Sunday, 5 July 2009

Strange dreams

I don't know whether it's something to do with energy of the approaching lunar eclipse or just that I'm looking forward to watching the new series of Torchwood on TV tomorrow, but for the past two nights I've dreamt I was assisting Doctor Who as he saved the earth once more from doom.

I can't remember that much about the dreams except that they were jolly exciting adventures in which The Doctor, with me in tow as his ineffectual companion, foiled the nefarious plans of Aliens From Before the Dawn of Time.
My only regret is that on both occasions I woke up before finding out how we foiled them. And, seeing as it was a dream, I can't go and watch it all again on iPlayer.

But my dreams made me realise just how much The Doctor is as a powerful modern-day mythic archetype - he is the hero, the wise old man, the magician and sometimes
the trickster, who wins out using the gift of the gab and an eye to a chance rather than by strength of force.

Interestingly, while doing some web browsing I discovered Archetype and Trickster are both names of characters in Doctor Who spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures. I'm not very familiar with that particular series, but I'd be interested to know if its creator was inspired by traditional mythic character types.

As well as archetypes being important in tales and stories, according to Jungian psychology, we each have various archetypes within us who can appear as characters in our dreams as ways of helping us understand ourselves and what's going on in our lives. Perhaps those Aliens From Before the Dawn of Time represented my own "shadow" archetype - the chaotic and scary forces that we all know we have deep inside but don't really want to face.

But whatever archetype The Doctor represents for me, I'd certainly be glad to have him on my side in any nightmare. I just wish I could remember how it ended...

Torchwood: Children of the Earth begins on BBC1 at 9pm on July 6.

The image shows Doctor Who : Complete BBC Series 4 [2008] [DVD], which is available through Amazon.

Links
http://www.bbc.co.uk/torchwood/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/
http://doctorwhomadonline.blogspot.com/2009/05/trickster-to-return-to-sarah-jane.html
http://wikizap.mobi/entardis/Luke_Smith
Doctor Who : Complete BBC Series 4 [2008] [DVD]
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2009/03/trickster-magician-and-hard-times.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2009/04/hermes-bad-witchs-god-of-week.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mythological_archetypes
http://www.pbs.org/mythsandheroes/myths_archetypes.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sja/

3 comments:

Antony said...

Ive had strange dreams too recently!

The first the walls in my new apartment was being stractched.

Then a few nights later I was lieing in bed and my ceiling began to crack and it spread down my walls.

Any idea what this means?

Hugs,

Antony x

Badwitch said...

When you are trying to work out what a dream means, you need to consider how the dream felt as well as what happened in the dream. For example, did it feel threatening, as though your room was about to collapse, or did it feel exciting, as though you were inside an egg and about to hatch into some wonderful new world? If it was the former, it could be that you are worrying about something in real life. If it was the latter, then I think some great opportunity will soon present itself.

Antony said...

Thanks for the advice. I was panicing about it :S. However I am unsure what the issue is, I'm sure it will present it's self (lol sounded like a Jedi then!).

Hugs,

A x