Exposed: Part 3

The Dream: I go into the subway. I order some tokens and need to go to the left of the counter to pick them up. I pick up a pile containing far more than I paid for and wonder if I should return the extras. As in the last dream segment, I decide not to “do the right thing.”

I see my Aunt Mary, dressed as a gypsy, collecting money for the poor. I give her some change but take back one of my tokens that inadvertently fell into her basket. I ask her for the key to her apartment so I can put on some clothes. She gives it to me, saying Uncle Mike will be there.

Interpretation: My unconscious (the subway) is activated to solve the problem put forth in the earlier segments of this dream: what is my role as a woman in today's complex society?  How do I bring together the role of women modeled by my mother and reinforced by my 50s childhood with the enormous societal change realized by the women of my generation? I “go to the left” or, in dream terms, I don’t try to resolve this rationally. Dreams allow –even insist on – paradox. I don’t have to reject my mother’s path to follow my own.  I accept the “tokens” offered by the “left” (unconscious), with its sly suggestion that I am not doing the “right” thing.

I see my aunt (my mother’s sister: that is, my mother) in a new way. (She gets some change.) At the same time I hang on to the “token” of my new self. She gives me the key (her acceptance) to recovering my sense of worth, symbolized by the clothes I will put on in her apartment. And an animus figure, my uncle, will be waiting for me there, signaling that my psyche will be better balanced between feminine and masculine.