Whallop-Packing Dreams ... and Pancakes

Some dreams at first glance look inconsequential, heading one way, and end up packing a whallop, pointing 180 degrees in the other direction.

Following is a dream from 2003 that has continued to nourish me to the present. If you read it, it might look like nothing special, but to me, having the dream and the work done on it was transformative. It made me feel loved and cared for, which is something I'm not exactly accustomed to. I hope all who read this is reminded of a deep and connecting lovely dream of his or her own.

I reside in a big apartment, in a nice building in a city, upper floor. I notice shiny brass plates at the downstairs front entrance. The rent is great - pretty extraordinary actually, for such a lovely apartment. There are many windows directed toward the heavens, I can see dark sky and stars through them.

I'm separating my clothing from my ex-bf's clothing. Then shift to having a phone conversation with a girl whose mother is the landlady of this apartment. The girl is angry with me, like I missed an appointment. The landlady has apparently been waiting downstairs for me to buzz her in.

The landlady, having come upstairs, walks through the apartment. She is lovely - refined, older, but with glowing skin. We talk about rent - I'm careful not to be too enthusiastic about how great the rent is. She asks me how I found the apartment. I say, I let X (ex-boyfriend) take care of it. She looks at me with raised eyebrow.

She asks if I mind if she digs through the cupboards. I figure she wants to inspect something so I say I don' t mind. She asks if I mind if she make pancakes. She sets up several appliances that have griddles inside. There's one pancake already made and being turned.

I thought this dream was about separating from an ex. But it was five years after the actual bust-up.

This is how some of the work on this dream went:

-At the top, the dream shows progress in that you're clearly separating your things - and taking what's yours and leaving what's not.

-The upper floor apartment with the windows pointed to the heavens was a "higher self," a spiritual self, that was actually and surprisingly within my reach. (That made me sigh with relief and with joy - whoda thunk something so wonderful could be something I could afford?)

-We focused on the landlady character: "Who in waking life is like this landlady, who makes you food, nourishing food that is also a treat?" The answer came quickly: "My grandmother" (deceased, whom I knew best of all my grandparents and whom I adored.). Things started to unfold a bit from there: "Ah, and this landlady, like my grandmother, is a mother of someone but not my mother. And the angry girl on the phone is her daughter, my mother, angry at me because I didn't treat her mother with sufficient respect."

-It seemed like the landlady character might be good to talk to, in that she was providing nourishing food in a spiritual place, so I went into the dream to talk to her. The dialog went something like this:

-Are you in the dream? Can you see the landlady? What do you see?
-Yes, she's at the elevators. It's weird, she could come up if she wanted - it's not like she's outside a locked door and needs to be buzzed in. She's the landlady - she could come into the apartment at any time - but she's waiting for me to invite her.
-Do you want to invite her up into the apartment?
-She can come up.
-You see her in the apartment?
-Yes, I can see the apartment. I can see the windows with the night sky. She hasn't started poking around yet or making pancakes.
-Is there anything you want to say to her?
At this point I start crying, as what occurred to me to say was: I love you. I think about you all the time ... well not all the time, but a lot. You're a model to me.
-What happens next?
-I move to hug her. She hugs me back. She's not as tiny as she was in life.
-What happens next?
-She tells me: I won't leave you. I'm with you always.
-Look around now, is there something you can take back with you from the dream into waking life to remind you of this connection with your grandmother?

This last part was really important - the bringing the goodness of the dream into waking life. I think that at the time I put photos and belongings of my grandmother up into clearer view so I could think about her and the dream where she glowed and made me special pancakes, just like she did when I was little.