tarot dream

[isthmus nekoi]

I thought this was a little strange:

I'm in an elevator w/a friend from my art class. It's all wood panelled and the like - a fancy hotel elevator. The only difference is instead of floors, we have tarot cards and instead of little #s lighting up, it's panels w/tarot cards in really dense, art nouveau/marseilles style. We're going up and I'm thinking, all these floors/cards are pretty heavy. Either the highest floor is 7 (Chariot) or the 7 button has been pressed, and I don't want to go to the chariot floor, so I press 5 (Hierophant). Actually, I don't know why I was so averse to 7 in this dream. The card I have real problems w/is Justice. Anyways, the doors open and the H floor is like a cross between the lobby of a swanky hotel and the interior of an old university building. B/c we are on the H floor, I suspect we are in a school of sorts. At this point, I think - oh darn! School! It occurs to me that a 6 (Lovers) floor wouldn't have been so bad, but the thought passes ^_~

We travel into this room where there are a whole bunch of very large aquariums. In one, a fist sized fish is forcing a fish-sized man to swim. I think the fish has the man on a fishing line or something. In the other there were bright coloured fish, but I forget what they were doing. In the third tank, little finger sized fish swim to the surface of the water. When their tails touch the surface, they leap out and I think: flying fish. Suddenly, the fish are larger and are all leaping one on top of the other to form pyramids. They are different sizes and colours (mostly cool, some warm purples) and the pyramids are rather shaky, so it'll fall and the fishes will jump back up. It keeps growing and the pyramids keep getting bigger/higher. At one point, I look and see all the water is gone. For some reason, this relates to the heirarchical nature of human society and the Hierophant. It made so much more sense when I was unconscious ha ha!

During all this, my friend and I are going to see a unicorn. We are going to buy food to feed it.

That's all that happened on the Hierophant floor.... It seems my unconscious has a very wacked out interpretation of the card

 

[jade]

isthmus,

how can i call you for your opinion when you posted this LOL

in light,
jade

 

[Melvis]

Was your purpose from the beginning of the dream to get food for the unicorn? Maybe your unconscious was telling you that you had some 'learning' to do on the Hierophant floor before you could complete your mission (or go up to the 7th floor, whichever was your goal).

I like when your mind made the connection between the Hierophant, the nature of hierarchical society, and the lack of water! I think that those moments in a dream where you say, "Oh, this is this way because..." are some of the most important in terms of your subconscious. Let's see, the lack of water makes 'sense' because there's no room for the fluidity of water (emotions) in a rigid hierarchy? Maybe this is what you had to learn before you could move on to the higher floors? Did it feel like the dream ended prematurely, or did you feel like you'd accomplished something in it?

And how hard it must be to make a pyramid out of fish! It's no wonder it kept falling apart!

Very interesting tarot dream, I.N.! Thanks for sharing it!

Peace,

Melvis

 

[Malachite]

Hmmm..

If the fish are taken out of the water, they are out of their natural element. To form a hierarchy, captured both in the metaphor of a pyramid, and in the idea that society is required to build such a construction, changes have to be made. This dream would suggest that these changes are taking you out of your natural zone, the water, and forcing you to be a pillar in someone else's pyramid.
This is echoed in the fish forcing the man to swim, a reversal of roles, but one which again shows that some things have their own habitats.
When the fish first leave the water, you think that they have broken free of the constraint put upon them, but their failure to build the pyramid, and continual return to the water make you think that they have failed.
The diminishing of the water, however, shows that they must learn new skills, or inevitably perish on dry land...
As a link to the V card, there is a suggestion that you are too willing to force yourself into the shape of other people's expectations of you...
However,
The quest for the unicorn is something distant that seems unachieveable, but your down-to-earth nature still remembers that even unicorns need to eat... It is also an individual quest, that sets you apart from your 'flocking' fish self, and your 'drowning man' self.

Your choice of level five is presumably deliberate. Deep down, you recognise your limitations, and a return 'to school' allows you to start fresh and work around this.
Refusing the Chariot level shows that you are unwilling to make a quick decision about whatever issues are bothering you, and would rather take the time out to ponder them (in obscure ways, apparently), before choosing a path.

btw, are you a pisces?

 

[blumoon]

i wish i had dreams like that! and if i do i wish i could remember them

heres my take on your dream...your thoughts about how you should think or act are at odds with how you feel (the aquariums) and perhaps you wish you could change your situation before life decides to step in and change it for you (floors being made of cards,the pyramid/house of fish), you are torn between wanting to and not wanting to (the chariot floor button being pressed but not wanting to go)

 

[isthmus nekoi]

Thanks everyone for your comments - it really helps to see a dream from different angles doesn't it?... Helped me clarify some thoughts.

Hierophant was always related to the animus archetype w/me, so it can be the patriarch/dominant ideology *and* the higher spiritual guide.

I've been reading a lot of poli-sci stuff on the side, and learning about civilization/prehistory so I think the aquariums represent this gradual coming to consciousness> first you have this little ego, completely absorbed and controlled by the uncon. Then you have Lacan's imaginary - that weird interspace b/w con and uncon. And then you have conciousness - the fall as it were, hierarchies, pyramids (like Egypt, built on the backs of slaves)... each time conscious constructs are destroyed/civilizations fall, only to slowly rise again in a general direction towards greater consciousness, yet at the cost of the uncon... So yes, this knowledge troubles me and I relate the inner relationship to animus w/the outer relationship to capitalism, authority, social systems etc.

I guess in a way, this speaks to a need to really understand the *system* before taking any action (7/Chariot) and the need to address the issues I have w/the dom ideo.

The unicorn - Spiritus Mercurialis - is what comes after the understanding that I need to nurture. It is the greater consciousness - the psychopompus. The interesting thing is, I was going to have *pay*to obtain food for the unicorn - capitalist/market system.

Thanks again for your responses. I don't think I'll ever look at the Hierophant the same way again!!

p.s. Malachite> I'm not a pisces, I'm a capricorn (1/2 fish!). I suppose there must be some capitalist pig in me trying to get out

 

[Malachite]

"The unicorn - Spiritus Mercurialis - is what comes after the understanding that I need to nurture. It is the greater consciousness - the psychopompus. The interesting thing is, I was going to have *pay*to obtain food for the unicorn - capitalist/market system. "

And you asked our opinions?...

 

[isthmus nekoi]

Never could have written that interpretation w/o reading everyone else's first ^_^