Dream within a dream

[Dreamer76]

This is a dream I had a while ago, but I remember it and I never figured it out. I was with this guy, we were inside, it was bright, and I think we were rehearsing lines, I guess preparing for a play (I act in community theater). Only he knew his lines- I had my script and was still reading them. Then we were outside, and it was night. We were throwing or hitting a ball back and forth. And it got darker and darker, and I gradually lost sight of him, until it was pitch black and I couldn't see him or anything anymore, and I started panicking. I tried to find any light source, but I couldn't. I wondered why there weren't any street lamps. Then I woke up (still in the dream), with a start, and very upset. The guy that I was with before in the dream comes over out of the dark and comforts me. Then I wake up (for real).

[DarkestDarkness]

Does the dream accurately reflect what happens when you're preparing for plays? Right now, I would personally assess this as a dream where some part of me would be trying to comfort me, with the advice that it is not necessary to be on top of all of it. That sometimes it's okay to get lost and not find the guidance we need for a while, and that said guidance may not take on the form we expected. That is, instead of being directly helped with whatever the issue was, indirect support may be of more help or of more personal value to you for one reason or another, even if you are not consciously aware of this at the time, something only a future retrospection may able to show. As always, I'm making my own assumptions and have my own biases about the relationship between the things I visually imagine playing out in such a dream.

[thel]

Well, dream interpretation is really hard from an external view and the true meaning may only become clear for the person who had the dream, so i would reccomend that you try to interpretate it a bit, but ill tell you what i think as it might be a bit helpful: i think you have a bit of fear/insecurity about doing things, as you expect them to turn badly before doing them sometimes. In your drems your expectations, unconscious or not, have a massive impact on the plot, as it did on you not knowing the lines for the play while the guy already did, and you losing sight of the guy in the dark. I think you also (maybe related to the little fear of not doing things well yourself or maybe totally unrelated) tend to have confidence on other people, as you expected the guy to come and help you. Please take a full sceptic view on what i said as only you know yourself, and dont look at anything as bad. If you notice something good, then its nice, and if you notice something bad, then its also nice because you noticed it and are now able to understand and change it for good!

[Dreamer76]

Dark- Thanks for your thoughts. Actually, I'm always great at learning my lines when I do shows- that's the weird thing. I like what you said about guidance, because that was the feeling of the dream- that I needed guidance and reassurance. But I'm pretty confident and independent, so I don't usually feel that way. Thel- Thank you also. What you said about having confidence in other people is interesting. I'll give that some thought.

[DarkestDarkness]

My personal view is that even a very vague thought can manifest much more strongly later on in a dream. I've had long and vivid dreams that I could essentially boil down to thoughts I had a couple of hours before bed. This might not necessarily mean it's a lot more important, but I would say that because dreams have an aspect that gives them a feel of "real" like waking life, with visuals, sound and so on, it's easy to give them more importance than a stray thought, even if their origin is relatively humble. So it can also be a manifestation of a worry about the other side (the one that lacks confidence) of your personality which normally isn't felt by you, consciously but which you might have thought about, vaguely. On the other hand, you say you are usually confident and independent, so you could also try to think of a recent or semi-recent situation where this wasn't true and try to see how the dream relates there. If acting is part of your normal life, it could be that this element appears in a very casual form because it can represent the day-to-day world-views you have. I also quite like thel's thoughts here.