The Glittering Sky

Dreams come to tell us what we don’t know; and sometimes what we don’t know is as basic as what we’re thinking about.

The Dream: We have moved to San Diego with a moving van full of furniture. In our new home—which is an older building—there is a leak in the living room ceiling. Water is coming in, and I rush to put a bucket under it. Another leak sprouts, and water gushes in again. I try to fix it.

Four boys are fighting or playing outside one of the windows. Are they neighborhood kids playing, or are they young hoodlums? I’m not sure.

When Clark sees the leaks he discounts their seriousness, saying “We’re only here for three days.”
I am stunned. “We’re only here for three days, and we brought all our furniture? We could have stayed in a hotel!”

Clark thinks we would like it better in the house.

I look out a window and am surprised to see  stars.  I show them to Clark, commenting that perhaps what I’m seeing are twinkling lights from nearby houses on a hill. Then I realize that off to the right is the sea. Over the water I clearly see a sky jammed with countless, surprising, beautiful stars.

Interpretation: Strong emotions are emerging as I deal with a problem I’m not conscious of. The four boys who are either fighting or playing represent parts of me that are not integrated.
They have the potential to get along (play) but they might never see eye to eye (fight). The dream ego hasn’t yet decided whether or not to accept these parts. (Are they hoodlums or do they belong?)

The next paragraph states the conundrum: “We’re only here for three days.” I am shocked to realize that while I’ve prepared for a permanent stay, I’m only going to be in this house (my body) for a short while. As in other dreams I’ve posted, my dream is trying to help me deal with the inevitability of my own death. Jung, by the way, thinks that accepting death is the important psychic work of the second half of life, which in his day began at age 35.

I am stunned. At some level, even though I consciously know that it isn’t so, I think my life here will go on forever. Then I get a larger view: I look through a window (look outside myself) and see a vision of the infinite. It takes me a while to accept what I see; at first I insist it’s just another way of seeing the world I know (perhaps what I’m seeing are twinkling lights from nearby houses on a hill). However, I soon realize the water that leaked through the ceiling at the beginning of the dream is now transformed into the sea, and over the sea is a sky that speaks  of a reality immense and unknown.