Making Room for All

Dreams are grounded in your day-to-day life. If you take a look at what you've been up to recently, you'll get some good clues about the meaning of your dream.
The Dream: I'm in a large house, and many young boys are sleeping, dormitory style, in my bedroom. The other bedrooms are full, and a couple has just arrived who need a place. I revisit the sleeping arrangements, and as I do, my bedroom turns into a vast field, with the boys' beds, now chaises longues, lined up against an embankment.  I see I have all the room I need after all, and I suggest that we move the boys' beds back in and put the couple in an area to my right. I a choose a spot near the door for myself in case I want to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It  seems that this new arrangement makes room for all, with some privacy, and it's comfortable.

Interpretation: I had a lot of activities going on when I had this dream. They were things I was happy about and wanted to do, but how to make room for all? The dream reflects in a simple and graphic way my attempt to fit together many interests, and shows me a solution: I need to do some rearranging. There are a couple of new things (the pair that just arrived) that I need to make room for. I also need to be sure I leave myself a path for release, or self-expression (the bathroom).

The boys (new undertakings that require some care because they aren't fully developed) and the color I unconsciously chose for the drawing (green) hint at the growth my new interests promise.

Who Has Come Back?

The Dream: I am in a bedroom. I look into a mirror and see a smudge of a little girl I thought had gone. I turn to the left and, standing next to the bed I see the girl, very pretty with blond curls, smiling at me. “Katie!” I say, astonished. I feel both surprised and scared, as if seeing someone who had returned from the dead.

Interpretation: I had been looking back over past “baby” dreams from a year ago. What does this small, childish, nearly gone, hard to see (smudge in the mirror) part of myself represent? The curls remind me of age 7, a time when I was out-spoken, before self-control--or repression, or conformity--took over. I see her in the mirror (she mirrors me; she is me). Am I still afraid of her uncensored reaction to life? Even if I am, I'm glad she isn't dead.

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.)

Staying with My In-Laws

The Dream: I am visiting my in-laws. They give me their bedroom for the night. I am given a single bed next to where they normally sleep: in a “nest” on the floor that’s big enough for two.

Interpretation: I thought of my in-laws, and the gifts they have given me, as I worked in my studio yesterday. As I opened the sky-light I thought of my father-in-law, who had helped install it. I thought of both as I used a paper cutter Clark brought back for me from their house after his mother went into assisted living, and I thought of her again as I used some of her china-painting pigments. In the dream my husband’s family made room for me in the most intimate room of their house, a beautiful symbol of their acceptance, and I am grateful. Although one is gone and the other near death they stay with me, as in the dream I stay with them.

Bodice Ripper Scene 2

Dream Scene 2: The marriage has been celebrated, and it is the wedding night. The Lady and the Viscount are in a cloakroom or closet which is situated behind the bedroom. They share one bedroom. The lady, new to this class and situation, looks to her husband for clues on how to behave. He disrobes; she observes him in his 18th c shirt with no trousers. He takes off his clothing layer by layer, placing it on hangers, and puts the hangers on hooks that protrude from the wall. She is surprised by such tidiness, having thought that this would be a job for the servants. She mimics her new husband: disrobing, placing her garments on hangers, and hanging these up. It is a passionless scene, and, as I observe, I run varying scenarios for the wedding night. Will the husband be concerned about his new wife’s pleasure or merely do the deed? Is the Lady a virgin? If so, will she be able to enjoy the act? If not, will the Viscount be seriously displeased?

Interpretation: The wedding represents the tentative union of two aspects of my psyche, represented by the Lady and the Viscount. The closet is the storehouse for my attitudes and emotions; its location behind the bedroom means the relationship we’re observing is intimate, close to the core of my being. What about the emphasis on clothing? The Viscount takes the first step in revealing himself by taking off his clothes. Not entirely comfortable, but not knowing what else to do, the Lady follows suit. By emphasizing the passionless nature of this encounter the dream tells me again that this union is more like putting a toe in the water than diving in. For Jung--unlike Freud who would probably describe inhaling as a substitute for penetration--even sexual intercourse is not necessarily about sex in a dream. And I think you can see its symbolic relevance here as I conjecture about the physical union, not at all sure how successful the joining of these two will be.

This dream has also been interpreted by the well-known dream worker Jane Teresa Anderson in Episode 44 of The Dream Show

Playing in the Pool

“Father” appears again in this dream, cutting short a playful splash in the unconscious.
The Dream: I’m playing in the pool with some kids. We are all young girls. The setting is the pool of the house I live in. We are playing with the water in such a way that we’ve sent up a spray of water in a rectangular shape. Then we notice that “dad” is spying on us, looking out from the upstairs bedroom window. We’ve made too much noise and awakened him.

Interpretation: Playing in a pool (the unconscious) with some kids. That I’m dealing with children—as opposed to adults—tells me the psychic elements that have been activated are connected to a part of me that’s not fully formed. There’s a playful element: I’m splashing about in this unconscious material, perhaps not taking it as seriously as I should. To create a safe zone these children send up what Jung calls a temenos with their rectangular spray of water. A temenos, often represented by a square, is a sacred place where transformation can occur. This splashing about in the unconscious displeases the “father,” representative of a rigid kind of thinking and morality, who awakens.

Not Ready to Take the Plunge

As you work with your dreams, you might find they comment on the process of working with dreams—in other words, with the process of beginning to understand normally unconscious material.

The Dream: I’m at the gym, but it looks like a hotel room. I’m with my mother, and we have stopped in to have a bath. My mother bathes first, in a small bathroom with a shower curtained tub and a toilet. When I am ready for my turn, I notice she has left many towels rolled up in the tub. I start to remove them, looking for a place to put them. I run out of room and patience when I spot a beige and brown granite tub in the bedroom. It is rectangular in shape and shallow. I wonder if it’s clean. When I am ready to get in, the tub disappears.

Interpretation: This dream is about working out (I’m in the gym) a way to access unconscious material. While the action takes place in the gym it looks like a hotel, a temporary residence, hinting that I’m neither here nor there. We have come to this place to bathe: going into water symbolizes immersion into the unconscious. Even though I thought I was ready for the experience, difficulties show me I’m not.  First, my internalized “mother” places so many obstacles in the tub that I give up trying to remove them. Then I move on to the bedroom, where a font-like tub appears. Would immersion here be a sort of baptism into the realm of the unconscious? I’m not comfortable with this tub, finding it unclean, and it doesn’t trust me either: it disappears at the moment I’ve overcome my resistance to it.

Exposed or Transcendence through Art

You might think the unconscious throws up a lot of irrelevant rubbish, night after night. If you do, you’re not alone. But when I had this dream the night after posting my first blog, I thought otherwise.

The Dream: I am in my childhood bedroom. The bed is pushed near the window, and I am lying on it dressed only in some sheer underwear. My rear end is near the window; the rest of my body curled away from it. A portico goes right past the window, with its blinds lifted just far enough so that someone can see in. A young man walks by, and I feel embarrassed (in bare assed) and wonder if he’s seen me. I go outside to see if people can actually see in. After all, I reason, it’s daytime; ordinarily outsiders can’t see in even if the blinds are up. I look in the window and see a nude woman, in a pose similar to those adopted by life-drawing models. She is comfortable with the exposure; when put in the context of “art” her nudity seems natural and nonthreatening. But I do conclude from this bit of sleuthing that indeed—those outside can see inside very clearly.

Interpretation: The figure in the drawing looks awkward and uncomfortable. That says it all: This blogging is scary!