I have always struggled to understand if my dreams have meaning, or if they are just random thoughts that penetrate the peace I seek from sleep. I often find difficulty in remembering a dream ... there is just a flash, as I awaken, a fleeting moment of recollection involving something usually bizarre and baffling to me. My most recent dream was no different, until it WAS different ... it was revealing and even transformational for me.
The only part of the dream I remembered was looking upon a dark, shadowy figure seated upon something. As I looked, the figure began to shake its head back and forth, right to left. With each pivot, a new face appeared and then drifted away. It began slowly, but then, faster and faster, face upon face, hurled away from the body. Each face appeared more chaotic and then even grueling ... smiling, laughing, crying, screaming, searching, longing, shouting, pleading ... I remember looking frantically and saying, 'slow down, I can't keep up!'. Then, I abruptly awoke and thought to myself, "What was THAT?"
It wasn't until the following day when a friend shared her own puzzling dream that I reflected again on my experience. As I recalled the dream and wrote my reply, it's meaning intuitively unfolded. My dream called attention to my shadow "selves"; the ugliness, the neediness, the primitive existence which drives my patterns, my behaviors, and my impulses. At the same time, this dream unveiled my outer "selves"; the barrage of masks, different personas, various attitudes and defenses I leverage in order to satisfy my own ego and to meet expectations or conform to constraints, both real and perceived. In that moment of interpretation, I realized I am being called to acknowledge the many shadows I hold and the many faces I portray so that I can unburden myself from them. The increasing speed of this spectacle ensured me that I don't need to linger on them, I can simply acknowledge and release them, shed them away, and allow them to disintegrate from me. My shadows (inner) and my masks (outer) divide my personal experience into fragments and keep me in a state of illusion, which manifests as insecurities, fears, and doubts, segregating me from my truest self. The simplest truth is that while these defenses might have served me, or protected me, or taught me something in the past, I no longer need them. On the contrary, I need to let them all go. I am safe in my own body, I have my own power, I am in control of my reality and free to just BE ME. In this moment, I am neither a caterpillar nor a butterfly ... I am not awakened, but I am no longer asleep and dreaming either. In this moment, I am at the junction of my past and my future, in the present. I am the present. I am present. I am that. I am.
***Friendships formed within the NFT community have been crucial to my spiritual journey and continue to change my life. My expansion, growth, and awakening are all products of the acceptance, encouragement, and compassion I experience within this special place.***
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