Just One Shoe

Last night I dreamt I was hunting for shoes.

At first glance, you might think I was having a typical woman moment, emulating Imelda Marcos with her shoe passion. But this is not the case. I’m not a woman who collects footwear.

Years ago I kept a dream diary, along with interpretations of the symbols. I don’t keep one anymore, but vivid dreams like the one I had last night rekindle my curiosity about why we dream what we dream.

What does dreaming about shoes mean? Shoes could symbolize wealth, control, health, protection—and these are just my own guesses, off the top of my head.

In my dream I could not find a pair of matching shoes. I was searching through a collection of shoes in a grocery store (yep, weird). I could find lots of shoes that almost matched. I was so close to a match! I’d find two in the correct size but upon very close inspection, they were not a set. The left had a higher heel than the right, or the straps were slightly different. Finding a matched set proved impossible. (Now I’m interpreting my dream as a quest for solutions, and in my dream I just could not find one.)

I’ve had many vivid dreams during my sleeping hours. Sometimes they involve people I know, or spiders, or locked doors or freeways curving in circles. Quite a variety. But one common thread amongst my dreams is the theme of searching. Maybe I’ve been searching for balance, or my plans for the future, or myself. I don’t think dreams are accidental—I believe they have significant information tucked into them.

So the shoe dream. I’ll put you on hold for a minute and go search online for shoe symbolism in dreams. Be right back.

(Hold music.)

This is what I found on dreammoods.com (the website I used years ago):

·         Shoes represent your approach to life. They also can represent goals and identity.

·         Dreaming of wearing mismatched shoes implies that you are rushing into things and approaching them haphazardly.

Hmmmm. Definitely thought-provoking. Shoes as a symbol for identity? I can see that. My dreams telling me I’m racing along without a plan? Unflattering, although perhaps a shred of truth there. (Whose big idea was it that I’d search for dream meaning and get a critical interpretation? Oh. My big idea. Hmmmph.)

Funny how frustrated I felt in my dream when I could not match up the shoes (a symbol for the loose ends in my life?). I wonder if I was trying to fit all the pieces of my life together through the shoes metaphor. Fitting together the puzzle pieces of life certainly is an ongoing dilemma.

Have you ever seen just one shoe, laying in the curb or washed up on a beach? For me, it’s disconcerting. Shoes always come as a set and to see just one is unsettling. You know something has happened. You can’t even use one shoe without the other, so one shoe is as good as no shoes. Fascinating stuff. I think I’ll start my own talk show about topics like this! Who wants to be my first guest?

I’ll never be a woman obsessed with shoes. But my dream was so real. There are interesting lessons to be found in dreams, I think. Let’s meet back here again sometime and chit chat about dreams. I’m like Lucy, from the Peanuts gang: full of ideas. And because we’re friends, I won’t even charge you…