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An elephant's tale (decoding the personal archetype)

Afternoon of October 17, 2013. Thursday. (tumblr dream journal links at bottom.)

This entry will focus on the main dreams I have had throughout my life relating to the ELEPHANT. It will NOT include the references to the less-common mammoth dreams or less eventful dreams with elephants even though there may be somewhat of a link.

I have not had that many dreams relating to elephants as a major aspect, but they all do relate to the same real-life event - and all of them (along with additional dream elements in each case) are very easy to "decode" in extensive detail, even in potential secondary levels - being simply a representation or subconscious "replay" I had as a child in dealing with my (unavoidable) fear concerning an actual elephant I "could not get away from" in real life.

In one scene (the climax and ending) in my "The Flying Saucer" childhood dream, at the end, it all comes together - the elephant appears exactly the same way as in my real-life experience of early childhood, like a very precise replay (except for the flying saucer it emerges from and the lava, of course). The location is ALMOST the same (but at a school parking lot rather than a store's parking lot - hinting at a learning experience or perhaps just being the parking lot I was more comfortable with at the time). In real life, my parents were there in the front seat and I was in the back seat. In my dream, I choose to get into a car rather than simply run from the area - and I choose to hide in the front seat rather than the back seat, giving me the option to drive (or take control) - the option of which I did not have in real life. It seems fairly straightforward - but being young, I was not able to drive away in my dream either (thus, a sort of practice or subconscious "test" regarding emotion and maturity, I suppose - and my parents were still around in real life, supporting me), and the elephant (or rather the lava and volcanic rocks it sprayed from its trunk) stopped me. It was almost like a coming-of-age test of nerve that I did not pass. My dream made a very intriguing (nearly inspiring, in fact) composite of two fears, the real-life elephant events, and the movies of Pompeii which I had seen and had worried about - and had them emerge from the "unknown" which was represented by the flying saucer - a "higher" power (in my dream) which revealed itself.

There is possibly more to this, though. One element which related to tertiary causes of my dream was the "Uhny Uftz" episode of the "The Dick Van Dyke Show" - the only episode of the show I clearly remember from that part of early childhood (which I saw at age four - which is quite funny to me as IMDb claims it to be "one of the weaker episodes"). In the episode, he had said of how it (being in a mostly empty building at night) felt like being "the last living cell in a dead body". A possible "second layer" of this dream may have been precognitive - as my father discovered he had kidney stones not that long after my dream (and had not mentioned his symptoms at that point in real life). If you associate lava coming from an elephant's trunk with the idea of blood, and kidney stones as volcanic rocks and the male member (in other words - elephant spraying lava from its trunk as an indirect way to imply "peeing blood"), so thus, there are possibly two (layered) levels to this particular dream - although it was my father and not myself that had the health issue at the time (but dreams do often relate to other people and completely separate personas; certainly not everyone in a dream "is the dreamer", or an aspect of him or her, which I feel is an absurd idea).

In my "My Little Cane" dream, which was very long and of which I have mostly only put summary paragraphs in one online journal, and which also had several layers of precognitive elements - there is one scene where I help Brenda W (while invisible by intent from the cane's various "magical" powers, which also had the power to amplify sound) with a marionette show. She is having trouble with the strings (making the movements of the marionette not very realistic), as well as her words not being loud and clear enough to the audience - and the audience is booing her. The marionette show is part of a school competition (scholarship for a college) and my wish is for her to win and be successful. The elephant here is the marionette (me gaining more power - but in "secret" - being invisible - to control my real fear of the real childhood event) yet I am also invisible due to the power of the cane (a support used by older or "weaker" people) - and giving full credit for the show to solely Brenda W, who does win in being number one - with the audience suddenly cheering and applauding. The elephant is firstly mopping the floor in a Carol-Burnett-like end-of-show scenario (and in fact is even dressed as her cleaning lady character in one part of my dream), but note that this was the persona she used "in the background" - that is - her other persona "behind" the actress herself, where she comes in later "after the show is finished" and sits in apparent mental soliloquy, supposedly "unknown" by the public, yet still important - to "clean up after another". A redundant play on this is related to the fact that it (the marionette play in my dream) also was a scene from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from "Fantasia". This is almost like a "dream within a dream" (relating to wanting/having full control) and creates a quite complex scenario of elements. On the one hand, I am invisible yet have full control of the elephant marionette, and on the other hand, due to the comedic stage show, the elephant does not have full control of its "own" cleaning equipment as a cleaning lady. In real life, I did actually work as a cleaner at a school years later (but at a different school in Wisconsin), using brooms and mops and such, so that is an additional layer reflecting (a part of) my actual future from that point. Also, in real life after this dream, Brenda W tried to help me (through audience involvement) with an unplanned and sudden change to a puppet show on my part (but with a tan, furry hand puppet of a more realistic-looking dog). I did not get very far (as my voice was too low from behind the desk/stage area and did not carry at all) and so I messed things up for the others on that particular stage set relative to the overall rating - I did not even get the next introduction right - where I said the person would "show his rocks", when it was actually seashells he had collected. This remained a very vivid "pulse-like" memory from an early age which I can still replay (completely with sound) perfectly in my mind.

In my "An Adventure on an Alternate Earth", I once again return to the scene of the childhood trauma (with physical discomfort in my dream) - and there are clues. For one, I land on a concrete platform after climbing sideways along the underside of the bridge with only my hands and feeling quite uncomfortable for a time but being unhurt from the eventual fall - the surface where I fell - hard like a parking lot surface and no car for potential "escape" anywhere this time around - in addition to directly being surrounded by ocean - the collective or supraconscious mind - the area of which may serve as a pylon - at the end of the truncated bridge (the real-life one we crossed to see the elephant show but which was not truncated or a dead-end), and from that point, a possible representation of my progress beyond the childhood fear being "the bridge" to the shore where my wife awaits for me to cross back over normally. She had a similar experience in childhood (but was a few years older) but had no fear of the elephant. She did, however, have a great fear of larger trucks which I did not. In this part of my dream, there is a slight concern that I will be stepped on, but it does not happen, and I eventually go back across the bridge, having dealt with that part of my childhood fear-association once again, as there were not really stronger emotions involved, only the physical discomfort in "hanging on" until I reached that area. It is curious of where my dream decided to replay the elephant encounter so late in my life, at the end of the actual bridge but making escape seemingly "impossible" at first (although it was not - I climb back up and do cross back normally). Also in my original entry, I had commented on "truncated" potentially being a play on elephant's "trunk" but that may only be a conscious association from a waking thought.

Link for: Elephant Head “Cloud” below

Link for: Invisible Elephant below

Link for: Pachydermophobiaphobia below

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