Weirdest dream in a long time

And hello there...
Well... I've tried to get an explanation about this dream using online dream dictionaries but I give up. I'm lost. I can't find any clue about this one, mostly because i can't get a good explanation about some signs and i can't make a good global vision about it..

Let me start

- I was searching for an automated teller with two of my friends, and we finished on an abandoned and semi in ruins shopping mall. No shops open, cracked glass and debris everywhere, but the escalators were functional and didn't seemed rusty but new (weird because everything else looked so old)

Instead of going up, we went down. In the last basement, that was very small, like just one shop, there was a weird place, like a bar. The lights were orange and everything looked a little sepia alike. Then, a weird man, dressed in a black suit, started to introduce us his business. It was something like a sado bar.
Two waitresses came, both wearing something like a babydoll, black with red cups, long dark blonde straight hair, handling something that looked like a bastard child between a rolling pin and a whip.
They took away my friends, all laughing and so. And I saw another person on the place. An old lady that was shuffling a deck of cards. Square cads, blue with silver strokes in the borders. She called me, and said if I had a question to make, she can make a reading for me, for free.
I asked about the travel I want to do to the UK (I don't know if i asked about the vacations I have planned for 2011 or moving there when finishing my career to take a jewelry course at a certain college... nevermind).
She spreaded the deck of cards on the table (that was covered with a blue and orange shawl, Hindu printing) and I took one. It wasn't a Tarot, but a deck with weird symbols. The first card, in blue with signs in silver, had 3 stars, a smaller one, a big one and a medium one grouped in the center, starting in the right, one above the other but not stacked. The other one had a half moon. The other one had the sign of Pisces but she said "Aquarius" when i took it...

Then, my male friend came out from the room he was with the girls, with two sickles, one in each hand, and the hair of the girls also in his hands (like he had cut it with the sickles). The old woman said that we needed to recover one of the girl's head to continue the reading (the girls were killed by my friend?).
Next scene i have the head of one of the girls on my hands. The skin felt between sticky and very dry and looked rotten in some spots but dry as a shoe in others, and was falling from the hairline. I was able to see some blood and her skull. She gave me a needle, like the ones you use to sew leather, threaded with a strip of skin, and said: "sew her face to her scalp, so I can finish the prediction" Without feeling anything weird I started to sew her face like if i was sewing a hem in a skirt, and the woman was about to start talking and she yelled "the police! we must hide that head and flee from here!"

Next scene, we are in my house's kitchen, however, it was like some months ago (we completely remodeled it) She said that the best place to hide the head was the cutlery drawer. I took off from the drawer just tea spoons and forks, nothing else, and the drawer was clear. I tried to place the head there but there wasn't enough room for it. Then, the kitchen turned into my new one, and that drawer is bigger. I finally hid it.

The police finally came and took my cousin (i live with my aunt, but her son didn't live here). Then there was my aunt and me, the woman vanished, and all my cousin's stuff. We started to discuss what to do with those things. The fact of very old things around was intriguing for me, like some very old markers, old brands and labels in everything, some computer pieces, and LCD tv (that also looked old, like a 70's one but in lcd) and... two kittens. A white one and a stripped one (those cats that have... dunno how to explain it, stripes that are almost green? I really don't know the name of that breed in english, sorry). My aunt said we cannot keep the kittens because she don't wanted cats. The white one jumped through the window so suddenly (my grandma's cat used to do the same, we live in a flat, but in a 1rst floor, the distance isn't going to kill a cat if it jumps from the window...). The other one didn't move, just stared at me with those cute kitten eyes it had.

Sorry if some words sound weird, but i needed to use a dictionary and sometimes those haven't listed modern slang =_=... and my english sounds rusty too... well, I'm still practicing!

If somebody can help me, I'll be eternally grateful. This dream had me clueless all day, because I usually don't have this kind of dreams (I dream almost 3 times each night, and my dreams are so vivid always, is the topic the weird one here!)
Thanks!

Hello, Caggy

It is difficult to recommend dream dictionaries. Dreams are symbolic thought, and symbols do not work by one-to-one correspondence. That is, unlike word = definition.

Occasionally, reading a dream dictionary entry will "stir something up," or the better ones might have interesting and useful background information about a symbol. But the idea that you could look up "automated teller machine" and be told "what it means" just isn't possible.

It would be helpful to establish a few facts about you. Are you a woman or are you a man? To the decade, how old are you (teens, twenties, thirties, ..., nineties)? I notice that you have good dream recall. Do you journal your dreams?

And an important fact about me:

Disclaimer: I don't interpret other people's dreams, but some dream motifs and characters are dreamt by many, many people, and I sometimes recognize those motifs and characters. I can tell you what several of the people who have dreamt dreams like yours have thought about their dreams, but only you can decide whether that has anything to do with your personal dream.

That's a long dream. There wouldn't be much point in tackling the whole thing if I was wrong about the very beginning. Also, there are a lot of personal references in your dream, friends, relatives, some of the places, even the cats, maybe. There's not a lot I can do with them, because I don't know you.

So let me just do the first part, to see whether or not you like where I'm going.

I was searching for an automated teller with two of my friends, and we finished on an abandoned and semi in ruins shopping mall. No shops open, cracked glass and debris everywhere, ...

There is a very common dream setting called "the wasteland," named after a famous poem by T.S. Elliott, and used by him in a heritage stretching back to the grail legends. It is a searchable term, you might want to check it out.

The wasteland theme has a very abstract association with living in some phony and unsatisfying way, but that is obviously too abstract to be much help. If you look at other "wasteland" narratives, and compare with things in your life, then I'd bet you'll see some connections.

but the escalators were functional and didn't seemed rusty but new (weird because everything else looked so old)

Not weird at all. If there is one constant about the wasteland, it is that you want to leave it. Here's your chance.

Instead of going up, we went down.

That would be towards the parts of yourself of which you are not conscious when awake, the unconscious, the source of dreams.

You have also mixed motifs here. The idea of a building with different levels is very common in its own right, even apart from "the wasteland" motif on the "main floor."

The multilevel building usually is either your mind (the whole thing, conscious and unconscious, even divisions of the unconscious parts, on the various levels) or your life (again, the whole thing, past, present, and future, each on different levels) or, what could only make sense in symbolic thought, both at the same time.

Because of what and whom you find, I'll go with the structure as mind, but please don't completely discard the idea of the basement as the past, even possibly before you were born.

In the last basement, that was very small, like just one shop, there was a weird place, like a bar.

This is what I call "the doubly removed place." Unlike the wasteland, which has an agreed upon name, other common dream features don't. So I use descriptive names. The idea here is that this is a well defined space, set apart from the basement, which in turn is separated from the rest of the structure.

The doubly removed place is one of the source of dreams' favorite images of itself. You (the dream character that corresponds to your waking self) are now where thoughts come from. You have come home, a wonderful idea by itself - and you really aren't in the wasteland so long as you are here.

So far, all of this is very much like many other people's dreams. The wasteland is a nice touch, and the journey to the doubly removed place is dreamt every night by somebody, many somebodies. And one more thing about the usual doubly removed place, you meet somebody there whom you've never met before, and who wants to interact with you.

But that is as far as I can go without knowing anything about you, the person who's dreaming all of this. Compared with other people, your doubly removed place is densely populated. The more prominent strangers are very likely archetypes (searchable), the question would be which archetypes.

Generally speaking, archetypes are "stock characters" that show up in many people's dreams, and they personify aspects of yourself of which you are unconscious. The lady with the cards is probably The Wise Old Woman (searchable), but as for the rest, your own age and gender would be helpful in proposing candidates.

So, we haven't gone very far, but far enough for you to decide whether you want to continue along these lines. Even if you decide not to continue, the basic background information will help anybody who might be able to speak with you about this.

[edit on 12-11-2009 by eight bits]

Oh, I didn't expect something this detailed, thanks Eight Bits!.
Well, I'm a woman, 25 y.o. , studying her second career and expecting to go living to UK when finishing this one, to take another one (current, fashion design, next, jewelry)

After the introduction, I usually look at those dictionaries to search "dots", then reconnect them with my mood or facts that are happening in my life and get the "whole picture".... with this one I just coundn't =s!

The fact that makes me the more clueless on this dream are the cards. I have never seen something like that in real/conscious life.

Thank you for the information. That helps.

After the introduction, I usually look at those dictionaries to search "dots", then reconnect them with my mood or facts that are happening in my life and get the "whole picture"....

Yes, that is an example of a good way to use dream dictionaries.

with this one I just coundn't =s!

I think one reason why you couldn't is that this dream may be a "big dream" in the sense that Carl Jung used the term. "Big dream" Jung is searchable.

That is, unlike all those dreams that reflect things that are currently happening in our lives, these "big" dreams are often about "the bigger picture," life as a whole, maybe even "philosophical" dreams about "the human condition" and where we fit into that.

The timing of a big dream may be affected by current events in our lives, but so many people in so many different situations dream such similar big dreams, the "message" couldn't possibly be completely determined by the particular situation of any one specific dreamer, IMO.

The fact that makes me the more clueless on this dream are the cards. I have never seen something like that in real/conscious life.

OK, let's think about the cards. Maybe start with whose cards they are: Wise Old Woman's. She provides advice and wisdom. "She" is you, an aspect of you, and is a representative of the positive aspects of those great caverns of your Self which the waking you doesn't visit very often. So part of her being there is to remind you to visit more often .

So, she makes her entrance in your dream:

An old lady that was shuffling a deck of cards. Square cads, blue with silver strokes in the borders. She called me, and said if I had a question to make, she can make a reading for me, for free.

A square is among the source of dreams' favorite images for a harmonious relationship among all the parts of the Self. Building that relationship begins with an encounter between your waking self (the dream character "You") and this archetypal representative of the positive aspects of the rest of your Self.

It is typical for the representative to make an overture to you ("she called me"), but remember that you had to exert yourself to get to this place where she could call you and be heard. You two are already cooperating, and she is now asking you to do something more together with her: to participate in a card reading, and to engage in a dialog: you ask, she tells.

Believe me, she could just tell you whatever it is that she has to say. But part of what she has to say is that the two of you ought to be working together. So that's the form of the invitation: let's do something together. In this dream, a reading.

I asked about the travel I want to do to the UK (I don't know if i asked about the vacations I have planned for 2011 or moving there when finishing my career to take a jewelry course at a certain college... nevermind).

You do ask about some things currently going on in your life. But read what you wrote. You're not completely sure what you asked. Then you write "nevermind."

I think you're right. What specific problem you happen to work on together isn't what is most important in this dream. What's important is that you are both working together. You ought to be doing this all the time, or so your dream is proposing.

She spreaded the deck of cards on the table (that was covered with a blue and orange shawl, Hindu printing) and I took one. It wasn't a Tarot, but a deck with weird symbols. The first card, in blue with signs in silver, had 3 stars, a smaller one, a big one and a medium one grouped in the center, starting in the right, one above the other but not stacked. The other one had a half moon. The other one had the sign of Pisces but she said "Aquarius" when i took it...

Here's what I propose as a tentative identification, based on the Indian tablecloth, the cards' square field, center-conscious design... Please check out mandala. See what you think. Maybe "go shopping" on Google or Bing Images for possible "cards."

Jung had a strong personal belief that people were attracted to mandala imagery because these abstract designs were, in his view, portraits of the whole Self, or of the contending forces that the whole Self compromises, coming together, getting organized, becoming a single unit.

It seems to me that when you describe the cards, you describe a set of mandalas. So, check that out, and see if it feels to you like we're headed in the right direction.

Thanks again. Your answers are making me closer to an explanation!
I've searched the "big dream" term and it makes sense. In fact, almost everything you've said makes sense to me.
I just remembered that I asked to my higher self some way to make contact, I can't recall if it was that exact night or before. Can she be that "higher self" or a representation of it? I started to question it now...

I've also searched for mandala cards but no, the cards weren't hindu-ish looking. They were blue squares with silver borders, with those draws on them, also on silver. Very clear signs, the stars, Pisces (and she said "Aquarius"...) and a half moon.

Now... what about that head?... The feeling of it was so vivid, I still can recall the feeling of the skin on my hands, and the fact of sewing her face on was weird too (also something i am clueless)

Sorry if i ask too much, and thanks again!

I just remembered that I asked to my higher self some way to make contact, I can't recall if it was that exact night or before.

That's an important piece of information, that you asked for an experience like this.

I think it is reasonable to see your dream as the answer to your request. I don't think it matters whether it was literally that night when you asked. It might have taken a while to put this dream together. It has a lot of parts. Maybe you asked a harder question than you thought.

Can she [the Wise Old Woman] be that "higher self" or a representation of it? I started to question it now...

Let me propose that you remain open, at least for a while, to the idea that the whole dream is the answer to your request. There are a lot more characters in that bar than just the Wise Old Woman. The other characters in the bar, I think, may also be aspects of yourself.

You, the waking self who made the request, are in that bar, too. Just for the sake of argument (that is, I don't claim to know the answer to this), what if your "higher self" were the joining together of all the aspects of yourself? What if your higher self is someone you become, rather than someone who lives inside and whom you might talk with?

I've also searched for mandala cards but no, the cards weren't hindu-ish looking. They were blue squares with silver borders, with those draws on them, also on silver. Very clear signs, the stars, Pisces (and she said "Aquarius"...) and a half moon.

OK. I was hoping that looking at mandalas would illustrate what I meant, and maybe if we were lucky, one or more them would strike a chord with you.

As you said, it was the shawl on the table that had Hindu-ish printing, the background upon which the Woman's cards were spread out, not the cards themselves. Mandala is an Indian word for a general category of picture that is found in many, many cultures. It's the square shape and strong use of the center that caught my attention.

Let's put that to one side for a while. If you haven't already done so, then you should draw what cards you remember - the whole thing, the blue square ground with silver borders, and the sign involved, for each card you remember. It's good to record things like that.

and ...

Pisces (and she said "Aquarius"...)

... let's pick up the dream narrative from that point. Something interesting is happening there. You are quite sure about what you see on her card, and she sees something else.

Not a "big difference." Aquarius and Pisces are adjacent in the Zodiac, there is an obvious thematic connection between them based on water, and even as graphic symbols there is much parallelism (two vertical curves joined by a horizontal stroke versus two horizontal waves, stacked vertically in phase, sort of

-)-(-


^^^^
^^^^

),

but a definite difference.

This also marks the transition between what all by itself would have been a very respectable "meeting the Wise Old Woman" big dream if you had simply woken up at this point, and the business with the head.

But there is a bit more in between:

Then, my male friend came out from the room he was with the girls, with two sickles, one in each hand, and the hair of the girls also in his hands (like he had cut it with the sickles). The old woman said that we needed to recover one of the girl's head to continue the reading (the girls were killed by my friend?).

The girls had been introduced earlier in the dream. They are waitresses, in matching uniforms. (Gemini?)

I have a few questions here. You say your "male friend." You came to the bar with two friends. So, you came to the bar with one friend of each sex? Could you say a bit more about the male friend, and what sort of relationship you have with him in real life? What about with the other friend who never reappears? Oh - and what color is your hair?

Anyway, it is interesting that you find out about the heads from the Wise Old Woman. You saw only the hair. Once again, she sees something different than you do. Not a big difference, there is a clear thematic connection between hair and heads... Evidently, in this case she's right; there are heads to tend to.

Wise Old Woman is a teacher. You're the student. You corrected the teacher, now the teacher has corrected you. There's a very interesting dynamic in that.

Anyway, let me break here, before we get into that face-sewing part. More information, like the answers to those questions will help. Don't let the sensory vividness of that scene put you off. Big dreams often have intensity.

[edit on 14-11-2009 by eight bits]

...........just want to say hello.............

So, as promised, here I am again =)

let me answer your questions

Well, my higher self started to appear in my dreams more often since then and I can say that she's not the women of this dream. She was thin, very old, full of wrinkles in her face and hands. She was wearing something like a scarf on her head but a few stokes of red hair were falling on her forehead.
I can draw the cards but i don't have an scanner and my graphic tablet died... Let me try do something with my mouse, but that would be for another time since it's very late here and I'm a bit tired...

About my friend, yes. There were a male one and a female one. The female one isn't a close friend, but the male one is one of my best friends (if not my best friend). We have a very close relationship, like brothers. Actually, the girl is his romantic interest.
And my hair is brown, plain and boring brown if you ask me hahaha.
Oh and now i know that the "green" cat is called a Tabby in english!

Thanks again, this dream was really strong, I still can recall it so vividly...

... my higher self started to appear in my dreams more often since then and I can say that she's not the women of this dream.

I'm not sad to hear that . I was thinking of the woman in this dream as maybe an example of the Wise Old Woman archetype, who would be an aspect of your self (higher self? ... an aspect of you, regardless).

Sometime, maybe it's another thread, but maybe you'll post about this other character that is lately representing your higher self in your dreams. That would be interesting.

I can draw the cards but i don't have an scanner and my graphic tablet died... Let me try do something with my mouse, but that would be for another time since it's very late here and I'm a bit tired...

That would be interesting, too. When you get a chance, of course.

About my friend, yes. There were a male one and a female one. The female one isn't a close friend, but the male one is one of my best friends (if not my best friend). We have a very close relationship, like brothers. Actually, the girl is his romantic interest.

OK, so when you said back in the OP

They [the two waitresses] took away my friends, all laughing and so... [then you have the reading with the old woman] ... Then, my male friend came out from the room he was with the girls, with two sickles, one in each hand, and the hair of the girls also in his hands (like he had cut it with the sickles).

So, he was with three girls in the other room: the two waitresses, and his girlfriend. The Old Woman tells you that you need one of the heads to continue. Whose head did you end up with? The friend's, one of the waitresses', your own, or somebody else's?

One of the waitresses. As she said. She asked me for one of the waitresses head. My female friend didn't appear again in the dream

One of the waitresses.

Good; we're still dealing with the archetype characters, rather than people you know in real life.

The waitresses, I think, are the character known as Shadow. That is searchable, but search turns up two things: the Shadow as it relates to Jungian psychotherapy, and the dream character of the same name. What Shadow represents is similar in both cases, but the psychotherapy Shadow is typically a nasty bit of business, while the dream character Shadow is not so bad, even if unsettling.

What Shadow is representing is parts of yourself, or possibilities for yourself, that you (the conscious waking you) dislike. These are things you find immoral, unattractive, unprofitable... things that, if asked, your waking self would have no trouble saying "Oh, no, I don't like people like that." What the waking self is less likely to be able to say is "But I am, or easily could be, or could have been, like that."

It is that last thought that is the unconscious part of what the Shadow represents: that attributes which the conscious self dislikes are part of everybody, or potentials for everybody, and so part of you, or potentially part of you, too.

You have, I think, dreamt an interesting Shadow, who is ambiguous (outrightly double in fact ), at once alluring but also somewhat sinister, and as a head, repugnant in its bloodiness and partial rottenness. That's a very nice Shadow dream character, I think.

So, stepping back to look at the whole dream, following the character "You:" You begin in the Wasteland, something is wrong, something needs fixing in your mind and life. You descend to the doubly removed place, where the conscious waking self can confront unconscious contents.

After a brief orientation, you are dealing with the Wise Old Woman. She establishes that her perspective on things is different from your waking self's perspective. She prescribes what is called shadow work, a searchable term, especially as shadow work jung.

First, she arranges that you accept the Shadow, which is not easy to do, because she is somewhat repugnant to the waking you. Then, you are to work on the Shadow, putting it together. Actual shadow work is about integrating the contents which the Shadow represents into a more inclusive, larger self.

So, your sewing is a nice image: you are giving the Shadow a face, and you are making a head. That, when finished, would be your head... not the waking self that is the dream character You, but a new, more inclusive self.

The police interruption is a nice solution to a dramatic problem. The Wise Old Woman has said all she can for the time being. You have to do the work, and it will take time, and your work will be interrupted by other concerns in your life, practical things that you must attend to. There is also a hint there, that while you are working on these unattractive aspects of yourself, maybe you should be discreet about how much of the work you share with other people. Finally, part of the work is to arrive at a new social persona that reflects your acceptance of these aspects of yourself, but is a "good person" anyway.

Once again, we reach a point that, had you woken up, what you dreamt would have been a fine and especially productive "Redeem the Wasteland by meeting the Wise Elder who launches you on Shadow work" dream.... for most people, that would be three big dreams!

We have also reached the limit of my incompetence. The rest of the dream has people and places you know. That suggests it may have something to do with the practicalities of doing shadow work and living an orderly life in the meantime. But, since the references are not archetypes anymore, but characters and settings where you have personal and private associations, I can't really follow you there.

I hope that this discussion gave you some food for thought, about why you visited the doubly removed place, about what Wise Old Woman was trying to tell you, and something about working with Shadow.

As always with elaborate symbolic expressions, there is a lot more than we have discussed. There is a whole physicality riff with your waitresses: their allure, their vulnerability, their corruptibility, and their possibility of repair and renewal... All by itself, that would be a fine dream about an aspect of the human condition, what it is like to have a body.

It really was an extraordinarily good big dream. Say thank you to your higher self, from both of us .

[edit on 14-2-2010 by eight bits]

Wow. you surprised me in the good way... The dream took place in December. Now, in February, all of those things you say do really make sense. Thanks for the time you gave me to interpretate this!!
You're great, thousands of thanks again =)