Lessons from My Dreams Part 2

The reason this post is titled "Lessons from My Dreams Part 2," is because two years ago I wrote a blog with the same name about a dream I had about my Dad.  If you would like to read that blog, click here.

A couple days ago I had another dream that I wanted to share with you all.  I have told myself on numerous occasions that I want to start being more mindful about writing my dreams down.  When I woke up from this dream I quickly typed up notes on it and boy am I glad I did as I feel the meaning of the dream sinks in more now than it did when I was experiencing it.

Have you ever seen the movie "The Never Ending Story?"  If you haven't, I highly encourage you to watch it, it is a fantastic movie.  The reason I ask is because some of the characters and themes that appeared in my dream were from the Never Ending story.

The last few months I have been spending a great deal of time reassessing my values and what my highest values are in life (more to come on this in future blogs/videos).  What I have discovered is that love has always been my highest value, I just never identified it directly (again more to come at a later date). 

I share the above because it sets the backdrop and provides the inspiration, I think, for the dream.

In the dream "The Nothing," (the same Nothing from The Never Ending Story) was coming to consume the world. The Nothing is essentially a void of darkness that consumes everything, especially all light and love.

In my dream I took on Atreyu's role as the hero.  I realized the only way I could save the world and stop The Nothing was by poring as much love as possible into The Nothing.

Even though I was up against The Nothing, a gigantic void of darkness, in my dream The Nothing, like most bad guys and evil things, had an evil layer that it liked to linger and lurk at.  I conveniently knew where this was and was able to drive over to it... again, very convenient. :)

On the drive over, someone who had been consumed by the nothing got in the car.  The person was dark and soulless. he looked like a cross between an evil zombie and an evil ghost.  He tried to get me, but I was able to grab onto the side of his head and focus on pouring my love into him.  This was the first real test of my strength and I was able to free the person, but doing so left me in a weakened state after.  This process repeated as I continued moving towards The Nothing; every time I gave my love to fight The Nothing, I was drained of love available to give.

I had reached a point where I was so drained that I felt like I was not going to be able to continue on when suddenly Falkor ( a half dragon half dog from The Never Ending Story) appears.  (Side note: as a kid Falkor was one of my favorite movie characters.  I used to pretend that one day he would appear and I would jump on his back and together we would fight bad guys and help those who needed help.) Falkor had somehow managed to escape The Nothing.  When he flew up to me I began to cry tears of joy because I realized I no longer had to face The Nothing on my own.  (As I slept I could feel the tears running down my face, the dream was that powerful.)  I jumped onto Falkor's back and off we went to fight The Nothing.

Falkor got me to where I needed to be and I began to make progress in my fight against The Nothing, but as I continued to fight on, I had begun to die.  I was dying because I was rapidly running out of the love I had to pour into the fight and was not getting refueled.  Much more was going out than what was coming in.

At some point during this fight, I am transported to a briefing room, the type of room you see in the movies where all the military people are sitting around making decisions (the best part about dreams is the ability to time travel and be in multiple places at once.)  While in this briefing room I am shown a map of the world and how fast The Nothing is consuming the entire planet (think any Zombie movie where they show the map and how fast the virus is spreading).

Everyone looks to me to decide what to do, but they can all tell I am dying.  That is when a few people stand up and offer to help me fight The Nothing.  When they do this I regain some of my strength, it is like their act of kindness/love refilled me enough so that I had more love to use to fight The Nothing.

I resume my fight with The Nothing and again am making progress.  I can see the top of the hill where The Nothing resides, but the hill is getting steeper and steeper and I again am running low on energy.  The Nothing is to powerful and has to many minions and evil allies. At this point in the dream I am fighting an army of The Nothing's prisoners.  I am running low on energy and slowly begin to die.  I see something in one of the prisoners, I don't know what, but I go to her and pour what little love I have left into her.  As I do this and she changes, she changes back to a human and then into a warrior who begins to fight along side of me.  I free more prisoners and they continue to turn into warriors who help me push on up the hill.

The warriors are able to hold off The Nothing's evil minions long enough for me to make my way to the final battle at the center of The Nothing.  I am in the car driving up the hill (don't ask me how I got back into the car, it is a dream remember) right before I get to the top of the hill, which has now turned into a mountain, I stop the car because I don't have the strength to drive anymore.  I begin to cry, again, feeling defeated, feeling like I am letting the world down.

Suddenly people show up and offer to help.  I recognize some of their faces as people who I freed earlier in the dream.  One picks me up and helps me back in the car, another takes over driving, the 3rd begins to hug me, and then hugs me tighter and tighter.  This person hugs me as tight as they can and tells me, "thank you, I am so grateful that you are fighting this fight to save all of us and give us all a chance at life."

This act of love, their embrace and words, from the unidentified person give  me a new level of strength.  I felt like Link from The Legend of Zelda must have felt every time he got all of his hearts fully recharged.  I actually think that image popped into my head during the dream.  ( See this video for an example ).

Before I go into the final battle I am able to record a speech that eventually gets played around the world.  In this speech I talk about how love is the ultimate power and that if we all, from this day forward, live our lives focusing on loving others and putting our love out into the world, then The Nothing and all other evils have zero chance of ever existing again. (In the dream the speech is very heartfelt and dramatic).

I charge into the battle and then the dream ends with The Nothing being defeated and white light fills up my mind.  I do not know if I survived the battle or not, but I was aware that The Nothing's presence had been eliminated.

I have reread the above a few times now and each time I find a new metaphor or a new interpretation of different elements in the dream and the dream as a whole.

What do you think of my dream?  Are there any particular elements to it that stick out?  What metaphors did you find?

I would love to hear your thoughts.  Please share them in the comments below.  If you found value in this blog, please pass it onto your friends and encourage them to "subscribe" to it.

I am looking forward to hearing what you all think of my dream.

Carpe Diem,

Jesse