Ian Wallace Interpretation:
Dreaming of performing in public signifies a situation in your waking life in which you have the opportunity to recognize your own talents. You may find it challenging to display your talents in the dream, reflecting a tendency towards being critical of your abilities in waking life. Recognize and accept your talent rather than always judging it harshly. The more comfortable you are with your abilities, the more likely you are to be able to improve them. Stop looking to others for approval and take confidence in your known strengths. Dreaming of a public performance can involve a realization that you are using the wrong equipment. For example, you may be using a pool cue to play golf or an electric guitar to play tennis.
Opportunity for me to fully recognize and accept my own talents rather than looking to others for approval
Dream: You have been given the opportunity to perform in public in front of a live audience but nothing seems to be working. There seems to be something wrong with the sound equipment and you have to keep unplugging cables and reconnecting them to try and make yourself heard. As you start your performance, you might forget your lines or find that your words come out all jumbled up or in the wrong order. The audience begin to get restless and you feel really frustrated because you know you can perform this piece perfectly but events seem to be conspiring against you.
Meaning: Dreaming of performing in public reflects your need to have your abilities recognized and appreciated by a wider audience. These abilities may be creative talents or they might be professional skills you employ in your job. Although you undoubtedly possess these talents and skills, you are finding it difficult to have them acknowledged by other people. It may be easy to blame the conditions that you are trying to perform under but your lack of recognition is usually because you find it difficult to accept praise from others in your daily life. This can make you seem aloof and unconcerned about other people’s opinions, even though you are desperate to be recognized and accepted by them. Your aloofness can lead to a feeling of disconnection from your friends and colleagues and you often try to compensate for this by tinkering around with technicalities, trying to hide behind the technology you use. Your lack of connection also results in you becoming disconnected from your true feelings and the ability to say what you really want to say. Instead of speaking from your heart with your authentic voice, you may try to communicate in a distant manner. This can result in you forgetting who you really are and becoming confused about what you really want to say and do. The most important audience member is always yourself and this dream shows that you are becoming frustrated and restless with your perceived lack of recognition.
Action: The insight from this dream is that performances are about being able to accept your talent as much as displaying it. It can be easy to hope that you will be accepted and recognized by other people but it is far more challenging to do this if you find it difficult to recognize and accept your talent. The more praise you give to others, the more likely you will be able to accept and relish your skills. The more confident you are and the more generous you are with your praise, the more relaxed you will be about performing with your unique abilities.
Background: We are encouraged to perform from an early age, whether it is for a family party piece or a school play. Much of our success and recognition from others is often about saying the right thing at the right time and performing the appropriate actions. Many of our favourite TV shows are based on the judging of talents in a public performance and we spend a lot of our time looking for the approval of others rather than just accepting ourselves. The more accepting we are of our gifts, then the more spontaneously and easier we find it to share and perform them.