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Thoughts, lessons, and theology from an eclectic witch from a varied background.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Messages via Dreams.

From Here
I had this morning a dream that on the surface seemed a bit odd. I dreamt that my family and I were in Westminster Abby, prior to a ceremony wherein the Queen of England would restore to me noble title that was due to me by virtue of my lineage. The Queen was not an elderly woman, as she truly is, but rather she appeared as she did in her youth before the beginning of WWII. Throngs of people could be heard outside but inside the building was virtually empty except for the royal guard. This absence of people was not because it wasn't time for the ceremony as much as it was for the comfort of myself and my family.

I awoke from this dream convinced it had a deeper level of meaning. As I fixed myself something to eat, the realization struck me like a thunderbolt. This dream was Dea giving me back my dignity, which I had felt that I had lost with my most recent illness. The interesting thing about the dream was that it was never said that I had lost my title or that my family had done so. It was said that it was not properly recognized and removed from the record because of the error.

How does this compare to my dignity, one might ask. Well, I failed to recognize the dignity that I retained in the midst of my illness and, thereby, assumed it lost. This dream gently guided me back to seeing that dignity remains and gave me the external push to recognize it. One may be curious as to why in my dream Dea's messenger wore the face of Queen Elizabeth. The answer is fairly simple. In the Filianic faith, those women who are in positions of power can be considered living icons of Dea. They represent her goodness and sovereignty embodied. Queen Elizabeth is one of the rulers that I know has their power that exists in a fairly unbroken chain back to the founding of England. While the hands of those who held power transferred (in some cases quite bloodily, I might add), England has been a monarchy of some sort for a very, very long time. From a Filianic perspective, this history lends a weight of additional support to the claim of Queen Elizabeth to her throne.

Dreams can be random and strange. Sometimes they are nothing more then the brain's efforts to tell a story incorporating external stimuli that we receive and attempting to process the information of the day's events. Dreams can also be rich with symbolism wherein the unconscious mind speaks with the conscious mind, revealing that which we might not fully grasp during our waking hours. There are also dreams like the one I had that carry a spiritual element to them.

A strong understanding of the symbolic language that your mind uses to speak to you is useful in interpreting dreams and in practicing divination. Keeping a dream journal allows you to identify themes and symbols as you interpret them. I like to write my dreams up in a simple notebook with a few pages between them. After I have written them down, I wait a few hours before beginning to interpret them. My first level of interpretation is always what does the dream mean to me on a personal level.

Sometimes, I have dreams of fire. These are anxiety dreams, usually happening when I am in the midst of dealing with far too much stress in my life. I identified this theme after months of observing my dreams and recognizing the correlation between the content of my dreams and events unfolding in my life. If the dream I am having can be understood in the context of what is happening in my waking life, like the fire dreams, I will usually end my interpretation session there.

At times, I will have nightmares wherein I relive traumatic past events. These dreams require precious little in the way of interpretation. Generally, I treat them as memories. Then there are the dreams which at first seem very random but I recognize that the elements of the dream have larger meanings. Like the dream I described earlier in this post, the surface aspects seem odd. I have not been thinking of England of late nor has it featured in any respect in my daily life. When faced with a situation where a dream seems too strange to make sense of, I first attempt to examine the symbolic content of the dream.

Just as the fire dreams I have will speak of things regarding my mental state, the symbols can also communicate spiritual truths. This information is accessible to the unconscious mind because it is more intimately woven into the spiritual aspect of life then our conscious minds. Due to this closeness with the spiritual world, it is possible for information to not only pass from the spiritual aspect of the world to us it is possible for spiritual beings to contact us via this route.

Dreams of dead loved ones are commonly understood to be instances of the dead visiting the dreamer. A dream of angels may indeed be a visitation from those powerful beings. Sometimes, the divine uses symbolic language to express  messages in images that are not as clear as a direct vision of Isis, for example. A solid understanding of what different images and contexts mean to you is extremely helpful in interpreting dreams that have a message buried within them. An understanding of the cultural context and symbolic meanings of images presented to you is additionally helpful.

It is important, also, to remember that sometimes a dream has no deep symbolic meaning. A dream of a parrot may be just that, a dream of a parrot. If all attempts to make sense of the symbolism of the dream yields little to no success, consider the possibility that the dream is not a message from your unconscious or the spiritual aspects of reality. As Freud famously is attributed to saying, "Sometimes the cigar is just a cigar."

1 comment:

  1. That's a beautiful dream, you had, Deb. You will always be a woman of dignity and authority to me! I've just lately started keeping a dream journal myself again, and found that the more I do it, the wilder the content of my dreams.

    This article has also been a reminder for me to further research Filianism. I've been all over the place spiritually lately but I really feel a call to research and engage it.

    I get the feeling that sometimes the dreams of those who have passed are not true visitations - especially when the dream collapses when I realize that the person is dead. I've been getting more of those lately, and sometimes it feels like it's just a representation of a past circumstance. Then again, there have been times when I know that it's the person in question.

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