When I hear dreams of shoes, I often ask whether they mirror what is happening to the dreamer’s soul. Shoes have soles, and we hear the echo. When they are missing or damaged or mixed up or don’t fit, we may want to ask how this reflects the relations between the dreamer’s body and soul.
I was talking about this in the car in Boulder, while Marta, the coordinator for my workshop this weekend, was in urgent quest for chai. She spotted a parking space on Pearl Street. As she pulled in, I noticed that we were parked right in front of a store with a name that echoed back the theme I had just been discussing: Two Sole Sisters.
Naturally I had to rush into the store. I was giving a lovely welcome by Laurel Tate, one of the two Sole Sisters who created the boutique. I explained my symbolic quest and asked if she could produce a shoe that could call back a Cinderella Girl’s sole. She showed me a beautiful silver high-heeled number with many straps.
Shoes not only have soles. They have ties, and the state of your laces or straps in a dream may say something about connections – “old ties” or new ones. A woman getting ready to attend a high school reunion in Manhattan dreamed she was urgently seeking shoes that would be comfortable for walking yet smart enough to suit her taste. A salesman in Bloomingdale’s persuaded her to purchase a pair of sneakers with laces made of genuine, but flexible, gold. She smiled at the thought that after all the years since graduation, her ties to her classmates were “golden”, and that she would be comfortable with them in the big city.
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A Freudian psychiatrist I know dreamed that her shoes were far too tight; they were torturing her feet and making it nearly impossible for her to walk. When she reflected on this, she realized that her Freudian approach was cramping her ability to do her job. She expanded her studies, embracing Jung and other approaches to the psyche and its healing. Now, in her dreams, her shoes usually fit just right.
Savanannah reports that “a recurring shoe related theme for me has been choosing appropriate footwear and protection for the weather and the seasons of life. Not too long ago I routinely found myself biking in the rain or at a snowy bus stop wearing fairweather ballet flats, the soft suede toe patches of which – I was told in one dream – are “LEV,” Hebrew for heart. Thankfully my dream self has grown a bit more common sense about protection and I now have a dream collection of gum boots for rainy days.”
It is intriguing to compare the sole-tastes of the dream self with that of the waking self, and considering whether we have secure “footing”. The high heels versus low heels motif is a common and important one in dreams and in life. The issue may be: do I go for comfort and practicality, or stylish and sexy – or barefoot on the sand – and can’t I have it all anywa
Jacqueline dreamed that she changed her feet in order to make her shoes fit. “The shoes I tried on didn’t fit exactly right, so I took my feet off and put others on (marveling at the advances in science that allowed this) and then the shoes fit perfectly.”
If this were my dream, and I woke feeling good, I might think that my dream self is displaying amazing flexibility and ability to change and improvise, and I would then try to bring those qualities into regular life. If I felt uneasy or troubled, however, I would ask where in my life am I trying too hard to adapt to a situation (such as job or relationship) that just doesn’t fit.
Karolyn dreamed she was checking out a cheezy wedding resort for a friend, thnking “THers’ no way I would get married here.” On the way out, “half of the bottom of my left sandal comes off. Annoyed, I think to myself I’m going to have to replace it.” She woke up refreshed and in a good mood despite the dream irritations. “I felt I was leaving behind the part of me that was wedded to old, outdated beliefs and that I was going to need to get ‘re-souled'”.”
A dream of lost shoes may invite us to think about where on the roads of life we may have lost or misplaced soul. Sometimes you can reach back into that kind of dream in order to look for lost shoes, and that search may take you back to a place in your life where you lost something more important – vital energy or identity – you can now reclaim.
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A friend who belongs to a Buddhist community dreamed that she was climbing a holy mountain with many others. When they got to the top, they were required to take off their shoes. When it was time to return after the ceremony, she could not find her own shoes among the huge pile of footwear. Realizing that she would find it difficult or impossible to make the steep rock descent without her soles, she sought help to find her missing shoes. No one showed the least interest in helping her. She woke deeply disturbed.
When we talked about the dream, I suggested that (if it were my dream) I might take it as a dramatic call to look at what I risk losing – including my grounding, identity and independence – in allowing my own needs to be subjected to those of a group.
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There is an angel of shoes, or more especially sandals, the most common footwear when his name was most commonly invoked. He is Sandalphon, and his name is still important in the pathworking and astral travel protocols of certain Mystery and kabbalistic orders. He wears sandals in the presence of his Maker, and leather footgear in the presence of Shekinah, the Divine Feminine. Some say he was once the prophet Elijah, or Elias. He presides over the astral body and the soul journeys we make in this vehicle. Some believe he watches over the big journeys that precede birth and follow death, which involve putting on and discarding “garments”, like soft shoes.
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Of course, shoes in a dream may be just be shoes. I have a woman friend who says she would like to have three closets for her shoes. In a fabulous scene in the Terry Gilliam movie “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”, a well-heeled lady is whisked away to a paradise of shoe-lovers.
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Common expressions involving footwear may provide clues to where your dream is walking. A few that jump to mind:
– if I were in your shoes
– Goody two-shoes
– if the shoe fits…
– well-heeled
– given the boot
– pulled himself up by his own bootstraps
– to know someone, you must walk in his shoes (or moccasins)
– put on your dancing shoes
– get your skates on
– we leave a footprint
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As in Savannah’s photo of the “Red Stiletto Door Opener” – an objet trouvé that mirrored a dream – the shoes of our dreams can open very interesting territory.
When I hear dreams of shoes, I often ask whether they mirror what is happening to the dreamer’s soul. Shoes have soles, and we hear the echo. When they are missing or damaged or mixed up or don’t fit, we may want to ask how this reflects the relations between the dreamer’s body and soul.
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