If you look deep enough and get out of your judging mind, you might receive incredible insights from your dreams.
I had a dream the other day that was interesting. I'm in an elevator with my employer Fred, and he takes me into his arms and leans in to kiss me. Except his mouth stretches out so big that he engulfs my head. We become fixed in this "embrace". Then, the elevator door opens and my Dad walks into the elevator and proceeds to stare at me and Fred until the elevator starts moving up. I remember feeling great sadness at this point. The elevator floor becomes filled with water. As the elevator ascends, my Dad fades into the floor of the elevator, not coming up with us.
I woke up feeling slightly disturbed by this dream for multiple reasons. My boss is my employer and my dear friend, yet I don't have any romantic or sexual interest whatsoever. Second, what the hell was my Dad doing there staring at us and why was there great sadness in that moment?
I've done enough dreamwork to know that every aspect of your dream is a version of you, and you have to look deeper in order to understand the symbolic unconscious forces that drive your dreams. I left a full time position at a high school to embark on a different journey with PEERS, the nonprofit organization that Fred founded. WantToKnow.info is a news information service run by PEERS. Its primary focus is to promote personal and global transformation through education of important, often underreported issues using mainstream news media sources. We cover many controversial and complex issues related to major cover-ups and corruption within banking, media, intelligence agencies, corporations, government agencies, military, and more. While many of these topics are heavy and disturbing, the objective is to awaken to the deeper forces influencing us that keep us divided and dependent, think for ourselves, face individual and collective shadows, and take responsibility to transform the violence we see in the world.
I've been receiving an incredible education with this job. It's almost as if I have taken the glasses of indoctrination off, and I'm seeing the world more clearly for what it is. I feel committed to healing my fears and the ways that control, violence, and secrecy maintain itself in my own psyche. These dynamics play out in the collective shadow until we awaken our own inner shadows and work to transform it.
"The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics. At any moment several million human beings may be smitten with a new madness, and then we shall have another world war or devastating revolution. Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides, and inundations, modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche."
- Carl Jung
All that being said, I interpreted this dream as Fred symbolizing the powerful education that is engulfing me and changing who I am. The presence of my dad coming into the elevator (yet not ascending with us) represents my transcendence from my traumatic past and the unconscious fears and beliefs I need to integrate in order to become more of my authentic and free self. The water represent tears of grief. Leaving what you know, no matter how dysfunctional it is, is hardly ever easy. In fact, it's incredibly courageous. Shamanic rituals call this "dismemberment." To grow means you have to cut a piece of you off, or kill a part of yourself, in order to be born anew in a stronger and more empowered form.
Since I turned 25, most of my dreams have been absolute nightmares. Many of them involve dead body parts, blood, weapons of all kinds, evil forces. My dad and my old home that I grew up in is usually intertwined within the violence. It's taken me a while to move beyond disturbance and fear of my own shadows with these dreams. Now, I work to reflect on these dreams with curiosity and depth. I know these dreams carry great wisdom and invitation to grow, and they're asking me to pay attention.
On a different yet related note, I've been interested in recurring dreams. Last night, I had another dream where I was a barista working at Starbucks. This is a repeating dream that I experience at least once a month. Interestingly enough, I deeply enjoy my Starbucks dreams. They're always so vivid and clear. I'm often dancing at the bar making drinks. And I'm in total flow state, efficiency, and euphoric relationship with customers and co-workers. I usually wake up feeling deeply nostalgic and relaxed.
I worked at Starbucks for about 4 years, two of which I was a shift manager. From 4am opening shifts to 11 pm closing shifts, I was insanely good at what I did and people were genuinely happy when I was managing breaks and processes. I was great at mediating conflicts and keeping things moving and flowing. I was good at staying calm when things got crazy especially during the morning and afternoon rushes. I was the one who would chase out the rats or clean up the projective vomit all over the bathroom walls. On Yelp, customers would say that I looked like I was dancing when I was making drinks.
I even won Partner of the Quarter twice, and the 2014 barista championships for the best latte art:
Just kidding. We were only allowed to do swans, roses, or hearts in the competition.
I actually got written up for this by the district manager, who was deeply offended and questioned if I could handle closing shifts, where there was a lot of time on our hands and he didn't know if this was a "gateway to other questionable behaviors." Despite the immaturity that he was pointing to, I was hoping he'd at least be impressed by the skills it took to achieve the perfect microfoam, aerate the milk at the perfect temperature, pour the milk at the perfect angle, and maintain a level of still hand and concentration in order to create such a specific image.
I got written up again shortly after this. I started awakening to the fact that working at Starbucks meant that I was contributing to the health crisis of addictive sugar and processed foods. Many regulars would come in complaining about their health and digestive issues as they would order an Americano with 8 espresso shots, 10 pumps of artificially flavored vanilla, and a whole stick of butter. One of the customers was really struggling with her acid reflux, so I recommended that she try green tea matcha. But not the Starbucks matcha, which was 80% sugar. I showed her my organic, sugar-free, fair-trade matcha, and even slid her a bag of it the next time she came into the store. A few days later, I was asked to go into the back of the store where my district manager and a police officer were waiting for me. According to the security cameras, they thought I was doing a drug deal.
Even when he found out that it was just matcha, he wrote me up for discouraging business.
I had a lot of fun at Starbucks. And I made great connections with amazing people who came in every day. I loved getting to know all the Italians playing cards in the morning, the Hawaiian A cappella singers in the evening, even the corporate people from the Youtube and Walmart buildings next store. I still remember one of the regulars, Craig, who worked in construction. This is the Christmas gift he got me that year.
Anyways... I'm getting off track.
The last thing I would do is work at Starbucks again, especially with all that I saw working for that corporation. Yet I felt so free during that time. I was so effective at my work. As an activist and educator, things aren't so simple as that. You're constantly faced with the demands and traumas of the community, with dysfunctional systems and complex laws and policies in place that make change feel almost impossible.
David Richo says that recurrent dreams are not so much to be interpreted, as much as exhausted. They are played repeatedly until integration and closure can happen naturally. I think what my unconscious is telling me is to find ways that I can be in my flow state despite the work that I carry now.
Mihali Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, describes eight characteristics of flow:
- Complete concentration on the task;
- Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback;
- Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down);
- The experience is intrinsically rewarding;
- Effortlessness and ease;
- There is a balance between challenge and skills;
- Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination;
- There is a feeling of control over the task.
These are all qualities I felt at Starbucks. So having another Starbucks dream last night is a reminder to find a flow state in who I am and what I'm doing now. For me, that specifically looks like making time for dancing and movement breaks (which I have been doing and it's been SO GOOD on my energy levels). Structuring my time instead of being distracted and hopping from one thing to another. Practicing healthy self-talk and not getting lost in insecure and irrational voices that aren't relevant to the task at hand. Setting my intentions and getting clear of my values for the day before I start work. When something good and rewarding happens, really taking the time to savor the feeling of satisfaction instead of moving onto the next thing in a frenzy. And reading more to stimulate the creative juices! I've been reading @mada's science fiction novels and it's perfect for this! Check out his blog to explore his incredible art and thoughtful writing!
Time to get to work!