K. told me to "embrace the ground"

Interpreting dreams, surrealist pieces, and concepts from the rational/empirical minds of Descartes and Freud (among others) has led my peers and I to the construction of our own dreamcatchers. Throughout Who Am I, we have even formed our own guiding questions. In order to tie my inquiries into the center point of my dreamcatcher, I tied a literal, single knot. Single, in the sense of solidarity, or time alone. This time alone lets me recharge from the social exhaustion and anxiety within relationships. 

More often than not, my dreams provoke anxious feelings or confusion. I want the dream catcher to, instead, filter through derivations of nature or subconscious manifestations. This might be more calming, and even provide insight for the future. I quite like green and brown color schemes, which are also found throughout nature. The ring of the dream catcher is actually a light shade of green, and I will be using brown twine. I would also like to begin with six points of woven thread, reminiscent of my six siblings. In a general sense, I want to filter through more positive aspects of my relationship with family. I also included three feathers, which remind me of angel feathers. It's been almost three years since we lost Angel. While I often dream about circumstances that are situationally scary, my dreams can also be reflections of intrusive thoughts. I want to filter out these false perceptions because they are, really, false. Sometimes, within the dream, I forget that. 

The false perceptions can sometimes feel like blockages in my relationships. While some dreams may be repressed feelings and worries naturally resurfacing, others are figments of anxiety, that can be destructive. I wanted to, with my first few layers of weaving, include beads that refer to these blockages. In the following layers, I introduced a lighter color variation, signifying true meaning and a helpful meaning, not one derived from anxiety. Since secondary elaboration furthers dreams from the latent content (underlying meaning), my dreams can be confusing. Stringing together wish-fulfilling images in a logical order feels counterintuitive in a dream where the underlying meaning is unclear. This is why my dream catcher is made up of a some-what nontraditional weaving pattern. Some of the strings cluster and loop around in abstract ways, but it is all interconnected. Also considering the six points and how they represent different people; most of my siblings are not biological, and come from different backgrounds. Yet, we are all associated with one another and correspond,  just like the strings of the six points. 

“Embrace the ground.” Referring to my classmate’s interpretation of my dream, I think this is a beautiful translation in a dream where falling could mean death. Often, death can symbolize new beginnings. If I could go back to the dream, I would “embrace the ground,” trusting I will make it out okay. Considering the person that was with me, it could signify a new beginning with them, or an end to old feelings. 

Descartes came to the rational conclusion that in order to think we must exist. Further, what we conceive “distinctly” and “clearly” is true. In my interpretation, we are conceiving ideas and processes around us, and of those conceptions, (more to Descartes’s conclusion) we can find truth. Yet, truth, in the context of dreams, seems just as confusing as secondary elaboration. How can we conceive “distinctly” and “truly” in our dreams? 

To “answer” this, I may refer to surrealism, as well as some of Sigmund Freud’s principles regarding dreams. Listening to patients allowed Freud to bring their repressed thoughts out of the unconscious and into light (like the lighter colored beads). The repressed thoughts may be presented in visual metaphors, like in surrealism. However, if you try too hard to understand what it means, literally, then you will still be furthered from the latent content. While we all try to repress certain feelings or memories, they can still come up in our dreams and can still be expressed in forms of art, just like surrealism. The empirical urge to conceptualize and analyze dreams in a general or universal sense can be limiting. Instead, recognize the personal interpretation through circumstances and then symbolism.