I want to share a powerful dream I had recently that did a beautiful job of illustrating how the victim mind takes over our consciousness and invokes internal terror. This dream has awakened me to a whole new level of seeing life. Perhaps you will gain something from it as well.
The dream: I was happily living with my lover in our home, which was a huge stone chamber that was perched on the side of a mountain. My home was more like a cozy cavern than a cave; it was spacious with high ceilings and lots of natural light. It was truly beautiful and comfortably decorated with large rugs and wall hangings and a huge bed in the middle of the space, overlooking the mountain view below.
My lover was a fit and handsome young man, and we were happily enjoying our time together. We were physically close and ageless, and we laughed easily together. At one point we were in the bed. He was scantily clothed and I was naked beneath the covers.
Suddenly, three big, threatening men, barged into our space and accosted my lover. They paid no attention to me at all, but they pulled him out of the bed and began to threaten and abuse him. I watched, but did not get involved. They hurled accusations at him which I knew were not true. I knew he had done nothing wrong. I did not want to reveal my nakedness so I stayed beneath the covers, observing as they brutalized my lover.
The whole time I watched them abuse him I knew they could not hurt me. Nor did I feel particularly fearful for him. On some level I understood that it was an illusion and not real and that they could not physically touch me at all …
Nonetheless, I consciously chose (and it felt distinctly like a choice) to play a part in the unfolding drama, and so I did. I took on the role of the traumatized victim. “Putting on” a glassy, unfocused gaze, as if I were in shock, I played the part of the horribly impacted victim, while, in fact, internally, I remained detached.
And then, I became my lover – I mean, I literally felt what it was to inhabit his body and feel his feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. As him, I saw myself at the mercy of the three thugs who beat me and tossed me into a deep pit made of sheer rock sides. I felt what it was, to be thrown into what I perceived to be a death trap of no escape. I was totally into the role of being him, and felt I was at the end of my life – that there was no way out.
Then I was back again in my female body, lying in my bed, surrounded by these three thugs. They taunted me and made threats, and I played the part of being a victim in shock, until I started believing the part – but not completely. During the whole time there remained a very conscious part of me that knew that nothing could really hurt me. I knew it was pretend – a charade; that in fact, I was fully protected, and thereby untouchable. They could not physically go beyond the invisible barrier around my bed which served as a bubble of protection.
Even knowing that I was ultimately safe, I watched myself choose to play the part of the victim, pretending that they had power over me, and that I was at their mercy. Half believing the lie and half knowing it was not so.
I suddenly got tired of the whole game of playing victim, and wanted the thugs to just go away. What is so interesting to me, however, is that instead of calling them on their phantom game, or simply refusing to participate, as one might expect; My dream ego decided to exacerbate the game instead. I chose to go deeper into the role I was playing, and so I proceeded to scream loudly for help … as if I thought that would somehow scare them off.
I, then woke myself up with my own cries for help.
It puzzled me as I pondered the dream upon awakening, that the feminine part, or my Divine Feminine, as I came to understand her, who knew better, would consciously choose to play the victim all the way through to my literal wake-up moment! Why in the world … ?
While you might be thinking,Wow, what a disturbing dream, – to me, this dream delivered a potent message (I do not refer to it as a nightmare because I was enlightened by it). Delivered straight from the psyche, it came as a support for the deep work I've been doing for years towards making victim patterns conscious. I believe this dream came to awaken me to Reality – and it did just that.
It awakened me in a way that I feel to my depths, right up to this moment, several days later. My rude wake-up in the wee hours of the morning allowed me to Wake Up and see the total story of what my mind likes to believe is real. I have felt immensely relieved with a new level of freedom since the dream. It is as if I woke up from the dream of dreaming my own unhappy dream.
As I have reflected on this big dream, I have come to see its relevance, not just for me, but might well serve many on some level.
My dream starts out with a beautiful description of a highly elevated home with a “rock solid” foundation. Located in the mountains, which may represent an ascended state of being, as symbolized by its high ceilings, light-filled room (the light of consciousness). The couple was happy and content in one another's company, and greatly enjoying their time together, and they were content in their nakedness. (sort of like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden) This amply describes the natural state of well-being that is accessible to us all once we know how to return to it.
There on the mountain-top, I am living as both sides of the couple, polar opposites of one another, and yet compatible. The Divine Feminine part of me who remembers and does not forget who I am, and the male Earth ego, who totally gets caught up in the mind-made, or victim story of who I think I am.
I associate the Divine Feminine as being that part of me, and in all of us, who knows I am eternally safe, who does not feel threatened ever because she knows that nothing can destroy the I am – even when appearances say otherwise. She knows that we are of eternal substance. She is totally vulnerable in her naked innocence and yet totally indestructible; she cannot die. She witnesses life, but does not get involved in the drama of it, except (evidently) when she chooses to do so – and then she becomes the action-oriented, reactive-prone, masculine counterpart who likes to wrangle with reality. (Or at least that is what she did in my dream.)
The male counterpart may be that part of us that forgets our true nature. Perhaps he represents the logical mind who analyzes life according to the world's standards. He is that part of us that falls into the deep pit of drama, and is overwhelmed with feelings of being unfairly treated and abused. In my dream he appeared strong. He represents the one who gets taken down by the three thugs, which, I believe represent the self-destructive voices that live in our own mind and who attack our vulnerabilities with false accusations and abusive negative thoughts. It is these fear-breeding, mind-made thugs that throw us into the pit of hopelessness, where we are held prisoner as long as we buy their lies and negative spin which says there is no escape.
Again, one of the things that got my attention most about this dream was how the Divine Feminine who knew I was NOT a victim, nevertheless chose to play the part anyway! Why would she do that?
I immediately begin to think of all the ways I have proclaimed victim status. For instance, by emphasizing the negative side of a situation, rather than looking for the more positive possibilities. Perhaps I have done that as a way to join in co-misery with someone else – a sort of bonding ritual. Or perhaps I believed that doing so would elicit some sort of help, or rescue. Knowing that I am okay, I have at times, opted to play the part of the travailed against victim.
And then it occurred to me that the Divine Feminine might choose to play victim as a legitimate move. There might even be a real purpose and design to it! The more I thought about it, the more I see how that could be … it prompted me to ask the question, how else would I know so much about victim consciousness except by taking on the victim role uncountable times in my own life? So the real question is: What does it teach me? What lessons does it bring me? How has it served me to play victim?
In asking myself these questions, I experienced a total shift in the way I saw my life. I realized that my life was perfectly designed for me. It brought me the lessons that led to the answers that I came to discover. Every part of my life, the highs and the lows, the struggles and challenges, have all been part of what I came to experience – in order to prepare me for the work I came to share. My central focus has been on learning all about the mind and especially the mental state of victim consciousness. I had to go there – deep into the throes of victim consciousness to truly understand it so I could move beyond it and become a way-shower for others stuck there too. I saw that my life experience, with its many flavors of victim, was required learning for the role I am here to play. I saw that I chose this path through the brambles of life, as challenging as it has been, because I wanted to understand the victim archetype intimately. My own Essential Self chose to experience, and experiment, with the various roles of victim for the opportunity to share it with those who, like me, want to live beyond it.
My dream showed me the clear reality of who I truly am. It separated me from the victim role I have often played, and indelibly imprinted the truth of how perfectly designed by me my life is and has been!
Realizing that I cannot be harmed has opened my eyes in a way that I had not experienced before. Once again, I remembered that I am safe, protected and literally untouchable by anything beyond love. I am love. I am innocent. I am made of consciousness which cannot be destroyed. This is who I am. Who we are.
Awakening to seeing the truth of who I am has made it harder to forget that I am made of eternal stuff. I am awakened to the Reality that I can choose, and to remember that the victim story is a total fabrication and illusion. It does not matter which I choose, because both visions (of myself as a victim or as an Eternal Being) have meaning and gifts to offer. However they do offer very different returns: one vision entails much less suffering than the other. I also see that it is possible to opt for playing victim and still remember that I am acting the part and not truly a victim at all.
Let me end on this note: there is nothing about our life that we did not choose – either consciously – or otherwise (mostly). Your life, like mine, is perfectly designed as that Divine Essence in you, for purposes that go beyond worldly standards of wealth, success, or fame.
I see that I have chosen a life designed to deliver me from victim consciousness by walking me through it. And now, I have decided to experience the Reality of a life lived by a woman who remembers who she is. I walk in total gratitude, knowing that I am loved, protected, and abundantly provided for. I am awake to my true nature. And blessed beyond measure. I am so grateful for nightmares that bring gifts of awakening.
Blessings, Lynne