The Dream: I'm at a large dinner party. My older brother is sitting at the table, about three-quarters of the way down from me. I'm near, or at, one of the heads. I am crying because my other brother has died. A young woman, a friend, sits on my lap. At first I think this is a joke, but after a while I realize there are no other seats and she means to stay. This begins to feel oppressive.
Interpretation: I don't have the inner resources to take care of a need (there are not enough seats for all at the table). I only have my head (logic). Yet feeling cannot be denied, and I am crying. My brother's death, and the realization that I am three-quarters through my own life, is the oppressive thing that sits on me and won't go away. It's no joke. Yet my oppressor is friendly, why is that? Because she is there to teach me an important lesson, to make me aware that death is a reality I shouldn't run from, but must accept.
In this dream, I as dream ego, am being forced to "sit with my feelings". In this case, my feelings of grief for my brother who died. I am comforted that it is a friend who is forcing me into this situation, someone who knows what is best for me. The question the dream calls up to me is: Is it more oppressive not to feel the feelings, or more oppressive to do so?". I am reminded (as I, too, am in the last third of my life), that there is a term "a good death". Patricia Bulkeley mentioned this at an IASD dream conference years back - she said that one of the best things a parent can give a child is a good death. Also, I just read a chapter about Christianity in the Middle Ages and how "a good death" was very important to being a Christian. There were stipulations about what a good death entailed. So, not only am I grieving for the death of my brother, but I am also grieving for my own upcoming death. Perhaps life is, after all, a joke that we just don't recognize yet:)
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