Multi-Floor Labyrinth

Date: 1/7/2017

I try to explain my dreams when I can. I think the impressions one feels afterwards are worth recalling as well as the details. --- For quite a long time, I've dreamt in labyrinths or 3D mazes. These take various forms. They first began about 16 years ago, it was very perplexing, and at first I was often left with the feeling of being lost or not finding my way out. Quickly, I developed a system of remembering where I'd been in the dreams, sometimes it was a matter of touching a wall or a corner as I navigated the mazes. Sometimes literally leaving bread crumbs as a path back. One was even an under water labyrinth where I had to save someone from drowning. The sense of holding my breath was very distinct. The oddest thing about this one was, on my way out, I heard a disembodied voice saying, "How does he do that?" as though I'd overheard someone observing me and ranking my performance. Last night was another one of these labyrinth dreams with multiple floors and a different setting on each floor. It began on a lower grassy area where I was helping a friend mow his lawn. As the lawn extended it went under a structure, there was a sense of the setting changing into more of a business lower level parking lot, like that of a department store. I left the mower behind (not running as it was electric and shut itself off) but the cord was still visible and attached. As I made my way through the structure it became a department store with another floor up, then another floor up. It was more lavish with each floor until finally I was asked if I needed help as something like a jewelry counter. I was very much aware this was "off task" from where I began. I felt unwelcome and in the same way I always seem to find my way back to other levels in a dream, I moved down the floors to where I'd left the mower. It was still plugged in but I was seeing it from the return angle not the departure angle. This when I woke. --- After thinking about it, the grass could have symbolized my roots and the upper floors my ascent into more the complex responsibilities that came with my life and career. Or, another possibility is, that I see my political being as becoming increasingly insignificant with rising situation in America. I continue to wonder what the labyrinth dream architecture refers to, not every dream seems to indicate problem solving in a setting of such dimensions.