A Walk Through the Past

Sometimes it seems as if a dream evokes our distant past, when our potential lay buried deep within our ancestors. The Dream: I am walking through a European city and see sections of town that have facades from prehistoric times. I'm intrigued by this and sorry we don't have this sort of antiquity in America. Then I think, “Perhaps we do.”

Interpretation: This dream was triggered by a talk with a friend about ancient goddesses. The dream got me to thinking about our links to the past. For women, mitochondrial DNA from our mothers stretches back unchanged into distant antiquity and provides a link with our ancestors who, through us, live in modernity.

Written on the Body

This dream is a good example of how dreams play with images.

The Dream Image: A gash in something that looks like flesh. It’s filled with letters.

Interpretation: The simple vulva shape of the “gash” makes me think this image refers to femininity with its attendant social “castration” (the red gash) that Freud documented. As a woman I feel that what he sees as penis envy has nothing to do with the organ, but everything to do with the limited possibilities woman were afforded before the 1970s. At the same time the letters are a sly wink at DNA, the mysterious sequence that determines who we are. From this point of view the dream says that femininity is at the very core of my being. But wait: this feminine symbol is filled with mail (male): the introduction of the male into the female is at the basis of creation and represents completeness. To limit myself to the feminine is not to see myself in my full potentiality.

Mix and Match

Have you ever said of someone, “he’s like two different people”? Well, he’s not alone; we all are. And when you think of all your different ancestors, each contributing a bit of DNA, it’s not a surprise. One of the functions of dreams is to help us reconcile our own inner opposites. When this happens Jung calls it a conjuntio.

The Dream: A table is covered with a white linen cloth and set with my good china, a Lenox pattern called Castle Garden. There is a vase on the table, also Lenox, but a different pattern. It has a flower on one side and a Chinese-inspired dragon on the other. I fret over whether these two patterns, with their very different motifs, look good together. After a while I conclude that despite their thematic difference, the pieces harmonize—by design.

Interpretation: The Chinese motif has come up in many of my dreams and represents my unconscious, feeling, intuitive aspect. Dragons in western folklore are forces to be defeated; they can represent what is untamed, fierce, passionate. In this dream the lovely and serene castle garden becomes an expanded self-awareness that can co-exist—even harmonize--with the Chinese dragon.