🎵 The Face of Mozart, The Shadow of Satan: A Dream Initiation into Genius and Projection
By Victoria Amador
Last night, I had a dream that offered the kind of clarity I didn’t even realize I was seeking. And though it came wrapped in surreal images and mythic symbols, it felt like it might resonate with anyone who has ever navigated the complex dance of being seen and misunderstood in this world.
“You have the face of Mozart.” 
The Dream Unfolds
I’m suspended impossibly high above the ground on a towering bicycle–maybe 30 or 40 feet in the air. A man appears, floating beside me, and we meet eye to eye. In that suspended moment, he speaks:
“You have Mozart’s face…the Rainbow. And you also have Satan’s face.”
Confused, I ask, “Who?”
He repeats it slower:
“You have Mozart’s face. And you have Satan’s face.”
Then, as if revealing something essential about human nature, he shows me three glowing images, each pulsing with symbolic intensity: a black-and-white portrait of Mozart, a radiant rainbow, and the face of Satan. All three appear at once, flickering between recognition and mystery.
The Linguistic Mirror
When I woke, something kept pulling at me until I looked up Mozart’s full name: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
My last name is Amador–from the Spanish amar, meaning “to love.” It translates to “lover” or “one who loves.”
Mozart’s middle name, Amadeus, comes from Latin: amare (to love) and Deus (God). It means “loved by God” or “lover of God.”
Amador and Amadeus are linguistic siblings. The dream seemed to be exploring something about identity and perhaps how we’re all mirrors for each other in complex ways. It made me reflect more deeply on the universal experience of being seen, misunderstood, or having others’ unresolved feelings projected onto us.
What the Dream Teaches About Projection
This dream opened a metaphor for how projection operates in all of us: how we sometimes see in others what we’ve yet to face in ourselves–both the brilliance and the shadow.
We all have moments when we become mirrors for others, and others become mirrors for us. Sometimes what we see in someone else–whether inspiring or uncomfortable–says as much about our own inner landscape as it does about them.
Decoding the Three Images
Mozart: The Divine Creator
To be shown Mozart’s face in a dream might symbolize the archetypal creative spirit that lives within many of us, or the part of ourselves that carries gifts we’re still learning to understand and express.
Mozart, after all, died young and impoverished, despite offering celestial beauty to the world. His story speaks to something many of us know: the challenge of sharing our authentic gifts in a world that doesn’t always know how to receive them–or us.
The Rainbow: Integration and Promise
Rainbows, for me, symbolize hope and the integration of opposites–light born from darkness, spectrum born from storm. In the dream, the rainbow stood between the divine and the demonic.
A bridge. A promise. A reminder that wholeness includes the full spectrum of human experience.
Satan: The Projection of Shadow
Why Satan?
In some spiritual traditions, Satan represents more than just evil–he’s the accuser, the scapegoat, the misunderstood face of what we fear or reject.
To be shown both Mozart’s face and Satan’s face feels like a dream about how perception works:
• What is genuine can sometimes be misread as threatening
• Sometimes our authentic expression can trigger discomfort in others–or in ourselves
• What feels true to us can become distorted when filtered through unresolved fears–our own or others’
This is projection in action: when we haven’t made peace with parts of ourselves–our light or our shadow–we might project those qualities onto others, seeing them as either more saintly or more dangerous than they actually are.
The Blood Test of Identity
Later in the dream, three individuals try to determine my identity by making a small cut on my arm and tasting my blood. They accuse me of lying about my heritage. They call me “demonic,” echoing ancestral wounds and whispered rumors about my bloodline–about who my father is said to be.
But then something shifts.
One of the three suddenly says:
“As I look at you, I see myself. Now I realize I am not evil like they told me–I can see myself through you.”
That moment moved me. I wondered, was this about how we all carry stories about ourselves that may not be true? How we sometimes need to see our reflection in another before we can recognize our own worth?
The Challenge of Being Seen
One of the ongoing lessons in life seems to be learning to navigate projection–both what we receive from others, and what we still carry within ourselves.
Sometimes, when we’re in the presence of our own unhealed pain or inner conflict–or when others are navigating theirs–projections can arise. Even genuine love or authentic expression can be misunderstood when seen through wounded or fearful lenses.
We’ve all been on both sides of this: seeing someone else through the filter of our own unresolved issues, and being seen by others through theirs.
A Dream About Responsibility
This dream wasn’t asking me to claim any special status–it was revealing something about the responsibility we each carry to stay grounded in our truth, even as others may see us differently.
Like many people, my journey through depression, illness, and personal shadow work has shaped how I understand both struggle and healing. That experience can be a gift in holding space for others, but it can also be misunderstood or feared, depending on what stories people carry about darkness and light.
This dream felt like an invitation to find balance: Can I stay grounded in my truth even when others are uncertain how to see me? Can I remain open-hearted when projections arise–both positive and negative?
The Alchemical Teaching
This feels like part of the deeper work of being human: not perfection, but integration.
- To be shown Mozart’s face felt like a symbolic reminder of the creative gifts we all carry, and the vulnerability that comes with expressing them authentically
• To be shown Satan’s face is to understand how easily authentic expression can be feared, distorted, or misnamed–by others or by ourselves
• To see the rainbow between them is to hold the bridge–between all the contradictory parts of being human
Many of us live in this paradox. We inspire some and unsettle others. We serve as mirrors and catalysts. We get praised and criticized–sometimes for the exact same qualities. Learning to navigate this with grace seems to be part of the human curriculum.
The Rainbow and the Descent
I left the dream not with shame or pride, but with a deeper understanding. Something about the relationship between authenticity, visibility, and projection had become clearer.
The dream seemed to ask:
Can you hold the contradictions in yourself?
Can you stay grounded in service while honoring the full spectrum of who you are?
As I got off the bicycle–as if simply choosing to return to the ground–I felt unharmed. Grounded. Clear. I understood that I didn’t have to wear any of the masks that had been projected onto me, nor did I need to reject the genuine gifts I’m still learning to understand.
I could simply witness the projections… and choose to stay centered in my own truth, remaining open to feedback while not losing myself in others’ perceptions.
The Invitation
Maybe this dream speaks to something universal:
That we all carry both light and shadow, creativity and fear, divine spark and human limitation.
We’re not here to be perfectly seen or perfectly understood.
We’re here to be authentically ourselves, learning to integrate all the parts.
Some may meet us in that authenticity right away, others may need time to see clearly, and still others may choose a different perspective altogether. All of these responses can coexist.
Our task remains:
• Stay open to genuine feedback while honoring our inner truth
• Keep our integrity strong while remaining humble and teachable
• Keep moving toward wholeness, whatever that looks like for each of us
The rainbow still arcs between all extremes, reminding us:
Integration–not perfection–is the goal we’re all working toward.
Note: This dream reflection is offered as a personal exploration of projection and identity through symbolic imagery. It’s a meditation on universal human experiences of being seen and misunderstood, not a statement about my own spiritual development compared to others.
In shared humanity,
Victoria Amador