Guest Dreamer: Purification

Do you need a washing machine to take you through the complete cycle from contamination to purification? The homey images in this guest dream reveal a powerful transformation in progress.

The Dream: I am in my house, upstairs. There are guests in the house. I walk into the guest bathroom and decide to flush the toilet. When I do, watery shit bubbles out of the drain and rises to the top. It starts to overflow. I panic. The flowing stops before flooding the bathroom, but I run out of there to find a plunger so I can correct the problem. I look for the plunger downstairs in the laundry room.  A woman, my house guest, is sprawled sideways on top of the washing machine. She is clothed--at least I see she is wearing slacks, shoes and socks. The lid of the washer is up and her rear end is inside the barrel. She looks like she is just hanging out there, relaxed, with her arm over the lid.  

Carla’s interpretation: In my version of the guest dreamer’s dream, my mind (upstairs symbolizes the head) is engaged with some issues that feel alien to me (they are guests in my house rather than residents). There’s a lot of difficulty (shit) associated with these issues; repressing them has been draining me but now they are coming up with such force that they’ve risen to the top of my consciousness. In fact, they are so powerful they overflow and I panic. I run to find the device (the plunger) that can correct the problem. My unconscious is hinting here that the solution will be plunging into the difficulty rather than trying to avoid it. And, in fact, once I get to the place where I expect to find the plunger, I am in a place of purification, the laundry room. The lid is off, and I see that the problem is being addressed at its source: the rear end of my troublesome “guest.” We can guess that she is the one responsible for the excess shit in the guest bathroom. Having expelled the mess that was inside her, she is now relaxed while the washing machine completes the purge.

The End of Carla?

The Dream: A young woman has decided to kill herself. She is with friends; I am among them. There’s something theatrical about this endeavor. What should I do? Ignore it? Try to stop her? I do nothing until she takes some pills, then I call 911. I have difficulty getting through. First I can’t quite see which buttons to push. My mini-computer becomes my giant cell phone, and even in the dream I find this odd. At last I manage to get through. The person answering the phone is very relaxed. We have a short conversation; I explain the situation, but the connection is not good. I say I’ll call back, wondering as I hang up if I’ll get the same guy. Or will I have to explain the situation all over again?

I await the arrival of the medics; they are slow coming. No one seems concerned about this potential suicide. As time elapses, the girl comes around. I find out that her suicide “cocktail” consisted of a calcium pill and a baby aspirin. I realize all this suicide drama has been overblown, and I’m embarrassed over calling 911. I wonder how the medics will react once they arrive at this nonexistent crisis.

Interpretation: Oh dear, someone isn’t getting enough attention. Could it be me? In a slightly more serious vein, some part of me is crying out for help and having difficulty getting through to others. I don’t seem to have the right equipment: I’m using a computer as a cell phone. When I finally do talk to someone the connection is not good. Is the dream a reaction to doing this blog? After all, it’s communication through the computer, and I have little way of knowing how it’s received. In the dream no one is concerned about this potential “suicide.”  If Carla dies (stops writing this blog) would anyone care? Oh, woe is me!

I’m all Wet

The Dream: I am at a shopping mall with some friends. I go into a shoe store by myself. The service is great and I find some very beautiful shoes. I am so impressed by the service that I go find my friends who are shopping nearby and bring them back so they can see this marvelous store. When we enter there is no sales staff, and none appears until I go to the back to find someone. There isn’t much merchandise either. My friends are unimpressed and look askance at my judgment. I feel a certain chill in the air. When I leave the mall it’s pouring and I have no raincoat. I get all wet.

Interpretation: This dream reenacts my feelings about a waking life experience. I had invited friends to a local theater event. The event was oversold, our seats bad and our view blocked by a pole. The acting was amateurish. My friends were good sports, but I was very embarrassed (all wet) and felt that I had gone down a peg or two in their estimation by dragging them to this mess of an evening. The beautiful shoes I found in the dream symbolize my wish that I could walk away from my embarrassment.

Shorten the Chain

The Dream: A woman is trying on an antique necklace to see how it looks with her outfit. The jewelry is very beautiful and the colors go well, but it’s a little too long for the neckline of a blouse that obscures the three-pronged pendant. I suggest she pull the pendant higher by shortening the chain. 

Interpretation: Another beautiful thing from the past (an antique) that is in danger of being covered over (obscured). I try to deal with the difficulties of the passage of time by shortening the chain that binds the people and events of my past to me.

Guest Dreamer: I Can Bear It

Today’s guest dreamer is David Ward-Nanney whose recently released novel, Powder Dreams, uses dream analysis as a narrative device. David has given us his own interpretation of the dream’s meaning. Before I read it, I’ll react to his dream as if it were one of mine in the hope that it might provide an insight he hasn’t already thought of. As always, the dreamer gets the last word, and if we differ, his interpretation is the correct one.

The Dream: The house is an entirely open plan with lots of space and floor-to-ceiling windows. The windows allow plenty of natural light throughout. I am on the first floor in front of a staircase that leads to the second floor. To my left I see an unidentifiable woman and man, both about my age and socioeconomic level. I know instinctively that the man is a friend and the woman is a beloved. I go up the stairs and remember something that makes me go back downstairs. The man and the woman are gone and I see through the back window why. There is a giant grizzly bear on his hind legs looking into the house from outside. My first thought is thank God the others got away safely. I try to make my escape upstairs but the bear is now inside the house and grabs my ankles, preventing me from going up. He says, “Hold on. Not so fast.” He lets go and I immediately make a dash for the front door. I make it through the door and onto the front porch when he again grabs me by the ankles and drags me back in. This time he says, “You can’t get away and there’s no need to.” While I am frightened I am also cognizant that this bear does not necessarily want to eat me.

Carla: The house represents me; its spaciousness and large windows tell me that I am an open person with a good relationship to the world outside my window; light can come in, and I can see out. The woman and man who rather closely resemble me represent the rational and spiritual aspects of my inner self. I am at peace with these: the man is a friend and the woman beloved. But when I go “downstairs,” leaving the safety of my intellect and higher consciousness, they disappear.

Why do I go downstairs (into my unconscious)? Because there’s something I need to remember, or get in touch with, that’s important for my health and wholeness. Once there I find my supporting friends gone, and I must face a frightening and deadly beast (my own emotions, passions, my inner “animal”) without their help. I don’t realize it at the time, but it’s necessary for my conscious, rational, “higher” part to disappear temporarily; it would only hinder the integration about to take place. However, knowing that my civilized self is in a safe place reassures me, giving me courage for what’s to come.

The dream’s revelation comes during my terrifying confrontation with the bear when he says to me, “You can’t get away and there’s no need to.” Once I realize that I can’t escape my inner animal—and, more important--there’s no need to, I have made a stride toward accepting this essential part of myself. I am still afraid, but I now know that I will not be consumed (eaten) by my feelings and passions.

David’s Interpretation: Grizzly bears are fierce hunters and gatherers and are thus able to not only survive but thrive in a global environment that has marked the polar bear for extinction. The bear is an emblem or symbol of the warrior caste. This fierce side of me is repeatedly baring its ugly head, but the dream is telling me that caution not terror is the right approach and that I cannot escape it. The bear definitely scares off both the anima and friend archetypes, leaving me to deal with him alone.

Guest Dreamer: My New Life

Today’s guest dream leads the dreamer toward a glowing transformation. 

The Dream: I dreamed I was present at the birth of another woman's baby.  It was very large for a newborn, plump and mature looking.  The baby was big enough to weigh about 20 pounds but it was not at all heavy to hold. I held the baby close to my breast immediately; it wanted to nurse but of course I couldn't comply.  I covered both of us up with a sheer yellow fabric.  The baby sat quietly in my lap and we both looked toward the light that surrounded us. It didn't matter that we could not see beyond the fabric. Inside our glowing yellow light-weight tent, we were safe and warm without distractions.  We were both pacified.  

Carla’s interpretation: In my version of your dream, I am experiencing the emergence of a new sense of who I am and what I do. That I refer to the baby as an “it” rather than a “her” or “him” tells me that the baby represents an abstract quality: some important aspect of myself is being born. This new me is not yet integrated into the self I know, so I see the person who is giving birth as another woman. My creativity is channeled through this newly emerging self (the woman's new baby). The baby looks good to me (good-sized, plump, and mature looking) and I want to nourish it. Although I take it to heart (my breast), I am not quite ready to feed this new self. I need to acknowledge that its mother and I are one and the same. I find a safe and beautiful place, the color of life and enlightenment (yellow, sunlight) for me and the new baby to be together while I wait until I can recognize that what seems like someone else (the mother of my most precious creative force) is me.

Life and Death

This dream builds on the theme of Don’t Forget the Dogs from a few nights ago. In that dream I tried to avoid looking at the most basic reality of life—that it ends. Here I begin to accept this inevitability.

The Dream: I’m in someone’s house. She has pets; one a dog, the other a lizard. The lizard looks like a made-up animal, like a dream animal come to life. It’s very cute. My friend is pretty, and naive. She wants her animals to get along and, like a child, thinks they will. She puts them outside together. A few moments later we see one end of the lizard sticking out of the dog’s mouth. I feel sick and don’t even want to think about what shape the rest of the lizard is in. She wants to pull it out of the dog’s mouth. I think it might be better to let the dog finish the job.

Interpretation: The lizard represents the basic life force. My naïve part wants to believe that this life force can happily co-exist with death. When she puts the lizard (life) and the dog (death) together in their natural setting (outdoors), the inevitable happens: death devours life. The dream ego is distressed but accepting.