Last night I had a dream in which a friend of mine did something surprising. So surprising that I awoke in the middle of the night, startled, and was left to lie in bed pondering the meaning of what I had just witnessed. If you have a dream in which a friend of yours does something that you don’t think she is likely to do in your waking life, is that entirely about you, or is it also in some way about your friend?
The question is worth asking because there is, presumably, some level on which the people near to us have insights into us, can see things about us that we ourselves are not ready to accept. That is one of the reasons we value our friends. So it’s not completely out of bounds to think that perhaps my subconscious perceptions, while freely associating, had seen into her subconscious motivations.
On the other hand, there is an element of projection in every relationship. It could be that I had witnessed nothing but an illusion, a shadow cast not by my friend’s true self but by my own internal beliefs and needs.
I suppose the truth lies somewhere in between. Maybe it will come to me in a dream.
Sometimes in dreams the person you are dreaming about is you. As well as projecting onto them, you may also be them in the dream. Take their place. What are you experiencing being them? What problem is it solving, or is it? to be them?
I think our dreams are about us. It can’t really be about your friend only insomuch as you can only see them through your filter of them anyway…
I tend to think that those things that people are able to see in others, are actually the parts of themselves that they are sensitive to. It might be projection…but at some level it might also be that we choose people to hang around that have those aspects in them that we are trying to work through or understand in ourselves….