Natalia Snider is a certified dream practitioner living in Carbondale. She works with people’s dreams and imaginations to facilitate self-healing. Every month, she will analyze someone’s dream in The Sopris Sun. Anyone can submit a dream for personal analysis or inclusion in this column by visiting: www.dreamhealings.com
The dream
I was at an opening to an art museum exhibit for work. It was in a foreign city and there were different tiers of VIP tickets. I was bidding for the highest tier because of my association.
And I got it! I checked into a hotel which ended up being a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in which there was a woman living. Her stuff was everywhere and it was not what I was expecting.
I went to use one of the bathrooms. Even though I think the other bathroom in the apartment was clear, I used the one with a clogged toilet. When I flushed, it overflowed.
I left in a panic and realized I was in Mexico. When I checked in, I was in the United States, but apparently the building hovered over the border. The exit was Mexico. I was never told that and didn’t need a passport to get in.
I did have two passports in my bag, however, an Australian one and the U.S. one. I was worried they wouldn’t let me back into the U.S. without paying fines for the damage, so I used my Australian passport. I was confused about how easy it was to get into Mexico, but how challenging it was to get back home to the U.S. I decided to forgo the art exhibit and just try to get back before having to pay the fines for the bathroom overflow, even though it wasn’t my fault.
Then I woke up and I thought, “I must need to remember this.”
Interpretation
This is a dream about choices. You begin in the dream by winning VIP tickets showing that luxurious things come easy to this “you” in the dream. However, things immediately change. A shared hotel room takes a notch out of the luxury experience right away, then another notch with the woman’s mess. You use an already clogged toilet that overflows, causing you to flee into a foreign country where you feel uncertain, worried, and confused.
Here is where the meaning of the dream reveals itself. You say you were aware there was a clean bathroom, yet you chose the clogged one. Why did dream “you” choose to use the clogged toilet?
The metaphor is letting you see a choice that you are making in waking life that could be messy, making you feel vulnerable or uncomfortable. This dream is giving you the opportunity to stop and think through your choices. Take time to see the messy signs and remember there are other options without the mess.
In this dream, you play out the scenario you don’t prefer. This is for you to learn from the experience. To explore, perhaps, how easy it is to make a choice you don’t prefer, mimicking the feeling of how easy it was to get to Mexico but hard to get back.
Yet there are more choices made in the dream and, like any good dream, there is depth and layers of meaning. Another layer is revealed by the fall from luxury where you can now see what in your life you deem luxurious. You make a choice at the end to not go to the art exhibit because you feel uncomfortable with the situation. It becomes clear that you prefer the comfort and safety of home over the uncertainty of this foreign experience. This dream asks you to redefine what luxury is to you. Are you using someone else’s definition that is pushing you into uncomfortable situations?
This dream of many choices can also be a dream of a choice already made. A choice you can see now is the messy one and not the one you would prefer if given another chance. This dream reminds you that you did indeed choose this and there is something here that needs exploration. So ask yourself, “What am I experiencing now that I need more clarity? Why do I not prefer this?”
The theme here of choice is asking you to look closely at what your choices thus far are telling you about yourself. How are your choices creating your life? The dream is a sign to define who you are and what you prefer, to make choices based firmly on your own definitions. And what good timing it is to redefine and align with your truest desires at the beginning of a new year.