Dream Decoding: The Stopped-Up Toilet
Hello, and welcome to the latest installment of Dream Decoding! I love working with dreams, as they are designed to tell us about situations in our lives, the challenges within those situations, and the best ways to resolve those challenges.
One aspect of our lives that dreams want to help us with concerns our bodies and keeping them healthy and fully functioning. This dream, submitted by a reader, Bruce, is one of these types of dreams.
Bruce’s Dream: The Stopped-Up Toilet
I am walking toward a room. There is a little girl in a Sunday dress, sitting on a curb. She is crying. I see the tears. There are single tears running down each of her cheeks.
As I near her, she turns into an adult woman, in her 30s.
I walk into the room. It is a bathroom. Both the toilet and the tub are full of excrement. There is no wash basin. I take down the shower rod and start to plunge the toilet. I say, “I’ve had enough of this. It’s time to wake up.”
The Stopped-Up Toilet: James’ Interpretation
The subject matter of this dream is Bruce’s elimination system (the location of the dream being a bathroom). The dream is saying he is experiencing a blockage within the system, symbolized by the stopped-up toilet. The toilet, as a symbol, can represent the bowels (pun on bowl).
The opening part of the dream links his repressed emotions as the cause, symbolized by the crying little girl, who is sitting on a curb, which is a pun for something being “curbed.” Anytime we repress (withhold) things, we produce a similar physical manifestation. Bruce has been taught to withhold his feelings as a child. I suspect he may have been told that “only girls cry,” as a youngster.
As he has matured into an adult (the transition of the girl to a woman), the effect of such withholding has manifested into a slow-moving elimination system, or frequent bouts of constipation. The crying, in this dream, is an overcompensation symbol, and indicates a need for emotional release.
In essence, the dream is saying he has a problem with letting go or releasing, both feelings and waste. The dream is asking him to realize this, symbolized by his saying he’s had enough and it’s time to wake up. Waking up is good, as it indicates realization and awareness.
The dream is asking Bruce to take the proper measures to correct the problem. The action of plunging the toilet is asking Bruce to “take the plunge” and work on this. Most likely, when Bruce consciously feels (in waking life) that he’s had enough of this condition, he will take some course of action to change it.
The woman, being in her 30s, is important to note. Numbers in dreams also have meaning. In this case, 30 is asking Bruce to commit his mind, body, and spirit (3) to this ideal (0). Being in touch with one’s feelings, and being able to express them in a healthy and positive manner is important to our physical well-being (there is physical health, mental health, and emotional health–and all these aspects of well-being have an affect on each other).
I would like to thank Bruce for submitting such a great dream. If you would like to have a dream featured and interpreted in this space, you can submit the dream to me at james@jameshimm.com, with Dream Decoding and the title of the dream in the subject line.
If you’d rather have a private consultation with me, please visit my Dream Decoding Coaching page for more information.
As always, I want to thank you for reading and following the blog regularly. I appreciate the investment of your time, and your support; it means so much.
Until next time…sweet dreams!
Your Dream Decoder,
James