Life Is A Journey

I started keeping dream journals about two years ago. I am amazed at the amount of information and insight our dreams can reveal about ourselves. Over a period, I can almost identify a pattern, a trend and some common traits in those dreams which I know constitute my unique self. My dream journals is like an autobiography about myself. It tells all.

Today I was reading ‘The Complete Book of Dreams & Dreaming’. It’s thick book and has 666 pages. I read it from the middle (I seldom read a book from beginning to end). It talks about journey in our dreams. I was fascinated with what it has to say, as I’ve done so many journeys in my dreams. The book says:

The image of a journey is a very potent one in dream work. Any time the idea of a journey becomes apparent, it is to do with the day that we carry out our every day lives and how we move forward. Every step that we take towards understanding ourselves and the world we live in can be pictured in terms of a journey, and the dream that a person has reflect that movement.

The sense of having a complete journey - arriving home, touching down and so on - indicates the successful completion of our aims. The destination, when it becomes apparent, will give some ideas about the aims and objectives we have. Our declared hopes and ideals may not correspond with those we subconsciously have - our inner motivation may be totally different to our outer behaviour - and dreams will highlight this discrepancy. The exact nature of our objective is often not known to us until after we have confronted our obstacles and challenges along the way. It is often enough just to have an aim for that particular section of the journey.

I have perhaps done more journeys in my dreams than I have in real life. My dreams have taken me to China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Europe, Indonesia, London, Los Angelas, New Zealand and some exotic places I couldn’t identify. In my dreams I have travelled by bus, taxi, train and boat as well as on foot. Very interestingly, it seems the most popular transportation in my dream are bus journeys. Just to show you how I made my bus journey in my dreams, I’m quoting the following which is extracted from four different dreams, all associated with bus (bear in mind I haven’t taken bus for years in real life!!)

We were on a coach bus with a group of tourists. We sat at the front row in the bus on the left. There was a pair of ‘love birds’ sitting on the right front row. They were in their late teens or early twenties and appeared very much in love. They both wore a white T-shirt and green middle length pants – a very relaxed, harmonised and synchronised scene. We started talking to them, and found they were Chinese. We felt very comfortable with them after chatting away and decided to team up for the rest of the holiday journey with them, together with their baby - a big black Labrador.
(My dream journal dated 13 August 2004)

When I rushed out of my house into the street, I saw the coach bus with a full load of Olympic delegates driving past me. I waved at the bus and yelled for it to stop. The people on the bus saw me. The bus took a U-turn in a couple of minutes and stopped to pick me up. I got up the bus. There was only one seat left. Phew! What a fright I had that I almost missed the bus and ruined my chance to go for the Olympic Game!
(My dream journal dated 7 September 2004)

The bus turns up. But no way all the people can get on the bus. With the help of the two traffic police, people are lined up in a queue. But what a long queue! As the bus is already almost full, someone comes up with a creative solution, which is, to add an extra carriage to the bus. It turns out that this added part is a container-like carriage. We have to climb a ladder to get onto the carriage.

I am the first one in the line. By the time I get to the top of the ladder the bus has started. I look underneath and see my husband is right below me and a few other people still hanging onto the ladder. I am most surprised that in London a bus should take off with people still on the ladder.

The carriage is enclosed at the top, front and both sides . As I am facing the front, I can’t see anything. Suddenly I realise that I should pay attention to the streets sceneries since it is the first time I am in London. I manage to climb over the ladder and get into the carriage, and turn myself around so I could see the streets.
(My dream journal dated 22 July 2005

I walked to a taxi stand. God knows how many people were there queuing. By the time a taxi stopped in front of me, I had to push my way to get on cause there were so many crowds coming from nowhere trying to get on as well. Well I couldn’t care less as long as I got mine!

Several people got on the taxi as well. Well, it was not a taxi after all. It was a mini bus. I thought it was strange that we got a bus at a taxi stand. But never mind. I was letting the bus take me anywhere. I trust my intuition that the bus would somehow take me to the hotel.
(My dream journal dated 18 June 2005

According to the book:

A bus journey is the part of our lives where we are conscious of the need to travel and to be with other people. We perhaps have a common aim with them. Trouble with timetables, missing the bus, arriving too early, missing a connection. This means we are not in control of our lives and perhaps should sit down and replan how we wish to continue our lives. Getting on the wrong bus, going the wrong way. There are conflicting desires and we need to listen to our own intuition. This is usually a warning of a wrong action.

Looking at my dreams, none of them is bizarre. The bus trips in my dreams as quoted above, for example, are perfect manifestations of my reality - everyday, I embark on a journey, going towards a destination. In every journey, I interact with people. My bus sometimes arrives in time, sometimes not. I sometimes meet pleasant and interesting people on the bus, sometimes I don’t. Still, my journey continues. It appears that my inner journey (as manifested in my dreams) dances with my real life journey.

Why do my dreams take me to so many different places? This is because, I have never believed that I have limited means to be able to travel around the world. I have never believed that the world has limited scenery for us to experience and enjoy. I have never doubted that my dreams and goals are beyond reach. When our beliefs are colourful and limitless, so are our dreams. Our body, mind and soul are forever dancing together - at least in this life journey.