A New Look at Exploring Mysteries – #48

The name exploring the mystery mysteriously came to me in 2012, when my web designer asked: “What name do we give this creation?”  

I grow fonder of the name every year, perhaps as I become more aware of its complexity.

As I become more comfortable with how complex life is, it is easier to accept that a mystery is more than a puzzle to be solved.  I’ve often had to remind myself that we are not exploring the mystery to come up with an answer.  

Mystery, the type we are exploring, describes something for which there is no human solution. The proper response to a genuine mystery is awe. In order to feel awe, we need to step back, take time, and savor. 

A dream is a mystery. Earlier this week, I tried to capture the essence of a dream. The illegible scratchings on an index card made with a pen that didn’t start writing in the dark when I thought it did, led to a mystery all it’s own.  Parts on the paper were almost impossible to read but here’s what I deciphered:

I was backing fast down the driveway singing Dora Dora. 

It was an embarrassment to me as a psychotherapist to never feel competent making meaning out of dreams. This was mainly because I had a belief that I couldn’t make meaning out of dreams. My frustration and eagerness to have the answer immediately often led to not even trying.

I’ve been missing being a therapist lately so I decided to be one for myself and stay with the dream,. To not let myself give up.   

So when I was thinking and talking outloud to myself about the backing up part of the dream, I suddenly remembered writing blog posts a few weeks ago where the focus was on paying attention to what is in back of us. So maybe I was backing up because there was something important back there! Perhaps the dream is related to the memoir I am writing about my psychoanalysis.  

The “doro doro” song may have been triggered by a note my sister recently passed on to me, a note that I wrote my mother sixty-seven years ago when she was in the hospital giving birth to this sister. Being nearly six years old at the time, I assured my mother that I was fine and reported that I was able to play “doctor doctor” on the piano.

It doesn’t feel like I’ve solved the mystery of my dream and what it means but I have explored it. The process of exploration is satisfying when I am able to slow down, savor, examine, and explore.

Do you like thinking of the word mystery in this way or does it frustrate you? What do you wish you would slow down, savor, examine and explore more? I would love to hear your ideas. What is a mystery to you? Please email me or comment on the blog.

CLUE: If you remember a dream this week, take some time to play around with it – whether or not you believe that dreams bring us psychological knowledge. Whatever you think about dreams, I think we all might feel that the contents of a dream are mysterious.

Thank you for exploring the mystery – Nicky Mendenhall