Original

The Dream: I go outside from a house where I used to live onto a deck with several picnic tables off to the right side. They are populated with sightseers. I am looking for a place to sit and do a drawing. Finally I find an empty place at a table where several other people are sitting. A young round-faced woman sits across from me. She has a black eye (her right eye). She asks what I’m drawing, and I tell her it is a dream drawing. “Oh,” she says, “why don’t you do something original?”
I am surprised. “These are original!” I say.  
I leave the deck, noticing a low utilitarian gate opening onto the driveway that goes to the house.

Interpretation: I seem to be going in circles in this dream. First I’m in the house, then on the deck outside, and then see a path that leads back to the house. Something has me stuck in this house, and whatever it is makes it difficult for me to be original. To figure out what that’s about, I’ll look at the word “original.” Incased in the word is “origin.” Something about this loop is connected to my origins. To do something original means to do something that truly reflects who I am at my most basic—in other words, at my point of origin—where I start (originate) to define my unique self, what Jung calls individuation.
The visual is highly symbolic, as we can tell from the sight-seers (double emphasis on seeing with a dollop of mystical foresight: that is, seers.) The other actors in the dream are on the right; in this dream they represent my desire to do the “right” thing, the acceptable thing. Why does the person demanding originality have a black eye? Perhaps she is my black (unacceptable, secretive, mysterious) I (self). If I take the gate back to the house (my usual self) I am passing into the utilitarian, abandoning the possibility of discovering my own originality.