Otherness is also a continuous mirror
In the morning, I woke up from an intense dream. I wouldn’t call it a nightmare; it was anxiety and not so much fear expressing itself. Nonetheless, the type of anxiety that could undoubtedly be formed into a state of panic. The director of this dream was a small, abandoned girl, asking for help, asking for a pause, if only I listened. A lucid kind of awareness was weaved throughout the dream. I saw myself, a particular and familiar psychic structure, reacting to a relational situation that felt very threatening. A sense of empathy towards my response arose amid that lucid state, some inner space to ponder whether the triggered reaction was necessary afforded a disidentification from the flight and fight reaction that nonetheless was also displayed in my Shakespearian motions and words. A monologue stemming from my pain body showed that I wanted to fight for my interpretation of what was happening (my ego’s attempt at controlling reality) and flee the situation (that level of intimacy) in which I felt betrayed, and at the same time I was not fully one with the person that clearly felt her tribe had betrayed her. And, more painfully, had the conviction there was nowhere to go but to the haven of loneliness.
This dream came after a new level of trust had awaken in connection with dear friends, in real life. I had communicated certain needs – and they not only welcomed the sharing of these needs, but also actively chose a practical option that felt altogether inclusive towards my being in this togetherness. As my body has also been conditioned in situations of chaos and neglect, parts of my psyche were surprised and needed a good night sleep – an awakening dream … - to let this new reality sink in. The dream was communicating my psyche’s resistance towards this new level of trust.
At the end of dream, approaching awakening, I tried to do research into a dream opening. What other options were there, in my response to the situations I was in, in the dream? Open heartedness, direct communication, slowing down in a heated situation, looking honestly at my own convictions, and accepting the intensity of human differences and processes. Reorienting and seeing that everyone can be included in the conversation and connection around a dynamic that may feel quite threatening to something that feels precious – integrity. Whether physical, emotional, or relational. Can we sit down and look at this situation from a welcoming and open perspective, providing everybody with the necessary space to speak their minds and bodies, and show their experience of reality? Can I allow everybody’s dreams to be part of this grander scheme of reality?
As the dream opened, a new dimension of collective truth seeking became part of that otherwise very much individually oriented dream. How can we come back to a shared and inclusive dialogue in situations that are unimaginably threatening…?
This, at the end, is a dream worth pursuing in reality, a place where otherness is also a continuous mirror of those realities I do not dare to dream as if they were also intimately mine.