It's Just Not "Me"

The Dream: My friend Joyce has mailed me a box full of things she has cleared out and no longer wants. I go through it and show a man's sweater to Clark. It's a nice sweater, but not at all his style. He doesn't want it, and I find I'm annoyed at Joyce for giving this stuff to me.

Interpretation: This goes back to a very old feeling. My dear mother didn't understand that she and I were two different people. She gave me lovely things that she would have been thrilled to get, especially as the poor child she had been. As an adolescent, I resented being given these things that I didn't want, that weren't “me,” and that, nevertheless, I was obliged to feel grateful for. I felt guilty about my inner resentment, and perhaps the dream has come to allow me to feel it without judgment.

Boxed In

This dream begins a series dealing with the deaths of loved ones over the years.

The Dream: I am trying to move, packing my things into a car. Stephen (a friend from long ago, now dead) is helping. There are things I can't solve that he easily overcomes. For example, to load the backseat he removes a sliding door, effortlessly. I hadn't realized that was possible. I'm in the backseat as he does this and get “boxed” in. I wonder how I'll get out so that I can join him in the front seat, but then it occurs to me that I can climb over the seat back. This realization gives me a free and happy feeling.

Interpretation: Stephen, my first close friend to die, has come to help me move (move on). In other words, he helps me begin to accept our limited time on earth and gives me a sense of the possibility of an afterlife. Because he has passed through death he understands things that I don't. He knows how to work the sliding door, the moveable separation between this life and the next. I am almost boxed in by my limited view, but just in time get enough insight to climb out of my difficulty.

Hit in the I

The Dream: I am rushing out of a building on the way to a dental appointment. There are some odd metal boxes, each with a drawer, in the lobby. I leave the building, picking up one of the boxes on my way out. As I'm going down the front steps, a Mexican girl comes running after me. I understand that she has left a book in the box. She is sitting on one of the steps and stretches out her hand to reach the drawer. As I turn, trying to make it easier for her to open the drawer, the corner of the box strikes her in the forehead. I am very sorry and apologize profusely. Here I was, trying to help, but instead I've hurt her.

We chat for a while and she accepts my apology. Then I realize the corner of the box hit her eye, not her forehead. The eye is red but doesn't appear to be damaged other than superficially. I am upset, but after a while I tire of feeling guilty. I begin to wonder if I had been wrong to apologize: would this open me to a lawsuit? “No,” I think. “The girl's too simple for that. Besides, she doesn't know my name.” I rush off for my dental appointment.

Interpretation: The earthier more basic part of me, as represented by the foreign (Mexican) girl wants an education—there's something she needs to know--(the book), and I (the ego) try to help her. In so doing a blow to the eye (I) occurs. So, as parts of the unconscious become educated, as they come to consciousness, difficulties and complexities are created for the conscious ego. I'm having trouble keeping things “in the box.” (The drawer slides out of its container.) The eye (I) is red (angry). I end up discounting this part of myself: she's too simple; she doesn't know who I am. I rush off for an appointment that never takes place.

Swinging Freely

 

The Dream: A small boy walks up a ramp and swings from a chandelier. He uses it as a child might use monkey bars. I am concerned for his safety and work to get him off the chandelier and back to a safe place. I put him in a box.

Interpretation: This dream comments on two recent dreams, My Child is Kidnapped and I’m Blind. This dream tells me that what I'm not seeing (my blind spot) is how my adult caution has repressed (stolen, kidnapped) my inner child (I've put him in a box).

A Pox on Both Your Houses

The Dream: Two women are going to be executed. The action takes place in a small town. The townspeople are required to carry out the execution. The action centers on the drugstore, where the druggist, a man, is in a separate cubicle searching for the means to carry out the execution order. He finds two garrotes made of shiny thin black plastic and realizes that this is the instrument that will be used. He is nervous and drops them on the floor, then picks them up and puts them on the counter. Next question? Who will be the executioner?

Interpretation: The two women signal an internal conflict. The small town tells me that the conflict has to do with my relationship to a group: I feel strangled (the garrote) by the society I’m in. The druggist represents the part of me that wants to deaden my awareness of this problem (he dispenses drugs); the cubicle (box) he’s in echoes my isolation. He discovers a way to get rid of the conflict—by choking it off (the two garrotes). But since they are made of plastic (phony) we can guess he might not be successful with this approach. That he has discovered this drastic solution floors him (he drops the garrotes on the floor). In the end he has provided the means where it counts (the counter); but he isn’t ready to do the deed. 

Dead Babies in Boxes

Ever had an awful dream and wondered how truly disturbed you must be? Sometimes, when you stop and think about it, you realize its actual meaning is pretty mundane.

The Dream: Another dead baby dream. This time the “baby” was a little older, maybe a toddler. Three dead babies are in square boxes.

Interpretation: Many dream workers suggest that a “baby” is a new idea or project. Since this one is a toddler (2 to 3 years old) it must be a project I’ve had for a while. Since it’s “dead” it seems pretty clear that it isn’t going well. (I can think of a few projects in that category.) My dream tells me I’m feeling boxed in by these fruitless projects.

Exposed: Part 2

The Dream: I see what I perceive to be a public monument, although it is only a rectangular concrete box, sitting in a tree. I lean against the box, dislodging it so that it falls out of the tree onto the ground next to a bicycle. I check the bike, and it doesn’t seem to have been damaged. I think I should report this to someone, but instead slink guiltily away not taking the blame for what I’ve done.

Interpretation: My interaction with the public monument tells me that I am ill at ease in the social arena. First of all, I see it as monumental, a synonym for massive and weighty. It’s concrete into the bargain. Oddly, it’s sitting in a tree, a symbol of growth. It falls out of the tree, endangering the bike, a mode of transportation – my means of getting away. By leaning against the tree and dislodging the monument I have sabotaged my means of escape – but wait – the bike is not damaged.  And yet I can’t escape on it; I feel too guilty.

Why the guilt? I don’t want to accept the limitations placed on my life by the society I live in. When I dislodge these (the massive public monument) I am faced with a conundrum which leaves me unable to go forward. If I reject these limitations, I am a traitor: I reject my mother’s life and, by association, my mother.

Things are Not What They Seem

Often it’s a lot of work to get to the truth of a dream. In this one, my initial reaction was far from what I later concluded.

The Dream: An evil and powerful woman -- ambitious and driven, caring only about her own advancement -- is trying to kill me in an exotic way. I am the captain of a small crew, and we are going to be shot into space. Then I will be murdered—remotely by her. The crew knows nothing of her plot and is not involved. I am frantically trying to stave off this event, which seems to be moving forward inexorably.

The Turquoise Box

The Dream: A turquoise box, filled with wriggling people.

Interpretation: This dream doesn’t seem to give us much to work with, just some shape and color. But in the end it has more to say than you might expect. When we dream of square shapes, like this turquoise box, Jung tells us that we have created a temenos, a safe psychic space for transformation. Turquoise, according to Tony Crisp, speaks of intuition and an expanding consciousness.  And what about the colors that create turquoise, blue and green? Blue is associated with religious feeling (the Virgin Mary wears blue for this reason) and new horizons (the vast blue sky).  Green is the color of growth.

The wiggling people? They must be all those inner selves trying to find their proper place in my psyche. There are enough positive symbols in this dream for me to think they might succeed.

The Box Turtle

The Dream: I see a turtle emerging from the snake hole of the previous post. First I see its head and I’m alarmed, intrigued. Then its body emerges, which is inside a box. It shuffles itself and its box across the ground. Something about it is off-putting.

Interpretation: I think my unconscious has lost patience with me: “If you want to stay in your box, go ahead! But you look ridiculous!” Change and growth are never easy . . . . 

Levitation

The Dream: A young man, his body a box. He levitates. Surrounding him, especially his head, are spirals. This image takes the form of a wire frame, like a Calder mobile.

Interpretation: The young man in this dream is someone I met recently who is a fundamentalist. The symbols tell me how I view these beliefs. The man’s body is a box (he’s boxed into a set of beliefs.) He levitates (his feet are definitely not on the ground—implying both that I don’t think he’s sensible and, at the same time, that I see his ability to believe as something on a higher plane).   The spirals are a very ancient symbol for life and the universe, but could also be construed as thoughts going round in circles. I can see through the wire frame; it has no depth.

What is my Niche?

You might notice that your dreams tend to illustrate a point by going over the top. In this dream I get a message from my inner drama queen.

The Dream: I have been ill, and it is determined that it is time for me to die. I am in India, wearing a flowing costume, but the street looks like the one I live on. My “father,” who looks and acts nothing like my real life father, accompanies me on the journey to my burial. This father is very tall, relatively slender, with a fair complexion and close cropped hair. We are escorted by a large rabble of young children who are merrily running, frolicking, and occasionally falling down, scraping a knee, and crying. I note to myself that they are behaving exactly like children. This odd procession walks through streets now citified and comes at last to my gravesite.

The site contains an open tomb, a simple rectangular box with no lid. Inside the box are the do-whap songs of two early rock groups. The songs have been shredded and are being stirred, with the expectation that they will turn into a peanut-butter like goop. Father, holding a copy of one of Nietzsche’s works, becomes intellectual and starts to lecture about the writer. He tells me his name is properly pronounced Niche these days. I am exasperated. “Must they change everything?” I say.

I tear the binding off the back of the book so it can be shredded and added to the coffin with the songs. Father opens the partially destroyed book and shows me a list of questions Nietzsche thought people should ask themselves. I read the questions, which invite introspection, and realize I’ve never asked myself these things. “I want to live,” I exclaim, with a certain desperation. “I want to live!”

Interpretation: I had this dream seven years ago. At that time I was recording my dreams, but had little idea what to make of them. In a rather histrionic way, the dream tells me to find my niche (Nietzsche). It tells me that life without introspection is not life at all.

Pass it on

The Dream: My brother points out an ant on his kitchen counter, saying its behavior is interesting and I should take a look. The ant crawls into a small open-topped cube with dirt on its floor. Once in the box the ant lays a cylindrical egg which hatches—and out pops a tiny frog. The frog hops out of the box, then hops back in and is transformed into a caterpillar—which lays an egg and out pops an ant. The cycle repeats over and over again. I become aware that human life is a chain made up of the same life being repeated over and over again. Child and parent are the same. We are too close to the situation to see it clearly.

Interpretation: The unconscious is offering up a bit of philosophy here. Since having this dream I’ve come to see my life as “an instance of life.” In other words, I see myself as a carrier of the life force. For me, this makes mortality bearable: I carry the torch; I pass it on.

The Chicken and the Egg

When someone you know appears in a dream you have to puzzle out whether the dream is about that person and your relationship or that person as an aspect of yourself. In this dream, which I interpret as being about my development as an artist, I see my husband symbolically as “my other half.” In this role, as my Animus, he supports my desire to “steal” some creativity. There’s often a parallel between myths and dreams: in this case it’s Prometheus stealing fire from the gods.

The Dream: I’m walking with my husband Clark in a large garden. I pass by a chicken and a rectangular box of eggs, but then have second thoughts and call it to Clark’s attention. “Look,” I say, “You don’t have to buy chickens. You can have a wild one.” The chicken is very colorful, looking more like a rooster than a hen. It is small and struts behind the box of eggs, apparently guarding them. I suggest to Clark that we take some of the eggs; meanwhile I’m worried about the chicken’s reaction. I wonder how she sits on them to hatch them; they are spread out in a rectangular box and she would have to sit on them sequentially. As we begin to cull the eggs I have a new worry: what if some of the eggs have begun to develop into chicks? How awful would it be to open an egg and see a partially developed chick! We select some eggs. They vary in size. We try to avoid the ones with developing chicks in them.

Interpretation: The incubating creativity is here and available. It’s up to me to be aware of it. It is part of the deeply instinctive. It is guarded by the Eternal Maternal, in herself very beautiful, but a force that needs to be worked around and placated because she represents both the good and the bad of the traditional. A rigid conventionality, represented by the box, could hamper the potential of the eggs, some of which are developing in a conventional manner. We want the ones that have not started to develop: infinite potential.

Woman in a Box

Sometimes a dream image is so simple and direct it needs no interpretation.
The Dream: A woman is in a box.