‘Snakes, Soldiers & Fairytales’
SDM- 29/04/2021
29 dreamers
Themes
- The matrix felt light in a way
Talk of gratitude- unusual in a matrix. Softening.
Gratefulness for hearing voices on headphones- all in heart.
Snakes, Soldiers & Fairytales – sounds like an exciting place to go and have a pint.
- But then, what about the ‘silent violence’?
Very few dreams. It felt more like a Social Associating Matrix. Dreams more hidden and prevented from coming up. Snake eats its own tail, Matrix eating its own dreams.
It may seem light, but what about the snakes and the (sea) wolf beneath the surface (in sheep’s clothing).
More fairytales than dreams – wishes, gratitude – woman who spoke of son who got better from Covid and was donating plasma – a gift. Like a fairytale. You would hope it would turn out that way.
- A wish for a better future, and worries about it; not so sure how to make the change
Idea of short future – time running out. Could have happened millenia ago – green fields – hurtling towards climate change at 180mph. Who are the guardians? Can we trust the soldiers and policemen?
How are we treating our children right now? How are we treating our future? Anxiety for the future – we are a group and fantasy about being in Greece – wish for a better future – but not so sure. Delicate stories about children – child drowning, father late to collect child and the painfulness of that. Delicate, and moving.
Shit piling up. Metal snake – fear of our own nature. Earth as a massive magnet. Chicken carrying human babies in egg basket.
You go round and round and disappear up your own fundament.
Werewolves – full moon instigates change. Snake sheds its skin regularly. Transformation – we have to make the change.
The Matrix
D1- Wasn’t sure if I was in the past or the future but a group of people were in a green field- geography changed. We were all in different tribes. There were priests, people who were against the vaccine, people who were for the vaccine… fighting and yelling- everyone wanted to be seen. Felt familiar, could have been three millenia ago or anytime. Dream morphed and I was dancing with George Harrison of the Beatles to ‘Harvest Moon’ by Neil Young. Very spiritual feeling. (For me, George Harrison is a spiritual guide/different tribes not quite connecting).
A1- Harvest moon- just been full moon a couple of days ago. Moon ritual for full moon is of gratitude and forgiveness.
A2- ‘George Harrison of the Beatles’- from a song from the musical ‘Hair’- tribal musical.
A3- George Harrison- in Calcutta in late 60s. I was on a boat on the river and some people were playing a cassette/maybe the radio- of the Beatles. People of 19/20 who were dressed in a particular way. Remember how lush and green the banks of the river were with the Beatles music coming across.
D2- I am in college and my parents are at home- I have an exam at 1 o’clock. It’s noon and I think ‘I still have time’. I find out the exam is at 12.30 and I panic. My dad is sitting there and mum panics and says ‘Won’t you drop her- she won’t get there on time on her own.’
‘I’ll have to drop her on my bike at 180mph- otherwise I’m not going.’I feel frustrated at urgency and this comment.
D3- I am with friends in marketplace- 3.00 I realise I have a movie at 3.30. I am not dressed for the movie. Go into shop and ask if I can change there. Realise movie is been played in this shop- I think ‘Thank god I didn’t miss the movie.’
A4- 180mph- 180 degrees is a full turn in the other direction- having to go fast in the other direction.
D4- I was at a parents’ meeting for kids’ school- for the youngest one. Two years ago- no pandemic. I was trying to play with one of the parents, wanted to scare him. Someone was going to put a bomb near this father’s building so he would be late to the meeting. Only the mother was in the meeting. Started feeling guilt and anxiety because the guy was only meant to be scared by the bomb, but maybe he had ended up getting hurt. Saw his wife start calling someone in the middle of the meeting- saw her face, she was very worried and started crying. I felt immediately that we had done something to hurt him. Guilt and anxiety filled my dream. I woke up.
D5- (about ten years ago). Involved a local beach. Youngest son playing on pontoon on the water. He fell and was drowning and I couldn’t do anything to help him. When I woke up I had to work out if it was a dream or reality. I visit the beach quite often in my dreams and now run into the sea to try and get there a few seconds earlier than the drowning incident, but always turn back to the beach and see that my son is still on the beach.
A5- Association with the word ‘help’. Helplessness in reaching out to near and dear ones who have lost their lives. Helplessness is shattering.
A6- Dream about tribes, thinking globally about the world as tribes today- relating to the vaccine.
A7- Parents and 180mph- parents as security but also danger. Relying on vaccine but is it really safe? Who can we trust?
A8- Child and parent and trying to keep to one’s responsibilities. Going to the beach and looking for child/180mph ride to school – remembered face of my daughter in nursery when I was 5 minutes late one day. She looked very scared. I was never late again as a result. Painful feelings.
A9- Loss/people dying- great sadness. Children and how we take care of them. Having to be somewhere at 3.00- age 3. How are we with our children right now?
A10- Sadness and hurt- how we are treating our children. My son has Covid three weeks ago- got really serious and he had to be hospitalised. He is OK now. Many friends came together as a tribe to pray- didn’t really know what else to do. Uphill task- Beatles- image of a dung beetle.
A11- Dung beetle pushes shit around. Who needs to get rid of the shit during this matrix, in this time, etc?
A12- ‘The shit rolling goes on, whether there are people dying or not’- this never changes.
D6- Heard a dream half an hour ago- a restaurant with many people eating together (which is still not allowed in Italy). On windowsill there is a big snake. When you look at it, it is actually metal, with many nice pieces of jewellery along the body. As you look more closely to the snake, it is divided into segments which are kept together by a magnet- you can move them around into different shapes. Coming up in this matrix as it is to with the worry as to when we can come back to be close, go to restaurants and events together- to see family. Maybe we will be in touch by adhesion- like magnets. Transforming relationship.
A7- Snake- change, snake sheds its skin multiple times in its life. Changes in pattern.
A8- When speaker was speaking about the snake in segments which could be rearranged by moving them around- I was looking at my index finger which I don’t look at very often- top joint seems to have been rearranged- different shape than I remember- I am aging, time is moving fast, I am helpless to that. Pieces coming together when I look at the rearranged joint in my finger.
A9- Snake + dream about father going to the beach- snake represents hidden danger. My son and I go to the beach once a week- we cannot go to the beach unless we do some sports- all the beaches are closed to the public. If you go with a surfboard or paddle board you are allowed in. Soldiers in the beaches guarding them and keeping the people from entering. Beaches five minutes from where I live- go with paddle board and last time we went we passed the soldiers- they saw us with the board and didn’t say anything. Beach was deserted. Talking and paddling in the sea, my son was in the water and a sea wolf emerged from the water half a metre from us (or a little more). Son got really scared as he had never seen a sea wolf so close. I knew it would not do anything to us but he thought something underwater could turn the paddle down or attack us or do us some harm. I was playing with that- trying to stop him from being scared- but inevitable from me to make some jokes- to try to relax him. Something beneath the surface blew some air. Danger.
A10- Wondering what a sea wolf is- ambiguity- like person looking at joint- disjointed world where soldiers separate us from pleasure- we have another disjointed experience, feels ambiguous.
A11- Snake, five phases of transformation. Capacity to see what is right and what is wrong. Led me to index finger- finger says ‘Watch out’. Association to sea wolf- didn’t know what it was. Is it an animal? Is it a submarine?
A12- Snakes can denote primitive fear. People can be born with primitive fear of snakes. Going into the ocean looking for the son- Jung- water is the deep unconscious, the unknown.
A13- A million flying ants.
A14- Jung/young/yin and yang- one face and another- I go into the water to find someone, turn around and see them on the shore.
A15- Grateful for the snake that came into the matrix.
A16- Child in the hospital, ‘group of children came home and prayed. Idea of a group to bring together. Things change but remain the same. Mother remembered the Spanish flu- her school teacher died at the age of 23 in 1919/1920. I was so glad that I hadn’t lived through a time like that.
A17- Past doesn’t seem fixed- a history we are constantly revising.
A18- Grandmother- Association with wolf- symbol of social born.
A19- Thinking about Little Red Riding Hood- grandmother and wolf. Which one is it? Is it safe?
A20- Cannot get snake out of my head. Symbol on graphic for medicine is a pin with two snakes around it. Like a stick with two snakes looking at each other. Every day there is a doctor or epidemiologist talking on the news. Medics school talking a lot about the pandemic- that symbol is everywhere- in press releases…
A21- Putting legs on a snake.
A22- Snakes + 180degrees, Ouroboros- the snake that eats its own tail. In alchemy, I think it means infinity.
A23- Snakes, wolves, what’s under the surface, danger that isn’t seen- uncertainty of right or wrong- Red Riding Hood and the Grandmother- brought to mind a programme I was watching last night about the London Police Force in the 70s and 80s- corruption and criminality within the police- criminals paying off the police and police preventing investigations into murders and robberies etc. Corruption will always be there within the police force. BLM- argument about defunding the police. What change is possible? Young people who hold hope for potential for change. Will this shadow side always be carried? Is it a necessity that the opposite always has to be held within?
D7- I am a policeman- moving around to find clues on who the culprit is. Forces around prevent me from doing my job.
A24- Metal snake- digital transformation. Not organic- made of metal. In paradise, the snake was the first salesman- to sell the apple.
A25- Two meanings of living through something- duration/through line vs. living vicariously- living through someone else’s experience- parasitic life. Fairytales we tell each other about power and control and the police and safety.
A26- Snake that can bite you with his teeth- can sting, like a bad thing in your shoulder.
A27- Soldiers, police- I went to the pharmacy yesterday and in the corner there were 10-12 soldiers. I asked why they were there. It was a vaccination site- they were guarding it like it was something to protect. Perhaps because vaccination is so slow here, government is afraid that people could riot or assault a vaccination site. Nothing like that happened- but soldier in the beach and soldiers in the vaccination sites.
A28- Fairytales- apples and snakes. The grandmother is the wolf (Red Riding Hood). I remember the film by Tarkovsky ‘Stalker’. Dog going through pool of water seems to be silhouetted.
A29- Association to snake and soldiers- band SOJA- ‘Everything Changes’- deals with strength and revival.
A30- Links to thought around knowing what feels safe and what doesn’t- perceptions of what looks like safety. Soldiers at vaccination centre- some suggestion about keeping women safe by having undercover police in nightclubs- general reaction of horror. People know what keeps them safe- different ways of keeping people safe- not necessarily what looks like keeping people safe.
A31- Grandmothers who are actually wolves, police who are actually murderers.
A32- Wolves, women, grandmother- women who run with the wolves. Different aspects of the feminine.
A33- Struck by language about vaccine- ‘jabs’ and ‘shots’- violent. Blame snakes for the evil in the world.
A34- Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’- inversion of good and evil.
A35- Wolves- are they really being seen for what they are? How evil (or not) are they?
A36- Wolves travelling in packs or groups- theme of group. Revision of memory- how in our collective unconscious do we hold our memories together as a group?
A37- ‘Evil’- sounds like a cliché but palindrome is ‘live’.
A38- Garry Larson [check book name]- chicken carrying egg box full of human babies
A39- Werewolves- full moon. Changes around the time of full moon.
A40- Where change is remind me of “Where Freud is, there Lacan shall be”
Dream Reflection Dialogue
Repetition, renewal and transformation
Trust, or the lack thereof, in places where we traditionally have trust- parents, doctors, soldiers, grandparents etc. Opposite reactions to traditional ways of thinking about trust.
Evil, unconscious and change
Opposites- evil, good- grandmother and children- cops- death and life. Tribes and nature. Perhaps we have reached one end of something and need to look back from there.
Struck by account of child having gone through coronavirus. Delicacy in today’s matrix. Being in wolf’s clothing- sheep in wolf’s clothing (missaid that)/wolf in sheep’s clothing- murderer in wolf’s clothing.
Sadness- trying to find hope within sadness we are enduring. Reminded of a colleague- ‘a big part of long covid is going to be learning how to grieve’.
Experienced this matrix as very light. Not a lot of sadness- especially as pace increased at the end. Very nice energy.
Son who had coronavirus is now going around donating plasma. Does not normally go around proactively trying to help people. Being at the receiving end of generosity and care and prayers he finds himself wanting to do that. How might it be, and in which way might this be a wake-up/a gift. Didn’t look like that then, but does now.
Idea of trust- what may be recovery- what might that look like. Could be tempting to go for quick fixes- in the relationship- trust is an ongoing process. How important relationships are going to be as part of that fundamental.
Sense of lightness in matrix. Gratitude.
Relationships- modality of experience that we share together, precious voices from across the world are in my mind, through my headphones. Intimate experience. 180- everyone is very far away from where I am but right here inside my head and heart.
Left with idea of silent violence- threat of snake, jab, shot, wolf- can be related to violence but hidden somehow. Could slip through ones awareness and attention.
Matrix felt like reflection of a state of being where you cannot choose what to do. You have to try to survive- not only getting a shot (because in my country you can’t get one- very slow and late- people are dying), you just have to wait for something to appear and get better. I felt that tension between hope and the need to wait. Wait for something to save us or show us more danger. Uncertainty. Painful. Tension between positive and negative forces.
First dream- elements of violence, tribalism. What are our different tribes here? George Harrison and the Beatles. When I was in school, a constant question ‘Are you a Beatle or are you a Rolling Stone’- what tribe did you belong to. Got beaten up depending on the answer. Tribal. Sad that we didn’t have more music in the matrix.
Reminding me of statement from Francis Weller- Dream Circles. A child who does not feel warmth from his tribe will one day burn the village just to feel some heat.
Wondering if national borders will disappear and tribes will become Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Moderna- people with natural immunity, and those who are left not knowing if they caught it or if they can have a vaccine or not.
Simple to complex- circle to infinity. No longer going to be simple- becoming much more complex, holding many things together and trying to make sense through the madness. Transformation.
Experience the matrix as a group. Wish we could get together and play- fantasy of mine. One day we can meet in Greece.
Blog compiled by Rachel Kelly, Emily Kyte, Martijn van der Spek and Carlos Remotti-Breton
Image: Feline Authority, with black corvid bird, a Social Dreaming illustration by Juliet Scott 2020 (detail)
