This dream provides continuing education!

Our Dreamer Writes:

Dear SMYD,

This dream brought back some fond memories!

I dreamed that I was having the walls scrubbed down in a room that seems like a classroom where I used to go to elementary school.  I loved that old school and it made me happy to see it being restored to its “better days.” 

In the dream, I am explaining to someone (can’t see who) that the room had been a bar for 15 years.  It had been filled with people who were drinking and smoking.  Then I said, there had been a big fire.  And after that, this room had been the home of a country and western band!  (I knew the lead singer and guitar player, way back when my life was a lot wilder than it is today!) 

All of these things accounted for the thick residue of smoke that coated the walls and was now being scrubbed off.  One of my friends at that school was doing some the work.  He was smiling and happy, just like always.  We cleaned the windows and the sun was bright outside.  I felt happy and proud at how nicely the room was turning out.

I like the way this dream made me feel, but what does it mean?

Signed,

Cleaning up My Old School

Dear Old School,

The beauty of our dreams lies in the metaphors they apply to establish a frame of mind, a center of operations, or an emotional setting for the work to be done.  Your dream uses your old school to set up the situation you’re working on both in your waking life and on that deeper level as well.

Your beloved old school, the internal place where you have fond memories and where you’ve learned so much, is receiving some much needed restoration.   Such work in your dream suggests that you also are undergoing a renovation of sorts.  It could be as literal as the rebuilding a person’s body undertakes when he or she quits smoking.  Or it could be more symbolic, with the accumulated smoke in your dream representing the years of hard living you hint at. 

A fire can be seen as destructive, but fire also clears the way for new growth.  Your dream suggests that if there were a traumatic event at some point in your life’s education, the residue from that moment remains and must be scrubbed away now so that you too can grow. 

Your dream suggests that you’ve begun the process of cleaning away remnants of life’s experiences that may be obscuring your fundamental (elementary) education, your own “better days.” 

Dear Dreamer, has your life up to now mirrored the soap opera like qualities of a country and western song?  If so, washing away the residue of that life, returning to the “old school” way you used to think might be the ticket to a sunnier outlook on the future that is yours.  You have a lot to be happy about!

Sweet Dreams to You!

SMYD