ABOUT CARROTS, CIGARS AND FIRE

Patty sent me this dream for interpretation, and to establish a perspective, I had to ask her if she was married.  She admitted she was.  Her husband has been ill for years, and they have an “open” relationship.  In other words, she can “see” other men as long as she’s discreet.  Here’s her dream.

I dreamt that I was in my garden, checking a carrot to see if it was ready to pull up.  I decided it was, pulled it up, and was delighted to see a carrot.  I did note however, that it had grown backwards.  The end with the carrot top was skinny and the normally pointy end was fat.  Here’s where it went bad.  Somehow I had a cigar and decided to snub it out on the ground.  I put it down to the ground and it immediately caught the dry mulch on fire.

Dream symbols can mean many different things.  For example, a carrot can symbolize food (nourishment).  Eating healthy carrots from a picnic basket suggests enjoying the fruits of life.  Thrown in with a cigar, my immediate impression is that this carrot symbolizes a male organ.  So does the cigar. 

Being in a garden suggests a family home.  Because Patty is checking out a carrot, this tells me that there is someone in her environment with whom she is considering having an affair.  This someone, however, is not “normal.”  The carrot top, which is what surfaces over the ground is generally leafy and the sturdy.  The tip of the carrot is usually much thinner.   Since the carrot in Patty’s dream is the opposite, the situation is reversed.  First of all, the  top “leafy surface” aspect is not normal and healthy.  This suggests that the interaction can’t be openly happy and vital.  The “fat” tip portion suggests that it’s all about pleasure and passion.  The carrot is not healthy because the top portion (mind, heart and spirit) are minimal.  It’s about physical pleasure and not “love.”  It’s “backwards” of what a healthy relationship should be.

Snubbing the cigar on the ground suggests satisfying the fire of the cigar by bringing it “down to earth”… acknowledging the passion.  This dream is telling Patty  that once she does that, the whole garden will catch on fire because of the dry mulch.  Mulch is a symbol of “waste” which is no longer edible or usable.  Mulch is garbage stuff like anger, disappointment, frustration and resentment.   When “thrown away” to encourage new growth, it’s a good thing.  When lit on fire… it’s not so good.  Fire at the tip of the cigar is normal.  Passion during sexual interchange is normal.  But when passion is lit up, enflamed by old angers, disappointments and resentments, it is destructive.

 

I wasn’t too worried as I figured I’d just go grab the hose and put it out.  There was a lot of dry mulch around the plants and it all caught fire.  I decided I better act quickly before it got out of hand.  When I went to get the hose, I realized it had been moved.  The fire was really getting out of control now.  My surroundings now change to my work.  I made a lap around a big block looking for a hose.  I found something I thought would work- it was probably an 8 inch pipe with a valve and a quick connect.  I undid the quick connect before I closed the valve and decided I should put it back because if I disconnected there would be pressure on the line and I’d have to bleed that off before I could use it.

Considering the carrot metaphor, all of this makes sense.  Once the garden begins to be destroyed, Patty wants to prevent total destruction.  At first, it seems simple.  She and her husband have an “understanding,” so she figures all it will take is some emotional soothing (hoses and pipes are tools for water flow, and water symbolizes emotions).  A hose can be aimed at a specific target, but pipes provide water for the entire house.  If she aims her emotional soothing to target a specific person, that option is no longer available.  If she uses the household pipes for a “quick connect,” the pressures that will create isn’t worth the damage that might result.  Her family would “bleed” from her efforts.  Great emotional injury would prevail.  The damage ultimately spreads to her work situation.  We have to also consider the possibility that “hose” and “pipe” are also symbols of the male organ, as well as the verbal allusion to a “quick connect.”

I walked over to the shop area and was looking for someone to direct me to a hose.  I finally asked someone and told her there was a fire.  I asked her to come with me to show me where the hose was.  Oddly, she was a medical person but she was out on the shop floor.  As we got closer to where I had started the fire, I could see firefighters and sirens.  My fire really had gotten out of control. 

Even when Patty turns to professional help for guidance on how to correct damage to her garden, it won’t be enough.  By now, the “fire” is out of control and now too many people know about the fire and the damage is beyond her ability to fix.

I walked past that area and ended up in this nice landscape on some dirt roads.  I called my sister Becky for help.  She answered and started telling me silly things and I cut her off and told her my predicament.  I told her I didn’t know what to say because I don’t even think we were allowed to be smoking in the area that I had the cigar.

At some point, she will get “past” this.  She may even end up in a nice landscape, though it might be rough (dirt road as opposed to concrete).  She might even feel comfortable turning to certain family members for support.  She knows she wasn’t supposed to be indulging in abnormal carrots or smoking cigars.  But, ultimately, family may not entirely know how to deal with conflicting emotions about the situation.

At some point I thought it would be nice if it wasn’t real and I woke up realizing it was a dream.  When I woke up, I was on my back with my arms corkscrewed around me.  It was a restrictive hold- my right arm was across my body gripping my left shoulder.  My left arm was on my right hip.  Anyway, I was glad I didn’t really cause that terrible fire!

Patty, this is a last call to reason.  This last portion of the dream suggests you haven’t done anything yet to endanger your life or family.  You woke up in a protective mode because your psyche is telling you that you will be hurt as much as you hurt your family.  Your self-restrictive hold is your psyche telling you, “GET A GRIP!”  Stop yourself from destroying all that you love.