Tuesday 31 March 2015

The Styx, the Spring, the Fix

Three dreams, one on each of the last three nights.

Dream 1: the Styx
Working in my garden and attempting to press a flower that was uprooted back into the earth, I accidentally pressed it through the floor of the ground into a sink hole and, deep down at the bottom of the sink hole, into a putrid stream that flowed, over a beach, into the sea.

Interpretation:
The "stinks" stream was a pun (a form of wit beloved by the subconscious) for "Styx." I had pressed the flower of my youth into the death-stream by excessive reveries (symbolised by languishing in my garden). The sea is the sea of eternity into which the death-stream flows. The message is: to keep hold of my "youthful" energy, I must get up; get out, get active. Of course, dreaming of working in the garden was also a rehearsal of recent garden activity.

Dream 2: the Spring
I dream I am back in the Land Registry office where I worked for forty years, with two purposes. Firstly, I was back to work, and with constant obstruction. Secondly, I was to attend and contribute to a conference on the future of Land Registration, which turned out not to be a conference, but an outdoor banquet to celebrate a new organisational structure imposed on the office. I (again as in a previous dream involving eating) was not hungry, had difficulty attaching my adhesive identity-badge, and finding my seat, which was unsatisfactory and broken. After the banquet, I drove home. As I approached Glasnevin, where I live, the road passed through a parkland where all the trees had burst into a magnificent display of white May blossoms.

Interpretation:
My subconscious is telling me to forget about my past occupations and move forward into a fresh new spring in my life.

Dream 3: the Fix
I am, in the dream, finishing a painting of a father having an innocent tender moment with his young daughter. The father is in the centre of the painting and the daughter is on the left. Behind the father's back is his young son, horribly perplexed and jealous of the scene. Behind the daughter is a glass door and in it we see dimly the reflection of the mother, also horrified. I (a younger version of me) go with my wife, daughter and son visiting another family. The daughter goes off with the girl of that household to mix with her friends; the son goes out playing with the boys, and I am left with the younger boy. I take up a child's book and attempt to interest him in it. He takes me by the hand into the playroom, and there I find a magnificent library of childrens' books, including one which turns out to be an annual of some newspaper, in which there are multiple photographs. I begin quizzing the boy about who is in the photos. I see what in a glance appears to be Bill Clinton, and ask the boy "who is that?" He immediately replies  with another name, and turns out to be right, the name of a well-known wealthy businessman. The book turns out to be a laptop computer. I try to get back to the home page, but fail miserably. The boy's father comes in and shows me how to swipe certain images to traverse through the files, and I realise how the thing works.

Interpretation:
I am currently reading "A dangerous Method," and the painting in the dream is rehashing elements of the Oedipus and Electra complexes referred to in the book. I am also having difficulty with my Outlook email account since shifting from Windows Vista to Windows 8. The dream tells me obliquely, but clearly, that these difficulties arise from using Microsoft Mail, which affects Outlook in various ways, and herein lies the Fix.

Thursday 26 March 2015

The Visitor

With some  companion, I go into a bar , which turns out to be a kitchen. I have no intention of being here, just being "dragged along" by my companion.

I suppose this scene is like the old family kitchen that often attached to a family-run public house, where guests were often brought who were family friends rather than pub customers.

I was a stranger in a position suitable for a family friend. I sat detached from the family scene, as the proprietor divided himself (I suppose) between the public bar and the family kitchen, while the mother busied herself with tea-making and household chores, and the teenage children sat playing and arguing.

I had a useless bag of gears with me, and feeling I ought to justify being here some way, I presented this to the family as a present. They were delighted to receive a gift and their eyes sparkled.

I came back again and again, still disinterested and detached. I ate food presented to me by the mother out of politeness, because I was never hungry when I came here.

One night, the family was discussing films. They turned to me. What did I think? Had I seen such and such a film? I was disinterested in films, but, yes, I had seen this one. What did I think of it? It was OK, but not as good as another film on the same theme, what was it called? I could not remember. Was it such and such? Well, maybe ... yes, I believe that's it.

Another night they put on a film. It was dreary and uneventful; pointless, continual dialogue. The teenagers crept off. The mother busied herself at the stove. I got up to go. The proprietor confronted me. "You can't just creep off now. This film was your choice. At least show the good grace of pretending to watch what you demanded." I was perplexed and frustrated at the idea of sitting there in a stranger's kitchen monopolising, unwillingly, their television.

"What's with you, anyway? said the proprietor. You come in here to our kitchen and make yourself at home. You bring in a useless bag of gears and pretend it's a magnificent present, but it is entirely rubbish we had to dump in a skip. You eat our food; you monopolise our television, and you make no contribution at all."

With that I woke up.

Interpretation:
The proprietor was my social conscience, telling me to get off the fence and get involved. Everybody has two over-riding instincts, the instinct for self-preservation and the instinct for preservation of the species. The first (epitomised by self-interest) is often at conflict with the second (epitomised by dedication to family, community and humankind). In the dream the second drive is confronting me as being tied up in my own self-interest and neglecting to help others in need.

The dream awakens two distinct memories of my past.

  • The first recalls an incident of my childhood, where my father took me to visit an old person. First we went to the local shop and bought bread, butter, sugar, milk, tea and eggs. Then, armed with this bag of goods, we knocked on the old lady's door, and in we went to chat for a while and give her the goodies. She was an elegant old lady, living alone in an old house. When we left, my father told me that she was a "relic of old decency," and had nothing to live on, but would not lower herself to asking for assistance from the social services or charity. After we got home, my mother asked me where we had been, and I told her. She said "Your father ought to realise that charity begins at home." She was a mother of five children (at that time, and ultimately eight) who had sacrificed her independent life to her family. My father had neglected to pursue his own career-advancement in favour of sticking by his principles, and my mother had to struggle to maintain the family with very limited resources.
  • The second was the example of Pól Ó Foighil (Paul Foyle) in the Connemara Gaeltacht. A blow-in teacher from Tipperary, he had galvanised the local community in South Connemara; built a college, founded a co-operative and a book-publishing company, personally provided micro-finance to up and coming entrepreneurs and launched joint ventures with some. I was a government inspector whose duties entailed visiting many houses. Here, I met people some of whom had never given a moment of time to helping the community. These were most critical of Pól. In pursuing all his good works, they said, he was "drawing water to his own mill." Amazingly, the people who most vigorously pursue the first instinct of self-preservation, are often unable to recognise the pre-eminence of the second instinct in those who give themselves selflessly to the community.
So, notwithstanding the admonition of the "community" instinct, I must keep a balance and remember that self-preservation is as important as the other.

Monday 23 March 2015

Tropical Expedition

I dream I am with a group of Irish tourists about to  climb a forested mountain in Africa. I tell the others we have to strip and leave our clothes at this point and go forward naked. The party is reluctant and questioning. I say, "Look, it is positively too humid for clothes. The natives in this jungle go naked. We can keep on our underpants, or swimming togs, and our sandals."

There is a disturbance somewhere in the camp. Someone says "Boko Haram," and these intruders are ordering the trippers to line up, no doubt to be executed. I know one of our party has a gun. I whisper to him, "Shoot them," but he freezes and looks scared. I say, "Give the gun to me." His partner says to him, "Do what the policeman says." Obviously, I am regarded as a policeman, perhaps metaphorically or as a nickname. The leader of the intruders notices us and turns his attention to us. I say to my friend, "Just do as you are told," and Boko seems to approve, for he thinks I am advising my friend to line up as ordered by the intruders. My friend slips me the gun and I shoot the leader and then the other three intruders.

Interpretation:

I guess the various characters in the dream represent aspects of my own personality, some adventurous and others conservative; some submissive and some authoritative. Even though I feel hot and humid in the dream, the idea of stripping down to our undies for a trek through the jungle appears a bit odd (as well as the fact that on a mountainside it would not be so warm or humid as in the valley we had just come from). Basically, my subconscious seems to be telling me to get rid of some of my obnoxious character traits, whatever they are, at all costs and to maintain equilibrium!

Sunday 22 March 2015

Total Personal Security

No dream last night, but I woke up with a new slogan and idea in my head: "Total Personal Security."

This comes down to an improvement on the "One card to rule all" idea.

One card to rule all:
Many people carry multiple cards in their wallet: several credit cards, one or more debit cards, health insurance, business i.d. card, travel card, social welfare card, store card, driving licence etc., as well as carrying a separate passport. The "one card to rule all" idea is that all of these can be replaced by a single card to carry out all those functions. Bring your collection of cards to the Single Card Company, and we can issue you a single card that will mimic all of these separate cards. A card contains data that enables you to communicate with data held on computer somewhere. The single card mimics each of the other cards in turn (you may have to "Select Card" when using it).

Total Personal Security:
The "Total Personal Security" device goes further. It links with the unique bio-identity of the owner, so that it will refuse to function for any person other than the genuine owner. So, if your TPS card is stolen, and you are fooled or forced into disclosing your PIN, it doesn't matter. When borne by someone else, the only message transmitted by the TPS card is "Warning: the present yielder of this card is a fraud." Besides existing card functions, it also monitors the carrier's heart-beat, temperature, blood pressure, blood-sugar, wakefulness and so on. It knows when it is being carried by a false claimant because of its ability to verify the carrier's bio-identity.

Of course, the TPS does not need to be a card. It operates by WIFI and Bluetooth. When you approach a card-reading device such as an ATM machine or border control point, the contact is made automatically. It can be a small device attached to a finger-nail (for example), or surgically inserted under the skin. Fancifully, it can be inserted under the skin in the centre of the forehead, where the "all-seeing eye" of yoga is situate. Then when you look at an ATM machine, it can take your introduction from your All Seeing Eye and confirm your identity by looking (via a camera) at your Irises.

This is not a next-generation device. There are a few steps first to be taken, including the Single Card, and it has to overcome the virulent opposition of Luddites.

Hypnogogic Phaze
Having woken up to this conundrum, I allowed my mind to wander over the subject in a hypnogogic dream - i.e., a half-awake dream. In this I saw a professional person approach a barman for a gin and tonic. The barman said: "Your TPS card tells me that you are diabetic and have not eaten for six hours. So, I must  offer you a meal before serving you alcohol. Would you like a hard-boiled egg with salad and guacamole, or would you like a protein bar?"

Saturday 21 March 2015

18 Mar 2015 (Wednesday)
No dream.

Interpretation: when the internal Auditor of Dreams finds no message that needs to be passed to the Conscious Mind, we do not wake from our dreams, and the dreams carry out their normal function of filing away the information taken in during the day.

19 Mar 2015 (Thursday) The Wedding Invitation
I dream I receive a wedding invitation, but don't know the couple. I consult my wife; neither does she. I phone the number on the invitation: our conversion is nothing but baffling, I don't know what they are saying and they don't know what I am saying. I go into the restaurant of the hotel for my breakfast. I look around for my wife, who went down before me, but do not see her. There are three ladies, at separate tables, who look bemused by my looking at them. I say I am looking for my wife. They indicate a chair, covered by a cardigan, and say that there was a woman at that table. My wife returns to her chair. The three ladies say they are in the hotel for the wedding, and that the men have gone celebrating already. This means the men had gone to a local pub for a few pints, but I did not want to spend the day drinking; what I wanted most was a bowl of porridge for breakfast. The waiter is talking to my wife. He is saying "I am sorry about the breakfast." I wake up.

Interpretation: I had in real life received advance notice of the date of my niece's wedding, and had said to myself, "I must put the date in my diary," but I had neglected to do so. The Auditor of Dreams had found the information and sent my conscious self a reminder. Some thought also has to be given to the transport arrangements for the day; if I am driving I will not be drinking.

20 Mar 2015 (Friday) Playing Football for Dublin
I receive an invitation to play football for Dublin. This is astonishing, as I am not on any club team. Maybe its because I joined in a match for a team that was short a player, and got noticed by the scouts! I won't refuse the invitation, but I must get out, play some football, and get fit for the match. I take my boots and head for the park, where I hope to get a game. (When I was young, groups of youngsters in the park would often ask others to join in to make up two teams). It was a hurling match that was going on, not football. I caught a hurling ball that came through the air off the pitch. I wanted to toss it back to the players, but another ball had been brought into play and nobody was interested in taking the ball from me. Another ball came out and I tossed my ball to a player. He caught it, somewhat disgruntledly, and tossed it aside to take up the new ball. (Apparently, my ball had been deliberately discarded in favour of a newer ball). I passed on, but found no football players around. I met a man to whom I mentioned my purpose. He said "Perhaps my son would come out to play ball with you. We live beside the park." I go to his house, but his son is in bed. What a prospect, I thought, of having a vigorous game with a lazy lay-around. While they were rousing the son, I meet some young children of the household, who show me their art-work and with whom I am getting on fine. These people are Indians. They happen to mention that the son was attacked in the park, a racial attack. He was attacked three times. "Three times?" I gasp. "Well," said the mother, "Once physically and twice in his business." I am beginning to gather that they think the son can go back to the park to face his attackers, with me as his body-guard. I had myself (in reality) been the subject of a number of assaults in my young life, not racial, but purely of ruffians; once I was shot in the thumb while playing ball in the park, fortunately by a pellet gun, for there were no real fire-arms in those days. I had always followed my parents' advice to avoid trouble-makers. Now, in my dream situation, I realised I was being set up for a confrontation. Moreover, there was something shady about this Indian lad's business; his assault was more than a mere racial assault and had some connotations with his shady business. Then I woke up.

Interpretation: I need to get out and get more physical exercise, and not be side-tracked by getting involved with socio-political problems, which are often more complex than appears on the surface.

Wednesday 18 March 2015

Starting a Dream Diary

I have started a dream diary a few times before, but on paper. I soon forget to enter dreams and lose the paper diary. So this time, I decided to put my dream diary up on the Web, where it is not so easy to lose it.

I had two dreams last night (or rather woke up from two dreams, for we don't know how many dreams go unnoticed).

Dreams are quickly forgotten, unless rehearsed and then written down.

Both dreams had something to do with coming, or going, home. This is a common theme of dreams, but the meaning of the symbol depends on the individual's circumstance, of course.

In both dreams, it was not my present home I was returning to, but my parental home, where I was reared.

Dream 1: The Purple Car and Catching Balls
In the first, I was walking home, walking up the old familiar city street. Children were playing on the road, as they would have been when I was a child. I saw a sports car driving along the opposite foot-path, a smashing, scarlet-red, sports car, so low to the ground you might wonder was it a real car or a toy. There were two young women in the car. I could not put my finger immediately on who they were, but they remind me now of a couple of young women from my present environment, rather than from my childhood. On the side of the car, there was writing that said "Corcra of (a name I don't now recall)." Now, "corcra" is the Irish for purple; but it was clearly not a purple car, but a flaming red car. What significance has this colour statement? I don't know.

The teeming children on the street were playing many ball games, all with bright white, fluffily new, tennis balls. Some were playing hurling, some cricket and some just bouncing, rhyming, ball games. As I strolled along, I stretched out my right hand and caught a flying ball. Then I tossed it back to the youngsters, amazed by my dexterity. I repeated with my left hand, and repeated several times over. Some were amazed, some delighted and some a little annoyed. I amused a somewhat dim-witted girl by palming a ball I had caught to my other hand and showing her my empty hand, proving that I had magically made the ball disappear.

As I approached my own house, I saw two girls bouncing balls outside number 68 and knew that these were the Corcoran girls. Now, in my day it is McCormacks who lived in 68, so I guessed the Corcorans were there now. I did not know these girls or their family, so it was somewhat peculiar that I knew they were Corcorans.

Then I passed through my own gate approaching my house and woke up.

Dream 2: The Clipped Hedge
In the second dream, I looked out my window (of my parental home, but in the dream as if this were my own home). I saw that the six-foot high hedge that used to surround McCormack's had been cut down to waist-height, and the whole aspect of the street, accordingly, wonderfully opened up. I called my daughter's attention to the change. Then I noticed that my own hedge had been tightly trimmed back. Whereas my hedge used to have a rounded shape, now it was cut into a tight rectangular shape. The leafs and twigs were cut right back to the base. In addition, rectangular grooves had been cut into the hedge, like book-shelves cut into a wall. The whole atmosphere was a clipped-back feeling. That's all.

Meanings
Why do both dreams represent me going home to my childhood home?

Dream 1
What is the significance of Purple in the first dream? (In the name "Corcra" on the sports-car and again in the name "Corcoran" of the girls playing ball).

What is the significance of catching balls?

Ah, this one might be easier to answer. Catching balls might signify grasping opportunities. My dream is telling me to be ready to grasp opportunities.

From where do the opportunities arise? It may have something to do with my childhood days. Some re-acquaintance with old forgotten friends?

Why have the Corcoran's replaced the McCormack's? I know no Corcorans in my present environment, nor were there any in my childhood street. There was a Corcoran in my class at secondary school (since deceased) and I knew two Corcoran sisters in my young adulthood. Perhaps the opportunities I am to grasp come from the years when I knew these two sisters. Perhaps they are there to remind me of things that we talked about or activities we enjoyed in those far off times.

But again, perhaps the pairing of girls, first the two in the sports-car and then the Corcoran Sisters, both associated with the colour Purple, are just to point out to me the Number Two and the colour Purple. But, for what purpose?

Well, catching balls reminds me of the National Lottery. Numbers and balls together, might simply suggest a go at the Lottery.

Dream 2
Dream 2 is all about cutting back, is it not?

Maybe it is about prediction. Neurotic dreams often have a predictive significance, like the time I dreamt of being caught in a flood between the Phoenix Park and  Cabra. Next morning, I woke up to the radio news (our wake-up alarm) that there had been a flood in Cabra, the first time I ever heard of such a thing. (It was, months later, reported that the flooding was due to fairly recent house-building that had disrupted an underground watercourse). But that dream was more predictive of my family circumstances than the actual  flood. Rivers and Floods are often symbols of the River of Life, that sweeps us along. The family had being playing in the Phoenix Park, and, when the flood suddenly came, we got separated. I took two of the children up the steps of the Wellington Monument and hoped the other two were with my wife, but it transpired that they were swept away. This was foreshadowing the loss of my daughter who emigrated soon afterwards to Australia, and my son, who became a Trinity Scholar and left home to take up residence in Trinity College.

What is this cutting back dream all about? Well this morning's radio news was all about clipping back. Arson Wenger got his wings clipped in the European Championship. Likud had a narrow victory in the Israeli elections. In Northern Ireland, the two Unionist parties agreed to share candidates in the coming UK General Election. More importantly, Janet Yellen is today to announce whether US interest rates will rise or stay the same. The markets are on tenterhooks, (yesterday's financial news said: "U.S. stocks: Futures on pins and needles as Fed waiting nears an end Crude prices sharply lower after unwelcome supply surprise Hours ahead of a statement from the Fed, stock futures were on the fence as investors wait to see if the Fed Chairwoman will get the balance right"). If the Fed raises Interest Rates, share prices will fall and the US Dollar rise. If not, share prices may rise and the US Dollar remain at its current level.

Recently, I predicted (see http://sharespunt.blogspot.ie/2015/03/eurusd-medium-term-levelling.html ) that the Euro will now halt its decline against the Dollar and set the ground for an upward trend beginning, perhaps, in May. If American interest rates rise now, the Euro will again plunge. If not now, but soon, a similar effect might happen. However, I expect no immediate rise in American interest rates, and believe that an imminent rise, in the next few months, is already built into the present exchange rate. However, it is possible that my dream, accessing so much more stuff in the unconscious mind than the conscious mind can carry, is telling me to clip my investments back until it becomes clear what effect the announcement will have.

OK, then, is this the message of Dream 2: clip back your bets, Krunchie? Then, what about Dream 1, which says: Catch the Balls; seize the moment?

All I can say is: I should think about it, and be alert to old acquaintance, perhaps, making a re-appearance.