I used to have a recurring dream— it started in my adolescence and continued into my early 40’s-

I would dream that I was getting ready for dance class and changing in a public bathroom stall– it would be at a university pool, or at a community centre, or at a school- but it would always be the grossest toilet stall– and I would try to get my pink tights on without getting them dirty on the gross, disgusting, piss and shit and hair covered floor.  Anxiety sweat dripping off my forehead.

This dream repeated for years and years.

Then suddenly, one night, I had a dream that I brought a bucket of hot water, a cloth and a big bottle of Pinesol into the stall and I scrubbed that stall spotless.

And I never had the dirty bathroom dream again.

Until two nights ago.

I’m back in a stall- some kind of school washroom…  I recall someone had called me disgusting, so I ran into the stall to hide and, yes, to change.  I’m barefoot, and the floor is not only covered in shit and piss and hair, but now also oozing with a brown sludge, slimy, slippery mother-fucking sludge.  And I just slip and slip and try to hold myself up and whisper, please, oh please, please, oh please.

Basically, bathroom dreams may be addressing your need to relieve yourself emotionally and/or psychologically. [source]

I know the inner critic/child has been reawakened lately.  The little girl inside has been loud.  And looking for love.  She’s nagging at me, tugging- clouding my ability to think straight and she seems to not want to trust that I am on the right path.

Everyone has an inner child but the majority of us remain oblivious to what it is.  Whenever we miss out listening to our inner voice we have a tendency to encounter trouble and face conflict.   After we know about our inner child, we are responsible for our own mess and, consequently, start to clear our own mind.  This is a message of this dream, that it is time to clear away the old, to make way for the new.   If this is a repeating dream, then inner work with our inner child is a necessary part of one’s life.   When one is too busy, or disinclined, to heal ourselves, that’s when the dirty toilet dreams start to appear. [source]

So I am taking more time to clarify and ensure that decisions I make now and directions I take are best for me.  To just take a breath and follow the heart.  I will sit down in the muck, hold my inner child, and listen.  Then it is bath time for both of us and reintegration.  And I will remind her that I am pretty spectacular and deserve good things and success– and that I won’t deny her or shush her, but love her and embrace her and maybe she’ll finally trust me and open doors for me to sustainable and sustained success.