When working out my dream problems, I avoid easy "flick-a-switch" solutions...

If I'm being chased by thugs, does sprouting wings and flying away really help me with the situation?...I need to work the problem out within the context of the dream scenario...

Consider this dream:

I'm standing alone at a city street corner, waiting for a public bus.

Three buses, each one stuffed with passengers, pass without stopping.

Well, the problem would seem to be that the buses are packed; they won't stop because they can't hold another passenger--namely me.

But was that really the problem?  After all, it was surely only a matter of time before a bus--one with enough room for me--would arrive.

However, I was getting a little irritated standing there on the corner.  I kept looking down the street, hoping to see a bus.  Just standing--waiting, looking and hoping.

I didn't understand the symbology of the dream: what did those packed buses represent?  What in my waking life was I waiting for?  I wasn't absolutely sure.

I believe dreams never tell us what we already know. That's one reason interpretation can be so difficult.

Well, whatever I was waiting on, there wasn't much I could do about the situation at the moment.  However, the waiting time didn't have to be empty time, idle time.  There was plenty I could do.  Read a book.  Take stock of my surroundings.  See what I could see and learn what I could learn.

Though I wasn't able to decipher all its symbols, I gained enough from working on this dream--from working on the dream problem--to make some changes in my waking life.

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