There are many ways to interpret a dream, but a universal understanding of the dream state is that they provide spontaneous, impartial aspects of one’s psyche, not controlled by the will. When one learns how to lucid dream, they have more of an opportunity to ‘direct’ the dream but emerging into lucidity from that dream sequence is still a spontaneous message directed by the subconscious.

According to Freud, dreams are an expression of thoughts or feelings that your mind has pushed aside. Jung saw it differently. He felt that although dreams showed you parts of the self that you may have neglected or dismissed, that they were a bridge of communication between the unconscious self and the conscious self. Hence when assessed an opportunity to become self-aware. If they are difficult to understand sometimes it is because they speak through the language of symbols.

For the indigenous or shamanic practitioner, dream importance is similar in most cultures across centuries. Dreams were seen as more real than the waking state, for although they were symbolic or significant representations of information as a doorway to the psyche, they also came from a place of no time, no space helping one to balance one’s spirit in physicality. In other words, everything has spirit and awareness; everything is energy in movement; and understanding that energy enables one to animate and organize their waking world with more awareness. Thus dreams assist in uncovering awareness.

Australian Aborigine’s believe we all came from the dreamtime, which they see as the collective unconsciousness of all sentient beings in the Universe. It is the environment in which they live, not outside themselves, but inside creation. In the East Indian Buddhist and Hindu traditions, cultivating dream awareness is an important practice enhanced by specific yogic and dream practices to enhance the realization of the illusionary nature of the self.

Each of these explanations on the importance of the dream, suggest the same thing— to uncover what one needs to inform awareness as a further expression of the Self.  

The Dream:

I was working at a restaurant that looked like it might have dancers some nights. The bar had long runways at different parts. The new manager was an intimidating, broad shouldered, Easter European guy, and his lackey. The lackey would throw tiny sewing pins at people’s eyes that disagreed with the manager. The manager followed women into rooms and forces himself on them. When he followed me upstairs, I locked every door behind me. I went from one room to the next locking the black doors My other boss and I were finally able to get them to leave, but we had to close our eyes/cover them to avoid the constant pin throwing from both of them before the finally walked out the door. -end of dream

The decoding:

I was working at a restaurant that looked like it might have dancers some nights, the bars had long runways at different parts.

A restaurant is a place we go to be fed, nurtured, cared for, or as a gathering place for family or friends. Dancing is an expression of joy and emotion. In its best manifestation it unleashes a sense of free spiritedness. It can also be seen by some as a seductive, even abusive exploitation of the human spirit; a more negative side of dance clubs and strip clubs.

Bars have a lot of connotations in dreams depending on what the symbology suggests. On the one hand they can imply a place where one gives themselves permission to enjoy themselves. But they also carry an illusionary aspect if facilities get blurred. This could mean the dreamer is trying to escape some day-to-day obligation or formality that has become tedious. Either in the workplace or at home.

Runways make me think of fashion catwalks, again somewhat illusionary, sometimes escapist, sometimes showing a change from the ordinary or common place to something more elegant or frivolous.

The new manager was an intimidating, broad shouldered, Eastern European guy, and his lackey. The lackey would throw tiny sewing pins at people’s eyes that disagreed with the manger.

There is a new manager, but he intimidates the dreamer. Personalities in the dream remind us of something in our outer life, but also represent an aspect of the Self. This indicates that the dreamer has a lot of suppressed stress in her life. She needs a new sense of strength and control, but to take that power into her own hands feels intimidating. That he is Eastern European suggests that that kind of power feels foreign to her.

Dreaming of a manger, means there is a part of you that needs or wants to take control of a certain situation, but the ‘lackey’ it is not under the dreamer’s current control or comfort level. She feels separated from having influence. The “lackey’ also represents the dreamer, potentially the part of her that critiques or assesses everything she does-thus it represents her inner bully. And the part of her that could manage things differently, has given her power to this bully, instead of managing the situation as needed.

He throws pins in people’s eyes that do not agree with the manager. Eyes represent the doorway to the soul. They are also what we use to look at life squarely and assess if something is for our benefit or not. The pins indicate her inner Self wants her to become aware of where she is not addressing her inner needs for more happiness or balance in her outer life. The pins, like a nightmare, alert her to the fact that she is not ‘managing her life’ in a way more conducive to what she needs and thus needs to awaken something within herself to move forward.

The manager followed women into rooms and forced himself on them. When he followed me upstairs, I locked every door behind me. I went from one room to the next locking the black doors.

I would ask the dreamer in this sequence if she felt that men in her life often tried to force her into things, be they work oriented or in relationships. Is this aspect of herself as the ‘manager’ trying to control her, or show her where she is not in control? He is trying to have power over her, or ask her to become empowered?

She is going upstairs, signifying a higher state of awareness or consciousness. But she is locking all the doors behind her, she is not allowing her empowered self to take over or her intuitive self to inform her. The doors are black. On the Wisdom Wheels, black stands for listening to oneself; finding one’s inner truth and following that; or stepping into the void trusting that all will turn out alright.

My other boss and I were finally able to get them to leave, but we had to close our eyes/cover them to avoid the constant pin throwing from both of them before they finally walked out the door. -end of dream.

Who is this “other boss”? Is it someone in her corporate world that is more aligned with her needs at work? Is it a new aspect of her more defined sense of self that can guide her in a less intimidating way? He is protecting her in that they’re working together. They get the manager and lackey to leave. Is this her Divine Masculine trying to impart to her that she doesn’t need to do it all herself? Or that she is strong enough to take control over whatever is causing her stress?

But to get them to leave, they had to close their eyes and cover “their collective” vision. If the pins represent pricking us to look at something we are not dealing with, and the manager and lackey are the parts of our self that intimidate and bully our desire to leave a stressful situation behind….then the suggestion is “that the dreamer walk out the door of what confines and defines her” to find more joyous expression in her life. And balance the inner masculine with what she wants to experience externally either in her corporate life or relationship ventures.

To create it outside herself, she needs to create it inside herself first. The dream can bring awareness to where she isn’t allowing this, or generating this.

Thank you, dreamer for sharing.