You know those dreams you’ve had in life that you’ll never forget? I’m not talking about waking dreams (for once), I’m talking about sleeping dreams. For example, when I was about four years old I had a dream my dad picked me up in a hot air balloon and took me to Safeway to so we could buy some 
ABC soup, which was my favorite meal. Not much happened other than that but for some reason I’ve always remembered that particular dream. But why?
Then there are the recurring dreams–again, when I was just four years old, I’d say from four to six–which was actually a pretty traumatic point in my life–I would have this dream:
I’m in a dark dungeon. I’m lying on my back or my side and there are about five or six little elves running around and climbing all over my body. Above my head is a big roll of lead. Let me explain more: you remember Bubble Tape? They always had Bubble Tape on the rack at the grocery store at the check out stand. It’s like a carpenter’s measuring tape only made out of bubble gum. Yeah. That. So that’s what this big roll of lead is like. The little elves pry my big toddler mouth open, much to my resistance, and insert the end of the roll of lead into my mouth, shoving the lead down my throat. My throat expands and I choke but this goes on for what feels like hours and upon waking faintly taste lead in my mouth, metal in my throat.
I had this dream at least a few times throughout my childhood. I can’t help but notice–now I’m having a dream quite the opposite.
I had one just last night:
Sometimes it’s just me but sometimes, like last night, I’ll have an audience:
I’m back in Crescent City at a party and a lot of my friends are there–all grown up, having a good time, drinking beer by the river. I’m chatting with one of my male friends when I feel a noodle in my mouth. The flat kind–linguine. I put my index finger up to indicate “just a moment”, a break in the conversation if-you-will and reach into my mouth for the linguine. I grab hold of the linguine and tug. Well, that’s where my dream morphs into this recurring dream I’ve been having: pulling a never-ending mountain of noodles from my throat. The more I tug, the more I pull, the more noodles emerge. And just like in the lead dream–I can hardly breathe. My cousin Cevin and his friends approach and there I am, crouched down by a cedar tree, pulling out and vomiting up noodles, for what seems like forever.
What I appreciate about this new dream is this: it’s quite the opposite of my baby-Terah-lead-dream. Clearly, I’m letting it all out now instead of shoving it all in. For fun, I’ll retrieve my dream dictionary, The Complete Book of Dreams & Dreaming by Pamela Ball and interpret some of the imagery from both of these dreams:
Dwarf (sadly Elf was not available): A dwarf indicates a part of our personality which has not yet been integrated or has been left undeveloped. In a dream a dwarf denotes a part of ourselves which has been left damaged by painful childhood trauma or a lack of emotional nourishment.
Lead: The conventional explanation of lead appearing in a dream is that we have a situation around us which is a burden to us. We are not coping with life perhaps as we should be, and as a result it is leaving us heavy-hearted.
Throat: Dreaming of the throat denotes awareness of our vulnerability and also the need for self-expression.
Vomiting: Vomiting is a symbol of discharge and evil. We may have held on to bad feelings for so long that it has caused our spiritual system some difficulty.
I do believe there are connections between our dreams and our spiritual selves. I do believe that if you have, especially a recurring dream, you should pay attention to it and make changes to your life as needed. For example, if you are a man and you dream about a particular woman most nights, you need to explore your relationship with this woman. Or, if you dream about water, water, water, you should visit a spring or a sea–because your subconscious is begging for you to wet her.
Please, readers, share some of your dreams with me. I would love to use my dream book to provide you a little more insight into your subconscious. If you’re into that kind of thing.
Nighty-night. Sweet dreams.
MAMA BIRD 
In the course of my life, I have had a roller coaster relationship with dreaming. For two years after the death of my daughter, I had the same dream and would sometimes find myself jumping out of bed as I heard her gasping for air. Unable to deal with it anymore, my mind blocked out any connection with dreaming for many years. Since moving to France, my relationship with dreams has improved greatly.
Have you ever been to a dream group? The facilitator would have training as to leading a group and have done a lot of their own dream work. I attended one for awhile while still living in Sacramento. We wrote down our dreams, shared from them and gave each other feedback. I found it useful.
I have a young friend in New York who still calls me on skype to analyse dreams for him when he is troubled. My background as a therapist was useful not to mention my own dreamwork.
Lea,
I sat down at my desk this morning knowing you commented on this post. Then I opened my email and sure enough, you did. I had a feeling you would have wisdom in this arena. What you say in the first paragraph reminds me of how dreams can work against us, and sometimes, most the time, seem completely meaningless and or otherwise plain harmful. I mean–why would your subconscious torture you in that way? Not fair. I’m sorry, and I’m glad your dreams have improved.
I’ve never been to a dream group, but I’d love to try, for fun. For me (something I didn’t mention in this post) is that its all kind of, just..for..fun, ya know? But also, I like this idea I heard one time that said we spend so much time dreaming, and it seems so real, and we feel all these things, but still we do not consider it reality. Why not? We are ourselves, living in a world, doing these things yet we give that realm no credit. Imagine the possibilities if we allowed ourselves to act out our desires in dreams?
You know more about this than I do…say, last night I had coffee with Robert DeNiro at Denny’s. What say ye about that? The coffee was black, no cream, no sugar.
Kidding.
Thanks for the comment Lea 🙂
I have always been interested in dreams. I recently went to a Lucid Dreaming workshop. You know those dreams when you have a lucid moment and “know” that you are dreaming. I don’t know if you have had those. Lucid dreaming is a technique to wake remain sleep but be lucid enough to direct your dreams and explore them. I have not explored it properly at the moment as it involves waking yourself up at about 4 am as there are different phases of sleep. If you get recurring themes in your dreams like your old school, your old workplace, your relatives who have passed over. then you train your mind to recognize these “dream signs” when you are dreaming and that will put you into a lucid dreaming state. Take a look. Google “lucid dreaming” it is very interesting. I haven’t written about that on my blog yet. When I have looked into it a bit more and actually achieved a lucid dream state and directed my dream, I will.
Hi Rose!
It’s nice to hear from a new reader–thank you for taking notice of my blog and of this post inparticular.
In the past year or two I’ve had several experiences where I realize I’m dreaming in my dream. Something happens and I think “wait a minute, that could NEVER happen in real life! I must be dreaming!” …But that’s as far as I’ve gotten.
Good luck to you and your dream endeavours! I would love to hear about your trials and successes. It would be amazing to have the power to really change things in a dream, or especially, in a nightmare!
Get back to me on this, and again, thanks for commenting on my blog. 🙂
OK here’s my comment, but you don’t get the exorcising and the soulsucker , the clown crews or all the cliffs I’ve driven and fallen off of, or all of my favorite places to visit, the person I see most of course is my Martha and yes I pursue her or wait for her as the case may be. I will tell you that I saw you in a dream some months back, maybe that would be appropriate. I was sitting at a small table in what seemed to be a nightclub or cafe. The table was too small for dinner plates. I looked over to the table on my left, a corner table, and you were there talking to three men. I was hoping you would notice me and say hi. Then you got up and came over and sat down at my table like it was your table too and I was a little confused, it was like I had come to the place with you but didn’t remember doing that. I did not get to talk to you or even exchange a look with you,but I assumed that was not necessary. That was it. Usually I’m pretty busy in my dreams, the break was nice. Gotta get back to work. See ya again maybe sometime. Still a fan. P.S. There were no drinks on the table.