Newbie member, first post--request for dream interpretation: The Hummingbird Coin

Greetings!
I am new here and so if I make etiquette mistakes, by apologies. I hope it is all right to just post a dream recollection (from this morning) and ask if any one has any thoughts/ideas. Any responses to the narrated dream below are deeply appreciated. Thank you!

First, I'll tell you a little about who I am:
Professionally: A graduate student and an online educator teaching undergraduate courses in the humanites. I'm also a GTA in my department teaching preservice public school teachers this semester. My PhD research field is Ed. Philsophy and my research interests are women studies and education, with a focused interest on educational expereinces that may be physically, emotionally, and spiritually healing for women.

Personally: A 44 year old woman, mother of 3, middle class. Don't know if ethnicity matters, but since dreams can be culturally defined, I guess it might. I'm "caucasian" American with Eastern European ethnicity/ancestory. I've also had people identify me as looking "Jewish" though "Jewish" is not a racial distinction and I am not self-identified as Jewish by relgion. However, it is my heritage. I'm what you'd call a religious eccleectic. I was raised Baha'i, but what I practice in solitary is my own by syncretic Wicca informed by South American Shamanism, curanderismo, Daoism, Buddhism, etc. I don't get to practice much; my enegy/spirituality as of late is usually channeled into more academic directions though I miss my ritualistic practices and often feel a need to connect more deeply. *I also have a need for exercise time, a better diet, more time with my family, and getting caught up on the housework, but I realize my life's not going to stay as orderly or relaxed as I wish it :-)

My most intuitive quality: probably empathetic awarenss

Okay, so assuming this is enough about me, here's what I remember about the dream:

I am in the dark place. I don't know if I'm sitting or standing, but it seems to be a public space and some place impersonal and crowded like an airport gate area or train station. Even though I think this is a public space, I do seem to be alone and the environment seems a dark void. I don't recall noise or voices around me, so I'm not sure why I have this feeling of being in a public space. I am wearing the black corduroy jacket I purchased for a conference presentation in Pittsburgh a couple weekends ago. I can feel it's snug fit and soft velveteen ribbing. I don't know what else I am wearing, but probably a skirt and boots (pretty usual attire for me). Someone (maybe my own voice?) asks me abruptly "what do you have?" I don't remember what the voice sounds like or if it was masculine or feminine; I just know I have been asked a direct question that feels more like a demand. I don't have a purse or bag of any kind with me. I reach in my jacket and pull out a hadful of lint and dust. (*This does't make a lot of sense on waking since this particuar jacket has no functioning pockets inside or out). I feel momentarily uncomfortable and embarrassed by this, as if I am being revealed as “poor” or “lacking” materially or other way though I don't really know what it is I'm supposed to be able to show I've got. I have a fleeting sense of feeling I don’t belong or deserve to be wherever that black space is. The disembodied voice (maybe my own again?) says “Dig deeper.” I reach back in my jacket and find a smooth, hard object. I am surprised and curious because I don’t know what it is and didn’t know I had anything with me. I pull it out, and see clearly that lying in my hand is a large, silver coin with a hummingbird etched or drawn in the middle in the center. The hummingbird image is not colored and for some reason strikes me as vaguely Aztec. Around the center image I have the impression of a lot of color; geometric patterns or brushstrokes of rainbow colors. The hummingbird image is not adored or greatly detailed, but seems strikingly beautiful to me in its simplicity. I have only a second or so to gasp at what I've found and to appreciate its beauty. My mind barely has time to wonder what it means that I had this and where it came from when the rainbow colors around the hummingbird start getting fuzzy and bright, making it hard to keep a focus on the hummingbird figure. I sense an immediate loss and feel myself frowning, disconcerted to realize I'm not meant to or able to keep what I found. I sense that it is also important that I had this clear flash of the coin, that I need to remember the hummingbird image before the coin becomes to indistinct to draw back the image clearly. As all becomes black and the coin and my hand disappear, I have a sense of spiraling out of the black space as I come into a waking state of consciousness.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lumina_lamia

I am in the dark place. I don't know if I'm sitting or standing, but it seems to be a public space and some place impersonal and crowded like an airport gate area or train station. Even though I think this is a public space, I do seem to be alone and the environment seems a dark void. I don't recall noise or voices around me, so I'm not sure why I have this feeling of being in a public space. I am wearing the black corduroy jacket I purchased for a conference presentation in Pittsburgh a couple weekends ago. I can feel it's snug fit and soft velveteen ribbing. I don't know what else I am wearing, but probably a skirt and boots (pretty usual attire for me). Someone (maybe my own voice?) asks me abruptly "what do you have?" I don't remember what the voice sounds like or if it was masculine or feminine; I just know I have been asked a direct question that feels more like a demand. I don't have a purse or bag of any kind with me. I reach in my jacket and pull out a hadful of lint and dust. (*This does't make a lot of sense on waking since this particuar jacket has no functioning pockets inside or out). I feel momentarily uncomfortable and embarrassed by this, as if I am being revealed as “poor” or “lacking” materially or other way though I don't really know what it is I'm supposed to be able to show I've got. I have a fleeting sense of feeling I don’t belong or deserve to be wherever that black space is. The disembodied voice (maybe my own again?) says “Dig deeper.” I reach back in my jacket and find a smooth, hard object. I am surprised and curious because I don’t know what it is and didn’t know I had anything with me. I pull it out, and see clearly that lying in my hand is a large, silver coin with a hummingbird etched or drawn in the middle in the center. The hummingbird image is not colored and for some reason strikes me as vaguely Aztec. Around the center image I have the impression of a lot of color; geometric patterns or brushstrokes of rainbow colors. The hummingbird image is not adored or greatly detailed, but seems strikingly beautiful to me in its simplicity. I have only a second or so to gasp at what I've found and to appreciate its beauty. My mind barely has time to wonder what it means that I had this and where it came from when the rainbow colors around the hummingbird start getting fuzzy and bright, making it hard to keep a focus on the hummingbird figure. I sense an immediate loss and feel myself frowning, disconcerted to realize I'm not meant to or able to keep what I found. I sense that it is also important that I had this clear flash of the coin, that I need to remember the hummingbird image before the coin becomes to indistinct to draw back the image clearly. As all becomes black and the coin and my hand disappear, I have a sense of spiraling out of the black space as I come into a waking state of consciousness.

---

Greetings, and welcome to the forum Lumina!

First of all I have to compliment you on how brilliantly well-written your dream experience was, and how joyful and interesting it was to read. It just so happens to be that I'm a new addition to this forum as well, and I thought I'd brave an attempt to interpret at least some of the contents of your dream - even though I'm not a proclaimed expert on the matter... and probably not an intermediate either. I'll give it a go nonetheless!

When you first mentioned this dark place that gave you the impression of being a public area, even though it was without acticity, made me think about how we sometimes anticipate things to be the way we expect them to be even though they aren't. Perhaps it's a veiled desire for some part of your life to be different in some sense? Like this pulbic area that conveniently was freed from the noise and murmuring of bypassers. I'm not entirely sure where I'm headed at here, but but for some inexplicable reason I associate this with a desire for things to be different from one's expectations - though I might be entirely off the path here.

The disembodied voice you heard several times might represent your inner self trying to figure out what you really have got in life - a sub-conscious-thing, I guess. And since you pulled out your imaginary pockets and found nothing but dirt and lint, perhaps it might be a fear of being financially impeded, which is source of concern and sometimes despair especially with the financial crisis taking its toll on the world.

I also get the impression that you may yearn and crave something that seems out of reach, and conflicts with your responsibilities your current way of life brings. I felt I could exctract from the part where you found the hummingbird coin in your pocket, which gleamed ever so brightly in iridescent colours. Something tantalizing that you can't obtain without sacrifices and is too much a risk to keep? Or perhaps that it's not the actual manifestation you need to have, but instead the idea of it? Like the coin, it disappeared even though you admired it and would certainly want to keep it, though with it gone you have something to aspire for?

Once again I have to specify I have very little knowledge on the subject of interpretation, but I think it's a good deal of fun at least attemtping to do it.
I hope you were able to render some meaning in this nonsense of half-broken sentences and vague ideas - english is not my mother tongue, so I tend to be void sometimes. Although I hope it came to some use, and I wish you well further in your endeavours in the dreamworld!

Good luck!