Dreaming of a flute : what can this symbol evoke?

The hollow that makes the sound

A full flute makes no sound. The whole instrument lies in the column of air it encloses : the material only gives the hollow a shape, and it is the holes, the absences, that decide the notes.

Dreams often use this structure for what, in you, produces something out of what is missing. An experience of loss that makes one able to hear others, an inner silence from which ideas come, an availability that is not emptiness but a condition.

The question it poses is unusual : what in you produces only on condition of staying hollow? Those who dream of wind instruments often live through periods of believing themselves empty.

Music that compels

Tales attach a particular power to the flute : that of making others follow. The piper of Hamelin leads away the rats, then the children ; Pan scatters flocks with a single note ; snakes are charmed with a tube and a breath.

What strikes in these tales is that nobody is forced : those who follow do so of themselves, and there is no violence. It is an influence passing through what pleases rather than what compels — the hardest to refuse.

What to remember is your position. Playing, following, or hearing without moving tell three very different relations to an influence not exercised against you.

What the music does changes the reading

• A hollow instrument that sounds — what produces in you out of what is missing.
• Following music without deciding to — an influence passing through what pleases.
• Playing and seeing others come — the power to draw, with the responsibility it entails.
• A flute giving no sound — a breath that does not suffice, or a blocked instrument.
• Covering the holes with the fingers — control over what will come out, note by note.
• Music heard far off with nobody in sight — a call whose source you cannot place.

A psychological reading, not a ready-made box

Depth psychology takes an interest in wind instruments because they presuppose a breath coming from someone : nothing sounds without a person, and the instrument alone is only a shape. It notes that such dreams often designate a capacity not exercised alone. Other readings retain the power to draw others attributed to this music in tales, and the absence of compulsion that characterises it.