This is a strange dream, I've woken up in a foul mood after dreaming this, sometimes even bursting into tears for no reason.  Sometimes I've found myself crying during the dream and it feels as if my heart has been broken into a million pieces.

I'd like an impartial advice/theory.

"I move into a new area, I don't know anyone.  One night, there is a blizzard, it's very cold, an old woman sits on a bus shelter bench, there are a group of men standing.  I offer her my thick coat, scarf, gloves and hat.  Her son drives by and takes her home, leaving me standing at the bus shelter with a party dress that cannot keep me warm.

One of the man in the group beckons me to come forward, he opens his coat and I snuggle into it, he closes his coat around me.  Some time later, I'm in the car with him, I'm sitting on his lap still sleeping.

Fast forward some time later, there is a ball in the area I have moved into.  The man who offered me warmth at that cold, frigid night, dances with all the ladies in the ballroom, but me.

I leave just before the night ends, I don't want anyone to see me crying.  He turns up at my house, while my eyes betray me my dignity.

He persisted with his query as to why I left early, and why I've been crying, he demands to know who upset me.   I simply say "you"."

The dream seems to repeat a few events... a woman being cold, and then receiving warmth, protection and shelter, and driven by someone else.

The first time it's a character in your dream (the old woman at the bus stop), the second time it's you it happens too. That this pattern repeats indicates it's significant to understand it.

You mention first how you moved life in a new area... that is almost like a symbolical word "pun"... are you starting something new in your life? The dream shows how you feel in this situation... unfamiliar and alone. The blizzard symbolizes feeling emotionally cold, feeling excluded and left out.

Roads usually stand for your life course, the road of your life. Therefore vehicles symbolize the manner in which you go through life. A bus is public transport, where you are one of the many who is driven by others. It indicates feeling being a number as well as feeling unable to take control of your life. In the dream you een have to "wait" at a bus shelter. That would then point to you are waiting for what you want in life, and the necessity for you to wait for it. It will come... the bus always comes... but not just right now this instant. It's a temporary setback.

So, in this lonely cold world where you have to wait before reaching your goals in life, you empathize with an old woman... empathy is a way to try and connect wth people, but it's also a projection process. You can well imagine how cold she must be, because the blizzard indicates that is how you feel inside too. So, I'm wondering whether there's another trait you empathize with... do you consider yourself as growing old? Do you fear it's too late to have the things in life that you want?

You give her everything you have to keep her warm, but then she's picked up and driven away, and once again you're out on your own, alone, and colder than before in the dress without a coat and all. It's almost as if you feel colder because you realize that you gave everything to the other and yet saw no return, nor care for you. They accepted your help, and offered none in return.

And yet, there's a man who offers you shelter, warmth and protection... (like a pay it forward principle). Your snuggle and sleep reaction indicates this is what you have been waiting for: a man to warm you, make you feel less alone, noticed, cared for. I would also like to note that the party dress to me says you are still young of mind and body: you still have what it takes to enjoy life, to party.

What especially strikes me though in this dream, and what I was looking out for is your position once you drive off with this man. When you are driven in a vehicle as a passenger, then you go through life rather passively... if you're driving and holding the steering wheel then the dreamer feels in control of his/her own life. In your case, you're sleeping in his lap. That is not just very passive, it's almost as if you turn into a little child who can't take care of herself. And yet, I'm sure you can take care of yourself, otherwise you would not have been able to take care of the old woman. In one way it shows a total innocent trust in this man (you can sleep), a total surrendering. But surrendering like that also implies absolute passivity.

Is that what you truly wish from a relationship? Do you want to be with a man who takes total care of you and surrender yourself that totally?

I'm thinking the dream shows you such a total surrender and passivity is not what will make you feel truly happy... For one, you end up feeling suspicious (you didn't say, but you noting how he dances with every woman but you, indicates you are specifically watching him on that note). Secondly, such a total passivity may indeed make someone take you for granted.

The ending of him going to your house to find out why you left, may be a sign that his unconscious actions were no actual threat, but the result from the relationship pattern of who's active and who's passive. You tell him in your dream that it was him who upset you, but I somehow have the distinct feeling that you were not speaking to the man, but that it was you speaking to yourself... That you are upset with yourself.

If this is what your dream means then that explains why you feel so sad: the dream expresses your feelings of isolation, your need for someone in your life to gie you warmth, but also that you feel unable to take control of your own life and you blame yourself for that.


Well here's a big hug from me

Just an observation building on what Sweetsunray has said, could the significance of the repeated pattern in first the older woman, then yourself be significant in that perhaps the older woman is representative of a previous generation.  What I am getting at is that perhaps this is indicating it is a trait (imo probably the relationship / passivity trait) is handed down from an older generation, not genetically but through mimicking behavior patterns of parents.

Thus I might be looking towards something along the lines of what Sweetsunray has stated that was a character trait also inherited in an older female generation.

An interesting interpretions and replies.  I connect with some of what has been said.

In my own world, I'm a giver, I never ask for anything back, I tend to give and give and give and give, regardless of how I felt then.  When I felt I had been taken advantage of I still gave my time, heart and soul.

I gave everything, and I think if pushed, I can just about pinpoint the timeline of when all this dream began.  I had my fill of people letting me down and disappointing me after everything I have done.

Somehow I get the feeling that the man in question is the masculine side of me.  I feel I'm unable to stand up to people and tell them what I really feel, the nuturing side of me fears/dislikes hurting people, I like making people feel good about themselves even at the expenses of my own happiness and health.  I feel as if that side of me is letting me down, courting all others but my own feelings and sense of well being.

I'm still trying to work out what that dream is trying to tell me, and from your both interpretions i think I understand it far better than I had before.  The life, stilled and sullied, being left out in the cold, when I've always ensured people around me never were.

Hmmm, another deep thinking and analyses will have to be done with all this new information.

Many thanks, it's very much appreciated, having someone else telling how they see it certainly makes so much of a difference.

JJ