describe also appears to have touched on certain aspects of your “origins” in that your mother’s comment somehow “had an effect” and maybe the whole issue partly triggered the dream in order to clarify more fully certain unconscious psychological dynamics. This idea is supported by the fact that in the dream, the powerful woman is related to your family on your mother’s side. Also, she and her friends are staying at your mother’s house, the latter of course symbolizing a psychological “complex” that’s probably in some way directly related to the influences of your mother currently and as you grew up. Certain incidents and situations etc. that always set off a habitual emotional response reveal that there is an underlying “complex” which exists and can cause us to react in a negative, fixed way is some circumstances until we can perhaps become more aware of its influences and manage to control the resulting emotions in a better way. Apparently you may sometimes be partly aware of certain impulses and reactions etc. which suddenly appear (phoning and texting your mother’s friends) but maybe the dream is hinting that they should be met more consciously and “face to face” (meet in the outdoor café). You and the group meet on a bridge which is found in the café. A “bridge” often represents the threshold between one psychological state and another such as, for example, between a current attitude or general outlook etc. and a different way of viewing things which can be more helpful and productive overall. A bridge not only joins opposite sides of a gap, but bridges over (“overcomes”) what is in the gap. Another way to look at it is that a bridge links the known and the unknown, the conscious and the unconscious, the seen and unseen. Maybe recently, a decision was made or a direction was taken etc. that could potentially help to “bridge” some kind of obstacle or situation which, from the dream’s point of view is unhelpful, perhaps the presence sometimes of a kind of “police state mentality”. However, it may be that there’s some reluctance to upset a certain pleasant illusion beyond a certain point with regard to a disagreeable issue (meet in a café to question the prisoner as opposed to going to a gloomy prison for example). The dream seems to make a point of highlighting the odd nature of the “hair restraint”, so it’s probably a key symbol in the dream. In general terms, the image of hair often symbolizes the free flow of energizing and transforming thoughts and fantasies etc., based on the analogy that the hair is found on the “head” where of course the brain is located and where mental activity occurs. Also, the fact is that we can’t control the growth of our hair; it just keeps growing, similar to involuntary fantasies and intuitions that can spontaneously appear at any time. Such fantasies and ideas etc. can be our great strength as seen in the stories of Samson and other heroes and heroines who have long hair. As long as the hair isn’t cut off, all is well because the spontaneous fantasies, thoughts and intuitions etc. as symbolized by the hair can be crucial in helping us to control our inner and outer “enemies”. That’s partly because these intuitions etc. can provide inspiration for new projects and undertakings which can advance our lives in a positive way, but they can also warn us if things are heading in the wrong direction. All of this also ties in with innate, instinctive reactions as opposed to “rational thinking” because the hair on our heads is the main residue, as it were, of the hair which covered our entire bodies in the very distant past. So in view of this symbolic background, it’s possible that the dire state of the prisoner reflects the damaging results of “restraining” too much at times the free flow of instinctive fantasy and emotion in favor of a kind of “dictatorship” by more “rational” and fixed thoughts and opinions. The symptom of stress where you tug at your hair seems to symbolically “point to” where the problem lies, that is, perhaps to not allowing a freer flow of fantasy, instincts and emotion to help guide you more effectively out of various challenges which we all face especially in these difficult economic times. If the final scene did indeed follow the cutting of the prisoner’s hair restraint, it might show that “nothing much will happen” regarding the free flow of feelings and intuitions etc. until the “dominating position” of maybe the power principal is reduced so that a freer flow of energy can occur (capitalism with all its ups and downs). “Begging” such an inner entrenched position to change (whether as outlined above or another one) apparently won’t work, so in this approach, you the ego will have to become more assertive and determined in order to “overthrow” a possibly “controlling” aspect of your personality if reasonable progress in overall self development is to be made over time. Fragment 1 may even be hinting further at the need for attention to how you use your energy (money) more effectively in the long term so that a “secure future” will be achieved in the sense of self-fulfillment and overall contentment. Fragment 2 which showed the image of your frail grandmother who is deceased might relate to your inner, instinctive and wise feminine side which needs some “regenerating” in order to help you deal with the many difficult challenges that unfortunately tend to get in the way of the promised “good life” we all want. Anyway, I hope that at least some of these ideas can be helpful to you in the further exploration of this important dream.

[JoannaB]

Athanor, Thank you so much for this thorough analysis! A lot of it provides me with a new way of thinking of this dream which I had not thought about before but which does ring like at least some of it definitely has truth to it, and I have already had some new ideas about this dream based on your interpretation: My upbringing was very strict with a father who was too strict, so going back to origins and strictness of totalitarianism reminded me of that, and even though my father is absent from this dream, he is definitely not absent from my thoughts, and likely had an influence on this dream. I think also I at times put so much stress on how different my mother and I are that I repress the knowledge of how similar we are as well. I have lately been so focused on my goal of lucid dreaming that I have neglected my day dreaming which I had found in the past is crucial to my very sanity, so the repressing of creativity may be about that. Also in my lucid dreaming goals I have been planning for very specific almost choreographed desired dream, which really is not like me - my past experience with lucid dreaming tended to be not about trying to achieve total control but about using the awareness of the lucid dream to interact with my subconscious dream more often than not, and so it is good to have this reminder. Self censorship is definitely something I tend to do, I tend to be hard on myself, and I need a reminder to loosen up. I also tend to procrastinate and make much bigger looming issues out of issues that did not need to be as big. I am sure there are other pertinent ideas in your interpretation that are likely to spurn additional self analysis in the future. Need some time to digest all this, and I will need to remember to reread your comments again on the weekend when my mind is fresher. Thanks so much!

[Superman1]

I hope to add a bit, and some alternative ideas, to that insightful answer. Maybe the blonde woman was how good the repressing politics was made to look, charisma perhaps implying power over you, but it was dumb. So the politics of your life might mean how one should be, and with proper power. I tbink the cafe means where people meet, and nourish themselves, where you arranged to meet closer in you what was distant, to get outside of this situation. The bridge could mean bridging that gap, or crossing the issue you talk about. Here was that important powerful idea, its strong or assertive assistant, and the prison this issue has you in, which you wanted to get the info from to free yourself. But it seems you did not know why you were a prisoner and what the important information was. There was no chair for you, so maybe you felt put out, or not part of this. This suggests not having your view or expression. So several empty chairs were given from a neighboring table seems to say it involved others' views maybe in that they spoke for you in this area, or were many of your views, that you had to adjust so that you thought on their behalf, or consolidate into one. Maybe that your influence from others now needed to be taken control of by you so you think for yourself. You've seen how in dream logic the restraint of your thought was enough to restrain you from expressing yourself freely, and why you didn't question it in the dream. It would be funnier if the hair restraint was one hair. After you unrestained your thought so you could talk more freely, you rally for how you should think or be or behave. ...Politics should ultimately be about the people, the power of the individual, not individual power as it often is. I think captitalism represents your value, or ability or freedom to build yourself or value up. Individual freedom... Hence, being freed, I think you knew why your freedom failed early on. Maybe your repressing side said individual freedom is a failure. You interjected with the correction that it was designed to fail so that the powers that were controlling you stay in control and make a beggar of you to them. So perhaps it made you feel like a begger, not having your own power. Realising that, your perspective changed so that the wrong power was higher up, and like your begging to it, is exaggerated, as you would see you do not need to beg for your rightful personal power. You probably did not know the consequence of your interjection because in reality you had taken it no further at that point, and so you woke up to that. Fragment 1: As a consequence, you planned to have as much of this personal value as you would need in later years, Fragment 2: By dream's end, maybe you felt so frail, near the end of your 'old' life or way of thinking. Perhaps you even thought back to beyond your mother, to her mother, making you how you are. So overall, I think the dream is about your old, restricted thinking part, vs the new individual freedom you wish to have. And that is the bridge you want to cross.

[JoannaB]

Thank you superman for more ideas forme to ponder. One thing I just realized I should have mentioned is that my mother has blond hair, and she is not dumb, so I think the blond hair may be primarily another connection of the blond woman to my mother, and I think that overrules the dumb connotation that many people in our culture unfortunately have. This dream may be about my perception of acute differences between my mother and me and the need for my mentality to bridge those gaps and accept that my mother and I are not as different as I like to think we are. Also I have at times thought that my mother tries to control me even though she has the best intensions and so perhaps it is not fair to her to say she tries to control me but my need for doing things my way results in my misinterpreting some of her well meaning actions as attempts for control - fairly typical grown daughter and mother interaction, sigh. In that sense, this other dream of mine may actually be on a similar theme: Almost Lucid! The Naming Ceremony - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

[Superman1]

I thought the dream might use the dumb idea, because it's a common idea or joke. I don't think that about blondes. Similar to that dreams seem to use the fallacy that owls are wise, because people believed it. Yes, that she was a close family friend on your mother's side did seem to say being close, so maybe that you wanted to be closer, and may be why she was attractive, which is also another possibility for blonde, but maybe not this time as you say.