“What did you learn about relationships?” asked an old boyfriend, hoping to rekindle our own long-lost love. He and I had just returned from a road trip, as two separate passengers in someone else’s vehicle.
“I learned that everything mirrors us,” I said with a shrug, then realized he might have misunderstood my words. He might have assumed I meant mimicry. “We respond to our surroundings,” I went on, to sweep away any confusion, “whether it’s another person, or . . . anything . . . animal, vegetable, mineral, we have a response. And if that response is strong enough to get our attention, then we can ask, ‘What does this response tell me about myself?’ So, any relationship acts as a mirror, and like a mirror, it reflects; it reveals the person looking into it.”
At this point, the old boyfriend went off on a religious tangent, turning my words, which to me had nothing to do with religion, into support for Christian agape.
“Oh, that’s right,” I thought, suddenly remembering. “He’s been ‘born again.’ His interpretation was colored by his own primary focus and took my words in a direction I’d never intended. It must follow then that, not only do all relationships act as mirrors, each person invariably translates someone else’s words into his own ‘language du jour,’ so that whatever happens to be foremost in a person’s mind, at any given moment, becomes the lens through which all is perceived.”
By handing me this morsel of truth, my dream helps to illuminate the limitations of language. Can one person truly understand another? As the dream illustrates, though both people might speak English, they often lack a common intrinsic language, without which understanding will generally fall short. If one says, “Red,” for example, what is the likelihood that the other will picture an identical shade of red? The best each can hope to attain is an approximation.
Often, when a person feels misunderstood, his face flushes, his heart beats faster, he begins to feel that he must make his point—or else. This is when tempers flare, and fists begin to fly. One person is angry with another for thwarting his needs. But when I accept the premise that you and I have a different intrinsic tongue, I no longer can fault you for misinterpreting my well-chosen words. They are simply not within your private vocabulary. Neither need I feel foolish for not comprehending your phraseology. By accepting this premise, I no longer look to you for that form of validation. I know that you cannot possibly supply it, and therefore, I do not expect that of you. When I no longer have expectations of you, you cannot NOT meet my needs, and I have no reason for anger.
By focusing my attention on the limitations of language, the dream reveals how and why people often misunderstand one another. It also helps me to understand my feelings of being most alone in the midst of a crowd and to accept my subsequent desire for solitude, which is in opposition to the prevailing theory of psychological experts that a life well-lived should be filled with many social contacts.
In another recent dream, which addressed this same issue, I’d been cast as the lead in a play, which took place, in its entirety, at a party. After rehearsing one of the scenes, I explained to an observer why, out of all the people auditioning for the lead, I was cast. “It wasn’t necessarily because I was a better actor,” I said. “It was an expression I allowed to pass over my face. As I stood alone center stage, amid the party clinks and chatter, I looked around at all the others, clumped in their tiny groups, dotting the perimeter, and I let a look of sadness flick across my face—not sadness for myself, for being alone. My sorrow was for the others, who were expending so much energy relating, but without any real connection. All their energy was going out, but nothing was coming back in, because that inward flow of energy only comes from connection, and there was none. That’s why I was given the lead—because I understood the character—and none of the others did.”
With a newfound "comprehension" aspect of understanding—regarding the fallibility of outer connection, as illuminated within my dreams—I begin to realize I must take greater responsibility for filling my own needs. When my fulfillment no longer depends upon others, a benevolent attitude descends. I become far more accepting of shortcomings. My irritation level is lowered, and I can walk in peace toward the "state of cooperation" aspect of understanding, within which resides agape.
posted by MMXII1221
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posted by MsTick1
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