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Friday, August 12, 2011

The Helpful Bird


Dreams are strange. I've had some doozies in my day. This morning I abruptly awoke from a dream in which my friend's little girl was falling from a forth floor balcony onto the  pavement. When I got to her she was sitting on a cement block laughing and playing with a tiny bird.
In my frantic state I approached her. She was laughing and teasing me showing me the  bird, her new friend. There was an understanding, you know how dreams are, that the  bird helped softened her fall,  helped her fly. Then the bird flew away  after looking right at me. The little girl assured me it was time for the  bird to  fly away. I'm sure this dream has meaning. In real life this little girl is quite a free spirit, full of silliness and sweetness. I love her. This is a dream that will be with me for a while.


Once I took a  Dreams as Muse for writing workshop with Beth Janzen. It was helpful in  possibly pinpointing personal meaning and then using it to  write. I should go back and use some of the tools I learned figure out possible meaning.


I've had a few dreams that have stayed with me. One in particular from about twenty years ago. Still vivid, still makes no sense. I've never been able to figure it out even though with some contemplation I usually can  make my dreams make sense if necessary. The dream I'm talking about here involved my mother flying  (wingless...hmmm maybe she was floating)  down the street naked. That's not the weird part. She was giving birth to little hippos, kind of fun little characters, but they were made from blueberries. I just observed from my childhood bedroom window.
 
Yeah so in that dream I suppose I could imagine that the blueberries represented a favorite childhood dish that my mother made, (blueberry duff) but the hippo thing, well, a mystery still.
 In the workshop that I referred, you were asked to come with a couple of dreams written down, and then you broke them down, eventually picking aspects that  stick out in your mind. By the end of several different forms of break down and re framing of things you have a poem, or a story, or even an entire fairy tale as was the case by the end of Beth’s workshop. It was an amazing workshop really. Helped me figure out the reason my seemingly insignificant elementary school teacher keeps popping up in my writing and in dreams. 

Sometimes I wonder if dreams are some kind of special power we have within ourselves, to figure things out. I have considered also the possibility that dreams are experiences from past lives. Nah…well, maybe. I don’t rule anything out. Perhaps dreams are just unfinished thoughts from our day, but then why do they have to take on such strange forms? People appear as other people, yet you know for example that your sister in your dream was actually your brother.

The same day I had a dream about my friend’s daughter They happened to visit me that night and as the little girl ran and played I had a familiar feeling from my dream as she climbed up onto the  back of the couch asking her mother to catch her ask she jumped off, I standing on the opposite side in case she fell. Then, my friend who I had told about my vivid dream asked me if I had heard the  report on CBC radio about the 3 year old who fell off  a balcony. She tells me it was on the previous afternoon. I had not heard it…or did I ? I remembered I had the radio on in the  background as I prepared dinner and cleaned. Not such a weird dream after all I guess...but it does not explain giving birth to hippos made from blueberries.
 

5 comments:

Beth said...

I'm glad you enjoyed the workshop, Liza. Yes, there are many different tools that you can use to come closer to the mysterious meaning of dreams, and what kind of wisdom or inspiration or warning they are giving you. The Helpful Bird sounds like it was exactly that!

Jan said...

I remember an odd, odd dream in which I was sitting on my bed in my slip, sorting through a pile of tangled earrings with ex-president Bill Clinton. Bizarre, and I'm not sure I want to know what it means.

Love your writing style!

Liza-Jane said...

Thanks Jan. Interesting dream you had. Some just stay with us.Thanks for sharing it. Perhaps you were relating to/thinking of Hillary at the time, who knows? And the slip & earings...well..hmmm, ya think ya know someone..lol Dreams always intrigue me.

Anonymous said...

I just woke from a dream that my own daughter who is two fell off a balcony but didn't survive. It was horrible. I saw her head splattered. Sorry to share that with you. I just wonder what it could mean. I will watch her very closely as she loves to run away from me and is very fast.

Liza-Jane said...

Hi,
I certainly am no dream expert, but it is likely an anxiety dream. Our minds do wander when it comes to the little ones. Perhaps you may have had a brief fleeting thought of this horrible scenario you describe as a worse possibility and your mind went with that. Dreams,I believe are not to be taken literally. I'm sorry you had that aweful dream. Hold her tight and let her feel safe & know you love her!Trust your feelings, but know it was a dream.