Diminished

The Dream: I notice I am small,small enough to lie inside a dinner tray.

Interpretation: In the dream I'm trying on the child self that my unconscious has been telling me (in previous dreams) that I have repressed. I experience the vulnerability of the child. Not only am I very small, I'm on a dinner tray, in danger of being eaten.

Swinging Freely

 

The Dream: A small boy walks up a ramp and swings from a chandelier. He uses it as a child might use monkey bars. I am concerned for his safety and work to get him off the chandelier and back to a safe place. I put him in a box.

Interpretation: This dream comments on two recent dreams, My Child is Kidnapped and I’m Blind. This dream tells me that what I'm not seeing (my blind spot) is how my adult caution has repressed (stolen, kidnapped) my inner child (I've put him in a box).

I’m Blind

The Dream: Clark says, “Car, you’re blind.”

Interpretation: There was more to this dream, and I wish I could remember it because it might tell me what it is I’m not seeing. The statement comes from my husband Clark (my other half). He uses half my name. There are two “halves” in this dream: my animus (my other half) and half my name. Yet the two halves are not adding up to a whole, and I’m not getting the complete picture (I’m blind.)

Nature 's Way

All aspects of waking life affect dream life, including what we read or watch on television.

The Dream: We are outside. I see, off to the right, waves approaching. “This is the time of the black waves,” I say. The waves are blue toward the edges; their center goes from mid-night blue to black. At first I merely watch these interesting waves; then one very large one breaks over us all, drenching us (in our nice clothes) and lifting us out of our seats, moving us toward the shore. Will we stay safely on the shore or is this a tsunami? I’m not sure.

Interpretation: I had been reading M.Ester Harding’s book Psychic Energy the night before I had this dream. Speaking of nature, Harding says: “She is fecund and cruel. Her law works for the continuation of the race. The young are important as such, for they represent the next generation. Yet if many die, there are always more to replace them. As individuals they are of very little importance in the eyes of Mother Nature, who creates living creatures in great abundance and then destroys them all. For this is nature’s way.”*

In the dream I experience the terror and uncertainty of this grim reality.

*M. Ester Harding, Psychic Energy Its Source and Its Transformation, with a forward by C.G. Jung, Bollingen Series X, First Princeton/Bollingen Paperback Edition, 1973:192-193.

My Child is Kidnapped

The Dream: My daughter and I are walking along a road that leads to the train station. The street and sidewalk are empty. A car draws near, an old-style sedan with a black landau top and a white body. The car is going slowly, near us, behaving oddly enough to make me slightly apprehensive. I look away for a moment and when I look back my daughter has disappeared. I stare into the car and see her in the front seat sitting between two severe-looking adults. The clearest one is an older woman with gray-black hair and a quiet demeanor. When I call 911 the operator tells me there is nothing the police can do. She suggests I go talk to the kidnappers, face to face.

Interpretation: Is my (inner) kid napping? Has she been stolen from me? On the other hand, I’m seeing the situation in black and white, no nuanced shades of gray; that hints that I might be operating under the influence of some simplistic, childish ideas that I’m unaware of. Who are they, these somber people in an old-fashioned car? Do I need to talk to (better understand) the forces that have taken my inner child? Clearly, I’m on my own with this one; the “authorities” cannot help.

Happy Mother's Day

Today we honor our mothers and our mothers' mothers, the unsung heros of the human race.

Trickster in the Lead

The Dream: Trickster is at the head of a procession.

Interpretation: Did reading Freud's book on dreams before drifting off to sleep inspire this?

What Defines You?

The Dream: I’m having a discussion with someone who says I’ve changed. I say, “Yes, every cell in my body has been replaced since we last met. I am a different person.”

Interpretation: The unconscious seems to be considering a philosophical question about identity. As we change, both physically and mentally, what defines us?

The Dream Journal

Figuring out who’s who is this dream’s puzzle.
The Dream: Mary tells me her friend is interested in dreams and shows me her dream journal. When I see it I feel inadequate. The woman has illustrated every scene of a dream that goes on for seven pages. The illustrations are creative and clever. She has made an illustration of little iced cookies in the shape of animals that represents Mary: Mary doesn’t care for it; she thinks it’s “too sweet,” but I think it’s charming. The illustrations are colorful, playful, and chic at the same time.

Interpretation: The Mary in this dream is a waking life friend. I am the only friend she has who keeps a dream journal. So—does this make me the friend whose dream journal she is showing me? Is she, in fact, showing me my own dream journal? And if she is, why do I feel inadequate when I see it? This leads to the next identity puzzle: is Mary actually Mary, or is she standing in for someone else? As an old friend she stands in for someone from my past. Who, I have to ask myself, in my past reacted to my work in a judgmental way? This leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the Mary in my dream stands in for my inner “mother.” The seven pages and the iced cookies hint at the era the dream evokes: when I was seven years old. A hopeful sign: I stand up for myself, disagreeing with Mary’s (mother’s) assessment of my artwork.