The matrix started with 36 participants and finished with 33.
# Dreams 14
# Associations 35
Dream 1
In Paris with family. French friend we meet in the street. “Where do want to go?” To the Luxembourg gardens. It is miles away. We started walking. looked like English country town. Came to a café. Black board like board with specials of the day, said: gardens are closed due to international event taking place. Woke up with associations: I got it wrong – it was actually the Paris zoo/Jardin des Plantes. Thought of poem by Rilke: Watching a panther in the zoo. Old tired panther. Walking in endless circles. Imprisoned, caged. Its will paralyzed. Opened an eye, and image darts in from outside.
Dream 2
Building a wall. Choosing the right pieces to build wall. Many windows. Looking through these windows in the wall.
Dream 3
Three dreams with same person. First dream buying a house. Small house, nothing fancy. Somebody gave me the key to the house. Corridor between house and house next door. Windows in the corridor of the two houses. Who does the corridor belong to? Nobody, but if you like we can arrange with your neighbour for you to get it.
Association 1
Poem by Rilke association. Thought of movie Apocalypse, jaguar. Lesson: About how, when there is fear, he is a slave but when he turns it around he is free to go to his family.
Association 2
Big cat. Apocalypse movie. Cook from ship goes to jungle. Tiger jumps onto him. Everyone says don’t leave the ship!
Association 3
Borders, corridors belong to everyone.
Association 4
Tigers – thought of vacation in Mexico. Turning 50. With family. Tour from local guy whose grandfather is a famous Shaman. Two choices: Drug-runner or follow the path of his grandfather. Always a big test in the jungle around animals. Big cat. Tiger. Summon all of his courage and stared the tiger in the eye and tried to breathe and the tiger stared back and then turned around and walked away.
Association 5
Veil is thin. Mind generated words like barriers, borders and veils. Eyes being windows to the soul.
Dream 4
Adventure going through town with many incidents. To the end: Man, major figure, was burning rubbish on a balcony – the rubbish from the dream. As it burns the building slowly rises. Woke up. Trying to get the ipad. Bedclothes Gravity moving in different directions. iPad not there. At same time clearing away things like peacock tails, tussles, feathers, flowers keep coming back from the ipad screen. Like water keep coming back. Struggle. Then really wake up and reach for the ipad and it isn’t there. Eventually finds it.
Dream 5
Going through a landscape where a lot happened. Pass through town ‘Biggar’ towards her house. Different route. More medieval. Kept walking. Realised that it wasn’t my Biggar, but it was Biggar. Saw leak at the end of alley. Caravan park with green caravans. Turned corner. Big village square. Apocalyptic scene. Bombed or destroyed? Builders came. Arms around each other. Smiling. Their faces were distorted. Woke up.
Dream 6
Dream in three parts. Part 1 about to embark on cross-country running race. Couldn’t find running shoes. Many different shoes but couldn’t find right pair of shoes. Part 2 lots of people at a party a birthday party. Big daytime gathering but no alcohol – seemed like children’s party. Quite dull. Not as festive. Part 3 big office building. About to start new job as therapists but couldn’t find the office. Very confusing. Seemed to have to do with the police. Then went outside to modern square outside building. Very concrete apart from water feature – big area of water and chutes like water park. Would be a beautiful place for children to use in summer in hot weather.
Dream 7
Dream in three parts. Part 1. Young man in 30s, he had some wood. Followed him to see the wood. Chalk lines in yellow on the wall. The wood became a frame. Playing with the frame and showing him how I could put it together. Proud of myself. Part 2. Frame was put outside bedroom window and became a bed. I lied on the bed with my partner. Outside the bedroom. Saw the sky, the trees. Very exciting. Balance of bed on the outside was precarious. Could go at any time. Part 3. Beautiful bucolic scene like party people walking bare feet on the grass. A stream. Light was pastel. Lots of light. Everyone, families, all kinds of people like in paradise. Feeling of bliss.
Dream 8
Traveling up in elevator with two people. One person I knew him 12 or more years ago, but not in touch with anymore. Other lady I did not know. I see I am really large in size like a giant. Older man seems to be from NYC. Reached sixth floor. Many apartments. Fake rats outside apartments. Lizard frantically searching for food. Every time the lizard goes to a rat only to find it is fake. Lizard had fire-like colours like stripes. Black and fiery yellow, orange pattern. Association with dream: Ela monster lizard venomous lizard in North America. Only coming out frugally couple of times a year. Doing less and being out less.
Association 6
Less is more.
Dream 9
Going down street in a car and saw car that was occupying a big part of the road. Lots of cars, so could not pass through. I was angry. Thinking what to do? And then trying to move the car. Small car. Very easy to move. It was like a cardboard car, not metal, so could fold the car into one piece and just carry it off and put it by the side. Was going to leave the folded car there. But stepped back and unfolded the car. It was a toy car and suddenly I was bigger than usual.
Association 7
Unstable bed outside bedroom. Facing uncertainty leads to beautiful discoveries.
Dream 10
Dream looking for my car. Lost it. Drove to patient and couldn’t find the car afterwards. Walked up and down the street.
Association 8
Association with looking for town Bigger – my larger self. Looking for my larger self.
Association 9
Few days ago. saw a chameleon. Scurrying and running away from the crows. Crows everywhere, he stopped running. Didn’t change colours. Took a stand. And stood his ground. Pushed the crows away. Felt in awe of the chameleon.
Dream 11
Was in car crash. Other members of the matrix standing around. Remember walking away, not hurrying away, and feeling very guilty and ashamed.
Dream 12
Dream filled with cars. Woman and daughter resemble Melania Trump and her daughter. Walking along brown sandy beach. Tied to the mob. They cross the area and there is a black SUV and a group of men get out and shot them with machine guns. I turned to my right and saw a boat in this lake that looked like a car. Old Chevrolet. Red. A group of men coming to the shore. Drug drop-off place. Trump came out with his entourage, walking closer and closer. A little blue car pulled up with two women. They are happy to go the beach. I couldn’t warn them.
Association 10
Drug trafficking – association with news from Brazil. News where drug lord traffics medicine instead of drugs. Also the number 3. Dreams in three parts. Lizard king. Nickname for Jim Morrison. Val Kilmer with throat cancer – cannot speak. Speaks from his throat. Difficult to speak.
Association 11
Car crash. Accident is not only our fault. Melania Trump. Angels are immortal.
Association 12
Many windows – reminds of multi-storey building. Windows had stories painted on them. Windows – the need to listen to the stories of many people.
Association 13
Association with comment about throat and not being able to speak. I have Hyperthyroidism and I take natural not synthetic medicine, thyroxin. Supposed to be in Madrid but the people around me are German. Confused I don’t know where I am. In hotel room in Madrid. Phone rings. Someone from the government. They get irritable with me. Ask to pass the phone to this German woman I have met before. Person asking on phone: What is her medical status? What does she think about the protocol, the treatment, she is having? There is an argument. I am worried how they would feel about me using natural thyroxine having this condition. Even though here in UK they are only allowed to prescribe the synthetic medicine. I have to see an endocrinologist. Where am I? Madrid or Germany?
Association 14
Where am I? Flimsiness of what we know to be solid. The places that don’t seem to be the places we know, precariousness of the things we think to be true and the deception in all of that.
Association 15
Throat – George Floyd cop had his knee on his neck. I can’t breathe. Client with tension in his neck. Neck is bridge between heart and head. Need for us to bring the two together.
Association 16
Thin veil, a car accident. Jim Morrison. Difficult to hear the rest of the association. Quote of a poem. Something to do with fragility.
Association 17
When I don’t sleep at home, I wake up and wonder: Where am I?
Dream 13
Walking in a place that I didn’t recognise. With three colleagues I know. We are close. Joined at the hip. Came to communal halt. From nowhere anonymous figure emerged and grabbed colleague by the throat and pulls him up. Other two colleagues also thrown upwards, to our feet we noticed a large piece of granite, from nowhere a sledgehammer was taken to the rock to smash it to pieces.
Association 18
Walking with friend. Lots of people – no protection, no social distancing. Where am I? Past or future? Thinking of the difficult things in the USA.
Association 19
Lizard king. Where am I? Jim Morrison in busy street. How many of you know you are alive?
Association 20
Need to hear the stories but there is throat cancer and people can’t speak or throats kneeled upon – can’t speak, can’t hear.
Association 21
Thoughts of being torn apart from things which are so important – separated from people and ideas.
Association 22
German lady phone call. Institutional inside of us.
Dream 14
Searching through large black bag – very deep. Delve deeper and deeper and eventually pull out a large looking glass. Hold it to eye to see a group of people. Could not include at least two of the characters who I wanted to include. Put the looking glass back into the bag and it disappeared.
Association 23
Cat out of the bag. What are we going to do?
Silence
Dream 15
Looking inside the bag. Authority figure says many of us have to go to the end of the room and there is big cardboard box with belongings. A pair of socks of mine is there for me to look for. I see lots of people’s belongings. I let go of trying to find the socks. One of my fears is being cold. I will just put my shoes on and I do not need the socks. Pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t cold without the socks.
Association 24
Big large black bag and looking glass. Old-fashioned medical bags doctors were carrying and looking, searching for a vaccine.
Association 25
Reopening of shops today and the black bags and people buying clothes. People were clearing out their clothes during lockdown to take to charity shops. What will they do with all the clothes?
Association 26
Socks dream. Fears are illusions.
Association 27
Socks dream – how invariably only sock goes missing. Where do all these single socks go?
Association 28
Mind returning to the three colleagues going up into the sky and feet are seen and sledgehammer beating at cement. Statues being torn down. Feet being of clay. Warm and safe in our shoes.
Association 29
Shed stuff and are now ready to run off the earth. Earthiness of what is going on. And also: blackboard – in organisations we have white boards. What happened to the other colours?
Association 30
White boards. Serena Wilson’s husband, co-founder of Reddit stepped down to open it up for a person of colour so that the board will not be completely white anymore.
Association 31
Creatures of many colours. Lizard black and orange. Chameleon. In international event. Chameleon stood its ground.
Silence
Association 32
Dream of peacock feathers keep coming back. Research – why bird with these huge feathers fan them out. To attract the opposite sex? No, they do it for no reason. Part of nature is just beauty even without reason. Reason is not everything.
Association 33
Corona virus. The whole world is struggling with breathing – difficulty breathing.
Association 34
Corridor dream. Houses. Space in-between is 2 meters. Same as distance people have to keep from each other at the moment.
Association 35
Dream about mob and cars and entourage and machine guns. Thought I heard scars. Reminded of movie Scarface. Thought also: how as human beings we are all scarred. Not perfect.
Review
- Observed theme of animals. And also cage and wall and corridor. As we come out of this, our wild side (animal side) is asking us to move beyond the fear and have courage to step out event though it feels wobbly.
- Matrix talks about our need to share borders and to open windows in walls.
- How might we journey together? Are our shoes suitable? Joined by the hip or travel together in the place of the unknown?
- Long silences. Very enjoyable. Breathing. Heart slowed down. Relaxed a bit.
- Time was fuller and slowed a bit down. The value of time.
- Felt matrix very sped up in first half. Then slowed down when we mentioned the difficulty to breathe or speak.
- Felt excited when it felt speedy. Angry at long silence.
- Strange experience. Lots of associations came but I had my windows and doors open and my neighbour has speakers very loud. Could only hear noise from outside. Theme of borders and boundaries.
- Struck by chameleon – not changing colour.
- Noises from outside. Mention of neck, feet. What happened to the legs, stomach, genitals?
- Not enough time to mention it.
- Being preoccupied with extremes.
- How can we integrate all of this?
- Felt very hopeful, but the cold, hypothermic, very odd thing happened, I was throwing a blanket around myself, contrasts extremes.
- Truth and deception and integrating the reality of our history.
- Trump being mentioned. Senior politicians saying UK not a racist country. What is reality and what is idealistic fantasy?
- How do we bring the heart and guts into this integration work?
- Reddit and stepping down of CEO. It seems deceptive. Only way colour can find themselves getting space is if white steps down? As if colour not credible.
- White and black.
- Covid-19 removes antagonisms, Opposition, confrontation.
- First dream about black panther in cage and reminded of the Black Panther party in America. From 60’s. Doing what it is going on now – making it relevant. Controlling violence from the police. Fighting to have rights respected.
- The matrix was experienced in extremes – too slow/too quick – both were upsetting
- Comment on the number of dreams and how several came in 3’s – what does ‘3’s represent? Dreams are thought of as either personal or social, but there is also a 3rd space – the space between, the corridor, alley, which could serve as influence going both ways. Where am I? who am I? Paris isn’t Paris; Biggar isn’t Biggar; am I in Madrid? Or Germany? The deep big black bag produces a mirror. What does one see? Only others; not oneself.
- The SDM is made up of sophisticated people who are proficient in dreaming. By contrast the facilitators feel in a position of ‘not knowing’. This feeling is experienced bodily and in sleep disturbance, a dullness, not flying.
- The 3rd space could also be ‘no-mans land’; the facilitators state of ‘not knowing’
- The absence of borders – also no inner borders; kneeling on the neck; I cannot breathe refers to violation of boundaries of the body; also crossing a boundary normally as in the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide
- The violence of the virus equates with the violence of people.
Blog compiled by Jean Cooper, Mannie Sher, Franca Fubini and Juliet Scott
Image: Responsibility by Juliet Scott, 2019
