Last night before going to bed I asked myself, "What is the reason for my shyness?  I rarely play the fool, I don't take risks, socially.  Why do I act like I'm so bothered what people think?"

The idea was to see if my dreams could shed some light on the answer.  I believe the answer is inside of me, and I thought that that part of me that knows the answer could communicate some clues to my normal waking mind.  I've never asked anything of my dreams before but I've heard that people do, so I thought I'd try it.

One thing I've noticed about dreams is that they can seem really cryptic at first but then when I tell someone about them suddenly the symbolic meaning is obvious.  I remember about one and a half dreams from last night.  I don't think they are relevant but maybe by writing about them I may squeeze some meaning out of them ...?

The first one I can barely remember.  I think I had the opportunity to have some contact with some indigenous people of South America and I think it involved learning to speak Spanish.  Even though I was excited by the prospect of going and learning from these people, I hesitated ... wouldn't it be better to say, "No", learn a tribal language and go deeper into the jungle and meet people who had even less influence from the modern world?

OK, yes, this does seem relevant to the question.  It involves hesitation, of holding back in case something better comes along.  By taking an opportunity, something that is being offered to me, I might be limiting myself in some way.  I think this attitude to be wrong - I think that things happen for a reason and that opportunities that feel right should be followed - but it's one thing to believe that life is to be lived a certain way and another thing to actually put it into action.  Why is that?  What is it in my personality that steps in and overrules what I know to be true?  Yes, I believe this to be at the heart of this problem.

Many years ago I went to a workshop taken by a couple of women who I had not met before.  At the end of the day as we were saying our goodbyes one of these women said something to me that I've never forgotten:  "Believe in what you know".  It was said as a personal message for me - relevant to me.  Without getting too involved in comparing and contrasting the meanings of the words 'believe' and 'know', I think what she was trying to say was that there was a split in me - that on one level I can know something to be true, but on another level I don't believe it, and that I should try and resolve that split.  Many times I've noticed this to be true in myself, and here is another.  It seems to me that this dream is pointing me to the heart of the problem.

Now to the second dream:

This dream is clearer to me, and more detailed.  I am finishing work for the day, I've run some thick (and valuable) electrical cabling in a building and I am ready to go home.  I spot a few other workman trying to steal the cable I have installed. I approach them, annoyed but not too angry.  I explain to them that they are not stealing from some rich contracting firm, that I work for myself and so they are stealing from me personally.  They kind of see my point, are almost apologetic, and don't make off with the cable, but the damage has been done - they've already cut the cable making it too short to be of use any more.  Before leaving, I decide to coil up the cable so it is ready to take away for recycling.  As I'm doing this I receive a shock from the cable ends - the would-be thieves, feeling guilty, had thought they would help me by reconnecting the cable to the supply.  The cable ends are on my forearm and I am unable to move.  I try to call out to the people a few yards away but I am paralyzed and can't make a sound.  The details of the dream become hazy at this point - it all turns out alright in the end, anyway.

Oooh, paralysis!  I really didn't think this dream had any relevance until I started writing it down.  It makes me wonder how much of our dreams are trying to communicate important stuff to our waking selves and we just miss it because we don't pay them enough attention.  I doubt I would even have remembered this dream had I not made a conscious decision to do so.  (And that first dream I had forgotten completely by the time I had got out of bed - it only came back to me during my morning meditation).  So anyway, what might this dream mean?  Well, essentially, I've worked at doing something and then, not through any fault of my own but more due to misunderstanding of the situation by others (which wouldn't have happened if there'd been more communication), my efforts have been spoilt.  Then, trying to make the best of the situation I've been rewarded by pain (again caused by lack of communication and a misunderstanding of the situation - this time by myself) and this has caused a paralysis which has prevented me speaking.

Conclusion:

Summing up, on the one hand I hesitate in case something better comes up and on the other hand previous failure and pain has frozen my ability to communicate.  Interestingly, the failure and pain could have been prevented if there had been more communication in the first place, so maybe there's a vicious circle going on.  Vicious circles are vicious.  I know that I should take risks in social situations, and I feel that if I started doing it, it would soon become easier as I proved to myself that the world wasn't going to come to an end as a result, but it doesn't matter how much I tell myself this, it doesn't brake me out of the circle.  I guess some sort of jolt or trickery or back door is needed to make an escape possible.  



Meta-conclusion:

Stepping back and looking at all this, it seems that asking my dreams for the answer to a question seems to have worked.  Of course, I have no way of verifying the truth or otherwise of the interpretations, but the relevance of the dreams is encouraging.  It strikes me as significant that the point at which the memory of the second dream becomes vague is just at that part of the story which shows how I get from being paralysed to being free of the paralysis, that is, the point at which my problem is solved.  This is just the point at which the content of the dream leaves the scope of the question:  I didn't ask for a solution, I just asked for the reason why.

A popular solution to this kind of problem is to go out and drink and keep drinking until the barriers dissolve.  (Referring to the first dream: )  I would prefer to wait for a better solution to present itself, rather than replacing one vicious circle with another.  How can I permanently and effectively shapeshift that part of myself that prevents me from being more socially fluid.



Meta-meta-conclusion:

Perhaps this is the reason I was drawn to starting an anonymous blog.  Maybe it's a way of getting some uninhibited communication going?  I don't think it's going to solve anything, but it might help.  So it seems that it may have been a right move  to start this blog even though it seemed exactly like pointless folly at the time.



Meta-meta-meta-conclusion:

I should follow my intutition and not always seek reasons or justifications or rationalisations.  Weirdly, this appears to relate back to my social paralysis - too much thinking, not enough feeling.