Interpreting Dreams

Those of you who visited my old blog, Writing in My Wildest Dreams, might remember Wild Dreams Wednesday, where people wrote me about their dreams and I posted interpretations. When I mentioned an interesting dream I had on my Facebook yesterday, the comments drove me to post about it here.

Do you ever have dreams that don't feel random, but rather like they hold some sort of self-awareness or secret message? That's how I felt after this one.

In my dream, I found myself on a shore overlooking Staten Island--and, more to the point, the Statue of Liberty. I was awestruck looking at that statue and realizing how close I was to it. Somehow I discovered the Lady's torch had gone out, however, and I had to go to the island and climb the statue to relight it.

Anytime I see water in my dreams, I know this represents my emotions. Fire can have different meanings depending on context. The statue I wasn't so sure about, however, so I went to some sources.

Statues represent someone we admire or have placed great value on--a person we've placed on a mental pedestal, as it were. This person in statue form can also indicate someone we have a lack of communication with, or an inanimate state in a relationship. The Statue of Liberty herself also has specific meaning, denoting a sense of personal freedom and independence. Here, lighting the torch can indicate illumination/enlightenment, or alternately, it can denote the thing we think of when we hear the term "carrying a torch" -- love for someone. In my case, it meant both.

I had recently reached out and reconnected with someone who meant a great deal to me, someone I love very much but lost touch with years ago. This required navigating the emotions surrounding the situation and climbing the pedestal dividing us. Taking this step brought a sense of freedom and standing on the shore of my own emotional barriers looking up at something that seemed too high to climb.

Have you ever had a dream about statues or torches? Maybe your mind was trying to tell you something similar?