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.

Stealing Fire

The Dream: In a large open city square a woman is selling firewood; I need some for the poor. I know it's wrong to steal, but I see no other way of getting what is so desperately required. I have a small drawstring bag with me, and I surreptitiously fill it, then disappear. I've hidden my stolen property so I can blend in on city streets. I have a nagging guilty feeling that I will be pursued.

In time I come to a very beautiful and elaborate wrought-iron gate, the outer entry to a church. I would like to pray, so I go to a door in the gate and, finding it ajar, go in. The church interior is of warm sienna/golden ochre toned wood. Under high vaulted ceilings many priests and altar boys are everywhere, in constant motion. I look for a spot for quiet contemplation but don't see one. Two young acolytes rough house. Does their play have sexual overtones? I think this is not what I'm looking for and I leave.

I am lost. I need to get back to mid-town but have no sense of direction. I see a street sign that tells me I'm at 217th Street and wonder how I got here. I don't know whether I should ask someone for directions or use the street signs to figure out which way I'm going.

Interpretation: This dream reminds me of the myth of stealing fire from the gods. As in that story, I want to bring the fire to others. I go too far (217th Street!), get lost, and along the way become disillusioned with what I see of the traditional path to god (the church). In this dream the church is so relentlessly masculine that even its sexuality is directed toward men. Is there anything for a woman here? The dream tells me to acknowledge, rather than steal from, the source of the firewood: my enlightenment will come from the feminine (the woman who sells the wood), not the masculine (the traditional, male-oriental church). There is a price to be paid for it (the wood is not free), but avoiding payment will not further my spiritual development.

Guess I'll Go Eat Worms

To figure out what a dream like this means, I have to look at what is going on in my life that is triggering behavior (or a feeling) that I don't accept.
The Dream: My husband, Clark, has found an insect in the garden that we know is destructive. He shows it to me, and I go to get a plastic bag to put it in. I ask if he wants a thin or a heavy plastic: what is necessary to contain the pest, to keep it confined so it won't spread and multiply?

I come back with a small bag. Clark puts in the insect that he's already wrapped in newspaper, and then the bagged creature goes into yet another waste plastic bag and into the landfill trash. I think it's too bad that we have to put all that recyclable plastic into the landfill bin, but it's important that this bug cannot get free and spread.

My neighbor Irene comes over and starts to talk about the bug. She mentions that we have been removing and eating its larvae. This is true, and I am embarrassed that she was aware of it. I hadn't made the connection between the larvae and the bug, and I feel uncomfortable about her knowing so much. But then I remember how snoopy she is, and that not much could happen without her knowledge. I feel weird about our having eaten the larvae. One part of me thinks, “We deep fried them, and they were crispy and tasty.” Another part thinks, “Disgusting.”

Interpretation: This dream deals with a deep ambivalence. Something is bugging me. I think it's destructive, and at the same time it's nourished me. I want it not only contained and destroyed, but hidden, even though one part of me regrets the cost of so much concealment. (The recyclable plastic, a potential resource, could be put to better use elsewhere.) I feel uncomfortable about the rewarding aspects of something that I don't think is socially acceptable. (I'd rather my neighbor didn't know.) I have to look at what is going on in my life that is triggering this unacceptable behavior or emotion; then I need to figure out what about it has some sort of payoff. Once I become aware of the unconscious conflict I might be able to resolve it.

Empathy in an Artifact

The Dream: I’m in a foreign country. A woman is digging in a sandy spot, with water puddling in the hole as she digs. The location is a city square. It isn’t green, with trees and grass, but more like a European town square with packed sandy earth.  At one point I hear that we are in Mesopotamia, and at another that we are in a Mediterranean country.

I watch the woman dig; her action seems inappropriate, considering how she is dressed and her age: she’s middle class and middle aged. I become excited and say, “When I lived in England I wrote a novel, and I got the idea for it doing what you’re doing: I was digging with my children.” 

Clark says, “You can often find artifacts.” He begins to dig in or near the woman’s spot and in short order extracts a circular clay piece with what appears to be a primitive god in the center. I wonder if we can keep this interesting object or whether we are legally required to turn it in. I want it.

Later we are sitting at a table, the three of us. Clark is to my right; the woman to my left. When Clark passes the artifact to me I plan to slip it into my carrier bag. He hands it to me, but rather than the clay sculpture it is a picture of the artifact on shiny photographic paper, with a list of the god’s attributes to the right. There are four, and the 3^rd one is “empathy.”

 “Empathy?” I think. “That’s an odd trait for a primitive god.”

Interpretation: Something is coming up from underneath. The puddling water tells me that unconscious material is coming to the surface. To start, let’s take a look at the geometric symbols in this dream: there’s the city “square,” the round clay artifact and the square table where we later sit. The square and the circle are both symbols of what Jung calls the Self, in other words, the combination my consciousness (what I’m aware of) and my unconscious (what I’m unaware of thinking or feeling). Dream are road maps, telling us where we are on the path to individuation, another Jungian term for the process of incorporating our unconscious material into our conscious awareness. 

The middle aged woman is me, digging into my dreams and bringing unconscious material to the surface. When I am joined by my husband Clark (my other half) and my children (the curious, experimental, engaged parts of myself) an artifact (a long-buried, but new to me, part of myself) quickly appears. This is something I want, even though I have some qualms about my right to have it.

Later, at the table (have the gifts from the unconscious been tabled?), I plot to steal the artifact. But I can’t do it. It turns into a representation of itself, becoming as ephemeral as the dream that engendered it.  But it does have a message for me, “Empathy.”

Kept Under Wraps

No matter how old we get, there may be issues from the past we haven’t resolved. This dream brings one front and center. According to Jung, a man in a woman’s dream represents what he calls her Animus—the part of the woman that expresses what were thought of, in his time, as male traits: ambition, assertiveness and intellect.

The Dream: A young person, a teenager or someone in his early 20s, is being zipped into a clear form-fitting plastic bag, something like a heavy garment storage bag. The dream image shows his shoulders, a bit of his torso and his shaved head. He has a tattoo on his left side. It is clear the young man has transgressed and this zippering is his punishment. I think this treatment is harsh.

Interpretation: The part of me that is ambitious, that would go out and make its way in the world, is represented by the figure in this dream. This part has been confined by being zipped into a plastic bag. The event occurred at a formative stage of my life: teenage or early 20s. The tattoo represents some remaining rebelliousness. My forceful part has been overlaid by a phony “plastic” persona and stored (placed in a heavy garment storage bag.)