Tracking your inner attitude over time

An interesting thing to take note of over time, is the attitude of your dream ego – the “you” in your dreams.

There’s something unusual about this character you play in dreams – a Jungian approach would say it is one of the more unreliable characters in your dream, and can often get the picture wrong. They would say that you would look to other characters in your dreams to see what really happened, what they said, what was objectively happening outside of your perspective.

However, I have another input into the cauldron, which is that in some dreams, I feel that the “you” character gets to show you significant progress and change that has been embodied.

For example, I’ve been tracking – just in my memory – the kinds of words I speak in dreams over recent years. You may be able to recall how your communication style is in dreams, if you’re chatty, shout or yell, monologue, or engage in other communication. 

I had noticed that in my dreams there was a shift from not speaking significant or memorable lines, to being asked significant questions from important dream figures, and the watcher part of me waiting for that half second to see what I would respond with. In other words, it was a significant moment, where I did not know in advance what my dream ego would say.

It’s important because at present I consider that the dream ego will respond with the most embodied or digested (or rote) responses we have. And, in other words, if the dream ego is able to surprise us by responding to something from a more advanced or cultivated level of understanding and being, we can have a celebration that we’ve processed something big and important.

In one of my remembered dreams where this happened, after my dream ego responded and shifted my understanding of myself, my outer life started changing. I thought of myself differently, I claimed a part of myself I hadn’t claimed before.

Last night something like this happened again – my dream ego responded that I was in a position of authority, I was “one of the Captains” of the ship we were on. From knowing my previous dreamlife, I know this was a surprising and pleasing answer. I can cast my mind back to when I might have slid sideways through that answer, and redirected the conversation.

So, I’m able to track my integrated change in attitude and understanding through the responses my dream ego gives. Based on personal experience, I know my leading edge of development is in front of my dream ego, but that possibly my dream ego shows me the level at which I’m happiest/more comfortable responding at with other people in normal situations.

It’s like a little window into your development / growth / state of mind and understanding.

Can you think of where this might have happened for you?