A 26-year-old woman had the following dream:

“I was awake and having heart surgery. The man performing the heart surgery had longish hair and I didn’t know him but I know that the heart surgery wasn’t what I wanted and that he was a bad man taking advantage of me. I didn’t want what he was doing to me but I had no choice because he literally had my heart in his hand and now I needed him to replace it or put it back. He replaced it with I think another heart or the same one I’m not sure and attached it into my chest. He attached it on my right side not my left. When it was over I was walking through hallways. The heart was beating very strong. As I looked down the heart (on the right side of my chest) was protruding. It was still under my skin but it was pumping out of my chest. I had to hold it in my hands, kind of covering it in order to protect it.”

For this dream we are going to take a special look at how language can play a role in understanding the meaning of our dreams. As always, dreams are usually more symbolic than literal, and it is when we get caught up in the literal that we get stuck in a limited view of the dream. Language is a reflection of our experience, and in this case it will help us to access the dream’s symbolism and meaning.

In the dream a bad man is doing something to the dreamer that she doesn’t want him to, and he’s doing it to her heart. Does this sound like anything familiar, outside of actual heart surgery? I don’t need to go very far before you can connect the meaning yourself, and realize that this dream was not about the physical act of heart surgery, but symbolic of her emotional experience in a past relationship. When looking at the dream through this lens, we can re-examine the language she uses:

• “(It) wasn’t what I wanted”
• “He was a bad man taking advantage of me”
• “I didn’t want what he was doing to me”
• “I had no choice because he literally had my heart in his hand”
• “Now I needed him to…put it back”
• “I had to hold (my heart) in my hands, kind of covering it in order to protect it.”

In waking life the dreamer had been in an abusive marriage, and though she had left him some time ago she recently made it official by filing for divorce. She was in the process of taking back control of her life and described herself as the happiest she has ever been.  At the time of this dream she was in a new, much healthier relationship, and studying for a career that she feels passionate about. So why then, when things are going so well, would she have a dream like this?

Even though filing for divorce was a very empowering maneuver, it caused some of the old painful feelings she experienced during the marriage to resurface. And though she had done a lot of healing, she was still in the process of fully reclaiming her heart. In the dream she states that she needs the man to “put it back” – ’it’ being her heart. She was still reclaiming the final pieces of her own heart after being wounded in the painful marriage. When she described the heart protruding from her chest and her need to protect it, though she found the imagery a little disturbing she also marveled at her ability to protect herself despite what had happened! It also gave her a new level of awareness as to how she might navigate the new relationship in a way that didn’t cause her to block her heart from the love that was now available to her.

The fact that she was awake during the surgery may be symbolic of her realization that she was awake, i.e. aware, of what was happening in the bad marriage as it was taking place. A dreamwork technique known as re-scripting can be very helpful here. This involves re-writing the dream story to have a more favorable outcome for the dreamer. If she were to imagine a new story line for this dream she might consider the fact that since she was awake she could stop the man entirely from performing the surgery in the first place. This could then become a great personal symbol and example for how to stop negative situations and relationship patterns from happening, by not putting her heart into the hands of people who do not hold her best interest. In this way she would be protecting her heart in an even more effective manner than at the end of the dream, so that the damage to her heart does not occur in the first place. Examining who she shares her heart with, and connecting with her ability to exercise personal power and say ‘No’, can play a huge role in solidifying her new ability to bring healthier and happier people and relationships into her life, and keep the toxic ones out.

As always, our dreams love us and want the best for us in all areas of life, especially when it comes to love and relationships. Pay attention to the messages from your dreams, they are one of the best inner guidance systems we have.

This ‘Ask The Dream Detective’ post is from Mimi’s Dream Column for the New Spirit Journal