I keep having these recurring dreams where I am held captive, kept against my will for reasons unclear. Each dream has different scenarios and captors. I always try to escape. The dreams end with me breaking free into a world as a wanted man.
I wake up when a feeling of ominous freedom emerges, with the world feeling scary and repressive. A paranoid sense that my captors are hounding me is ever-present. I suspect I keep getting recaptured because I keep having these dreams. I have been having them my whole life.
I wake from these dreams feeling stuck, and the stuckness does not have a clear source. I need to change something; there is so much to change. Do I move, improve my health, make more money, learn more life skills, do more inner work, engage in manifestation, achieve big things, lean into mental toughness, be more social, or all of the above?
With this stuckness, I get so knotted up and confused about where to begin to get unstuck. I’ll coin a new psychic condition: free-floating stuckness. The stuckness feels pervasive, persistent, and oppressive. I get overwhelmed, not knowing where to begin. I become an escapist, captured by the luxuries of modernity or the various doomer narratives readily available.
Lately, something is shifting. In these dreams, I am becoming increasingly daring in my escapes. And angry. I am pissed off with my captors. I am done being imprisoned by them. Fuck them. I would rather be free, living with fear and courage. Let these motherfuckers chase me. I will continue to be more daring in my escapes and discerning in my evasions.
One wanted man cannot survive on his own. There is a network of escapees, thinking they are alone, overwhelmed with the possibilities of freedom, and petrified into passivity by those trying to capture them. They need not be. I’ll press through the fear and hold on to the dream a little longer because the noble fugitives are about to meet one another.
These nobles are pissed off as well, ready to reoccupy their kingdom.
These types of persecutory dreams are a real confrontation with shadow. And an opportunity to understand what inwardly wants to merge with you, get your attention. What's telling is how the dream ego (our perspective in dreams) reacts to these forces. We find them overwhelming, fear-inducing, oppressive. Behind that emotionality is usually a psychological dynamic that would bring a greater sense of wholeness to the personality.
It seems like changes are afoot within, as the dream series are evolving. That's a good sign! Do you notice this sense of daring rising in consciousness as well? A greater sense of being able to harness it, actualize it?
I wrote more about these types of dreams here if you're curious: https://alyssapolizzi.substack.com/p/meeting-the-shadow
I believe the dream progression matters for sure. Some friends and I recently report going from weightless punching and legs that don't move anywhere in dreams to being able to stand up straight and our limbs holding weight. Fighting back. You're on the right path bro, no doubt!