DREAMCATCHER: Alex Hossack and Catherine Aubrey interpret your dreams

Calam’s Dream:

I’m back in my childhood town of High Wycombe. There were a few cobbled streets back then and I’m off down one of them for a visit to the dentist. But first I need to buy a gift for a friend, so I enter this dinky little pottery shop.

I spot a pale blue, warped vessel not unlike Salvador Dali’s spin dryer.

It has a glass window through which I see a larger metal washer, a decomposing red pepper and several other pieces of random detritus bathed in dirty reddish water that is presumably the intended artistic result of the rusting washer and the pepper.

It cost £41.95 and is perfectly horrid, however I’m pushed for time.

“We have got a much better one of these” says the assistant and leads me to a similar piece of old tat. But it’s exactly the same, albeit a rotting radish sits where the pepper sat in its companion piece.

“No, I’ll have the first one” I say, noting that I am ten minutes late for the dentist.

“Is this a birthday present?” he asks. “When is his birthday?” I answer: “Today is exactly half way between his last and his next”. I woke up.

Dream Interpretation:

The dream begins with a reminiscence of the past, searching for an explanation or an understanding of a current life problem.

He has something unpleasant to face up to but appears to be putting it off and does so by distracting himself, becoming interested in trivialities.

The trivialities represented are warped, decomposing, dirty, something surreal and distorted. In other words they represent the ’dreadful’ problem which he is searching an answer for.

The mention of reddish colours suggests the problem is causing some anger and a sense of urgency. However, he is faced with choices which are actually false choices as both objects under consideration are the same and so there is no real choice.

The dreamer is delaying making a response. It may be that time is an issue for this dreamer even though he still has time and is ‘half way’ there.  Therefore his sense of ‘lateness’ is self imposed.

An interpretation of ‘searching for a birthday gift’ points toward the dreamer searching for his once rich creative talents that have not recently been attended to. The latter suggests an attempt to search for something pleasurable. However, the descriptions of the small objects highlight a deterioration in that aspiration.

Interestingly, we have found it is not always possible to interpret your own dream, probably because it often represents the sublimation of feelings or thoughts that we are trying to avoid in our waking lives. However, with a little assistance from the dream interpreter, the symbols and themes can start to make sense and help us to move forward.

Please refer to the guidance provided to describe your dream as this will enable us to provide a full interpretation.

Guidance for the Dreamer:

• Record your dream in writing as soon as you wake up with as much detail as possible.

• First of all ask yourself who is in the dream.

• Where are you, what is happening to you and what is happening around you?

• Record how you are feeling about what you and/or others are doing.

• Are there particular symbols or objects in the dream that are unusual?

• Are there any sounds and is the dream in colour or black and white?

• Are you watching yourself in the dream or are you experiencing it first-hand ie: through your own eyes.

Alex Hossack and Catherine Aubrey are Public Service professionals with years of experience as practitioners and managers in the Criminal Justice System.