Early this morning I had a dream. I was riding my bicycle across a convex wooden bridge. There were clouds floating below.
A friend approached me (A Scorpio – in case you were curious) and asked what I had in my hands. I looked down to see that I was shuffling a set of cards “It’s the I Ching” I said. He asked me to do a reading for him.
We crouched down and I noticed wide spaces between the slats of the bridge. I peaked through and saw a brilliant blue lake surrounded by greenery very far below us. I told him if he dropped one of the cards he would have to go down and get it. “These are vintage, irreplaceable.”
Just then two cyclists from The Race flew past us. (Isn’t funny how you just know things in dreams, like “Oh, they’re from The Race.“) My Friend suggested we go down stairs where it would be less windy.
We got in an elevator and descended into another dream.
Upon waking, I realized that the blue, blue lake was one of the images that I use for the I Ching forecasts that I write every full moon. Ah, another I Ching dream.
The Hexagrams of the I Ching are composed of Trigrams. The trigrams are (as Dixie put it) “Natury” images. There are 8 Trigrams; Heaven, Earth, Lake, Fire, Wind/Wood, Thunder, Water, and Mountain. Each hexagram has one trigram on top and one trigram on the bottom. That makes 64 possible hexagrams.
So, being an I Ching reader I have this structure embedded in my subconscious. One natury image stacked on top of another natury image makes one big idea. So looking at my dream, the lake is obviously below and wind/wood is on top. Put that together and you get hexagram 61 – “Inner Trust.”
There were other details in the dream that make this message speak to me loud and clear, but I’m not going to bore you with more personal minutia. I just wanted to share this bit of dream syntax with you and see if anyone here has a similar experience.
Anyone who works with symbols, (not just I Ching, astrology, or tarot, but ANY set of symbols… Your religious icons, the periodic table, The Photoshop tool bar, The stock market ticker symbols, the buttons on the cash register at work… anything with visual meaning that you regularly encounter… ) Do you ever recognize specific symbols in your dreams? How do YOU read them?
water, of course. my emotional state, generally. add specific other elements to usually make clear(er) the particular context.
clarity. color. calm or storm-tossed. great big ocean or backwoods pond. cold. bathwater warm. boiling hot?
i have these dreams sometimes where i’m at a particular beach and the waves offshore are always ominous and powerful, but also alluring somehow. i notice how i am more comfortable each time with the idea of entering the ocean and riding those waves.
lately the water is ocean, and jade-green and/or brilliant blue, crystal clear, and warm. in a recent dream i looked down into the clear waters i was about to jump into, with some figure like a divemaster. definitely guide-type.
i was apprehensive but his presence was reassurring, and the anxiety i DID still have seemed, as i thought about it, tolerable. even normal.
i saw a figure down below, swimming to and fro, i was sure it was shark, it turned out to be a swordfish, made clear when it came to the surface and leaped into view.
anyway, to stick with water and bodies thereof.
what’s out there in that vastness? is the unknown of whatever it is scaring me, or making me curious?
was recalling the other day, these dreams i’d have wherein my grandmother’s backyard – if i grew up any one place, hers qualifies – was a clear pond, maybe a foot deep, and filled with fish. a cane pole and attached line nearby.
now it makes sense, then they were just these really cool dreams about granny’s backyard being stocked with fish.
i could go on like a river.
water–for me represents transformation
doorways–rep. perspective
drving–rep. control
finding money–rep. security
this is a great post. i like learning about the i ching, thank you.