An Amazing Dream & Flying Trains

“And they planned a plan, and We planned a plan, while they perceived not.” (Qur’an 27:50)

http://bluenred.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/la-musica-dreams/

Subhan'Allah!

I always found dreams very interesting and from the age of 12, I've read books about dream interpretation by C. Jung and other dream-litterature, to understand how I could learn to interpret my dreams. There are so many different approaches to dream interpretation and with time, I think I've found my own way with a mixture of all these different approaches... Anyway, the most important thing in understanding your dreams, is that it somehow makes sense to you! I don't believe it will help you much if you dream about horses, for example, and look up that word in a so-called "dream-dictionary" and see the few meanings of a horse! I don't believe you can put labels on the symbolic reality of your unconsciousness like that! Maybe it can give you some hints, but what works best for me is my immediate reaction and immediate emotions connected to the dream I just had! What are the first things I link to the dream? Experiences from my life, thoughts, emotions, people etc.

Although I think dreams are very personal, I would like to share this dream I just had, with you, 'cause for me it also makes very much sense in an Islamic way (and not just personally) :)

Bismillah.

I was on a train on my way to visit family in Germany. My mom called me and we talked until the connection suddenly fell out. I noticed, while looking out of the window, that the train had suddenly elevated from the earth and was flying like an airplane! I was very surprised and I also got angry with one of the ladies working on the train, 'cause this wasn't part of the plan! We should've been in Germany within a few hours and now we were suddenly going somewhere else!!

Finally I reached my mom on the phone again and told her what was going on. When we were about to land I met three German guys that I thought I could perhaps hang out with and also a girl showed up. I packed all my stuff in a hurry and very clumsily too! The lady from the train told me we were in Virginia and were going to be here for three days! Virginia! I'd never been so far from home and to the USA and was both excited and a bit worried something would happen to me here, so far away from my family.

The train drove like a car through the crowded streets. My mom told me that they often experience sudden and heavy rain in Virginia, and I could also already see dark clouds approaching! This was going to be an exciting trip indeed! I would try finding a hotel with the little money I got and hopefully everything would be alright and I could soon go to Germany!

By the way the train must have looked something like this. Hehe:

When I woke up, I knew this dream was referring to the fact that we always have so many plans, but because Allah (swt) plans too, we will never know where life is bringing us! The past few days I've had exactly these experiences. I planned stuff and none of it happened according to my plan. I hoped and I prayed, but obviously it was not meant for me to be the way I wished! And in these times, where we experience distress or confusion, frustration, anger, sadness because we feel, we don't get what we think we need... Allah (swt) is always there and is taking care of everything.

And I thank Allah (swt) for my dreams and for the way they inspire me.

If I didn't understand it well enough before, Allah (swt) might have given me this dream, so that I will understand, that I cannot control everything (like the train I'm on in the dream). I just have to let go of my resistance and see the positive things about my journey through life (in the dream: coming to Virginia instead of Germany) and accept where life brings me and grow personally and spiritually through that. And trust Allah (swt) always!

Another little thing: It's interesting that I arrived in Virginia! And take a look at the meaning of the word "virgin" (apart from it meaning that you haven't had sexual intercourse yet): Pure; undefiled; unmixed; fresh; new; as, virgin soil; virgin gold. (Source: http://thinkexist.com/dictionary/meaning/virgin/ ). And now imagine that you could enter a state of being pure, undefiled, fresh, new, when life challenges you or brings you to somewhere you really hadn't expected. At least I think that could help me in just allowing Allah's (swt) plans with me and putting all my trust and my time in Him! Subhan'Allah. Another symbol from the dream that could stress this exact way of approaching life, is the heavy rain coming up. I see rain as a symbol of water that washes everything and purifies it - i.e. removing dirt or other distracting things/things blurring your vision, which in this case could be my emotions, comfusing thoughts etc.

Keep in mind that this is just my immediate interpretation of the dream and definitely isn't all it was meant to tell me, but here I just shared the most important parts of it :) and of course this dream dreamed by somebody else would probably have a completely different meaning!!

Feel free to comment on dream interpretation, dreams in general or whatever you feel like :)

Bye bye and take care!! :) 

Conscious of the Unconscious & An Angry Woman

The picture above represents, in my eyes, very well how we humans are - in some ways. So Freud was right about something, when he compared our conscious and our unconscious with an ice mountain. At least I think so and I at times get overwhelved by all the unconscious behaviour and unconscious reactions that I cannot control. I think it's a very positive aspect of a human being, if you're conscious about your unconscious, so to say. And also when you are aware of the fact that you sometimes act in a specific way because of what's hidden in your unconscious. Because if you are aware of that, you'll also be able to take responsibility for your actions more easily! And you'll not blame everything on everybody else - which makes it a lot easier for everyone - although it also eliminates too many excuses to not work with yourself (which of course is good, but it might be a challenge).

I'm very fascinated by people's reactions to things -- and when they're very spontaniously aggressive, for example, I'd say that part of that would be unconscious material popping up. I believe personal issues have their origin in experiences, actions, thoughts from our past and sometimes things "push our bottons" and we react spontaniously. So you can actually find out very much about a person, just by knowing what really pushes their bottons!

That's one of the ways I get to know myself better, my husband and other people close to me.

I can take one example from my workday yesterday. A woman gets utterly annoyed and later almost aggressive, after she was told, that all chicken in Denmark is halal slaughtered (at least almost all chicken is...). She really freaked out loudly saying things like "This is Denmark, this is a Danish country!!!". She was furious. People looked at her, obviously wondering why she reacted like that, when everybody else seemed to not really care about these chicken...

Anyway. I stood there, actually smiling inside(!)... 'cause I know the feeling when something pushes your bottons and you can't control yourself and I know that it often has nothing to do with the subject being talked about or the situation you're in. With psychologic insight, you could dig very deep into that woman's inside and find out what's really the cause of her reaction. It might be a childhood feeling of fear of not being respected or not being important to anyone or anything else!

You'd need to find the roots of those overwhelming feelings and thereby find the cause and loosen up that knot inside (insha'Allah!).

Alhamdulillah that we're muslims! ;) Because Islam can solve everything for you, which you struggle with. And Allah (swt) gave us so many tools to handle and develop our thoughts, dreams, actions, minds, hearts etc.! I'll make duaa for that Danish woman who hates Islam and muslims (- which she said later) because obviously that hate, anger and fear emanates from something else deep inside her. Allahu akbar! But do you see what I mean? By understanding people's reasons for their actions (and your own too!) you'll become better at handling people's aggressions (or other sorts of reactions) and understand that somebody raging out on you perhaps hasn't got anything to do with you, but is about that person's own issues - and vice versa when it comes to yourself.

Have a beautiful day, evening, night or morning my dear sisters in Islam.