Ep. 2 “Mystery Beneath the Ice” — Year of the Girl Moss | Part I
There’s a way to use dream content and a way to utilize and be creative with all dream content, because all dream content has energy for us to utilize. So whether or not any of this is like can be proven to be true, I think the more important part is, there’s energy that we can utilize in a positive way and be creative with and use to our advantage and the advantage of to help other people also and ourselves. You can try it out or not, it doesn’t have to be a belief system, it can be experimental, something to experiment for oneself.
SHER: So last night, I actually had a dream that was ice related. It felt like it was connected to the fact that I was taking notes on the dream last night.
MICHAELA: Perfect.
SHER: And there was also melted ice. It just felt like what you said last time… it [my dream] was allowing me to experience it [message of dream in focus] myself, in my own personal context to understand this dream better.
MICHAELA: Wow, that’s awesome. I can’t wait to hear your dream. Let’s read the first dream and then have it follow with your dream.
SHER: This one is called “Mystery Beneath the Ice.”
I was in a world that I considered to be something like Antarctica, or the North Pole, completely ice and Glacier covered. I was there with a group of friends. And it almost felt like we were on a field trip. And I was trying to keep up with everyone.
That’s when I noticed that the ice began to melt in certain places. And beneath the ice were these massive ferns the size of huge treats. Turns out the world beneath the ice was actually a world of tropical ferns and moss. And then from this Moss came these moths creatures. They’re almost like Bigfoot creatures covered in moths. I was pretty stressed about them. Something wasn’t right. I felt like they were watching me. Nobody else seemed to notice the phenomenon. I was woken up suddenly, in the midst of my suspicion.
The feeling upon waking. I felt intrigued, curious, and like I missed out on my chance to find out what was going on. Something felt familiar, strangely real, like I uncovered a cosmic secret.
Future check: It may be possible that I uncover some weird anomaly, or who knows?
Background context: This feeling of needing to keep up with everyone. It could be related to me feeling like life has been moving quickly with little downtime. I can’t remember particular faces at this time. But it felt like my general community was present. Feeling like I was noticing something out of the ordinary is common for me.
What do I want to know? I want to know more about the moss creatures, and why something seemed off about them. I’m just interested in the symbolism as this is obviously a strange dream. Didn’t seem to have a lot of direct relation to my life. It was one of those dreams that I felt like I was in an alternate reality.
MICHAELA: Let’s hear your dream now.
SHER: Yeah, sure. Let’s see…Let me just think through. It started out where one of my friends was taking me to go ice skating.
He brought his own skates. I thought it was strange that he took me ice skating, but he brought his own skates and didn’t bring me any. So I had to wait in line at the rental area to rent a pair of ice skates. It seems like it wasn’t just an ice rink. There are many other things going on. There’s a long line and I was set aside as a low priority. The other people in line were doing things that needed to be addressed quicker than me renting ice skates.
I waited for a while. This is gonna maybe take longer than I thought; no one’s really going to help me out. And then another employee comes and then takes me around the corner to get my ice skates. So as I’m putting on my ice skates, I hurry to the outdoors where the ice rink is, and there’s an area where the ice is melted. There’s still chunks of ice. It’s clearly freezing cold, but people are swimming. There’s a swim team. It looks like they’re training and it doesn’t seem easy. Like I’m looking at them thinking that it looks tough. They were doing some serious training swimming in the icy water.
I’m walking around in the snow in my ice skates and I noticed as I’m trekking up this small hill — the surrounding area is messy; there’s a lot of people out almost like a ski resort, and there’s just chunks of snow everywhere — I notice I have a third ice skate just an extra one. I didn’t know what to do with it. And I don’t know why I was given three ice skates.
So I’m trekking along and I remember thinking the whole time I suck at ice skating like this is going to be tough. I’ve only gone ice skating once in my life. And I fell multiple times. I thought, “I’m gonna fall a lot.” So my next thought was, “Well, this is my opportunity to actually not have that be the case. Maybe I’ll do better this time. Maybe I’ll overcome the fact that I suck at ice skating, finally.” I was nervous and insecure, and felt like there was an inferiority complex happening with the person who invited me to go ice skating. In real life he is someone I feel a little intimidated by. I feel he’s smarter or ahead of me. And ice skating is one thing that I don’t feel naturally good at. Whereas I feel like I can pick up hobbies and learn things quickly. Ice skating was really tough for me. It feels very vulnerable for me. But I went in and was determined to do it anyway. I was open to the fact that it could be a better experience this time.
MICHAELA: I see a lot of connections. What was your first thought about how this connects to ‘Mystery Beneath the Ice”?
SHER: The first thing I noted was the ice. That’s the biggest theme. I mean, it’s in the title. But the biggest theme is the fact that the ice melted. And underneath was a warm, tropical, wet, fertile climate, a place that’s ripe for life and creation. So for me, it felt like the icy layers of protection around the heart around emotions. Water, of course, is emotional. So it feels like something is softening. It’s allowing for life to surface. So that was the first thing, the icy terrain in general. And she mentioned being in Antarctica. It feels like a challenge. It feels tough, like I’m going into a harsh climate. So there’s something underneath that’s coming.
MICHAELA: I would say, if it were my dream, I would start with emotion, since we’re talking about, like you said, ice and water. And that’s the main key element in this dream and your dream that you shared, and the melting and changing and evolution of that.
“I was in the world considered somebody and be an article or the north wall, completely. Ice and Glacier coupler was a group of friends.”
Trying to keep up with everyone, that’s a symbol in your dream, trying to keep up with this person who invited me here, feeling like I’m in a vulnerable place. Then the ice begins to melt in certain places. And beneath there’s these massive ferns the size of huge trees.
If it were my dream, the most basic symbolism is this “revealing” of something underneath. A lot of times water can be emotions, but also the subconscious. So if this were my dream, I’m stepping into a new phase of my life where there are new emotions that I’ve been holding, being revealed.
Holding/frozen. Things that have been in my subconscious that have not been conscious to me, not apparent to me, but that are still with me, are now being revealed at this stage in my life. Underneath, like you said, there is a world of new life, and abundant life. The ferns are the size of trees, everything’s green. There are these creatures, and something about them isn’t right. They’re watching me, and nobody else seems to notice. This is a personal phenomenon.
So the dreamer wants to know more about the moss creatures and why something seemed off about them. In dreams, the emotion of dreams is so important to note because the context alone can be deceiving. If this was the context alone, the way I read it before I thought, “Oh, this is so magical, and positive and cool,” you know, but then the feeling tag is something’s a little weird and off about them.
First of all, you can see in the dream that the emotion has a lot to do with the direction of the dream and how we would interpret it or talk about it, especially when relating it back to the dreamer. Any kind of growth and reveal of things that maybe we didn’t know were part of our lives or that we were holding on to or part of our subconscious is probably a little uncomfortable. You know?
SHER: Yeah, that came up too. I felt like there was something that maybe was just hidden for so long that now when it’s coming out with the ice melting it can feel a bit strange.
MICHAELA: The first thing the dream really reminds me of is the Ice Age.
The Ice Age was a phenomenon on Earth that occurred because we were used to being on a straight, up and down axis rotating around on a straight up and down axis to the Earth. And then the axis was tilted, knocked on its side. The axis begins to wobble, which created our seasons. Before the Ice Age, and before the seasons, all of Earth was a paradise, like the garden of Eden, where everything was temperate, like a tropical jungle.
There were no seasons, because we didn’t tilt away from the sun. Then for whatever reason, whatever caused this tilt of the axis of the Earth — some say it was a physical cataclysm or phenomenon, something hitting us. But it’s kind of a mystery.
If this were my dream, this is the first thing that comes to mind, this story of mankind, in general, is the story of all of us. There’s different accounts of this story, but the one I like the most is actually called the Bock saga. It’s from Finland. It’s like an oral tradition from Finland of the history and evolution of mankind in the world. In their oral tradition, they account for this, this cataclysm on Earth, this big change. I shouldn’t call it a cataclysm, but this huge change on Earth where the northern hemisphere suddenly became covered in ice. In their story, some people survived at the North Pole, but were cut off from the rest of the world for thousands of years.
When the Ice Age ended, they were able to cross back over into the rest of the world. But anyways, this is the first thing that comes to mind if this were my dream, the actual story of humanity and all of the world. I think there’s also more personal symbolism, but I thought I would bring that up first.
SHER: Also, you’re touching something I thought of as well, which is the moss creatures being suspicious, and you’re in a way connecting it to these people who could have survived the Ice Age. I feel as if the moss creatures could have always been there. It’s like the origin energy or entity that’s within us that we just haven’t gotten to know. They’re older than we actually believe, something that froze over so long ago that it seems foreign to us.
MICHAELA: Yes, I like that. That’s really interesting. And I believe that moss, well, one of its features for ecology is that it retains water.
It’s kind of like this big creature that’s been retaining emotions for me on my behalf. Me, as an ecology, my body, my mental sphere, my emotional sphere. This big creature that’s been retaining all of these emotions. I’m finally at this point in my life where what’s been keeping the moss creature down, keeping these emotions frozen in the subconscious, the unfeelable, undiscoverable, has dropped or melted away. The gate has been opened and this creature that’s been retaining all my emotions comes crawling out of the earth and presents itself. That can be uncomfortable.
SHER: Yes, I love that visual. You’re climbing out. It’s like sopping wet. I wrote down,
Moss is slow, soft, wet, like a tongue or snail. Moss grows where it is wet. So it’s a figure for the soft spots that have been hiding underneath the surface, like they’ve grown in an environment of their own while you’ve been away, or maybe they’ve always been there. And these new groups of people could motivate you that way. Maybe this new environment is touching soft spots, forgotten hidden spots.
MICHAELA: That’s beautiful. I love that. That’s so nice.
SHER: I wanted to touch that. I don’t know if you’re moving into it, but you mentioned seasons. I’ve never heard about the axis shift creating the seasons…
MICHAELA: Oh, really? Like the tilt?
SHER: No, I think that’s so cool. Showing that off-kilter imbalance created, like the fall from Eden as they would say.
MICHAELA: Yeah, it definitely ties in from that. I mean, it makes the dream universal. If it were my dream, I would say it could relate to my life right now. It’s also like such a universal thing. It’s like the evolution of everyone’s life where the farther we go, the more is revealed and uncovered and the more we grow and evolve, there are more things we have to and are more ready to face.
Dreams only give us things that we are ready to look at. Dreams always give us things that we’re ready to confront, in the right dose at the right time, which is why I think they’re so cool as a technology. Something that’s even a little uncomfortable, is also something that we can handle. I mean, if they were my dream, and we were live [at a dream sharing circle] right now, I would say instant dream journey. This dream really calls for a dream re-entry. With the way she woke up. Suddenly the dream is unfinished, you know? And she even said that.
What did she say? She said “I missed out on my chance to find out what was going on.”
“I felt intrigued, curious and like I missed out on my chance to find out what was going on. Something felt familiar, strangely real. Like I uncovered a cosmic secret.”
We can interpret it as much as we want, but to really uncover the meaning of the dream as a dreamer, I would say you would need to re-enter it. A lot of the time, the message of the dream is within the dream itself, especially if it’s cut short. If it’s cut short and hasn’t really ended, we have to go back in and end it.
We’re using the lightning dream work, which was created by Robert Moss. So, of course, I had to take out one of his books from my shelf. I opened it before this for the dream and I opened to the page: “Instructions for Journey”
It has instructions for reentering the dream. I was like yep, exactly.
SHER: How would you guide someone to re-enter their dream in this case?
MICHAELA: I mean, it can be easy, it can be as easy as closing your eyes and letting yourself slip back into the dream. It really is that simple. It can be as elaborate as creating a space and calling in protection and lighting a candle. Clearing the mind, breathing, closing our eyes and entering back in with sounds, like drumming. I use shamanic drumming.
It really doesn’t have to be an accomplishment. It can be as simple as closing one’s eyes and going back in. We’re using our active imagination to re-enter the dream space consciously and bridge the gap. Make a land bridge — so to speak — between. The waking consciousness and dreaming consciousness. We enter back into our dream space with our waking consciousness with an intention in mind and an initial action. So the intention could be:
“I want to ask them as creatures who they are; what do they represent? Can they show me something? Are they a part of me?”
Whatever the dreamer would want to do.
SHER: Yeah, I’d like that. Because I was gonna say when you go in, you know, maybe people don’t have that natural inclination of curiosity like, Well, what do I do now? What do I do as I reenter the dream? You answered that with that we must have an intention, and bring questions, especially for the parts you’re curious about.
MICHAELA: Definitely have an intention and an initial action. The intention here could be, “I want to know more about the moss creatures,” and the initial action would be, “I’m going to turn around and ask them, ‘Who are you?’”
There can be an icebreaker, so to speak, a breaking of the ice between the imagination and the conscious self who likes to inundate our imagination with doubt, resistance, and fear. In my experience, you give a little and you get a little. It’s kind of like this dance that comes about. And within that, there’s always a time when something happens, and you’re like, okay, I definitely didn’t make that one up.
SHER: When I was looking into moss — I have this symbols book. It’s like a dictionary, but for symbols. I tried to look for moss and it wasn’t there, so the next best thing was green. It’s what you think of with moss, the vibrant green, the fact that there’s greenery coming underneath the ice. It says,
“Green is a color combination of blue and yellow, but takes part with red in this symbolic interplay of alternation. Roses blossom between green leaves, and set midway between the inaccessible absolutes of the blue of Heaven and the red of hell. Green with its middling quality mediates between heat and cold, and high and low.”
I thought that was relevant, because we are setting up heat and ice here.
MICHAELA: Yeah, totally. And I believe Green is the color of the heart center. Which again, ties back into the symbolic representation, how this dream would be seen symbolically if we relate water and ice to emotions, with green as the heart center.
I love how you described moss as being very soft. Soft and comfortable. It’s like a little pillow. It creates a little habitat for small creatures. It is really beautiful. I live in a forest and right now it’s winter and all the leaves are gone. Moss is the only green in the forest right now. It is this symbol of life in the winter.
SHER: It does provide comfort. You’d sleep on a bed of moss.
I took a picture of a set of bumper stickers that I had found earlier this year. It’s a picture of a girl wrapped in moss and it says, “I’d rather be consumed by moss.” I’ve been noticing these memes too, where people are talking about how it’s no longer about being a boss girl or girlboss. It’s more of trying to be a moss girl. It’s like advocating for the slowness and comfort versus tough, fighting terrain of the world.
MICHAELA: Oh yes. That is a perfect symbol for this dream. It’s a perfect motto and it really ties in and makes a lot of sense with the other feelings around the dream, specifically how she said that she was trying to keep up with everyone.
She’s trying to keep up with everyone, which, like you said, ties into the girl boss thing, the world of competition and trying to “be somebody” — whatever that means — as opposed to a moss girl having a soft, slow and intentional life.
I have the dream up on my screen and every time I look at it where it says “the dream didn’t seemingly have a lot of direct relation to my life.” But I keep on reading it like “I don’t have a lot of direction in my life.” Obviously, that’s a projection onto the dreamer, so if that doesn’t relate to her then she can throw it out for sure but my eyes keep seeing that, and I keep having to correct myself. It ties back into the other themes, the other emotional themes in this dream and in your dream.
If it were my dream, I would relate this to my life right now in this way:
I was sick for a little while, and I went into hibernation for a few weeks. It felt like the winter, the ice, the frozen place… and when I came out there was a huge change of heart I had towards a lot of things in my life. I was frozen, and I came out with a change of heart, and the change has to do with my pace of life, and sense of direction. If this were my dream, it would tie into that pretty well. With dreams in general, creatures and entities that come out, especially with this one where it is very earthy and is the color of the heart center, it’s soft and has this off-feeling about it… it’s usually an indication of something I’m ready to face, and once I do it will be a very positive experience.
SHER: It feels that ‘new life’ is the theme. The awakening of spring, coming out of the winter, coming out of that slow cold, that stagnant state to breathing in new life. It feels like entering a new chapter. On many levels that can feel exciting and at the same time it can feel strange… Some people prefer the slowness and stagnancy of winter. In some ways we want to stay in that, or it’s our comfort zone. We say that we can’t or that it seems too uncomfortable.
Thinking back to my dream, I’m looking at the people in the ice and the water in a way where I feel they’re doing something I’m not capable of doing. It seems difficult or tough.
MICHAELA: I might even say that the tough part is over.
