In our weekly Mindful Dreams column, Aneta Baranek of the School of Metaphysics is offering free dream interpretations to The Mindful Word readers, as well as articles on dreams in general.
If you’ve ever been curious about deciphering the cryptic contents of your subconscious mind, here’s your chance! If you would like Aneta to interpret your dream, fill out this form. She will respond with your dream interpretation through this column, published every Thursday. Aneta would love to receive more comments for the dreams interpreted. If you can relate to a dream posted here or have any insights to add, you can post them as comments to the interpretation, or email her at aneta@themindfulword.org.
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DREAM
A childhood friend whom I’m still close with, and just had a telephone conversation with, dies in my arms of a heart attack. I’m crying in pain and wake up in tears.
– Betsy
DREAMER: Female, 51, U.S.
MAIN SYMBOLS:
Friend — familiar aspect of the dreamer
Death — change, transformation
Heart — dreamer’s awareness of responsibility
Heart attack — need to pay attention to the dreamer’s awareness of responsibility
INTERPRETATION
Hello Betsy,
This is an example of a succinct dream that, although very short, is very telling in its meaning.
Your dream speaks to a profound emotional event that took place a day or so before you had this dream. The emotional release that occurred in the dream, and as you woke up, signifies that.
The childhood friend symbolizes an aspect within you that’s very familiar to you. Depending on the gender of the friend, we’d know more. A male friend would symbolize an inner, subconscious aspect of you; a female an outer, conscious aspect of you.
What are the two most significant qualities that you perceive in this friend? It’s important to identify those for any familiar person appearing in our dreams.
The death of your friend signifies transformation of that aspect within you. Dying of a heart attack speaks to a feeling of “overwhelmedness” that you would’ve experienced a day or two prior to having this dream.
Feeling overwhelmed has to do with the misunderstanding of a lesson at hand. The heart attack reflects the need for you to go deeper with your experiences. There’s a need for you to respond to what occurs, rather than react.
APPLICATION
The heart is a profound symbol in your dream. The heart symbolizes the dreamer’s awareness of responsibility.
What is responsibility? It’s an ability to respond versus react. It’s an ability to reason in the moment and not be overtaken by emotional outbursts or our egos.
Beyond that, the heart also symbolizes our ability to build soul understandings. Every experience we go through has an underlying lesson in it. It’s our duty to strive to receive each lesson through every experience, no matter how seemingly insignificant an experience might appear to be.
As we become more aware of our lessons at hand, and process them accordingly, we enrich our souls and hearts with permanent understandings. Those understandings are not only related to love—as significant a lesson love is, such understandings might also include virtues and skills like patience, tolerance and/or gratitude.
We’re here in this earthly schoolroom not only to live our lives, but to live our lives with awareness, benefiting on a soul level from all that we partake in.
If this were my dream, I’d ask myself a multitude of times, throughout the day, “What am I learning right now?” As you do this, you’ll become more aware of your life’s circumstances.
I’d also pause throughout the day and ask myself, “What am I feeling right now?” I’d then identify all the feelings and feel them fully. If possible, I’d journal about them as well.
Once you practice this new way of living more mindfully, your future dreams will reflect that and will guide you towards your next steps in the blossoming of your inner and outer Self.
May your dreams illuminate the inner and outer you…
