This young woman dreamer shared that she had this dream just before starting her training in the Andean Mystical Tradition. She felt that was an important thing to note when conveying the dream. I also got to ask her questions directly, which I am not able to do for every dream blog posting, so that offered more information. It is not unusual for people to reference more things in the retelling of their dreams, when discussed or questioned.
I’m in a room and notice a particular person observing me. I have my guard up with the intention to protect myself as I feel an increase of unfamiliar energies surrounding me.
The dream room is very important. It can tell us many things, whether it highlights something in your outer world, or an emotion or level of consciousness coming to light in your inner world. As the dream suggests a bit further down, she is at a ceremonial or workshop space, as she has come to see a shaman. So there is something the dream ‘story’  is trying to ‘teach’ her as the dream symbols emerge from her unconscious moving to her conscious knowing, through this dream.
Often defending or needing to protect oneself in a dream is an indication of something that is threatening us in the outer world. In this case there is someone observing her, but she immediately and intentionally puts her guard up to protect herself. I questioned the dreamer if this observer was a man, or woman, or perhaps the shaman that she mentions further into the dream. The dreamer says it feels like male energy, but not the shaman, and reiterates that she has to be on her guard. I would suggest in this case that she look to her outer world, whether friends or colleagues, and have her assess where she feels she is in need of being “on guard” or where she is feeling unsupported, as she assumes this new path for herself.

There is a shaman/priest behind a beaded curtain, sitting cross-legged on a platform to my right.
I ask the dreamer if the shaman is male or female. Are his eyes open or shut? Does he move, or is he in repose. She tells me that it is a male; he never moves as he seems to be in a state of concentration or calm; and she doesn’t know about his eyes. I note his posture indicates almost a meditative state.
Shamans and priests usually have access to, and can sometimes influence the Spirit world. That this shaman/priest is in repose indicates he is working either on his inner world, or with the Spirit world in a calm and focused manner. I could read this in two ways. One, the person she was studying with is someone she considers wise and with his ability to concentrate on the Spirit world, she is hoping to emulate that eventually herself in a better way. The other suggestion would be that her ‘inner shaman’, the one she is trying to develop, needs to find the time to concentrate and reflect.
He is behind a beaded curtain on a platform sitting cross legged.                                          Curtains represent either closing something off, or distracting someone from looking in. In this case though, the curtain is see through and made of beads. Beads signify connections to something, and in this case, a connection to being able to ‘see’ what can’t be hidden.

The shaman is on a platform; he is stable. But it also implies he is above her in his knowledge. The dreamer’s ability to access all the shaman can see within the spirit world, is not hidden from her, because this is a beaded curtain, and she can see him. It’s a thin line of separation between his world and her world; that she still needs to learn to sit in to actualize that space.

Between us, on my right and his left are two “guards” in black, holding swift ninja-like energy. They are inside the platform but are able to reach out so I avoid them to prevent them from grabbing at me. I stare forward.
To her right suggests she needs to use discernment and logic when working in these realms. To his left, implies he already trusts his intuition in these inner domains. She is staring straight ahead, she is trying to stay focused. I asked the dreamer–Why would the guards touching you be dangerous? She said perhaps because of her fear of the unknown she perceives them as dangerous, when most likely they were the shaman’s protectors.

The guards represent a number of things: they are in black, which on the Wisdom Wheels suggests listening to the Self. An important part of any teaching/teacher is to NOT take everything at face value, to see how it impacts you personally, and to make your own decisions with how to implement those energies or teachings. The shaman is in his centered place; the dreamer needs to find hers. I would suggest the ninja guards were there to show her how to protect herself.
The guards are reminders that she needs to not necessarily guard herself from the teachings, but to be on guard not to take everything as fact until she ‘has tried the meaning of the teachings on for herself.’ They have ninja-like energy, and can reach outside the ‘platform’ or plinth of centeredness and control. I believe her fear is that she may feel overwhelmed by her own power, when she does sit in that centered place. And, things in her world can collapse quickly if she doesn’t listen to her own counsel. Ninjas indicate stealth, skill, and self-discipline….everything you need to agilely move within the shamanic world.
Ninja’s can also suggest that something or someone is stalking you….so I would ask the dreamer, does she feel the shaman world is stalking her to actively learn all she can? Or counter, I might also ask her (going back to the beginning of her dream), if there is someone in her outer world who doesn’t want her to follow this path; someone whose beliefs are counter to hers; or someone who wishes to stop her from this path? These ninja-guards are actually there to teach her to be on guard in a good way; to be diligent in these studies.
A drum begins to beat and a chant rises in the background. A large floating boulder suddenly appears ahead and as the rhythms in the music rise it hurdles forward – I feel it is surely going to hit me in the face! I thrust out my left hand and in that hand I am holding a simple, cylindrical, wooden wand/staff.
A consistent drum beat synchronizes the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The beat puts one into resonance with the self. Chanting is a way to manipulate energy, not dissimilar to drumming, and manipulation not necessarily implying in a negative way. It is used in ceremonies, be they churches, pagan rituals, and/or indigenous ceremonies, to uplift and align with Spirit, or bring in more focused energy.

For example Buddhist’s don’t chant to pray or ask for something, they do it to enhance teaching, learning, and recounting. It’s a way for them to connect to the higher energies within themselves, not outside the self. First nations People drum and chant to be in alignment with the Spirit World and to enhance the information in that communication or ceremony for the People. Where both drumming and chanting therefore take us within the self, it is a call to this dreamer to ‘go within.’
A boulder hurtles towards her, as the music rises. I would ask the dreamer to focus on the obstacles that she perceives are in her way to follow this path. By her own admission, when asked, she confided that the boulder felt like a ‘test.’
The boulder is an obstacle, possibly a test of her conviction to this shamanic path, and it is taking on momentum in her life. She holds out a simple cylindrical wooden wand/staff that stops it. I would suggests this is telling her that she needs to pace herself with this work, and the stick suggests consistency. She doesn’t need “to be hit in the face” with the power of this work, she can simply and consistently work at what this new found study brings to her. She has taken control of her own process with this wand/staff which represents vital energy, a creative gesture, or spiritual control.
I had narrowly protected myself as the boulder stops shy of hitting me and it begins to pendulum forwards and then away from where I’m standing.
She has gained momentum and focus in how to work the energies and to begin to make the decisions of how this path will impact and propel her. There will be times (like a pendulum) where she is more active, and times where she might not be able to be as active as she would like, for whatever her life circumstances are in the moment.
Becoming more lucid and aware, my attention is brought to my mind’s eye. I am conscious that I am in a “dream” state and feel a strong energy being directed into my third eye. I sense and “see” oval/circular images that display strange but familiar light symbols that are rotating and downloading into my forehead. I am aware of my physical body. My left arm feels heavy and my left hand is clasped in a tight fist as if I am truly holding the wand. I ride out the experience, internally chanting a personal mantra to abate any fears. The symbols ease into waves, patterns of light energy that when I open my eyes are still visible despite the darkness.
Here the dreamer flips into literally a lucid dream. In lucid dreams we have more control over the inner worlds of the dreamtime and the outer world we have labeled reality. To move into lucidity, when the dream  ‘teaching’ has been presented to you in the preceding dream sequence, suggests the Over Soul Self is taking you to a deeper level of understanding the information, position, or impact it has just presented to your dream memory.

The third eye is her inner sight opening. She sees symbols, light images, she is being downloaded with this information into her third eye, into her awareness, and that will work its way into her daily reality. Her Over Soul Self reminds her with the heavy feeling in her arm, and the sense of the staff still being in her left fist, that she needs to be consistent, diligent, and discerning in this work. Her personal mantra shows inner control and that she is ready to stand in her personal power.
She shared that the images resembled old cave drawings, things like the Nazca lines, and light encoded symbols. I would suggest this is a path she has walked before in some capacity, possibly in another lifetime. If we actually occupy multiple dimensions at the same time, like some quantum physicists claim, then perhaps she is awaking to another aspect of herself that wants to step forward to enrich her current waking reality? Either way, she has within herself a knowing, an inner knowing that is being re-awakened….like the new day she awakens too, while perceiving she can still see the ‘light energy’, despite the dark.
Yes we can see within the light and beyond the dark, more than metaphors these are ways to walk the middle distances!! And the shamanic world offers us just that, if we consistently utilize our awareness to create the safe boundaries we need to continue to expand our perceptions!!