Okay, I'm stumped on this dream imagery.

[Oxygen]

Normally, I can translate my own dream imagery pretty well. For example, I was having a lot of stress, much of it from impending unknowables in an unstable situation, and my dreams displayed them as looming tenement buildings in an impossibly huge city. All of the windows were darkened, but I felt like someone or something in the windows was staring at me. As my situation stabilized and the stress began to ebb and work itself out, the buildings became less ominous and now, when I'm back in that city the buildings are things like boutiques, cafes, book stores, etc. All well lit, colorful, and inviting. Real no-brainer imagery.

There is one building that shows up every now and then that I used to think represented my job, but that doesn't feel right. It's a tall, professional building, mostly medical and science type suites (although I work at a lab now, when I first started dreaming this place I was slinging burgers at Carl's Jr.). It's a glass structure and way taller than it needs to be. I'm guessing about 14 stories, although inside it's more like 400, with a nice little plaza around the base. It's very clean and peaceful, and it's always the tallest building on the block by a long shot, usually surrounded by single-story structures and car lots. There's a light rail station nearby and either a garden or skateboard park across the way (it varies, but it's always one of these two).

The building doesn't affect me. In fact, I enjoy going there. I don't go there for any particular reason. I just pop in to see what's happening. Sometimes I watch the research and experiments that are going on. I'm always called over the PA to go to the "administration floor", and here's where I really can't figure out what's going on in my subconscious.

The elevator is big and roomy. It has glass walls on three sides. One section of glass is missing so you can get into the car (there's no door on the elevator. The doors are on the individual floors). The elevator starts normally, but with a slight jolt. Then it starts to pick up speed quickly. Finally it's going hellaciously fast and comes to a quick stop. Not enough to slam me into the ceiling, but enough that I do fly up to it. I hang there for a few seconds, then hit the floor hard. From that point I have less than a second to pick myself up and get out of the elevator. I don't always make it, and the thing goes into a free-fall back to the ground floor, where it starts the process all over again. It usually takes me about two or three tries to get out of the car, and I'm never hurt, I just don't like the ride.

The "administration floor" has appeared as either a corridor of sterile, white offices with people walking around in bunny suits, like from a clean-room, or a shopping mall, or else as a fancy restaurant. The restaurant (which was it's latest incarnation) is the first time I've ever actually met the person who had summoned me. He stood by passively while that damned elevator slammed me around. When I finally made it out he just started in like nothing had happened. "I need to go over some things with you," he said. Then the dream ended.

I've had this dream several times and can't identify anything that would have been happening that would trigger it. As I said, I'm pretty good at analyzing my own dreams, but this one's got me stumped. Anybody got any ideas?

 

[leopold]

i am not into dream interpretations. but there are certain areas of the brain that are active only while dreaming? and others that a totally inactive while dreaming? just an observation hope it helps.

 

[Mr Anonymous]

There is one building that shows up every now and then that I used to think represented my job, but that doesn't feel right. It's a tall, professional building, mostly medical and science type suites (although I work at a lab now, when I first started dreaming this place I was slinging burgers at Carl's Jr.)

Think it through - in your dream your in a place where you want to be, a place representing a certain kind of professional aspiration, and in your dream you are supposed to be there. It's your place. It feels right for you. You're expected.

You had to cross a city to get to this building and now you're here, the place you perceive as being journeys end - but your journey isn't quite over yet. You have to make it through the elevator which you are trying to use to take you up but it is constantly trying to snatch that upward progress away from you...

And what do y'find when you get get there? A Restaurant. Posher perhaps than the burger joint you worked in to support yourself whilst, presumably, qualifying to get yourself in life where you are now, but a similar environment nevertheless.

You know what your dream is telling you because you're feeling it everyday - you've worked hard to better yourself, you continue to work hard but it currently isn't giving you any sense of the satisfaction you anticipated it would - you have to put a great deal of effort into what you do and that effort isn't being currently recognised.

In essence, you're getting to feel like your back where you started.

The elevator ride promises upward progression, but keeps trying to take it all away, and when you do make it that extra bit further, it's like nothing happened - you're back doing the things you're required to have to do in order to facilitate forward progression, essentially no different from when you set out back when you were slinging the old dumb meat to make ends meet.

It's December, everything's geared up towards getting things sorted in time for the Holidays, there's a lot of thankless pressure going on at work, basically you really could do with the break and y'know it.

 

[Oxygen]

Okay, now that's some good insight, guys. Thanks!

We've recently paid off all of our debt after a lifetime of getting ahead only to be knocked back down. You'd think things would be a little easier, but every time we start to make some progress something comes up. (I know. Welcome to Life 101.) We're working toward buying a house, and I suppose the part about being slammed to the floor not hurting may be related to the fact that we aren't feeling the hits as hard as we used to. Just last weekend we did a major car repair (did it ourselves but it was still expensive). We were strapped for cash but managed to pull it off, being grateful that we didn't still have the debt hanging over us.

A posher environment. We're in a small house with closets that get passed off as bedrooms. Thankfully it's just the two of us and our pets. We're renting and the neighborhood is going slowly downhill. Hmm, where I had been (Carl's Jr.) versus where I want to be. (I don't want a mini-mansion. Au contraire, just something with a little more elbow room. We had to make a choice in the front room. Two easy chairs or one sofa. We went with the easy chairs.)

Wow. I've got something to gnaw on. Thanks again!

 

[Mr Anonymous]

... Well, nice to know I got at least something half right this century at least. I had been planning on giving the rest of it a skip and trying the next one...

Y'know, and please do forgive the observation, but based on what you've described, you've actually already done one of the hardest things in the world - you've made your way forward and managed to clear your debts.

This bit about the elevator in your dream, the bit where it snatches you down and yet you don't feel any of the terror that should by rights accompany that - on the one hand it is a representation of your experience in life, though you may get close to your goal, the ground can just suddenly disappear from under your feet - things aren't certain until they are done.

But at the same time its equally representative of your own personal resolution - it may take several goes to finally get there, but by giving it that extra push eventually you succeed - this is your own personal sense of drive and commitment. You don't expect the ride to be easy, and often it isn't, but by giving it that extra push, y'get there.

Try looking at this situation in contrast to the journey you take through the city this high tower building is in. Getting too required forward motion - you can measure your progress in terms of distance travelled, the scenery around you changes, there comes with it implicitly a sense of both direction, goal and accomplishment - once in the tower however you've actually arrived at your destination.

This, for you, is where the real journey begins, upwards.

The problem with this is you no longer have any other means by which to measure you're progress except succeeding in taking the elevator ride - the reason there's no terror or pain is simply because this up and down struggle has become a way of life, just something you have to do and have been doing for so long it's just the way things are. You don't expect it to get any easier or be any other way...

But because of this, because you're in a place where success can only be measured in terms of upward progression, you're loosing sight of the accomplishments you have achieved in actually getting to this position in the first place.

The journey across the city is at least as important as the tower and what goes on there, and you accomplished that particular journey - try not to loose sight of that.

Ultimately what matters isn't how you fare with this fickle elevator of your dream, what matters is the accomplishment of getting to this goal of being inside this tower in the first place - that was what got you to where you wanted to be, something you and you alone accomplished by your own steam. You wouldn't get to be in this tower without being capable of getting too it, and you did.

It's that quality that matters - not luck or capricious fate as represented by this elevator of yours, but your ability to get yourself to a place where you're at least in with a chance of progressing upwards and succeeding.

Focus on that aspect more than what is merely happening too you and you'll get through it because you can and give yourself the chance to by taking a bit of a timeout, giving yourself a bit of perspective outside the confines of this mental up and down elevator of yours which, after all, is merely just... luck.

You're dream is telling you, you can't control fate, but you can overcome it and you do that by relying on yourself.

 

[Oxygen]

I do often look back at how far I've come and how I got into that situation in the first place. Money management was never an issue for us as kids. If we wanted something we'd just ask mom and dad for the money. If they had it and they had no objections to what we wanted to buy, bingo! It was ours. We weren't rich, mind you. We weren't even well-off. We were poor, and that's how it was always going to be, so why not enjoy things if you got a few extra bucks? Saving was not an option. Allowance? Why would you want an allowance when the folks will just give you the money when you want it?

Gee, maybe to teach your kids about the real world?

I think you're right about the elevator. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I may have more control over that elevator than I can see. I keep getting the feeling that there's a control button in there that can make the elevator stop at the floor I want and let me out without slamming me around.

I do feel my life has had upward progess. We get ahead financially, then get butt-raped by the IRS. We pay that off, save a little, then the car throws it's timing chain. Start to get ahead again, and it's rent/utility payment time, and the utilities are behind because of the car and the IRS. We keep having to go to these cash advance places just to stay afloat, then scramble like crazy to get them paid off. But each time it gets a little farther and farther between cash catastrophes. I know the bills never go away, but maybe my meeting on the upper floor of the building is my mind's way of showing me that I can get on top of these things.

I think about how the building is 14 stories when I'm outside of it but is 40 stories when I'm inside. I've been thinking taht maybe my situation isn't as bad as it feels. That it only looks tall because I'm in the middle of it all.

The city itself I see more as an environment than a journey. Travel in the city is easy for me and I barely remember it(except for that one time I got lost on the light transit!). Like I said, it shows up in several dreams. Sometimes I'm running like fugitive through the darkened alleys, avoiding windows and doorways, hoping for some island of light I can get into. Brothels, rigged casinos, dangerous wharves and shadowy figures just beyond my peripheral vision populate the city. Other times it's a beautiful metropolis, sometimes modern, sometimes old world, but full of charm. Libraries, galleries, concert halls, beautiful parks, a thriving arts community, it's everything cities want to be. How it appears, I've noticed, reflects directly on how I feel about the world around me. When I was sinking in debt and wondering when I was going snap due to other stresses, it was the dark place (it even had a name: Denach. I heard it mentioned once during a dream.) As my life began to turn around, it became a bustling little city undergoing a lot of construction and redevelopment. (Rather obvious in the symbolism.) When we suddenly found ourselves on the brink of homelessness, the city was ravaged by a flood and everyone was fighting for his or her own life. These days, it's the cozy little old world city. When it rains, it's a gentle rain that washed the streets and waters the flowers on the window sills. I usually find myself playing a flute in the rain, which is strange because I can't get a note out of a flute! It's all very peaceful.

When the building shows up, I don't travel to get there. There's transportation nearby, but I don't recall if I used it or not. I'm just there. The weather is always clear. Any clouds are white and high up. There's no threat of rain. The temperature is early spring-like. (I get a lot of details in my dreams.)

Now that these details are popping into my mind, I'm going to try to figure out what they say. And if I find myself in that elevator again (I'm sure I will...) I'm goin gto make that control button show up, or at least concentrate on finding it.

I used to dream about a boardwalk. It was a run-down dilapidated wreck. The rides were falling apart, everything was moldy and dangerous to be near. Something was running along behind the arcades, keeping pace with me. I had the impression it was a giant rat. I would always walk across the place like I owned it, though, and even though several unseen thinkgs were scampering about and hissing menacingly, I always made it to the carousel. The horses were rotten and covered in slime. The slime dripped down and made most of them look like they had fangs. The salt in the sea spray was intense. I told my husband about the dream and he suggested that the next time I had it to try to create a tool box and see what happened if I tried to fix the carousel. I did, and it took several dreams but I got the thing spinning. The music started out sounding like a sick dog dying in agony, but as crap got blown out and flung off, the colors began to return. I left it running for company and fixed the rest of the boardwalk. The last time I dreamed it (a few years ago), it was a bright, colorful place full of guests, the sort of amusement park you'd remember fondly from summers gone by.

I never really did tie the boardwalk to anything in particular, but I was going through some changes in my life, adjusting my priorities and trying to figure out which way I wanted to go, so maybe in that instance, the place was the journey.

 

[Mr Anonymous]

Perhaps it is, most dreams are a journey of sorts. Have to say though, what a remarkably pragmatical mind y'have there...

I think about how the building is 14 stories when I'm outside of it but is 40 stories when I'm inside. I've been thinking taht maybe my situation isn't as bad as it feels. That it only looks tall because I'm in the middle of it all.

Perhaps more possibly only feels tall - I'm beginning to get the strongest impression this tower of yours may perhaps be a representation of whatever your current problem may be, be that work, financial, home... it all seems bound up in this one particular place.

On the outside, you're seeing it objectively in terms of something quantitative, finite, soluble - like undertaking to perform a certain task without having begun the work. At the onset the problem seems clear cut and finite, but once engaged in the actual work of the thing (as seen from inside the building) the task to hand feels eminently larger and less straight forward to accomplish than it seemed on the outside.

Getting to grips with the lift is getting to grips with the things in life you feel you can't altogether control.