I'm Stalled

The Dream: Mother and I are in an area of Manhattan that we don't know. We need a toilet, find one, and go in. As I use one of the stalls I realize the one next to me is a shower. I think it's nice, and progressive, that the city provides a place where the indigent can bathe. A woman takes advantage of this, and soon I'm getting sprayed with water coming over the stall divider. This is not pleasant, but I'm temporarily stuck where I am.

When I finish using the toilet I leave the stall in search of my mother. I don't see her, and I wander in circles yelling, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

Interpretation: I'm stuck (in a stall) as I try to release some pent up emotion (relieve myself: go to the toilet). The water that splashes me represents unconscious material coming into consciousness, and while it isn't pleasant, I must endure it. The dream emphasizes the importance of this process by pointing out that the shower is for the indigent (someone in need). The little child within me cries for her mother as I get in touch with the well of grief I feel over her death.

What have I Locked Away?

The Dream: I’m in a house which is empty of furnishings, as if we’re just moving in. A man is helping, a swarthy Middle Eastern type. I can’t tell if he is a nice guy—which he appears to be—or a terrorist who has infiltrated. He shows a card with a string of numbers at the top. The only numbers I remember are the 0 and the 20, at the beginning. I think this is some sort of a code: either for a locker or something else. Is this a code he will slip to a compatriot, some sort of secret message? Or is it the number for a locker combination? Will they put bombs in the locker?

Interpretation: I’ve come to a new stage of life (moving into a new house). Here I meet a part of myself that is foreign to me (Middle Eastern). In fact, this part of me is so unfamiliar I don’t even know if he’s good or bad. He is connected to an experience I had at age 20 (the numbers on the card). That experience is a code for something that created a psychic explosion.

At the age of 20 I had just graduated university and left home to live in Manhattan (the new house). Being my own person and seeing such a different life from the one I had experienced growing up in the South expanded my mind to the point it could be thought of as a type of explosion. What might the experience be a code for? Freedom! The dream is reminding me that it’s important to hang on to the essential part of myself that I discovered in my early adulthood.