Defiant Wisdom

Category: Dreamwork

Narratives shaped by dreams — unpacking symbolism, subconscious patterns, emotional truth, and inner shifts through the dream state.

  • Sowing Meadowsweet

    Sowing Meadowsweet

    The Dream

    Darkness.
    Soil.
    Meadowsweet
    seeds.
    I scatter them
    lightly
    across
    the mound.

    A flowerbed
    prepared,
    or is this
    a fresh new
    grave?
    I never
    could
    tell.

    The Meaning

    sowing seeds
    The intention is growth—something new taking root.

    grave/flowerbed
    But the ground is uncertain.
    Am I planting into rich compost,
    or laying life into rot?

    What Lingers…

    What if growth and grief share the same soil—and the only difference is what’s acknowledged?

    What if the act of planting is enough, even if the ground only knows loss?

    Marginalia

    This is the second time I’ve dreamed of seeds and graves. In Poppy Seeds in a Rush of Yes, I was eager to buy seeds. In The Body in the Greenhouse, I drew attention to the secret buried in foundations meant for nourishment.

    Here, I’ don’t know’m unaware of what I’m planting into — but I seed with the intention that my efforts will bring a positive reward.

    Around this time, I’d gathered some wild Meadowsweet seeds but they never made it to my garden. Instead, they were forgotten in a pocket and sent through the wash. The powdery scent lingered on the clothes as I pulled them from the machine.

    I didn’t know until afterwards that Meadowsweet has been linked with burial rituals since the Bronze Age; its scent is believed to have helped mask the decay of the cadaver.

    But for the moment, it seems Meadowsweet isn’t mine to work with. I missed the blooms and lost the seeds but I trust she’ll return to me to when the time is right.

  • No Balustrade, No Friend

    No Balustrade, No Friend

    The Dream

    Work.
    I’m reprimanded
    for smoking
    in the office.

    College.
    Preparing
    to move class.

    Tardy.
    My friend
    leaves
    without me.

    Lost.
    The staircase
    has no
    balustrade.

    Vertigo.
    I grip
    the floor,
    in terror.

    The Meaning

    smoking
    Old habits resurfacing. Resistance to letting go.

    college
    A new environment without support. I thought I had backup—turns out it’s just me.

    stairs
    The climb is there, but fear of the unknown environment paralyses me. A crisis of confidence exposed.

    What Lingers…

    What if authenticity invites distance from those no longer aligned?

    What if the real vertigo comes not from the world outside—but from within?

    Marginalia

    This is another dream cycle where my subconscious presents an arc, then throws a curve ball at the end to help me process fear.

    In The Attic, the Shite, and the Kettle, I’m given gifts of terracotta.
    In We’ve Met Before, I’m introduced to the stability that comes from spirits choosing to meet across multiple lives.

    But here, I’m faced with abandonment for being tardy — not self-abandonment like in I Was Late, After All, but rejected by a friend.

    The fear that we’ll be abandoned for being exactly who we are is something I’m sure that many of us face. Every day, we scramble to align ourselves with what’s acceptable, with what’s expected.

  • We’ve Met Before

    We’ve Met Before

    The Dream

    Have you seen the photo?
    They asked.
    It was me
    my family,

    my partner 
    and his family.

    We were children.

    Didn’t you realise
    you’ve met
    each other 
    Before?

    The Meaning

    A hidden history surfaces.
    Our lives crossed long before we were aware.
    It changes the story—what feels new now carries suggestions of an older thread.
    The present isn’t starting fresh; it’s picking up where something once left off.

    What Lingers…

    What if the present isn’t a beginning, but a continuation of a past we just forgot to remember?

    What if the threads we call coincidence are roots, winding back through time?

    Marginalia

    I don’t think it’s unusual to believe that families and friends find each other again in their “next lives.” This dream didn’t just make me feel that’s possible—it shifted something in me. A sense that my partner and I may have chosen to meet again. It gives our relationship a depth that feels steady and secure, as though our story has been woven before, and is still unfolding.

    This dream also marked a pause in my nocturnal downloads— as if there was already enough to process in waking life without transmitting more.

  • Not My Dream

    Not My Dream

    The Dream

    My son,
    on fire.

    I ran,
    threw a blanket,
    pushed him
    to the floor.

    I soaked
    his body
    in cold
    water,

    over
    and over
    again.

    I didn’t
    scream.

    I didn’t
    panic.

    I just knew
    what I needed
    to
    do.

    The Meaning

    Crisis overrides emotion.
    No time to feel—only to act.

    What Lingers…

    What if, in a crisis, emotion is an unaffordable indulgence?

    What if real strength moves silently—and without ceremony?

    Marginalia

    My elderly dad has fallen and is still in recovery.
    I don’t think this dream belongs to me—I think it belongs to my mother.

    I asked her how she feels,
    but she always puts Dad’s needs first.

    Now I understand why.

  • The Monster Inside

    The Monster Inside

    The Dream

    Family gathering, extended.
    I said goodnight.
    No one answered.

    I shouted it louder.

    Silence.

    I asked one of them,
    “What’s your problem?”
    “You’re a mess in skin.
    I don’t like you.”

    They couldn’t explain why.
    They’d just decided.

    I pleaded with my parents,
    my cousin:
    “Are you gonna let them
    get away with this?”

    Silence.

    I raged.
    I smashed things.
    I hit them.
    I threatened:
    “If you ever
    invite them again,
    I will cut you
    off.”

    They’d proved
    their point.

    I walked away.
    A mess
    behind me.

    I boarded
    a boat
    in a wetsuit.
    I was off
    to meet friends.

    I felt a fraud.
    I had a monster
    inside.

    The Meaning

    The social exile that happens in families— not for what you’ve done, but for what you represent.

    Erasure is harm. Silence is a weapon. And it’s complicit.

    The desperation to be witnessed. The rage that erupts when you’re made invisible— and somehow you’re the problem?

    I didn’t cause the wound. But I raged.
    And that gave them their proof.

    Now I walk away with the shame.
    Am I the monster, because I roared at those who poked me?

    What Lingers?…

    What if monster is just the name given to anyone who finally roars?

    What if invalidation wounds louder than anger ever could?

    Marginalia

    This dream takes me closer to the bone than My Breast and the Boy, where I was only the witness. Now I’m in the front-row seat of my own mess — and there’s no escaping my humanness again. Much like Flawed but Trying: When triggered, I roar.

    The work I’ve done on my astrological ancestry gives me a sense of where this originated, and why it’s been passed to me — to rage on behalf of ancestors who couldn’t. I’m not shirking responsibility for my own actions. I’m just learning that What I Carry Isn’t All Mine.

  • Misogyny at the Water Park

    Misogyny at the Water Park

    The Dream

    The water park—
    a woman sliding with joy,
    wild and fearless.
    A guy started,
    “Excuse me, you need to—”
    Before he finished, she shot back:
    “Your words have misogynist intent.”
    Then she yeeted herself
    down the slide,
    super fast.
    I followed.

    As we rose from the water,
    I asked,
    “If I said or felt the same as him,
    would you say my misogyny is
    internalised?”
    “Yes…” she replied.

    —

    I was waiting in a queue;
    a woman cut in front.
    She had the audacity to whine
    my umbrella had sprayed her.
    When we arrived at the desk,
    I said,
    loudly:
    “Actually, I’m next —
    this woman jumped in front
    and now has the cheek to complain.”
    The attendant said nothing.
    Both she and I —
    we were told to wait.

    The attendant said,
    “Get your shoes and socks on —
    we’re going to abseil.”

    We were ecstatic.

    —

    I met with a friend.
    They were telling me
    about their new partner,
    but still obsessed with their ex.
    “Let me know
    when you want to face
    the hard truth.”

    She was silent.
    No one ever wants hard truth,
    I thought.
    But I do.
    It’s where the honey is,
    right at the centre
    of the bee hive.

    The Meaning

    woman
    Policed for being free and having fun,
    this woman lives her life out loud and refuses to conform to cultural expectations.
    I’m not leading — I’m following —
    while also questioning my own internalised boundaries.

    attacking from the victim position
    Here we have the abuser playing the victim —
    and me calling it out.
    And what do we both get?
    Silence. Stagnation. The waiting room of consequence.
    Polite society doesn’t want truth—it wants compliance.
    Even when you’re right, you’re a problem

    descent
    Now we’re invited into a structured descent,
    a contrast to the earlier one of chaotic abandon.
    The fact that both the perpetrator and I — the victim —
    have been invited suggests this:
    the woman is a part of me.
    A part that has played (or can play)
    into the DARVO dynamic:
    Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
    I see all of these women as aspects of myself.

    the truth
    I’m waiting for my friend to open space for growth, she blinks, she doesn’t want to hear it but I know this is where healing and growth resides.

    What Lingers…

    What if joy didn’t need internal policing to be permitted?

    What if truth-telling wasn’t punished, but welcomed as a catalyst for change?

    Marginalia

    I’m on holiday and I’ve just written Baked In. This is my subconscious exploring the themes I confronted in there only a few days prior.

  • Appearance Isn’t Identity

    Appearance Isn’t Identity

    The Dream

    A clan of mystics
    and various spiritual misfits.
    They said I should choose
    my witch name.
    I told her,
    “I’m not a witch,
    and I push back on that term.
    It’s nothing but misogyny.”

    Thinking of my name—
    what name
    would best express
    me becoming
    who I am?

    Their names
    sounded like Pokémon characters,
    their attire,
    like fantasy avatars.

    But I’m just me,
    I thought.

    —

    On the phone,
    someone offered to pay
    for me to stay at home and study.
    I never responded,
    my partner was standing next to me.
    When I started to speak,
    the person hung up.

    —

    My mother sat down.
    Frail.
    I looked down upon her.
    She should have been tall
    and strong—
    but her mother-line
    had starved her
    of who she was meant
    to become.

    Then it dawned on me:
    maybe the woman
    she thought was her mother
    wasn’t her mother
    after all?

    The Meaning

    the group
    I want to belong but to something real not projected.
    I’m me, that’s enough.

    phone call
    Scared of fully embracing an opportunity.
    I’m afraid to offend or alienate my partner.
    A lost chance if not seized when offered.

    mother
    The maternal line stripped of power and truth.
    What if the whole foundation was fiction?

    What Lingers…

    What if belonging didn’t need a costume or the right label to count?

    What if naming only heals when it honours what was erased, not what was performed?

    Marginalia

    This dream can be taken literally, but for me it feels inseparable from my ancestry and my mother’s ability to pass as white — how that meant acceptance in ways that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. I’m not about to negate for one hot minute how that speaks, not just to colour but to gender also. I wish it wasn’t so.

    In my dream, I ask: Aren’t I enough?
    Can’t I just be enough as I am—
    without the aesthetic trappings,
    without the cost of approval?

    I talk more about my maternal ancestry in It Began with a Name.

  • My Breast and the Boy

    My Breast and the Boy

    The Dream

    My right breast—
    full and spraying milk.
    But the left—
    barren.
    I was trying
    desperately
    to get it to flow.

    —

    On the bus—
    a boy,
    about twenty,
    with severe learning
    difficulties.
    He was chewing
    a plastic penis toy.

    I was horrified.

    His parents said
    he had loads.
    He loved them.

    My partner spoke about the boy
    and touched his face.
    I chided him:
    “He’s a human being.
    You wouldn’t treat anyone else like that.
    Talk to him—
    not about him.”

    The Meaning

    breasts
    Apparently, the right side of the body is the side that gives, nurtures, expresses, and releases.
    I’m giving in abundance, maybe too much, without boundaries.
    The left breast, the side of receiving, is dry — not producing.
    There’s an imbalance: too much outflow, not enough return. I’m desperate to balance it out.

    disabled boy
    This is about what families normalise. How love and denial can become entangled. I’m disturbed—not by him, but by how easily his pain is dismissed as “preference.”
    He’s not a curiosity.
    He’s a person.

    partner
    I chastise him.
    Even in the dream, I’m holding a boundary.
    This is a human being — he deserves dignity, not pity or performative empathy.
    Talk to him, not about him.

    What Lingers…

    What if over-giving is just grief in disguise, trying to fill what won’t flow back?

    What if calling something love is just denial, when it refuses to witness what’s too difficult to hold?

    Marginalia

    In waking life, I’m on holiday, enjoying my family and our time together. I’m also in the middle of pursuing an NHS assessment for neurodiversity. This dream spits back everything I’ve been wrestling with—rendered absurd, to shock and confront. It revisits the feelings explored in Pedalling While They Take the Bus, Walking Away with the Door Still Open, and Sunsets and Nervous Men. In those dreams, I moved through an arc that ended with protecting my peace by walking away from holding space. Here, the fear returns—but as with the herb school arc which completed with Flawed but Trying, it doesn’t get easier. The work is entering a harder terrain.

  • Flawed but Trying

    Flawed but Trying

    The Dream

    Herb school
    I was with my son.
    He was upset —
    someone had excluded him.

    I found the woman
    nestled with her daughter.
    I struck her,
    and threatened her:
    “If she does that again,
    she’ll never forget it.”

    “How do you think he feels?
    How would you feel
    if I did that to yours?
    The world’s shit enough
    without this too.”

    She apologised,
    thanked me.

    I shouted to her
    in the distance:
    “How I do things
    isn’t always great —
    but I’m trying
    to do
    the right thing.”

    The Meaning

    hitting the woman
    My instinct to protect is clean.
    But my execution? Messy.
    I acted from truth, but with force. And I know it.

    I don’t defend
    I confess
    I make a commitment

    I showed up flawed, and still chose protection over politeness.

    What Lingers…

    What if doing the right thing doesn’t always look good?

    What if protection costs clarity—but still matters more than politeness?

    Marginalia

    This is the last in a series of dreams set in my new learning environment, which I begin in a few weeks. What’s surprising is that this dream is the most raw and confronting in the series.

    In Incense Blocks & Period Costumes, I weigh old ways against new.
    In Fireweed and Bunny Munro, I’m lost but eager to learn.
    In Competence vs. Compassion, profiled by my tutors, I revisit old wounds.
    In I Was Late, Afterall, I abandon my own needs for accountability.

    Here, I’m left to acknowledge my shadow as I lash out in defence of my son. My dream shows me: I am a flawed human.
    I will always be.
    Just like everyone else.

    The belief that we stand above animal instinct is revealed as a fragile illusion.

  • I Was Late, After All

    I Was Late, After All

    The Dream

    Late for herb school.
    Distracted —
    flirting with someone.

    When I arrive,
    they’re in the middle of a demonstration.

    I think,
    I’ll never remember this.
    I’m a kinaesthetic learner.

    I consider asking
    if I can do the practical demo,
    but think better of it…
    I was late, after all.

    The Meaning

    consequences
    I make myself small in the name of accountability—
    but it’s not growth. It’s self-abandonment.
    No one else said I couldn’t participate.
    I decided that on their behalf.

    What Lingers…

    What if accountability becomes self-abandonment when need is mistaken for indulgence?

    What if exclusion is sometimes internalised?

    Marginalia

    I’m waiting to begin a new herbal medicine course. This dream circles the theme of lateness—a fear that’s followed me as I step into a new path, midlife. It’s the fourth in a series of dreams set in this new landscape.

    In Incense Blocks & Period Costumes, I weigh old ways against new.
    In Fireweed and Bunny Munro, I’m lost but eager to learn.
    In Competence vs. Compassion, profiled by my tutors, I revisit old wounds.
    In Flawed but Trying, I’m exposed in my messiness as a human while defending my son.

    The series shows me what I’m processing beneath the surface—not as a tidy narrative arc, but as dreams do: replaying and reshaping old struggles until they edge further out of shadows.