Cast Not the First Stone

The Dream: I'm in a living room with a long mural that I had painted, made up of several separate pieces the same dimensions as a series of family history embroideries I had made in waking life. My brother and his friend have painted over the mural to shift the color to a different, warm shade of brown. They are pleased with themselves and feel this is an improvement. I am incensed, perhaps even more so because it is a rather nice shade. I yell at them enthusiastically, but it seems they are impervious to my attacks; as people used to say, “They couldn't care less.” I'm as frustrated by their lack of seeing the insult they've perpetrated as I am by what they did. “You have denigrated my work!” I say.

Getting no satisfaction from them, I declare that I will never again come into this room. The next scene, however, finds me in it. My brother is now without his mocking friend. I try again to get him to see the gravity of his sin, and he says, “Now you know how I felt when you . . . . “ I don't remember what he accused me of, but I do remember I had done what he said, and that I, like him, had been unaware of its impact on the other.

Interpretation: The dream was triggered by a falling out between a couple of distant family members, and my realization that their anger and frustration with each other is rooted in their shared past (the family history embroideries).

The dream has an interesting resolution: I go back into the living room (the place where I live) and realize that I have done exactly the same thing that I was angry at my brother for doing. In other words, I've taken on the role that a family member once played: since I do the same thing that my dream brother has done, I am the critic who denigrates my work. I am doing it to myself.

The dream tells me a few important things: First, it's time to lighten up. Second, it is time to learn how to accept a good criticism (the new color is actually an improvement), and third, my family history holds the key to my overly critical thoughts.

Guest Dreamer: Sacred Marriage

Thanks to Susanne van Doorn for this evocative dream and the lovely photograph that illustrates it. You can read her thoughts on this dream at Susanne's Dream Blog.  In this post I'll comment on her dream as if it were one of my own.

Susanne' s Dream: I am guarding a couple that wants to be married. We are on the road, on our bikes, me and some friends. I know L. from high school; he is my male-companion in making sure the couple can get to their ceremony on time. L. was a man when the rest in high school were boys. I know with him as a guardian-companion we can make this work; we will get the couple to the altar on time.

We stop at a crossing and hold up our hands to stop the other traffic to have a safe passage. I am looking at the carriage were the couple is in and the bride, a girl with brown churlish hair, is preparing her wedding bouquet. She arranges black and red tulips and is lacing a red band onto the bouquet, carefully lacing it. I look at her with a feeling of love and guidance in my heart and I wake up knowing we are going to make it happen.

Carla's thoughts: In my version of Susanne's dream the couple that wants to marry are previously divergent parts of me that are now ready to unite—this is what Jung would call a conjunctio, often symbolized by a marriage. What might these parts be? L, my companion and helper in the dream, stands for a mature and capable part of me. In the dream I need this part in order to be effective, and that acknowledgment is the first step in our unification. Because his strength gives me a feeling of security I can rely on my Psyche to deal with life's difficulties.

Who is the bride? She is described as having “churlish” brown hair. While churlish might be a typo for “curly”, I have to look at the word I wrote down (as the dreamer), not what I might have meant to write. Churlish means “rude in a mean-spirited and surly way.” If hair, because it's coming out of our heads, symbolizes thought, and brown is slang for anger (I was “browned off”), I might be dealing with some hostile feelings that I don't want to face. The other colors hint at the topic that has evoked this reaction. I'm lacing together a bouquet of red and black flowers. For me red is life and passion, black is death and nothingness. Flowers are important in both life and death rituals, weddings and funerals. As the bride I lace these two conflicting states of being together—life and death. The red band (life) that I put around my bouquet holds the opposites together and tells me that they are part of the same thing. This is another conjunctio! Seeing this unity in the dream gives me the insight to get past my anger about death, something that I previously responded to with the surly attitude of an adolescent. Once this immature part united with my mature and strong self, represented by L, my reaction to death was no longer churlish. Now I have the understanding of a strong woman, one who can love and guide others as well as help myself along the path; L and I have made it safe for my individuation to continue.

More Possibilities than I Thought

The Dream: I have grown my hair out, and it lies fine and lanky below my shoulders. It's a boring gray/brown color, and although I look youngish I think that the long, fine, dull hair ages me. Then it occurs to me that I can change it. I can curl my hair to give it body. Then I see myself with vibrantly colored red/gold/brown hair, thick and luxuriant, styled with an upward flip at the ends.

Interpretation: Going with the idea that my hair, coming out of my head, is a symbol for my thoughts, the dream shows me changing my dull, lackluster thinking for something new and exciting. The dream message? There's a change I can make, and I'll be glad I did.

More Protected Than Necessary

The Dream: I'm in a foreign land. A Chinese woman is in charge: she's the dictator. A group of us sit in an informal semicircle on the ground in front of her. I see that others are expected to show ID cards in the shape of credit cards when she calls on them. They are dispatched according to her wishes. When my turn comes I have my identity card in my hand. I'm ready. I feel proud of myself for this preparedness. When she sees from my card that I'm an American I'm dealt with lightly. She suggests a couple of museums I “should” see.

I have a large bag. I open it and see the two raincoats I had bought earlier for a very good price, this being China. The coats come out, and so does a brown liquid. One of the coats was supposed to be the traditional raincoat tan, and the other, brown. The attempt to dye one brown has not been successful, but neither has it damaged either coat. “What,” I wonder, “am I supposed to do with two identical coats?” I decide to give one to Barbara. It occurs to me that Barbara might not want one of these, she can be very particular at times. Then what? I'm not sure. I go I search of the museums the authority recommended, but there are so many that I don't think I'll be able to locate these particular two. I would like to see them.

Interpretation: Dreams are usually triggered by something from the day or two before the dream, and it's sometimes helpful to figure out what. In this dream, the search for the museums was sparked by a television news segment on Burma that showed very large, deserted public buildings. Getting a pass for being an American echoed a story I'd heard the night before from a Jeopardy contestant who was traveling in a foreign country when he missed the last train of the day and the waiting room closed. He resorted to sleeping in the hallway.  A cop came along and said, “Oh, I thought you were a bum; but I see you're an American.”

For its own reasons, the dream generator put these things together. Why? An inner authority figure (the Chinese dictator) who knows who I am (she's seen my ID card) tells me to look at some old stuff (go to some museums). My protective gear (raincoats) is not what I expected, and I find I have more than I need. It protects me from water signaling that it's there to shield me from emotion--tears, grief. My inner artist (Barbara) is likely to spurn this protection, and that makes me uneasy. I haven't yet brought to consciousness the particular old stuff I'm meant to see—unless it my dawning realization of how many people were good to me, and how irretrievably lost to me they are.

Guest Dreamer: No Longer Caving In

How are we affected by the images of womanhood that are prevalent at the time we approach it?

Sunee's Dream: I had a very vivid, but strange dream last night. Seems I was going to a place for information about something. There was a beautiful old gambrel-roofed (sometimes called hipped-roof) barn which was kept up so nice--with freshly stained brown cedar siding (I remember thinking it would really have looked good if it had been painted the traditional barn red color), and the house had the same color siding, too. The place was a lovely old farmstead, with large shade trees and a beautiful well-kept yard--a place where mature adults would live (no sign of kids here). It was in the middle of summertime, and the air felt cool and slightly damp, but the sun was shining. The entire place set quite close to the gravel road, which is not unusual here for old farms. I went to the door and hanging on the door was a picture of my father and me, when I was little--taken years ago, but it did not look like a familiar picture to me. A man came to the door, his name was Mr. Huntley. I asked him about the barn, commented on my attraction to it, and could I go in it. He seemed a bit reserved, but did take me in the barn. Inside, was the entrance to 3 caves. They did not look very big. Each had mud paths going down, and each looked well used. Then, darned it, I woke up!
I do not know anyone by the name Huntley, and this place is unknown to me; also, there are no caves around here! This is probably just a goofy dream, but I remember it so well, and was wondering if it might mean something.

Carla's thoughts: In case Sunee is not familiar with the techniques of dream work I'd like to reiterate what I've said before about my commenting on another person's dream. I am working with a technique called projection, and that means that I treat Sunee's dream as if it were my own. Dreams speak to us in images and symbols, and these can have very specific meanings for a dreamer—so don't believe anyone who tells you that they can tell you what your dream means. Dreams come from our lives, and each dream has a meaning specific to the life and person who created it. What others can do is to give you ideas about what the dream might possibly mean. My hope is that this will get you started on your own exploration.

So—if this were my dream, I would think it had to do with my being at a stage in my life where I am ready to understand an event in my past in a new way. I would look back to the two or three days before I had the dream to see if there were something that brought to mind a person or situation from the past. In the dream, I am looking for information. The beautiful old barn gives me some hints about the topic. A barn is a place that houses animals, so the information I'm looking for might have to do with my physical self (my animal). This is a place of productivity; all is well cared for. The atmosphere is one of fertility, and several images in the dream make me think of myself coming into the fertility announced by my first menstrual period. First there is the hipped-roof building (my hips), and then there is the freshly stained brown siding (the red-brown of first menstrual blood). This is emphasized by my thinking it would be even better if it were red (blood). That this is a place for mature adults tells me that I might be on the right track here, because as of my first period I became mature, an adult.

Something about this time was difficult for me; the road was rough (the gravel). The picture of my father and me appears at this point. Fathers in dreams can stand for the traditional values of a culture, and, when I was a girl, periods were highly embarrassing things. I felt self-conscious about this natural and healthy occurrence, and this added to my adolescent angst. Mr Huntley appears just at this time; he's the person who will help me hunt for my own truth about how I feel about my body. Many things in the dream tell me that that truth is far more positive than the negative images of my youth: the loveliness of the well-kept farm and its garden, for example.

What's stopping me? Mr Huntley's reserve is my reserve. (All characters in a dream are the dreamer.) The caves are the entrance to my unconscious, and that's where the true information resides. But it's a slippery (muddy) slope getting down there, and there might be something that is muddying the issue. Nevertheless, I think the dream is telling me to go with my own feelings; I don't have to cave in to the opinions of others.

Getting to the Root of Things

The Dream: I look in the mirror and see that my hair is growing in very dark brown. About two-thirds is its current color, a sun-streaked dark blonde, and the third near the roots is a rich and shiny dark brown. I am surprised it isn't gray, although I do notice a few gray hairs—silver and shiny—mixed in. I try to decide if I should color it my customary blonde or let it grow in brown. I like it, but I wonder if a rich brown color will look phony on someone my age. I show it to the rest of the family to get their reaction.

Interpretation: I look at myself and see that something new and rich is pushing out of my head: I have a new way of thinking. It is flecked with experience (gray), but even this is shiny and exciting (silver). It will take a while for this transformation to take place: it's only one-third complete. Should I go forward? Or am I past it (too old for this)? What will my family think?

Guest Dreamer: I Need to Sleep on It

Today's guest dreamer Travis Wernet gives us the opportunity to further explore the shoe theme. Travis works with both dreams and sound healing. You can find out more about his work here. Like Tyler, Travis has a two-dream sequence, and both of his feature shoes. We'll look at the first dream today.
Travis' First Dream: I'm in a bedroom, arranging a transparent pillow full of branches/twigs/herbs on a bed and at the 'head', which is on my 'right'... To the left is a group/audience - composed of all women (I am pretty sure). My waking life sister opens a door to the left and enters with a friend. I feel interrupted/distracted. They've brought in two pairs of shoes and set them on the bed. One woman in the audience whom I am seeking to impress remarks on the "fine, stylish red pair." I know they're leather and I myself don't see them as red, but more dark/brown. She wants me to put them on and wear them and it seems to me they are very finely crafted shoes, but I seem hesitant to wear them and want to get back to my pillow arranging activity.

Carla' thoughts: The bedroom, the place where I sleep, is also the place where I encounter my unconscious. Of course it is also a place of intimacy, so this dream is giving me information about my unconscious feelings about a relationship. The relationship might be with another person or it might be with my own anima (the woman that lives within a man). How I relate to my anima will affect the way I interact with women in general, and I think I might be on the right track here because there are so many women in this dream.

The transparent pillow is particularly important since it occurs both at the beginning and at the end of the dream. A pillow is a place where I put my head—a symbol for the rational—while I sleep. This is when I can experience the unconscious intuitive way of thinking that is traditionally associated with women. The pillow's branches tell me that I'm branching out, ready to experience something new. The twigs suggest new growth, and the herbs tell me that the new growth that will emerge from my branching out is healing. The pillow's transparency symbolizes that what the dream is telling me is clear—not opaque.

My sister (my anima) opens a door (gives access) to the left (my unconscious). Of course I'm distracted by this intrusion; it interrupts my usual relationship to my psyche. She and her friend present me with an implied choice between two pairs of shoes, although the second pair doesn't show up until the second dream. They put the shoes on the bed (symbol of my intimacy with women), and I begin to experience conflict. There's a woman that I want to impress, but she and I don't see eye to eye. She thinks the shoes are red, while I see them as brown (I'm more down to earth; her feelings are more passionate than mine). The shoes are leather (I'm dealing with something basic, instinctive). Yet she sees the shoes in a more superficial way, as stylish. She wants me to do something I am not yet comfortable with: I'm not ready to wear these shoes, fine as they are. I go back to arranging the pillow: I need to sleep on it (do some further psychic preparation.)

Guest Dream: Killing Gophers

Today's guest dream has been contributed by Emily, who often adds insightful comments to my dreams.

Emily's Dream: The overall scenario is the need to kill gophers. As I walk, I come across Phil Cooper, a member of my church, who is getting frustrated with trying to kill the gophers. The gophers made perfect circles in the mounds of brown dirt surrounding Phil. He tells me they have made over 300 holes in his yard! One way to kill gophers is to use raw pork with poison in it.. I only see one or two pieces of this raw pork, and I see that Phil has put perfectly circular cuts of poison in the thickest part of the meat. I know he didn't have to use such an expensive cut of meat, but I don't have the heart to tell him this. The size of the gopher holes and the poison pieces in the meat is the same.

Shift: A woodpecker, perhaps an acorn woodpecker, except larger, is eating bugs off a tree or a wooden side of a building which my husband has sprayed with gopher poison. I worry that bird will get traces of poison in his system by eating the bugs off the area sprayed. Suddenly, the bird reaches out and grabs a swallowtail butterfly which happens to fly by. I'm surprised he was able to do this - it was as if he reached out with arms to catch it, although I don't see anything like arms on him. As I look more closely at the bird, I see is he holding the butterfly somehow, perhaps how an insect would grab something with his forelegs to hold it and eat it. I see that this bird is eating the "meaty" or "body" part of the butterfly. Its yellow wings are drooping to the sides of his body.

Carla's thoughts: In reacting to Emily's dream I'll interpret it as if it were one of my own. There are many possible meanings in this (or any) dream. I'm going to write about the one that jumped out at me.

A slang expression for someone who performs tedious, low level tasks is a “gopher.” I am tired of these sorts of tasks, and I need to get them out of my life (kill them). I have some ambivalence about freeing myself from these unwelcome duties, which fill (Phil) my time and coop (Cooper) me up. The church represents the part of me that feels these imposed tasks are the right and good thing to do; the circles represent my being circumscribed, or contained, in a place where I don't want to be. The mounds of brown earth evoke excrement: I'm tired of being in the middle of all this shit! The poison in the middle of the circles of raw (me)at tell me just how strong my feelings about this situation are, and its expensive price tells me how much this is costing me.

When the dream shifts I, in the form of a bird, am pecking at this inflexible (wooden) problem. It's certainly bugging me, to the point that my attempt to solve it (by pecking away at it) endangers me. Even in my own home (the building my husband has sprayed) there's the threat of more “go for” poison. Then the dream shows me the path of my transformation: As a bird I am a winged creature (symbolic of the soul), and I reach out and ingest yet another creature that represents the soul, a butterfly. By swallowing the swallowtail the dream tells me my personal means of transformation (taking in the spiritual) is important, and it reminds me to nurture my soul.

Yet Another Brown Baby

What does it mean when famous people appear in our dreams? To figure this out we need to take a look at which aspects of ourselves they represent.

The Dream: Obama is having an affair, and a brown baby is the result. I go to see the baby with some trepidation. I am a relative, perhaps the grandmother. Obama’s paramour has short curly brown hair and a soft and acquiescent feminine affect. She is a woman who stays in the background; she lacks assertiveness. She’s a shadowy, if central, player.

I am disappointed in Obama for being unfaithful to Michelle, but he says he “needs a rest.” I can see his current lover would be just that, and that Michelle’s relentlessly high standards could be hard to live with. I begin to understand, and accept, his behavior, but I think the baby will nevertheless be an embarrassment.

Then I meet the baby and am completely charmed. He is a beautiful shade of brown with an egg-shaped, slightly conical head. He wears red glasses and—just like the baby in the last dream—is preternaturally smart. I am very drawn to him and want to hold him.

Interpretation: In the dream Obama represents my ego, the central organizing force of my personality. His paramour is my shadow feminine side (She’s a shadowy, if central, player). I need a rest from the demanding part of my personality (Michelle); this is the part that drives me to work too hard and never seems satisfied with my accomplishments. My weaker, intuitive side (the shadow feminine) has produced something that feels illegitimate (the baby born out of wedlock). This makes me uneasy, and there’s a strong hint that what makes me uneasy is my fear of social opprobrium. But the reality of the baby changes everything; this new life that is being born in my psyche is something important and elemental (brown like the earth). This is something to embrace.

So Ugly She’s Cute

The Dream: My college friend Mary has a baby who’s so ugly that she’s cute. She is brown with straight golden-brown hair cut in long bangs, and she wears glasses. The baby is very young, only a few months old. She nurses with delight at Mary’s large breast. It soon becomes clear that the baby is very precocious. She can sit and talk; we can tell she is extremely intelligent. Mary is thrilled with her baby.

Interpretation: I think the newly arrived brown babies (this is the second one recently) are linked to a more authentic artistic self emerging as I work on my illustrated dream journals. Not all will find these drawings “beautiful,” yet I find them immensely appealing: so ugly they are beautiful. In waking life Mary is someone who has expressed her own artistic proclivities through others: she married a writer and has many friends in the arts. In the dream the Mary part of me—not quite brave enough to be an artist—has given birth to someone who might manage it. Mary nourishes the baby and is thrilled with her arrival: both good signs.

My Ant is Lanced

Molestation in the news triggers a childhood "memory."

The Dream: A very tough-looking guy is in charge of a peculiar ant-like creature. The ant has a perfectly round head and a body made of transparent, glowing red-brown sections. The head is yellow ochre. It’s as if I am seeing an exposed skeleton, but on a living creature. The “ant” is very large, probably about 5 feet long. The man has several sets of paraphernalia resembling studded dog collars--but actually hand-cuffs--that he uses to control the ant. 

The man is balding with dark brown hair; his red face has a stubby growth of beard. He’s solid and a little overweight. He has belied his tough looks by being helpful to me, yet when I come in contact with some others we accuse him of rape. I know this is false, but having made a commitment to this accusation I cling to it. The man starts to remove his studded hand-cuffs from his wrists where he stores them, and I think he’s going to attack us. Instead he hangs the cuffs on a peg.

Later, apparently having resolved the “rape” issue I need the man to kill the insect. I have come to like the creature and can’t kill it myself. I also don’t want it to suffer; I want it killed quickly and mercifully. In addition I want to preserve its body, so I want it killed in a way that won’t damage its skeleton (body).

The man shakes his head gravely in assent as I explain this mission. I think he is attached to his charge, the ant, in a way, and doesn’t want someone inept bungling this deed. He says, “Most people don’t understand how to do this.”  He goes back a distance and charges the creature with a long pointed lance, making a terrible and fierce face as he does. I am alarmed by this look and surprised at the violence of the method. I think this will be messier than I had wished or anticipated.

He charges the ant, fracturing its large round head in two. The open half spheres are filled with a white thick substance that spills over the edges.

Interpretation: This dream was triggered by news of a local molestation case. The young victim was abused by her swim coach; she had been primed for the abuse by being forced to swim laps wearing a dog-collar while she was held on a leash. The dream examines the confusion of a child’s first view of sex. Did I see my aunt (ant) and uncle, a good natured but tough guy, in the act when I was too young to understand what I was seeing?  I eliminate (kill) the aunt, whose skeleton body represents the bare bones of a knowledge I’m not ready to accept. Does this childish disgust and fear lurk behind my adult feelings about sex? Something to think about.

She's Trying to Tell Me Something

The Dream: I’m in a field. I see a head in a circle. I know the person has died and that this vision is very unusual. Even more unusual, the head—a youngish woman with brown hair—speaks to me. Something about this seems shamanistic or prophetic.

Interpretation: This dream points out that I am on my way toward resolving the conflict that the last several dreams have emphasized: social demands versus private needs. Tony Crisp says that a field (the place I see my dream vision) represents natural feelings or inclinations, or as he puts it: “freedom from social pressure, and the feeling you have about yourself when away from other people.”  The head that speaks to me is the part of me that I have enclosed in a protective circle and that has been quiet for so long I think she’s dead. Her speaking to me feels like a prophecy, a hopeful sign that I will begin to listen more closely to my awakened inner voice.

A Remodel

The Dream: I am remodeling my very large apartment in the city. One room looks quite spectacular. It is the dining room. A large wooden table sits in its center. The walls are covered in a velvet-like pattern, a simplified medieval design in rich shades of green and golden brown with black accents. Brown wood molding surrounds the windows. I think it looks wonderful, but I am concerned this decoration has been slapped on to a base that can’t support it. On the other hand,  perhaps it really is okay.

Interpretation: This dream seems to be a continuation of Not A Black Hole. My psyche is attempting to shift its center; in other words, the Self that Jung talks about is trying to expand in order to include some previously unconscious material. The dining room, being a place where we come together for nourishment, symbolizes this process. But at the center of the room is the large wooden (not pliable, rigid) table (in a meeting to table the motion stops forward progress). I can see there is richness here: the velvet, the warm colors—but I’m not sure I’m strong enough to support it. The jury is still out on this one.

The Chocolate Mondrian

The Dream: I see a rectangle, on its side, a beautiful chocolate brown color, with a smaller off-center square superimposed in a salmon or reddish color, and some cinnamon-color stripes. Mondrian comes to mind: a geometric sort of art, but with colors very different from his. The image also reminds me of a wrapped present. I think it is very beautiful.

Interpretation: Looking at this image in Jung’s terms, I see the rectangle as what he called the Self: in other words, as the totality of my potential being. The square represents the part of the Self that is conscious. The cinnamon stripes, one of which intrudes into consciousness, are gateways allowing unconscious material to come to consciousness.

The Fortune Tellers

Dreams do their job whether or nor we’re aware of it, and whether or not we remember them. It’s interesting to watch this mysterious and powerful psychic force at work in those dreams we do remember. The next three posts are good examples.

The Dream: I am in a group of four. The others in the group are my younger brother and two children. We are performing some sort of ritual which the local people think will foretell their future. We feel like charlatans; our scientific backgrounds tell us this is hokum, but the people are lined up as far as the eye can see, awaiting our pronouncements. We look at one another knowingly and hopelessly. We can’t get out of it, so we proceed.

There are some odd implements involved in our process. One is a long pipe, red with rust. Another is a nondescript, passive, slightly plump brown-haired girl. She uses the pipe as a catapult, and we foretell events depending on where she lands.

Interpretation: A younger brother and children are both symbols of vulnerability, emphasizing its importance in this dream. The two children also suggest the possibility of growth. Four is a significant number for Jung, who sees it as representing a kind of completeness, as in the four corners that make a square, the four directions (North, East, South, and West) or the four seasons.  So what do I have so far? Some phase of my life is complete (the number four). I am vulnerable, and it’s time for me to grow. I’m being asked to do the impossible: foretell the future, and there is considerable social pressure that I do so, even though I know I can’t. The rusty pipe (pipes connect things; rusty implies old) tells me that this is a conundrum from the past, perhaps the feelings of a child who thinks she can’t fulfill parental expectations. There’s some hope I’ll grow past this feeling of inadequacy by jumping (catapulting) beyond it. But how it turns out will depend on where I land.

On(e) Stage

Have you ever noticed that you’re not quite yourself in dreams? The lead character in your nightly drama is called the dream ego.

The Dream: I’m in an odd-shaped structure, something like a tent except that it’s solid. It has various entrances, some of them in surprising places. I get up on a stage which has been set up inside this very large, yellow-ochre structure and begin to give a speech. I’m full of self-confidence as I begin. “Girls inherit their lungs from their mothers . . . .” I trail off as I begin to realize I have no idea where boys get their lungs. I try to find a way to retreat, to get off the stage. I escape through a back exit I hadn’t known was there. The “I” in the dream (dream ego) has dark brown curly hair and a perky demeanor. She doesn’t actually look like me.

Interpretation: The part of me that internalized the opinions of my mother and the female culture of my youth is beginning to realize she doesn’t know everything. She is in retreat. Her domain, the half circle of the tent, shows itself to be incomplete. She is missing what Jung calls the animus, the part of a woman--symbolized by her inner man--that enables her to take on the world.

The Price is Too High

You might think an old conflict has been put behind you; sometimes a dream reveals it hasn’t.

The Dream: I have just met a woman who went to Brown. I am impressed with the school’s prestige and reputation. The woman is now a man. I am trying to remember where I went to school, hoping it was also an impressive place. I would like to impress the fellow, who is slightly hefty or rotund  even though he looks nerdy, puffed up with his own importance.

Interpretation: The problem in a nutshell: as a woman it is difficult to get on in the world; yet the male role, which enables success, is woefully unattractive.