Dream of the Moving Center

Dream of the Moving Center

I’m riding in the back of a small closed truck with my cowboy friend, Frank and another cowboy. We are sitting on a bench at the back of the truck. After riding a short distance, the driver come out from the front of the truck with a pint bottle of whiskey. “Time for a little snort,” he tells us. We each take a couple of swigs from the bottle and the truck starts moving again.

Now, there are large windows on both sides of the truck. Looking out the right window I see that we are moving down a city street. I spot an old church that is built from flat gray stones. I think that it is one of the most unattractive churches that I have ever seen. I look to my left and spot a number of three story red brick apartment buildings. Sunlight flashes from the red in brilliant rays. Another church comes into view. It is made of highly fashioned mortared stone, and looks to be at least three hundred years old. How beautiful, I tell myself.

“I notice that you really are focused on the old buildings,” Frank tells me.

“Yea, I guess it’s sort of a hobby of mine. Whenever I go through city streets I always study the buildings. I love to walk through the city looking at all the old buildings.”

“I like to check out the old bars in the city. It’s just as much fun checking out the down and outs who hang in the bars as it is checking out the old buildings.”

“Yea. I’m sure it is. I’m kind’a bashful though. I’d be a little frightened to walk into a strange bar,” I tell Frank.

“I always buy a drink for the two or three guys sitting closest to me. It really loosens a guy up when you buy him a drink.”

“That could get a little expensive couldn’t it?”

“Ahhh, at the dives I go to drinks are only a buck a’ piece. And the guys usually start buying after the first round. Or else you match or shot dice. You’ll have to go with me some time.”

“Yea, it sounds like it would be fun,” I say but I feel just a little apprehensive since I’m not too into drinking in bars.

“Time for another snort,” Frank tells us as he gets off his seat and starts a swim like motion toward the front of the truck. He has on a pair of leather chaps now, and the floor of the truck is cover with about three inches of whiskey. As Frank makes his way forward, I’m figuring that he’ll have us wring the whiskey out of his wet clothes when he gets back. I figure I’d better not drink very much as I’ll have to drive home once we reach our destination.

In trying to interpret this dream, I remember that Fritz Perls says that everything in your dream is you, some psychological aspect of yourself. The Work says that each center is divided into three parts, the moving, the emotional, and the thinking part. It seems to me that this dream is about my moving center. The truck represents that part of me that is moving through life. The ‘I’ that I take as myself is the thinking part of my moving center. Frank, a cowboy, represents the moving part of my moving center. The other cowboy who never says a word in the dream is the emotional part of my moving center.

The driver of the truck represents real I who is steering us through this dream experience. The driver brings the pint of whiskey to us and tells us it is time for a snort. The whiskey represents a dose of consciousness. Once we take a swig, the closed sides of the truck turn into open windows. We are able to see the streets that we are passing through.

I see the old churches and other buildings. They might represent my memory of past history. Frank relates that I am really focused on looking at and seeing the old buildings. He maintains that I might get just as much enjoyment and knowledge by visiting the run down bars and relating to the old timers who hang out there.

I let Frank know that I am too bashful to enter a strange bar. He tells me that he becomes acquainted by buying drinks for the guys sitting near him. If drinks represent consciousness, then what Frank is doing is forming a conscious relationship with the strangers that he encounters. When Frank invites me to join him sometime in visiting the city bars, I think that I am not very much into drinking with strangers. If drinking is consciousness then this might mean that I do not make conscious relationships with strangers.

Frank moves in a swimming motion through the whiskey that lies on the bottom of the truck. This might mean that the moving part of my moving center can acquire consciousness by direct experience of it. The thinking part of my moving center thinks that it better not in take too much consciousness because it will have to be in charge on the drive back to reality. Driving home represents returning to the waking world.

I think that the dream is telling me that I need to become more conscious in my relationship with people. It is also telling me that I am not using the emotional part of my moving center at all. I should put more feeling into my experiences with the moving center. I need to engage in more activities that will elicit enjoyment and excitement from my movements.

A Jungian interpretation of this dream might be that the dream is compensating for my lack of social activity. It is telling me that I should go out more and mix with friends and strangers. Freud says that in part dreams are wish fulfillment. It may be that in this dream I am fulfilling a wish to be out more among heroic figures like cowboys and inner city bar hoppers.

There are many different interpretations to a dream. And, a dream can only be interpreted by the dreamer. Look at your dreams. It is fun, and you can learn a lot about yourself.