Interpret my dream please
Last night I had a dream. I dreamed was alone in the frozen white wastelands of the Arctic. There was no food. I spotted the skull of a seal, with the brain still in it. This I knew was the only food for miles. Just then, a polar bear appeared in the distance. He stopped in his tracks, and we locked eyes. He was hungry too. I turned and began to run. I could hear his feet thundering behind me. Of course I knew he was much faster and it was only a matter of time before he caught up with me. Right before he pounced, I turned around and said, ‘look, I can share this with you! How about I break a bit off and share it with you?’ He stared at me for the longest time, sizing me up. Then he slowly broke out in sly smile and said, ‘okay, why don’t you do that?’
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Perhaps the bear represents the music biz establishment, coming after you for a larger share of your new album? I got the impression from your post that the bear planned on eating you anyway, after you gave him a share of the seal brain. (how weird are dreams??)
Then again, as Freud (almost) said, sometimes a polar bear is just a polar bear.
Merry Christmas!
December 22nd, 2009 at 7:43 pm
I don’t know what your dream means, but your description of it reminds me of a movie that I saw a few years ago called The Snow Walker. I highly recommend it if you haven’t already seen it…
Here is the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr-GBAgTjXA&feature=related
Here is the link to watch the entire movie online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgr1u4Fdii0&feature=channel
December 22nd, 2009 at 7:54 pm
The aloneness in the arctic means nothing. It’s just a setting for the events that followed.
The brain represents knowledge and since it was the only edible part of the animal available, it indicates that you have been seeking to learn more. The act of eating the brain would have been not to satisfy your hunger for food, but your hunger for knowledge. The dream does not indicate what it is you wish to learn.
The your initial reaction to the bear is done out of primal instinct…fight or flight. However, the confrontation with the bear flies in the face of this instinct. Polar bears don’t talk…and they most definitely don’t share. Talking to the bear was a very irrational and crazy thing to do but it was exactly the thing that saved you. If we were to interpret this as being something about your character, it would seem to mean that things generally work out well when you start something with a feeling and finish it with a twist. But if we tie in the first brain of the dream with the bear part, maybe this is telling us that you start with your heart and finish with your head, with thought or knowledge.
Then there is the actual conversation…the wording explains a lot. What you say is said in exactly the way someone scared would say it. But it’s the bear’s response that is interesting. A sly smile could mean a knowing smile or a devious smile. Instead of the bear saying “okay, that would be great” or simply “okay” he adds, “why don’t you do that” as if he is telling you to do it or giving you permission to do it.
This could mean that you are worried about making a decision about something that involves someone in a position of power over you. They seem to accept it but the sly smile would indicate that even so you are wary of their acceptance.
So, it’s either all that, or your neurons are messing with you.
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:04 pm
This is easy. The brain is your new music you’ve recorded. The arctic is the state of the current music industry… a barren wasteland with little good music (brains) lying around (okay, I’m kissing your ass a little). The polar bear represents your rabid fans who are dying to get it. Finally, after running for so long, you are now ready to share (isn’t an ep due soon?)
Or, it could just be me.
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Your dream means that you need vacations inmediatly, to much stress my dear Thomas!
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:18 am
Remember to stroke the flipper of the love Penguin whilst hunting the ‘Seal’ of approval through the bleak wastes of…um…spiritual penury or something?
Always remember to take the wrapper off of your Penguin before you eat it?
Don’t step in Polar bear sh*t?
Anyway, Merry Christmas to you and your kin, good sir, from a boil-in-the-bag British expat currently seeking shade in the library from the 39 degree temperatures outside. I do love living on the sunny coast of Victoria, but sometimes wonder whether it has indeed been twinned with Mercury.
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:31 am
“A suitable case for treatment!”
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:05 am
WARNING: The following offering contains long words, and risks being a candidate for Pseud’s Corner.
Dream analysis is a subtle and fluid matter, and is often crassly and rigidly over-simplified. It’s not possible to make definitive statements about the meaning of dreams, especially without a clear sense of the emotional tone that accompanies each episode in the dream. So-called Dream Dictionaries are mostly a waste of paper.
While there are some obvious archetypal aspects to the symbolism of this dream, polar bears and Arctic ice have become such emotionally weighted symbols in the discussion of global warming that their resonances have shifted in recent years.
I’m reminded of Jung’s comment that one should learn all one can of the world’s mythology, but forget it when you are with a client. Thomas, as an artist I’m sure that you appreciate the benefits of a shifting sense of meaning in the use of evocative symbols, and how much is lost in trying to tie this down to a single interpretation.
Hillman argues (in The Dream & The Underworld, which is a tough read – and I haven’t finished it) that rather than seeking to make sense of our dreams with our waking consciousness, we would be better served to seek to make sense of or waking experience with our dream consciousness. This is similar to the perspective of Tantric Buddhism.
The point I understand him to be making here, is that we tend to assume that the way in which we perceive things when awake is the only and correct way of seeing them. In fact, the way we make sense of things is often a stronger indicator of the structure of our own psyches than of “objective’ reality.
Gestalt dream analysis often encourages the dreamer to explore the dream from the perspective of each of the actors/components in the dream. As the polar bear is an aspect of your psyche, what is his experience in the dream? how about the seal? or even the snow and ice?
I’d encourage you to hold as open a relationship to the dream as you can, with multiple possible interpretations all held provisionally. If there is still a strong emotional resonance to the dream, then you might explore it in composition. If it’s just something about which you are intellectually curious, then I’d suggest that it probably isn’t particularly psychically significant.
For anyone seriously interested in this stuff I recommend checking out Freud & Jung’s perspectives (in that order – there are some pretty straight-forward summaries which are easy to get hold of), and then (if you’re feeling intellectually robust) reading a bit of James Hillman. It’s also worth checking out Fritz Perls/ Gestalt, & I’m told Ken Wilber has a typically thorough analysis, but I haven’t read it myself.
I hope this is of some use and interest.
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:24 am
Hmmm im sure David Lynch used that story line in one of his films only there was also a sex scene included…. Sorry Thomas I cant help you there, im still trying to work out my recent dream which concerned eating lots and lots of glass. Merry Christmas to you and all the forum members. Roll on Feb 2010!!
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:31 am
[...] his dream, and I make a few references to its content so if you’re curious you can here it here, although the points I make below can be applied to any dream, whatever the [...]
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:32 am
It means too much rich food before bedtime, that’s all.
Merry Christmas and a musical New Year
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Hm, tell me more about… your mother
Merry Christmas!
Jon
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
I thought this was going to be a Sarah Palin joke. “..and then Sarah Palin shot the bear from a moving helicopter”
For future dreams, you can consider the advice that the National park system gives about bears: you can hide your food, and you can grab your food away, but if the bear touches it, it’s his and he will fight you for it. I know this doesn’t help you with your dream, but it’s still good advice.
Merry Christmas, Thomas, and have a happy New Year.
December 24th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
The pancakes signify your longing to be Dutch in the worst way, the coffee pot means that you wish you were Brazilian – but only on your father’s side. As for the beach ball being squeezed by Einstein’s grandmother, that just means you’re nuts. Oh wait, that’s me.
December 29th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Pretty straightforward, I think. Scarcity of resources and polar bears make me think you were concerned about global climate change.
January 4th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Thanks, I’ll never listen to “Beauty Of A Dream” in the same way again!
The frozen wasteland could just be your brain thinking about the snow-covered beach of a few days earlier.
Dream-objects and people don’t have to be as they are depicted in the dream. The brain in the skull could just represent an important thing within a thing.
Being pursued in a dream is a common anxiety theme. Could be worries about any everyday matter, or possibly a deadline? Maybe it’s connected with setting a release date and deciding when you have to stop creating your album?
It could mean nothing. Last night I dreamt that my brother was arranging a concert of Brian Eno’s ambient works, and that John Prescott was going to be attending as Culture Minister. Hearing about this, I mimicked Prescott saying impatiently, “But when’s the next beat going to be?”
Somewhat late, admittedly, but I think “Oceanea” is one of your finest songs and I hope it makes it to your album.
January 5th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
you have received a lot of translations. I think it is pretty cool that the polar bear speaks english. that’s reason enough to feel comfortable and not worry about interpretations…
January 6th, 2010 at 12:46 am
I have no idea what I means, but it’s awesome!!!!
January 6th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Dreams mean everything and nothing… More cheese Gromit?
January 9th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
It means you were hungry and cold as you slept. :p
January 25th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
The wasteland represents the world as you see it, and the brain (intelligence/knowledge) is the only food you crave. The bear represents the boorish nature of man in the world around you but when you stopped running from that idea and stopped to reason with it you found some degree of unexpected civility. There might have been something else in the dream you might have forgotten or left out. Did the bear give you anything in return?
It could be that the world you thought was once barren still holds some surprises for you after all, if you decide to stop and share some of your brain with it.
It means, dear Thomas, the time has come for you to stop running from the world. We are here waiting for you to share yourself with us once again. We polar bears are starving for a bite of your brain. This wasteland could use your talents again as we are tired of being inundated with Autotune clones and strutting commercialism. Bring the music back to life. Share the brain. I only wish you would come back to America. This wasteland could definitely use your brain right about now.
.
Shall I set the table?
January 26th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
The Frozen Days
Now that the head of earth is melting with a nervous breakdown,
Now that animals that are resisting are calling for ancient prayers,
Now that all those frozen memories are beeing exposed
Warning us to not let them to be seen,
I keep on this boat,pushing images into my eyes,
Covering my ears so that all those beautiful sounds won’t escape forever.
Today is the the day I stood up in an iceberg
With thousand of millions voices to be cried out
Into the deepest seas
Calling all the whales
January 26th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Pencil Sharpped
There is a drawn line
There, where the scarp of the ice
Meets the empty space
It looks like a graphic
With all the ups and downs
But the values that it shows
Are not economical decreeses
It’s nature telling us all
That this line
A thin balance between now and never
Will afect me and you
And all the others that can´t
I will capture the line
Into my pencil sharpped
Like a night knife
It will cut only your ignorance
And not all the trees
February 13th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Oooh! I’ve got this one!
The seal represents us, your fans, with our brains waiting to be “consumed” by your new music.
And obviously, the polar bear represents your deep subconsious desire to collaborate with George Clinton again!
It’s all so clear now…
April 4th, 2010 at 7:29 am
I agree with heretic – it’s cheese; purely and simply cheese… avoid before bedtime if necessary…
Seriously though, the arctic setting has absolutely no significance other than being a reflection of your real world surroundings (after all, we saw an AWFUL lot of snow in the South East). Remember, dreams are the mind’s way of housecleaning the clutter…
The seal is a representation of something dear to you (because we’re genetically hardwired to respond to their appearance with kindness), although it’s dead state with intact brain indicates something ethereal (as opposed to corporeal) you view as dormant returning to activity.
This is probably the new material; it’s not the same as the classic stuff but it’s essentially ‘from the same place’…
The polar bear is more than likely the perception of others and their reaction to it (it’s large, outwardly appealing in appearance but you know what it’s capable of) and the entire resolution of the dream was you reassuring yourself that there’s nothing to worry about and it’s okay to share
Either that or you had a real craving for seal brains… quite possibly with cheese…