Auschwitz as a dream metaphor ...

I've always been a very prolific and vivid dreamer and have been able to harness my dreams to help me with my self awareness and personal development.  Even before I began my counselling training and all of the self-exploration work which has come with that, I used to love my dreams and would often find the answers to life or study questions in them.

The unconscious mind tends to work in metaphor or very literal meanings, so uncovering the messages in dreams can be challenging, but also fun and hugely enlightening.  I love working with dreams that clients bring to our sessions; it never ceases to amaze me the messages the unconscious can leave behind in a seemingly random dream.

Last night, I dreamt I was on a camping trip and I was sleeping in one of the male barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenhau.

I knew immediately that the dream related to my experience of my new eating plan, but I wasn't sure just how.  I thought of all of the seemingly obvious connections between an eating plan and concentration camps.  I thought about the idea of the plan instilling a sense of deprivation, hunger, terror or torture.  

But that just didn't sit comfortably with me; that's not my experience of the plan.

I smiled to myself throughout my drive to work at my unconscious connections to Auschwitz.  And then because of the positive feelings, I'd been left with following the dream, it suddenly became clear to me ...

My dream was actually about choice, freedom and relief. 

I 'm choosing to take part in this eating plan.  I'm in complete control of it and if I decide I don't like it, I can stop it at any time.  The choice of what to eat is always mine.  

I'm free in a way in which the victims of Auschwitz and other concentration camps weren't.  I have the freedom to stop and walk away at any time I choose.

And this then linked to my past eating disorders.  The relief comes from the recognition that I am not controlled by this plan in the way in which I was controlled by food when I was experiencing anorexia or bulimia.  The Auschwitz of my dream was symbolic of my relationship to my own eating disorders.  


And I've walked away, I'm free ... and that's a hugely empowering confirmation; even my unconscious agrees that my eating disorders are history ...

Which is what I believe leaves me in a good place from which to be researching the subject and working with people who are currently still experiencing the torture, deprivation, dread and hunger of their own Auschwitz ...

Dreams

I love dreams … my own, & other peoples’. And I love working with clients’ dreams in the counselling room.

I think your dreams can teach you a lot about yourself … if you’re prepared to listen to them and work with them. Dreams tend to be metaphorical and rarely send their meanings literally … which is what makes them so fun … connecting to your unconscious, where dreams play …

People often ask me how they will know if they’ve uncovered the true meaning / message of their dream …. Because dreams are so personal and unique to the dreamer, when their true message is uncovered, in my experience it’s something that hits at a real gut / instinctual level, usually with a smile … one of those “a-ha” moments when you simply know that it’s right, you’ve got it.

I’m sharing this dream on here for a couple of reasons … to illustrate how meaningful our dreams can be, and also because it fits in nicely with my previous blog entry.

I had a dream sometime during Friday / Saturday night; it was about me realising that my eyes were red and bloodshot, and I was worried about other people noticing. On being reminded of this dream on Saturday morning, I knew that it had some significance for me and I made a mental note to spend some time remembering and thinking about it.

The timing of our dreams can be significant … this dream came to me at a time when I was talking and thinking about ‘moving on’, and what that means to me. And as written in my previous entry, I now know that for me, ‘moving on’ means letting go of my old Self, my old ways of being, & allowing myself to become more of my authentic Self.

Out walking this morning along Tynemouth sea front, meditating on this dream, its meaning suddenly made itself known to me … I realised that for me, red, bloodshot eyes probably mean that I’ve been crying, which probably means that I’ve been affected by something deeply emotional or something which had touched me at a deep personal level. A lot of this crying and emotional experiencing, has, for me, been done in private … often feeling too ashamed or vulnerable to let people see the true depth of the ‘real’ me. I remember times when I have felt self-conscious after a period of crying and wondered if people could see that I had been crying … I’ve spent a lot of time restraining the real me, not allowing the full potential of my Self to be seen or experienced.

What I realised today though is that I’m ready to ‘move on’ & to risk allowing myself to simply be me, to be that real authentic Self and to allow people to see me with red, bloodshot eyes.

Thank you unconscious …who would have thought that dreaming of red bloodshot eyes would be a message to me to move on towards being true to myself?!