Understanding dreams about losing control

Crazy things happen in dreams… in real life you’re unlikely to find yourself in the back of a car that suddenly has no driver, or about to give your keynote presentation when you realize you don’t have any notes with you. or other essential items. Thank goodness for that, life itself is less random, and the kind of logistical blunders that come our way are often less dramatic, and largely of our own making.

That’s the key: when we dream of lost tickets at the airport, our subconscious mind is presenting us with our own underlying anxieties, about something that we feel insecure or out of control. In many of the typical scenarios, it’s a big event: your first day at a new job or an important family occasion, something that in real life you would plan and prepare for thoroughly. But this same degree of attention that complex planning requires sends concern deep into your unconscious, so that, in the middle of the night, it reflects back to you in your dreams: yes, I remembered the cake, the gift, the flowers, the drinks. , but, my God, somehow I forgot to get dressed this morning, and now everyone is looking at me… and because they are looking at me, I can’t bring myself to walk, or talk, or do anything that they expect me to do. , and the embarrassment, the stress and the level of attention increase by the second… I have completely lost control.

People who frequently suffer from this type of dream often have a lot on their plate in the waking, conscious world: complicated personal and professional responsibilities, often coupled with a poor sense of staying on top of things and managing their tasks. successful engagements. This is a difficult question because, for many of us, life is just too complicated, and keeping all the plates turning requires constant vigilance. We probably can’t change that external reality (although a review of the commitments never hurts), but what we can change is how we manage and respond to those commitments.

You can use this type of ‘losing control’ dream as a warning that you are becoming stressed and overloaded, and take it as a sign that you need to ask for a timeout, and see why your unconscious mind is telling you that a dish is in danger of crashing to the ground (and even allowing you to rehearse how you would feel about it, if you let it happen). Your dreams are direct messengers from your own unconscious, and if you’re suppressing the growing anxiety about your overload in your conscious mind, you have to learn to listen and follow the advice of the rest of your mind.