A Metaphor for the Dream World
Our waking lives are filled with metaphors. Say you wake up one morning, look at the clock and it reads 9:11. Later that day you get a call that a loved one has had a bad accident and they’ve been taken to the hospital. You might look back at something like that, recognize the connection and give credence to it as a prediction of some sort.
Other metaphors are a bit more difficult to detect. It’s been in plain sight the whole time but it’s like you need a little help to see it. Last Saturday I was having breakfast with a friend who showed me a video of a person snorkeling. They had a go pro or something with them and they kept it submerged just enough so that the top half of the video showed the view above the water’s surface and the bottom half showed the view below the water’s surface. As we watched two different scenes at once, my buddy said something like “Doesn’t this remind you of how the dream world is?”
As I watched what was happening in the above waterline world and the below waterline world simultaneously, it clicked. I was looking at two different worlds — above the surface was like our waking life and below the surface was like our dream life. There was so much going on below the surface of the water that you couldn’t see unless you had the right view.
When you drift off to sleep and begin dreaming, you enter a world that you can only experience if you are in a sleep state. But the metaphorical significance doesn’t stop there. If you’ve ever been snorkeling in crystal clear water you remember how much light filters down into the water. There’s lots of life around. The fish are small, and the colors that surround you are incredibly beautiful. Many dreams are like this. The experience is full of light and color and so beautiful that it leaves us with a super good feeling when we wake up.
As you move further off the beach, the ocean floor drops. Light is plentiful but the fish get bigger. You’re introduced to fear as you see a barracuda or small shark off in the distance. It’s the wild and anything can happen. This is a metaphor of dreams where the light isn’t so plentiful. Colors are still colorful but they are all not vibrant. They have sort of a gray tone to them, much like the color of a dolphin. This is representative of soul dreams, or dreams we are able to give ourselves if we want something bad enough.
Going deeper (where a snorkel has to be traded out for scuba gear), sea life get much bigger, light diminishes and you encounter strong currents. In fact, the deeper you go down the greater the pressure, the less light you encounter and the more terrifying the experience. If you go down deep enough there is no light and the creatures you encounter look like they’re right out of a creepy scary movie. Here, in your dream life, is where you experience nightmares.
I’m on a constant search to encourage people to see their dreams differently. This metaphorical journey we were just on allows you to see just how important light and color are to your dreams. Different proportions of each will give you completely different dream experiences. Hopefully it will also give you the idea that when you go to sleep you are not simply transitioning from consciousness to unconsciousness. There is so much more to the dream world than what’s living in your subconscious mind.
Share your thoughts about other metaphors related to the world of dreams in the comments below.
I’d love to hear the different ways you’ve thought about the dream world.
EB