In actively seeking out some insights into my recent Sufi dream, I came across a very fascinating woman named Amy George. She’s a dream interpreter who writes a blog online through the site of the Cape Cod Times. Since she interprets dreams on a regular basis, I sought to tap her insights for this very important dream. And she was kind enough to do so. And interestingly enough, her interpretation dovetails nicely with one by a reader of this site named John White, who writes:
The dream I would suggest symbolizes your work, the work, I believe the sufi woman was real, an actual encounter. I would also suggest that you have reached a platau (sp?) releasing the guilt from what was in your box. Brother/Sister?
Now here is Amy George’s reading, which you can also find on her site for April 10th:
Sufism is probably more concerned with cultivating a genuinely personalized relation to God than any other religion. This is what the unseen Sufis are doing in the first part of the dream. As “tillers of the land” they are cultivating their relationships with God.
The Sufis’ unseeability and the fogginess show that you may not clearly see what it is to cultivate a relationship with God, though you keenly intuit it.
The Sufis represent the people you belong with. This should not be construed as an imperative to convert to Sufism. Rather, it suggests that the family of your soul is “out there,” somewhere. Working at night implies they work with dreams and the unconscious. The work is taking place in the present, in contrast to the second part of the dream.
Awaking at the same time, 3 AM, indicates that the Sufi-aspect of your life-path began when you were a teen. Your meeting with the Sufis is always ocurring at 3 AM. It is outside of time, in eternity.
The dirty box contains the conflict between your true self and the world. In the box are also the seeds of your material death–the death that is an end-result from emerging onto this plane of existence.
The newspaper is a piece of the collective you use to conceal your inner-conflict. The newspaper is your developing persona. It represents keeping up appearances. It is a masquerade. It convinces both the wolrd and your own self that you belong to the collective. This is a natural reflex since it would be terribly alienating for everyone were you to expose parts of yourself that you do not understand.
I would guess that you did not act out as a teen, that you are conscientious, but not to a fault. You are not so preoccupied with the collective values that you lose yourself to them. You are shown taking responsibility for the contents of the dirty box.
The Sufi woman is not your blood-sister, but your true sister, or world sister. You werer closer to her as a teenager than today because you were closer to childhood. As an adult the dirty box may have led you down archetypal paths that were not truly yours, but the dream reveals a fidelity to your true self that may lead away from archetypes. The Self is always found behind archetypes.
Of note is the turned-off TV. TV is also known as “the idiot box.” It parallels your dirty box, which is also of no consequence in the final scene of the dream.
You write, “Everything had changed.” It is as if, with the Sufi on the sofa, you walk into a new life without having to first die. With her, you are perfect, whole & eternal. One could dream a thousand dreams and live a thousand lives before finding the Sufi on the sofa. Perhaps your soul is old.
The population of the world has tripled since 1900. That’s four billion new souls, and two billion that are more than a century old.
The issue of spiritual community and interfacing with God resonates strongly with me. Not too many years ago, a man in a botanica told me that I needed to decide what my path is, which is quite right–one has to choose and commit to a path if any substantial and lasting spiritual progress is going to get made, in my opinion. And sometimes I sense I’ve made that choice, but am not necessarily acting upon it fully.
As for having an old soul, I certainly feel that way sometimes…
Odds and Ends
There have been several other very meaningful dreams as of late that I intend to post about here in the next few days. Along with that, you should see the second part of “Trinity of Shrinks” at some point, as well as some interviews. I’ve got a few flesh-world things to attend to that may keep me away from posting anything too substantial for a few days, but be patient.
And stay connected.
