Portals and the Dreaming World

Many people try to interpret dreams using one of many lists that explain the symbolic meanings behind ordinary objects that appear in our nighttime realities. Whether or not you believe that dreams contain hidden messages, some explanations can be insightful, especially if you’re having a recurring theme in your dreaming world.

For example, crossing a bridge safely, as I did in my article Cosmic Dreams, could mean that you’re going to be able to overcome whatever difficulties you’ve been facing, even if the manner in which you crossed that bridge wasn’t necessarily safe. Bridges often symbolize travel and transitions. As described in Cosmic Dreams, I certainly did some ultimate traveling when I ended up in space; but when I look back at when I had that dream, it was indeed the beginning of a new era in my life. I just didn’t know it at the time.

Likewise, doors and portals in dreams often represent similar things since they are both gateways to another room, building, realm, or time. If you approach an open door or a portal in a dream, that gateway could represent an opportunity. “If opportunity knocks, open the door.” If you walk through, it means you’ve accepted that opportunity. A closed door means the opposite – no opportunities, or perhaps you’ve turned one down.

However, it doesn’t really take much research to figure out that doors and portals are a means to another place (or time, if you believe in time portals), another emotion, or another action. You either step through or you don’t, meaning things either stay as they are or you make some kind of a change. If you can’t find a door in your dream, chances are that in your waking world you feel like you have few, if any, options. How can you make a transition if you don’t know how to do it or where you could potentially end up afterward?

Sometimes portals within dreams are a little more complex than that. For instance, I once had a dream where my sister and I had determined that the walk-in closet and the corner of my bedroom in my home as an adult were both portals to the bedroom we shared in our childhood home. At first glance, that could easily be construed as wanting life to be simpler, like when I was a child. While I would probably never refer to my childhood as simple and I’d never yearn to return to it, that would be a fairly standard interpretation. In my case, however, I had to dig a little deeper for a meaning that felt right.

Looking at more of the dream, there were other components that warranted some scrutiny as well, like the fact that I had gone to my childhood home to pack for a move, but everything had already been packed before I arrived. That could have indicated that things would be taken care of for me so that I wouldn’t have anything to worry about. Knowing my childhood, however, I had a different interpretation. My mother’s motto was, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” In my eyes, it was always a display of her lack of trust when she’d assume that I couldn’t do something right. So in my dream, I didn’t feel cared for, I felt attacked. So, each person’s experiences will shape their own interpretations.

There are times when our dreams leave us scratching our heads, wondering why in the world we’d have had such a bizarre or goofy dream. Some dreams are fascinating and seem like they should have some profound hidden meaning, while others are merely entertaining, like watching a television show. In fact, sometimes what we watch in the evening can influence our dreams. It’s been suggested that our dreams are nothing more than our brain’s way of rehashing the day’s events.

Taking that into account, I must have watched The Butterfly Effect and a murder mystery the day before having a dream where I worked with a police detective to solve a murder. A woman’s body was found in her car that was purposely sunk in the bay; however, she didn’t die from drowning. We determined that the woman was dead prior to the car going off the pier.

As it turned out, I had an antidote that brought the dead woman back to life. We were then able to confirm that it was her husband who had poisoned her and dumped her body. The police detective and I put a plan together to catch her husband in the act of poisoning her by sending the woman back in time to relive the event. We would be ready with the antidote, so she had nothing to fear. However, she wasn’t willing to cooperate because she was scared, so I offered to go with her. Her husband figured out what I was doing and tried to poison me instead of his wife.

Not remembering what else was going on in my life at the time, I’d have to say that the message there was probably that I should have minded my own business. Never mind the magic potion that brought a dead person back from the grave. Maybe that’s a power I’d like to have, but I think instead the dream was just meant to be entertaining.

My dreams are pretty vivid most of time and I usually know that I’m dreaming. I’m pretty good at lucid dreaming and often look forward to crossing the portal from the waking world to the realm of dreams. Dreams are place where we can hash out our troubles, work through emotions, relive pleasant events, or just have a temporary escape from the mundane.

Enjoy your dreams!