I’m at a school. I’m supposed to be teaching (my most difficult class) but I’m late for the transition. I look down and notice that the bright pink sole of my right running shoe is loose and flapping. I’m trying to fix it. I end up taking the whole sole off and just have to wear the inner shoe. “I have no sole/soul here”, I think to myself.
Well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the word play going on in this dream. Lucidly, I was conscious of it myself. I really love the way our minds work sometimes, making connections through imagery, symbols and words. Let’s look at some of the key symbols and their meanings.
School
As a dream image, a school represents a place of learning. It can also be the setting of a stress dream (ie. you have to take a test or forgot about the course you were enrolled in!). For me, it is my real life work place so it definitely contains elements of stress and the manifestations of what I’m struggling with at the moment. In my dream, I’m running around, feeling lost - I don’t have control over my difficult class. This definitely parallels my real life feelings about my work situation.
Running Shoes
Shoes are a symbol of how you present yourself (high heels, ballet shoes, cowboy boots) but also how you move through the world. Running shoes (or sneakers/trainers whatever you might call them) literally suggest that you are running in this situation - moving fast but maybe without a clear destination.
The foot (that wears the running shoe) is also a symbol. We literally stand on them so if something is off about our footwear, we are on shaky ground and unbalanced.
In my dream I am left with just “the inner shoe”. This means I am left without the protection of the outer shoe making me vulnerable. Having to teach without my sole/soul also suggests that I am just a shell now instead of a complete person.
Bright Pink
Colours in dreams are very important as they can have both emotional and symbolic meanings. As a colour, pink represents innocence, girlishness and health. When I reflect on my dream, it immediately made me think of a human heart (the organ not the shape). Heart/soul are often interchangeable when we talk about our core feelings or purpose.
Right
I find that directional words (like right, left, in front, behind) are also pertinent in understanding my dreams. Conventionally, the right side of the brain represents emotions while the left brain is logical. Since my dream was all about my feelings this makes sense.
Sole
Now, for the key image and most interesting part of my dream - the sole. Taken at face value, the sole is an important part of the running shoe. If it’s loose and flapping the shoe doesn’t work properly and you can’t really move the way you want to. So, in the dream, this impedes me at work.
I realized in the dream that “sole” is a homonym for “soul”. I made the connection that with my broken shoe, I have “no soul” in this situation. This is a pretty direct reflection on how I feel and what my work situation is like.
Final Thoughts
I really love this dream because of its word play and explicitness. I think this dream is an accurate representation of my feelings about my job right now. I’m struggling with many aspects of it and don’t think it’s a great fit for me (another shoe reference?). It’s also kind of a warning — like it’s not exactly healthy to stay in a place where you have no soul, is it?
