Battle of the Flying Boats
12/31/81
Huge Flying boats are sent to attack a Nazi flying boat in the water in some sea battle that has a Germanic name but does not sound like anything I have ever heard. The West sends kamikaze planes (which I think is odd) and huge flying boats. They land around the German ship. One crashes into it and destroys both.
Preference Predictions
Most Accepting Character: Flying Boats
Least Accepting Character: Nazi Boat
Most Preferred Character: Water
Most Rejected Character: Nazi Boat
Most Preferred Action: attack
Most Rejected Action: destroyed
Most Preferred Feeling: none
Most Rejected Feeling: odd, stupid
Sociomatrix Commentary
Dream Self: Basically, this dream is a bummer. Too much destruction, though I like the boats.
Flying Boats: We like us. We have to fight the enemy. It’s too bad one of us crashes, but that’s the way it goes.
Nazi Boat: Those kamikazes tell me they’re determined to get me, whatever the cost. I hate being destroyed, but at least I took one of the enemy with me.
Water: I wish they would stay out of me if they are going to act like fighting children or animals. They will disturb me and litter me with wreckage.
Name: I like the way I sound. I am appropriate to the militaristic nature of these events.
Kamikazes: I am built to attack and die, but I would prefer not to attack and die. Maybe we got saved because the battle ended. I think so.
Comment: The kamikazes express unusually intense internal ambivalence. There is a great consensus in rejecting this pattern, although the good guys win.
Dream Commentary
If you could change this dream in any way that you wanted, as long as it respected the rights of all fellow dream group members, how would you change it?
Flying Boats: We would prefer never to fight, but as long as this boat is a threat we are prepared to die.
Nazi Boat: Look. Was I doing anything wrong? Was I hurting anybody? This sea is huge. Why don’t you just leave me alone?
Water: I don’t want any fighting. I would destroy them all if I could.
Name: You’re not going to change my identity! I am proud of my heritage!
Kamikazes: Sooner or later that Nazi boat is going to have to be destroyed or change its identity to a peaceful, useful purpose.
Dream Self: There’s no resolution here, so there’s no dreamage.
Waking Commentary
If you were this dreamer and were dealing with his waking issues – money, relationships, fears, career choices, physical health, and spiritual development – would you do anything differently? If so, what?
Flying Boats
Nazi Boat
Water: A lot of warring within yourself. Stop it. Stop criticizing yourself.
Name
Kamikazes
Dream Self
Actual Preferences
Most Accepting Character: Name
Least Accepting Character: Water
Most Preferred Character: Name
Most Rejected Character: Kamikazes
Most Preferred Action: none
Most Rejected Action: crashes
Most Preferred Feeling: none
Most Rejected Feeling: odd, stupid
1 of 8
Sociogram Commentary
Although there are not many feeling elements, there is a great deal of strong (negative) feeling in this dream group. There are no positive actions or emotions. Most productive forces are unaccepting of this pattern. A correspondence between behavior and attitude, with both rejected. But attitudes strongly reject the pattern. Character rejection with non-acceptance. Attitude rejected with attitude rejecting of itself and behavior.
That I only correctly predicted one of eight dream group preferences indicates that waking identity is not consciously identified with this issue or its composite attitudes.
On the acceptance axis, there are really no nurturing, supportive elements. Name is positive only because it likes itself. It is itself indifferent toward all else. The Kamakazes, the supposed rescuers, are not accepting or supportive. They mostly like the crashing and destruction of another boat. This is a nightmare sociogram in that a constructive force that seeks peace, Water, is forced to appear to be critical and unaccepting. It is forced by the circumstances to be disapproving, rather like a loving parent who is forced by her child’s misbehavior to punish him. Dream Self is once again ambivalent and uninvolved, rendered impotent by strong destructive forces that seem beyond his control.
The proximity of Water and Nazi Boat is instructive. The conflict forces very different internal processes to appear to be similar. This is the sort of mechanism that causes waking awareness to distrust inner guidance: guilt by association; apparent, but not actual, collusion with destructive forces.
On the form axis we have validation that this is a nightmare constellation. Name is preferred only because it likes itself and Nazi Boat likes it. Dream Self is positive only because he likes himself. No one else cares for him; they probably don’t respect him, since he does nothing to earn respect. The Flying Boats are not liked by Water. Both “good” and “bad” forces (Kamakazis and Nazi Boats) are rejected by the group and are deemed destructive. An attitudinal analogy would be: self-criticism to slap one into shape is still basically self-criticism. It destroys peace of mind (something analogous to Water). Nobody cares what the water thinks or feels or what happens to it. All take it for granted as the substrate making possible the action. The air in which the boats fly is taken for granted even more.
On the process axis, behaviors associated with this life issue are roundly condemned. Senseless conflict and destruction.
On the affect axis, what emotion there is is inappropriate and not helpful. There seems to be no saving grace in the morass of internal confusion this dream group portrays.
It matters little what specific thoughts or circumstances initiated this intrasocial drama. It serves as a timeless commentary on the confusion created by taking sides and fighting. In the battle for justice, truth is lost. This sociogram serves as an intrasocial commentary on war.
