ABOUT DIRTY LAUNDRY & TEMPORARY SHELTERS

This dream is from Noreen, a woman in her third cycle of life (senior citizen status) from upstate New York.

I am traveling with friends on a trip.  At some point, the road splits into two levels.  Some of the others take the lower level, carrying my dirty laundry with them.   I take the upper level with my regular apparel bag.  After a while, I persuade the others to leave behind their dirty laundry and join me at the top level, and we resume our journey.

In the dream state, very often, friends who accompany you on a trip are aspects of yourself.  There’s the spiritual, mental, intellectual, emotional and ideal aspects of selves which cluster together to form the whole individual, just as a diamond has many facets but is ultimately only one piece.  The “you” in your dream is your egocentric self which makes the final choice of action, even if other aspects of yourself disagree with that final choice.  

So in this dream, the Dreamer has made a decision about something which is for the highest good of all concerned (high level), even if, at first, other aspects of herself are still dragging low-level feelings about it (beliefs which generate  counter-constructive reactions in life).  A simpler way to explain this is if your mind tells you one thing but your heart tells you another.

At some point, you get yourself “together” and all aspects of yourselves have committed to traveling the high road.  Of course, the “high road” is acting within the parameters of the Christian-Judaic concept of what is “right,”, i.e., integrity, compassion, forgiveness and acceptance of others without judgment.  The low road is hanging on to anger and resentment, seeking revenge and refusing to forgive.

After a resting period at a train station where the upper and lower levels meet, we resume our journey.  The next part of our trip involves crossing the railroad tracks and heading in the direction back from where we came.  On this journey, there’s only an upper level.

This suggests that life is the same for everyone – the challenges, the struggles, the pain, joys and the sense of fulfillment – since life is just a journey, whichever direction you are going.  The difference is that the train represents a point of neutral acceptance of the rules of life, and this understanding elevates you automatically to a “higher” level of life.  You “cross” to a different POV regarding your life experiences.

I journey ahead of the others to find us a place to stay, and when I’ve reserved our rooms, I go back to get the others.  When I join them, I realize we’ve lost some of our luggage, and then I remember we left the dirty laundry bag behind when the others segued from the first level to the 2^nd level way back when.

I figure, since we’re heading back in the direction from where we started, all it would take is to synchronize the place on the other side of the tracks where we left behind the dirty laundry, cross the nearest bridge to that place, and then go down one level and the dirty laundry should be there.  I decide to try that, find the bridge and cross to the other side. 

On the other side, it’s different.  I manage to get to the lower level, at around the place where I left the laundry.  I can’t find it.  It’s simply not the same place as when we left it before.  And of course the dirty laundry’s gone.

Imagine if you were to go back to the place where you were born and grew up.  It’s the same place, but it isn’t… because YOU HAVE CHANGED.  You no longer see it the same way.  You have matured, evolved and experienced enough that your perceptions are no longer filtered through the innocence and naiveté of youth.

Dirty laundry is a metaphor for the mistakes you’ve made in your life – the  angry words you didn’t really mean to say, the miscommunications which ended in remorse for all concerned, and wrong choices which ended in ugly results.  At some point in your life, you come to realize that hanging on to these memories is just slowing you down and impeding your progress.  So you choose to set the memories aside, along with the guilt, remorse and shame that came with it.  You decide you simply don’t have time to resolve them at the moment, given your need to deal with more important issues which crop up on a daily basis.

Then at some point, when your life has quieted down a little, or when a current issue triggers the memory of one of these old issues, you decide it’s time to clean up the damage generated by those mistakes.   You call the old friend with whom you had angry words or the brother or sister you haven’t spoken to in years, and you discover that they have already come to terms with your mistakes and the incidents aren’t even issues anymore in their lives.

I finally decide I don’t need it, recross the bridge to join my friends and resume my journey with them.

You realize that hanging on to your toxic memories was your choice alone and the other people have already cleansed themselves of whatever toxins were generated by those past events.  You might have gone back to confront “old” issues, but people change, memories change and feelings change, so even if you go back to a place from your past, it’s never the same place you left behind. 

This is a wonderful, encouraging dream.  You have finally gotten yourself “together” and have ascended to a new spiritual plateau.  Plus you are willing to “lose” your dirty laundry, no longer hanging on the issues which soil the purity of your spirit. 

We stop at a temporary shelter and stay there for a while, but then it’s time to keep going so we start taking down our hangings on the wall and packing up the belongings we are taking with us.

Of course, under this new “enlightened” perspective, each goal you achieve under the new conditions of your higher self is only a temporary shelter, sufficient enough… until you find a new goal.   As you rid yourself of past dirty laundry, you have come to realize that your home is not an external permanent structure... but that place of inner truth within yourself. 

Meanwhile, there are still egocentric possessions you will always take with you… the good things – like the love of your family, the wonderful memories of friendships which sustained you through your growing-up days, the events which supported and affirmed your value as a human being.

So the two most important aspects of this dream is that, first, you are on a journey to evolve to a higher spiritual aspect of yourself; and second, part of that process is releasing memories which generate  counter-constructive  energy in yourself.

Of course, some of the people you’ve interacted with are still hanging on their dirty laundry, but that’s their business.  Do and say what you must to clear your conscience with them, and then move on.

If we’re all heading towards the ultimate goal of being “one” with the Universal Creator (“God”), then I suspect in even higher levels of spiritual evolution we will no longer need such symbolic material things to affirm our self-esteem.  On that even higher level, theoretically a person won’t even need to take self-congratulatory hangings and mementos which represent self-worth.

But one step at a time.    Only the saints and Ascended Masters have reached that plateau.   Most of us are still only on the human level, so let’s go ahead and enjoy our mementos while we still need and want to.

I wish joyous snoozling ahead of you, and congratulations on your ascendance towards your higher self.