Owl In A Dream: PS Dream Interpretation

So there's a person, and they had a nightmare which woke them up in a cold sweat of fear, with heart thumping, and the nightmare featured an owl.

As usual, the dream book of off the shelf explanations didn't help at all, and they kept thinking about the owl and the dream, and they kept thinking there was an important message in that owl dream, but they weren't getting it.

So here's the owl dream resolution in true Project Sanctuary style ...

When asked what exactly it was that happened in the dream, the person said, "I was in a dark forest, in the middle of the night, and a huge white owl hooted and I had such a sense of fear, it woke me up with my heart thumping."

In Project Sanctuary, instead of getting stuck on "a single dream symbol" such as the owl, we are looking for the complete story of the dream - the whole story, as it were.

When the whole story is known, so is the message of the dream. It's very simple really.

"So you are in a forest at night and there's an owl hooting. What happens next?"

"Oh ... ahm ... the owl flies away and I have this sense of foreboding, and then I hear and see someone running down the mountain to the village with a torch and they are crying a warning."

"Ok, so what happens next?" "

"He wakes up everyone in the village and tells them that enemies, lots of enemies are going to come over the hill, over the crest of the mountain, any minute now and they will all be slain in their beds."

"What do the villagers do?"

"They don't feel ready to fight so they run away and hide in the forest."

"And what happens next?" "The invaders come storming over the hill and find no-one in the village. They are embarrassed and confused, standing in the middle and scratching their heads. Oh! and there's a little child comes running out, must have got away from its parents who are hiding in the forest, and it greets the enemies because it thinks they've come for a party!

"The child only knows lots of people coming into the village because there is a festival, a wedding or something. It's too little to know anything about war. "So it gives the leader of the enemies a flower because that's what they do to greet their friends and family."

"And what happens next?"

"The leader has a child of his own of the same age and he is moved by this; he takes for a sign from the Gods that he is not supposed to make war on this village and asks for someone to come out and negotiate instead, in fact, to make friends instead."

"And does it work out?"

"Yes, one of the elders picks up the courage and comes out, and they make a mutual protection and friendship contract. The enemies wanted new women, and they decide to have a party to give some of the village women the chance to meet them, go voluntarily with a new husband instead."

"Now the big question - is this story meaningful to you? Is there a message that you understand?"

"Oh God yes! The moment the villagers went into the forest and made this empty space so when the enemy came, all their fury was going into it and didn't meet an immovable object to explode, I knew exactly what that was about, how that relates to a big problem I've been having in the company I'm working for.

"And the peace offering of the flower also made sense to me, and most of all, that thing about the enemies wanting something they needed badly and didn't know how to get it without resorting to violence.

"But there are other, better ways. "I've been worrying about this situation at work for weeks, actually waiting for the enemy to come over the hill! I know who I need to talk to and what needs to be done now.

"This is amazing! There's so much information in this story, so much ... HELP! And what about the owl?"

"The owl was just there ... you were in the forest, and there was an owl. That's it. To get your attention I guess. But if you're really worried, where is the owl now?"

"Oh! Actually, the owl was a kind of shaman, and it wasn't a message for me, do you remember that man that ran down the hill to warn the villagers?

"The owl had woken him up, he was supposed to be on sentry duty and fast asleep! It was really his owl, not mine!"

"That's funny. But also useful. If the owl means a warning in this dream, should you see it again, it might warn you again, or show you things. But that's another Project Sanctuary story ..." :-)