Smart Woman Articles on Intuition

Dream Messages

by Vicki Flaugher

Have you ever woken from a dream that was exhausting? I just did and I’d like to spend a few minutes reviewing what happened in the dream so I can learn from it.

In my dream, I was required to paint dozens and dozens of little figures and then bake them in a kiln. I was being shown how to do it by what I would call a “mean girl”, a girl that constantly angles only for herself, who might seem helpful but has an ulterior motive for helping you.  

Mean Girl seemed nice enough, I told myself. I mean, she was showing me how to do the work, right? But along the way she would stop and snicker at me and others would come along and ask me why I was doing it the hard or wrong way. I ignored her abuse, writing it off as just “who she is”. I’d take in the more helpful advice of the other bystanders and correct my course but was still moving at a painfully slow pace. I was a beginner and my guide did not have my best interests at heart. But, she was my only guide and I was convinced I could not figure it out on my own.  

Along with painting these figures, I had to also paint an introduction page describing the figures and the meaning of them. I had finally finished the figures and was working on the pages, quickly and maybe not so carefully any longer since the shop was closing up and people were glaring at me to allow them to go home. You see, in this exhausting dream, Mean Girl had told me that no one—the families eating dinner, the people playing in the park, the shopkeepers, all of them—could go home until all the work by everyone was done. I was in serious trouble. 

I created the pages and stacked them on top of each other, just like Mean Girl had told me to do. Well, the paint stuck the pages all together because I didn’t allow each page to dry completely before stacking it on the next. It was late at night but I had to start over. Yuck. I did learn at this point that no one had to stay until I was done although many of them were also under the false impression they were required to stay. Well, except for Mean Girl. She never got to leave. She was required to stay no matter what I did. She was definitely not motivated to help me get out of there.  

The kiln was like a large grassy knoll where all the people who were waiting for me to finish were seated (a hot uncomfortable place filled with unhappy people…hell?). I had to go among them and feel their resentment and wrath and bear their stares as I gathered up all my figures from the kiln to redo the introduction pages. There were so many figures that I had to see them all to remember what was to be written on the pages….and of course they weren’t ready yet from baking in the kiln. 

Gathering the figures up too soon meant I also had to repaint them, as removing them from the kiln ruined them. Just one more thing that Mean Girl instructed me to do and didn’t give me all the details or consequence of my choices. All the while, everyone is glaring at me more and more to get done so they could go home. Mean Girl just smirked and laughed.  

I was so tired at this point I began making forgetful mistakes. I had to gather the figures up so many times I can’t even count at this point. I never finished the task. No one went home. They weren’t happy with me. It felt horrible to be responsible for so many people’s misfortune and consequence. I took it all on in shame and embarrassment. It felt horrible.  

I woke up from this dream feeling tired and angry. I can’t brag that I always feel aware of exactly what this stuff means but I do believe that my Unconscious Self communicates with me while I sleep so let’s break it down. 

Where was I making choices that didn’t really work for me? Where do I begin? 

To begin with, I allowed myself to be sabotaged by relying on another who did not care about me, someone who was more interested in themselves and toying with me than with my success. She gave me the signs and I knew in my heart she was Mean Girl. I didn’t tell her to stop it and I didn’t adjust the significance of what she said to me. I took it at face value and allowed her to abuse me. I embraced the Saboteur. I allowed the Ego to control me instead of the other way around. 

Often, we tend to discount our own innate abilities to discern, discover, and apply our knowledge toward what we are working on to accomplish. We assume that the person sent to mentor us or train us is our only option. We don’t question. We don’t make up our own minds. We say “Sir, Yes Sir” like good little soldiers. When it all goes south, we feel we can’t blame our mentor because we bought in hook, line, and sinker. We feel that blame isn’t mature anyway, so we avoid assessing the cause and effect of what occurred, avoid assigning any accountability to anyone other than ourselves. We feel responsible for the poor results and we are responsible for them. “Shoulda, woulda, coulda” becomes our mantra and we see ourselves as failures.  

In this dream situation, I was involved in a creative endeavor. My own logical and intuitive skills, if I had used them, would have told me when I was going in the wrong direction. Those same skills would have told me how to do it right also. I just never engaged them. I did not have confidence and trust in them. I abdicated my true responsibility to choose and I paid for it with negative experience and pain.   

I also never asked for help from people who were motivated to help me. All those people whose time was tied to my success could have been put to work. I decided instead to shoulder all the work, all the burden. I was prideful and embarrassed to ask for help. I didn’t want to impose and I felt that asking for help showed weakness. None of that mattered to the people who were sitting around glaring at me. They most likely would have helped if only I had asked. 

Looking back at it now, I am not even convinced that those people really did have to stay. Several people told me that it was “tradition” for them all to stay, that they found it had made the work go faster if they stayed to pressure the workers. No one, except Mean Girl, was actually required or restricted to stay. So, their fate wasn’t even really in my hands, as they were free to go. Why the guilt for “causing” them such inconvenience? Why did I hold myself responsible for the repercussions of my actions but not them for theirs? More lessons, huh? 

The biggest lesson I draw from my dream is that pushing, pushing, pushing isn’t the answer. If I had taken the time to do things right, to get in touch with my own abilities, to trust in my own, I would have had a much better time. I would have not been exhausted and I would have accomplished my task. Having learned these lessons, I am glad that I got to wake up. Thank goodness for my alarm...

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