We are in a city, looking down at the river and the bridge. It’s a suspension bridge with large cables. It’s very high above the water, and we are now entering the bridge on foot on the pathway, which is impossibly high over the water, and the bridge feels very long. As we walk, the bridge starts to have less and less pieces. We are having to leap sections that are missing, grab hand rails, and in one stage, walk a rope ladder while holding onto a cable. It is terrifying. There’s a part where we need to shimmy on our stomachs on a beam. We don’t know why we are even here, but we can’t turn back. We feel ourselves slipping on the beam and wake in fright.
Bridges can be an engineering masterpiece, and have depth to them with huge amounts of maths, physics and amazing design behind them. Bridges can also be simple, natural (a fallen log), or built by nature (branches or rocks). They usually cross water, a chasm, a gap, or a change in landscape. Some cross other parts of human landscapes such as freeways or train tracks.
Bridges are usually enabling and allow connection between people and places, and movement.
The Book of Symbols notes that bridges can also be a symbol of connecting the mundane and the divine, and that the ego will often fumble, baulk, and face challenges on the way across this symbolic bridge.
If we have a dream like this, where the experience is rather panicked, with no clear outcome, as we awake suddenly, we can bring active imagination into the picture, to pick up where the dream left off. We can even do this from a different point of view, to help us see what is going on.
As I do this activity as an example, I see: the suspension bridge is securely anchored at both ends. The river passes below, brown and slow. There is a road and a pedestrian part to the bridge. Cars pass back and forth. There are no other pedestrians. The fence for the pedestrian path seems a little low, but the path is solid. As I see in my minds eye the dream character falling and faltering on the path, a taxi driver stops, leans and calls out. He’s calling over a bit of a gap but offering help. The dream ego is in a state of panic and doesn’t hear. A plane passes overhead and casts a shadow. The dream ego loses their grip on a rail in fright and falls to the footpath. The traffic banks up and the taxi moves on.
What I might ask myself after viewing this scene in active imagination is, where am I so focused on a worry or panic I haven’t noticed the help offered?
Where do I have such a story in my head about a situation (eg the bridge falling apart), that I fail to see the reality more clearly? (Eg that the pathway is fine)
How could I bring myself back to centre, calm, and clear observation of the world around me?
These questions are a point where you now have direction, and a little more calm. From not having too many clues from inside a dream, or a visible solution or advice, we have been able to extrapolate through active imagination, putting ourselves back in the dream in a neutral observer’s way, and been able to consider some questions to help us self reflect.
Have you used active imagination to explore your dreams? Did it allow you a new perspective or breakthrough in meaning?