The dream this morning is set in the Central Pacific Ocean. This dream takes place in a section of the Pacific that is, in the waking life, a dead zone. The dead zone is a vast area full of thousands of miles of plastic refuse. This region has been steadily growing for decades. Ship traffic on the Pacific dumps all this trash and the world ocean currents gather it in, and collect it, all in this one location. A wide variety of marine life gets tangled or eats this plastic, and will die off every year. This huge obscenity is probably the single greatest environmental disaster area on the planet.
In this dream I am wearing scuba gear. I am a research scientist. A slender man in my early 40's with dark brown hair and a closely trimmed beard. There is another diver with me. She is my research assistant. A blond woman in her early 30's. The both of us have been exploring this mass of floating debris for hours. It is a sweltering hot sunny day. It is good to be in the water even if it is full of disgusting litter.
My assistant and I have completed our survey of the scene for the day and are slowly swimming toward the small boat that will ferry us back to the research ship. The coxswain on this small boat has taken the precaution of setting out a shark cage for our protection and safety. The "cage" is really nothing more than a square box of heavy duty netting embracing a floating metal frame and open at the top.
The cage actually serves two purposes. One, it offers a refuge from the sharks and two is it an open rest spot to get free from all the floating junk when entering in and out of the boat. The use of it makes a whole lot of sense if viewed from this perspective.
Suddenly, we see a huge swell form up along the northern horizon and it is heading for us. It is a tsunami wave! What has caused it is unknown to us. It will be devastating should it strike a landmass. However, out on the open sea it's impact is minimal. The coxswain quickly yells for us to get inside the shark cage, as we are floating near the boat, and will not be able to hop in to avoid the progress of the wave. It has quickly become apparent to us that all that floating trash could hit us and cause us great injury. I wake up from the dream in a panic. I sure hope the researcher and his assistant made it into the net in time. We may never know.
Water dreams are always fascinating dreams. Water is symbolic of intuition and emotion. Here, in this dream, it is horribly polluted and contaminated. Instead of being a nurturing substance, it should be, it has become a medium for both death and decay; a domain of death. Perhaps, on a subconscious level, I am forensic scientist analyzing the situation. I have a desire to clean it up and this tsunami, metaphorically speaking, is an external agent for change.
The shark cage is something of an irony. It does double duty. It protects from both the natural predators and the un-natural man made hazards. It makes so much practical sense to me, in my mind, that I'm left wondering if it might actually be an actual protocol real research scientists in the waking world might employ. It would be fun to inquire with a real marine research scientist what they might do in a similar situation. So often in my dreams things like this actually mirror things in the waking world and I am left wondering if dreams imitate the waking life or it is the other way around!
As usual there is a lot of substance to dive into, mull over and just plain be puzzled with. It often comes down to picking a few key symbols and analyzing it to death! This my old tried and true technique to getting a handle on what a dream means. Alas, as my friend Dream Momma always says, "The dream belongs to the dreamer." The final interpretation belongs to me, the dreamer.
No comments:
Post a Comment