The Shame Dream

For the past year, I’ve been processing some of my emotions through my psyche’s stress dream of choice. Always in a hotel, always involving an elevator. I always get on with the intention of finding my room. But as soon as I get in the elevator, something always goes wrong.

I can’t find the button to the floor I need. The elevator skips my stop. I get off on the wrong floor. The elevator never comes. The elevator moves too fast or breaks. The anxiety is so intense I feel it in me long after the dream is over. The energetic strands are all over me, as if I accidentally walked through a spider web.

In the most recent version, I was in what felt like an enormous hotel. I sat outside by the pool, and then realized… I was fucking topless.

THIS is new. I to find something to cover up with but ended up running around asking various people for help. No one seemed to realize I was half-nude but I was horrified and just wanted to go to my room. I found the elevator but ended up at a roof top pool lounge instead of my intended floor. I remember thinking, “WOW, this place looks amazing, I’ll come back up after I find my top.” It was much more stylish and high-end. I got back on the elevator only to see almost all of the buttons lit up, but none of them had a number on them. I’m in an elevator, with my girls out, and I don’t think I’ll ever make it to my room.

Then I wake.

I know if I dream of being in a house, each room holds a certain energy. But hotels are not usually home. They are hubs of transient energy. People stay for a bit, but eventually they move on. What am I doing here, then? I’m in this hotel because I am in transition, too. I’m having these dreams often because everything is shifting. These dreams never happen at the same hotel, instead they are all quite different. Just like the vibe of each hotel is unique, so is each area of my life being affected by transition in my waking life.

I’m always trying to make it to my room because my room is ME. It is where I house my true self. Even in this temporary space in the ether, it represents the one place I should be safe amidst all this change. However temporary, it is my home, and every time I seek it out, I get lost.

I’m anxious in every single dream because I just want to get home. Can you imagine being a Cancer in a dream where you just want to go to bed in your room and you CAN’T?

It would make sense have a dream with this symbolism often, yes? This has been a year of non-stop transition. A physical recovery, a separation, a new home, a new job, a divorce, a lay-off, ANOTHER new job….

Why am I topless? Imagine the emotions that would overwhelm you if this were real life: shock, embarrassment, fear of judgment, and shame. These feelings might mirror the real-life shame I experience when I'm inclined to be overly critical of myself. In the worst of these moments, I feel a sense of shame that I'm not where I "should be" in life.

Change is constant. Often, it feels like I'm in free fall, struggling to predict where I'll land as the ground beneath me keeps shifting. I'm currently navigating through this 'Tower Year', experiencing a cycle of endings and beginnings with each event. It's both hopeful and chaotic. Sometimes, it's difficult for me to trust things as I'm perpetually preparing for more change.

I haven’t settled down yet. I suppose, this is normal for where I am. Perhaps one of the major lessons of this year was to learn to float on my back instead of swim against raging water. Become the water instead of resist it. Surrender. I won’t stay in this hotel long.