Last night I went to sangha and the teacher was making an analogy between our daily lives when we are 'awake' and with our dreams. In Buddhism the human drama is seen to be a dream-like world itself. He was saying that sometimes when we're dreaming, like you were describing with your dream, you know that you are dreaming while you're dreaming. When this is the case you can take action to resolve the problems you are faced with in your dream. Or, as you realized, you can decide to just wake up. The parallel to our daily lives is that we first recognize that the human drama is a dream. Next, by simply watching what is going on in our lives from the perspective of someone outside of ourselves, we take action to try to improve our situation, etc. Or, we can wake up (become enlightened), and realize our true nature.

Well, it sounded a lot better when he said it, but I think you'll get what I mean. : )

I think I'll wait until I get a little more familiar with Freudian dream analysis before I try to tell you what your dream meant. : ) He did think though that dreams are your conscious mind expressing what it is unable to in your waking hours. So, that could explain a little why sometimes they resonate so much. They're probably not random tv shows that we watch when we sleep that are disconnected from what's going on in our brain. But, instead deeply ingrained concepts and personal perspectives/wishes/fears, etc.
 

Zen Panda is wise. I dare not interpret your dream. I lack the skill and suffer from a lack of knowledge of you and yours. Nonetheless, it rarely hurts to suffer through another’s thoughts.

It is true that many scoff at any effort to see meaning in our dreams. But to me, there are two options and both are worth the time spent kicking around what our mind is saying.

Either our dreams are our minds way of wrestling with life’s problems, in which case an effort to understand, the meaning of our dreams is worthwhile. Alternatively, dreams are random images formed by the sleeping mind. But even if this is true, self-analysis can prove useful.

I understand that psychologists now do literary psychological analysis where a patient will read some piece of literature and then the doctor will question the patient regarding what meaning this has to her or him.

But I laugh, I am such a rambler, I have yet to say anything about your dream and my own thoughts about what it could mean. So let me take a stab (and stab is probably a good term, because undoubtedly I will butcher this effort, because I just do not have enough knowledge to know what these images might mean to you.

First, my inclination is to believe that you are everyone who appears in your dreams. This is true even if say, you dream of a conversation you have with you husband. I will come back to that, but let me offer some thoughts on your paralysis.

I tend to feel it can be one of two things. Sometimes depending where you are in sleep, your might find your body locked down, it is a physical thing. But paralysis can also mean you are in a state of denial about something and unable or unwilling to address the issue. Fear can be a lack of self-confidence; it can represent your personal insecurities.

So going out on a limb here, something is troubling you. There is a decision or insecurity you have not been able to bring yourself to address. The fear you feel is your desire to escape from making that decision, whatever it is, whatever issue is tangling your mind.

Now going back to my first point, I tend to see those voices as you angry on some level with your failure to act, failure to do whatever it is you sense on some level that you have to do.

This could be all nonsense on my part. If anything feels right then use it, as you will. I do not you well enough to even being to speculate as to what issues that your unconscious self might be wrestling with. And maybe I am silly to even try to understand another person’s dreams.

I know I am often at a loss as to what my own dreams might mean.

Peace,

Nisa