Lots of dreams this week about being in an airliner landing just short of the runway. When we dream of flying in an airliner, we are often evaluating thoughts about a collective intellectual journey. During this journey our thoughts are abstracted and theoretical, and it is only when we touch down on the airport runway that our intellectual efforts are successfully grounded in reality.

In some ways this is similar to the ubiquitous unprepared for the exam dream where we know that we have made a lot of effort to achieve a specific purpose, but are too self critical of our abilities and are finding it hard to meet our own high expectations of ourselves. Instead of judging ourselves too harshly, we should have more confidence in our expertise and experience.

Rather than endlessly worrying about a perfectly successful outcome and that anything less will be a failure, we should be reflecting on what the real intentions of a project or initiative may be and how we can adapt that to unexpected circumstances. In the case of BA038, the pilots used their expertise and experience to transform a major emergency in to an outstanding success for everyone involved. As flight instructors say ‘A good landing is one that you can walk away from…’.

Some of the most popular dreams shared by women and teenagers take place in a shopping mall. The dreamers experience a variety of situations in the shopping centre, such as trying on clothes, looking for a specific item, not being able to pay for purchases and being disoriented and lost.

When we dream about clothes, we are reflecting on our identity and how we appear to others.If we are trying on clothes in the dream shopping mall, then this suggests that we are exploring our identity in waking life. It often also shows that we can make individual choices about who we want to be, and not to have to conform to the expectations of others.

If we are dreaming of trying to find the right item, then it often means that we feel there is something missing from our lives, and our lives will be made whole and meaningful by finding or possessing some special object. However, a common experience is that however much we obtain, it is never enough, and perhaps the object we are looking for so intently is usually our own sense of self. Often, a friend or intimate appears as a sales assistant in this dream, where they mirror their role in waking life of reflecting our true self.

When we dream about not being able to pay for a purchase, this suggests we have concerns about our self worth and how much others really value us in our waking lives. It may be that we are not really valuing ourselves, and are just giving ourselves away to others, with no recognition from them of our true value.

Being disoriented and lost in shopping mall usually means that we are finding it difficult to make choices about options and opportunities in waking life. We might feel overwhelmed by all the potential experiences open to us, and the result is that we remain rooted to the spot and don’t take advantage of any of them.