Singing My Way to My Stolen Car; A Prospective Dream

Over many years I have had and heard of numerous dreams about cars, taking place in cars, around cars and parking lots, cars with flat tires, cars going too fast or backwards, flying cars, wrecked cars, and on and on. Because so much of contemporary life depends on cars as the major means of transportations, it isn’t surprising that we frequently dream of them. In some cases they can even stand for the condition of the body, but often they allude to our movement, our modus operandi or particularly established method of getting around in life. We often ask “how’s it going?” In other words, our lives are often about movement, we move towards our goals, or we get stuck and encounter obstacles. Perhaps you’ve had such a dream.

The other night I dreamt my car was stolen. Because the dream is populated with several different friends of mine from different walks of life, all together at a social event, I’ll quote my whole recording of the dream:

Someone has stolen my car. My blue Toyota was parked at my friend Janet’s house where there is a party. The house looks like the home I lived years ago. Everyone is looking for my car. Amanda comes over with her boyfriend and both of Janet’s men, Ron and Dan are there (Dan is actually her husband who, in reality, has passed over). I have to get to a teaching job at the art school and I’m thinking I’ll have to take a bus. Someone finds a set of keys but they belong to Amanda. Another friend, Carlie, is with a girl who has a beautiful voice, she is singing. They want me to sing with them but I don’t want to since I’m preoccupied with finding my car. I’m thinking I’ll just have to report the car gone and deal with it.

On the surface the dream is saying that I have no current means of transportation and it will take me considerably longer to get to the next place I want to go. But as I thought about the dream I see it was presenting me with some encouragement and an idea. Dreams that suggest which way one might go in the future are called "prospective" or future-oriented. In this case the particular car is a blue Toyota I had about fifteen years ago, so I would ask myself how I am moving in my life that might resemble the way I was moving at that time in my life. In fact I was quite over-burdened with work in the years I owned that car. I was teaching an overload of courses at several colleges trying to make ends meet. Currently, I am still scrambling for funds and to some extent I am occasionally feeling burdened because I am in charge of my elderly mother’s dementia care. I don’t feel I can move around as easily because I am living with my mother and to go away means I need to pay extra for her help as she can’t be alone.(My mother is a special case because she tries to walk and can't remember she can't walk and she would be constantly at risk in a nursing home where a "seat-belt" or restraint is outlawed.)

The dream also takes place in a house I no longer live in, and it is one I lived in for a period when I felt somewhat “trapped." It’s true that many good times took place in that home yet it also symbolized a time-span when I was inhibited and did not feel free to fully express myself as a writer. So the dream resonates with the theme of being unable to go where I want to go.

Yet dreams are always paradoxical and this one proves to be so in that the house belongs to my friend Janet and her two men. In actuality one of those men has passed on. Perhaps they are both there because there is no partner in my life right now and I would like to have one. I do have a man who is “dead” to me, and it may be that I have not fully moved on from Deadman Land as I haven't been pursuing another relationship. But I certainly would like to find a man like Janet’s current man who is a wonderful person and extremely devoted to her.

Admittedly, I also see similarities between my “dead” man and Janet’s passed-on husband. Another polarity in the dream could be the car that could help me travel and the car that I have been robbed of. The question comes up: who has actually stolen the car? That unnamed person is also an aspect of me and it could refer not to a human person but a fear or negative habit I may have, let’s say being afraid of dating, or self-criticism, for example. Surely no one else is responsible for the stolen car but me.

Interestingly someone at the party who is helping to look for my car has found Amanda’s keys. I must think now about the Amanda aspects of myself and I come up with the most recent fact I know about Amanda which is that she is in a new relationship. Wouldn’t I like to have Amanda’s keys! Yes, but the wish is still quite unconscious, as I am not doing much to meet a new partner.

So the dream appears to be about my relationship-loneliness or longing, and how I am not only not moving in that direction, but I don’t even have the means of moving toward that kind of fulfillment. The dreams seems to be saying I’ve car-jacked my own relationship possibilities. And why? Well, again the feeling of the burden comes up. How am I limiting myself from finding a relationship? The truth is I do go out though I am not actively social. I go to spiritual and networking events where I can improve myself and/or my online services, but perhaps because I am still not feeling “rooted” in my living situation, I don’t reach out as much as I could.

In the dream I am going to teach at the Art school. I used to teach at Massachusetts College of Art but because dreams are seldom about their surface meanings, I think this suggestion has more to do with my teaching spirituality in poetry. I have designed a course on spiritual poets including Rumi, Hafiz and Tagore, older masters of the tradition as well as some contemporary poets.

The dream appears to encourage me to find students for this course and perhaps I really should be doing more to “move” in that direction. The dream leads me to the idea of an online webinar or teleclass I could possibly organize. The dream states since I don’t have a car to get there, I am going to use more time and a slower traveling means if I have to get there by bus. (Maybe I should “get a wiggle on” as my mother used to say . . .)

The end of the dream is provocative in that I am asked to “sing” with my friend and her friend who has a beautiful voice. What projections have I put onto them? (I’m always thrilled when a positive shadow figure shows up in a dream, telling me I have more potential in my unconscious that I could put to use.) Well, indeed, Carlie is in a steady relationship and has some newfound joy in her life. It’s also true that in what we call the “real” world, Carlie sings in a choral society. When I ask myself what it means to sing, I think of joy, and a choir and choral singing seem specifically sacred to me.

And yes, I consider myself on a spiritual jou
ey at this phase of my life. The question the dream raises is: can I sing myself into finding my car? Will the singing be the means to move me forward into relationship and more fulfillment? A quote comes to mind by the renowned spiritual poet Rabindranath Tagore: “God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing.” The dream is offering me a suggestion to take some action in this direction.