Moving is a Lot of Work!

The Dream: We've moved to a new house: it's an old new house and needs a lot of work. It was expensive, but I'm afraid it doesn't look it. My cousin is coming to visit, and I wonder how she will react. I'm concerned that she won't realize how much the house cost. I also think about my old town, that it was dull and that this is a better place. I wonder if my cousin will prefer our other house, the one we left behind. And where will I put her? The family reminds me we have moved the guest room furniture into a new guest room, and it is ready for her visit.

The rest of the place is a mess. The previous owners didn't clear out their things. The family room is full of pictures and articles pasted on the wall in a haphazard way. There's a raised work stand for chopping and cutting that should be part of the kitchen but instead is apart, on its own, in a corner.

The back garden is organized into areas but also needs attention. One section is a raised cement herb garden. As I look at what's left of the plants a small animal appears at my feet: a reptile with a long tail, plump in the middle. At first I think it's cute and point it out to Clark. It has curled, like a possum, into a pretty colored ball. It's joined by others, and six or seven or so run about our feet. They now appear to be furry and somewhat rodent like. They've started to annoy me, and I do my best to shoo them away.

Going through the garden we come to other undiscovered parts of the house. I think one area will be a good place for my studio, but then find another spot that will be even better. It's a long, large room, looking like a basement with a cement floor and cinder block walls. Like the rest of the house, this area is full of debris and will need to be sorted out. There's a large refrigerator, in good repair and not looking too old. I confer with Clark as to whether it could be useful. A woman tells us the food inside is good; we should try it. There are some health food-type drinks, white like milk, that she particularly recommends. She seems concerned that we might chuck out everything in there, and it's likely we would.

As I think about the studio, I see that preparing this place will be a lot of work: first I'll have to clear out someone else's debris. But I am excited about having this expansive studio with high ceilings and fluorescent well as incandescent light. I say to Clark, “Now I'll be able to work on large pieces.

Interpretation: The new house is a mess, but also full of interesting possibilities. The first thing that needs to be sorted is the family room, and the clue as to what about family I need to sort is given by my reaction to my cousin's visit. I am very concerned that she will be critical, that she won't like where I am, that I'm not ready for her, and that she won't appreciate how much I've “paid” for the place where I live, in other words, that she won't appreciate the value of my life choices. The dream tells me that I am ready to accept this, my inner critic, even if I don't feel ready. I have prepared a room for her.

The herbs and odd animals in the garden and the food in the refrigerator all point to new, if uncomfortable, possibilities. The scurrying animals represent challenges that go way back-- to the lizard and rat parts of my brain, the parts that respond instinctively and without reflection or awareness. Here dwell the beautiful and the ugly, the appealing and the off-putting, all at the same time. The new studio, with its two sources of light and it's deep (basement) location, offers me a space where I can work on these “large” issues. Perhaps my cement, the things that have been written in stone in my psyche, is being transformed into something more enlightened—if I can avoid being overwhelmed by all the work that needs to be done.

Can I Tame the Lion?

The Dream: I'm in a maze of cages, like the ones you might see in an old-fashioned zoo, with a lion tamer and his lions. The cages connect to each other, and from where I am all I can see are the bars of the cages and the cement floor. The atmosphere is dim.

I am supposed to learn how to tame a lion. I am uneasy and not at all sure that this is something I want to do. The lion tamer demonstrates how he can put his head into the lion's mouth and emerge safely. I'm not convinced I can succeed at this.

Interpretation: Feeling closed in and with limited vision (the light is dim; I see only bars and cement), I am given a task that I feel unprepared to perform successfully. Thinking about what the lion's open mouth suggests to me, I come up with my father's anger (the growling lion) and the gaping jaws of death. These two forces might have seemed like the same thing to me as a child. One part of me is now strong enough to overcome these fears (tame the lion). Another part still quakes in her boots.

Guest Dreamer: Pulling Roots out of my Feet

I can think of no spiritual leader who has not warned of suffering along the path to enlightenment. Emily, who frequently contributes insightful comments to this blog, has given us a poignant dream about the difficulties that must be faced and overcome on a spiritual journey.

The Dream: I walk out of a building (I can't see it behind me, but I know I've left it) onto a wide, cement sidewalk. The tall wall of a building is on my left. I am barefoot. Suddenly I am aware of pain on the bottoms of my feet. I realize I am walking on shards of glass: small, colorful pieces are embedding themselves in the bottom of my feet! I can barely walk it hurts so much. Then, I am inside a room, sitting on a chair. I look at the bottom of my feet, and I see that I have roots, like slender tree roots, growing out from the bottom of my feet. I try to pull one out, and I realize it's deep in my leg, up the calf.  I don't pull it out.  A blonde woman watches me, I think somewhat approving of my actions.

Shift: It rains. Pours. In 2 separate incidents, a man and a woman have left their notebooks/binders in the rain. I rush out into the rain and pick them up and bring them inside as I don't want the rain to ruin them. The man is 30-40ish, tall, and thin. He doesn't appear to be grateful that I rescued his notebook from the rain. His notebook is stuffed with papers and notes. The thought crosses my mind that maybe the rain wouldn't have hurt the notebook after all....end

Carla’s interpretation: I’m leaving my structured way of being (the building) behind. The way ahead is opening up before me (it's wide), but also hard (cement). There’s some sort of unconscious block (the wall to my left). I am vulnerable (barefoot). My foray into this new world outside is risky; I feel pain. There’s something in my path that makes progress difficult and painful; small shards of colorful glass. Apparently I can’t get around my difficulty; I keep walking through this excruciating mess even though my progress is very slow because I am in so much pain. But my persistence is rewarded. I find myself sitting in a room, able to examine my vulnerability (the bare, painful feet).  I have roots. I have the potential to be grounded, to find my ground of being. At first I attempt to reject this possibility, but I realize it is too deeply a part of me to be pulled out. The part of me that is enlightened (woman with blonde hair) approves.

Now the rain can come, like an ancient blessing, over the notebooks of a man and a woman. For Jung, male and female together represent a coniunctio, opposites coming together into wholeness. I have, for many years, created notebooks of my dreams. I fear that all this water (so much unconscious material) pouring into my notebooks could ruin them. My stronger male side lets me know that rescue is not necessary. My unconscious material and the spiritual grounding I’ve accomplished by so carefully recording my dreams, and being brave enough to learn from them, are safe.

Guardians of the Deep

Sometimes material from the unconscious seems threatening and you might decide to try to get away from it, as I did in this dream.

The Dream: As the dream begins my husband Clark and I are sitting in lawn chairs on a cement patio next to the bay. The patio, which has the ambience of a garage, is beneath a house on slats. Suddenly a gray boat that looks like a cross between a fish and a submarine starts to tear about the bay near us, making tight circles.  I think it must be the Coast Guard. Then another vessel arrives: it looks like a large truck pulling a long trailer. Like the first one, it also tears around the bay in circles near us. This nearby activity makes me nervous, and I suggest to Clark that we move back from the edge of the bay before these water craft come crashing into us.

The Interpretation: I’m on a cement patio, dealing with a heavy issue. Since I’m close to—but not in--water, I can guess that this material is on the cusp of consciousness. The patio is where the basement would be in most houses, and even resembles one, looking like a garage. Symbolically, basements are where we store unconscious material, such as old wounds and feelings we aren’t aware of; but also a place where the life force, or libido, dwells. This unconscious material is becoming very animated and threatening to break into my conscious awareness (come on shore).

What about the strange vessels? In Jungian terms, a vessel is a place where transformation takes place. The first vessel is a cross between something very militaristic (a submarine) and a fish, a symbol of the inner treasure held in our unconscious. To me this signaled a conflict between the authoritarian “controller” part of me and the natural, less structured, unconscious part. I’m trying to resolve the conflict with the combination submarine and fish, but the emergence of the trailer truck indicates there’s too much “stuff” being pulled in my wake for this resolution to occur. So I retreat.

Mother and Child Reunion

The Dream: Sara has been visiting us, and her son John has been with a sitter. When the sitter brings the baby to us I am excited and want to hold him. I am leading him by the hand and somehow drop him on the concrete. I am upset, but John doesn’t cry. I pick him up and carry him. Later I give him to Sara.

Interpretation: The Divine Child archetype reappears in this dream. I take the baby too literally (drop him on the “concrete”). The dream is telling me to look beyond the literal meaning of things. Ultimately the child (my inner child) is where he belongs: united with his mother. This reunion of two things which should be together tells me that my own protective abilities (my inner mother) will take care of my vulnerabilities and creative potential, symbolized by my inner child. 

Guest Dreamer: The Cement Men of Mars

The following dream was sent to me by my brother. He was very young when he dreamt it, during the era of the competition between the US and the USSR to conquer space (the 1960s).

The Dream: It started with me watching the first manned Mars landing on TV.  But as it progressed, I became one of the astronauts landing there.  (Note:  I had this dream at the height of the race to the moon.) In my dream Mars was perfectly habitable, and we found a nice little circular grove of trees to camp in for the night.  But in the middle of the night we were suddenly attacked by Martian Cement Men who would step out from behind trees and throw spears at us.  We, of course, were armed with submachine guns (I mean, what else would you take to Mars?) and started blasting away.

As our bullets struck them, the impacts looked exactly the way bullets hitting a cement wall look.  That is, there’d be a puff of smoke and dust and a shallow crater from the impact would be created: thus the name Cement Men.  Of course it also meant that it didn’t kill them, so we had a lengthy battle on our hands.

I remember being touched (in the dream) when I saw one cement man leaving the safety of the trees to grab a fallen comrade and drag him back to safety. These guys were big, built a lot like the comic book version of the Incredible Hulk. I’m still waiting for Spirit and Opportunity to find them!

Interpretation: One truism about dreams is that every character in them is us—or a part of us—no matter how alien the dream creatures sometime seem. A character we have a particularly bad reaction to is called our shadow; it shows us some part of ourselves that we need to come to terms with. This is similar to the ogre under the bridge or the wicked witch of fairy tale: a handy screen on which to project all we hate or fear.

You might notice that this dream reads something like a mythic adventure, and there’s a well documented relationship between dream and myth. Joseph Campbell analyzed the myth’s basic plotline as the hero’s journey: each stage parallels an important life passage. In this case, the passage is from childhood to young manhood.

An important part of dream interpretation that hasn’t yet come up in this blog is that the dreamer is the final authority on the meaning of his dream. When I put forth a comment about his—or anyone else’s—dream I am inevitably talking about what the dream would mean to me had I dreamt it. So I’ll discuss my brother’s dream as if it were my dream.

I am young and full of curiosity about the world. The news is full of an exciting global competition, and I’d like to take part in it. My dream takes me to Mars, where I encounter a planet that closely resembles the world I know.

And yet: there’s some interesting symbolism here. The circle, in Jungian terms, represents the integrated self. Jung felt that the circle expressed the totality of our being, containing all our sometimes disparate elements. Perhaps because I’m young and need to grow—both mentally and physically—I cannot bask in this bliss for too long, but must meet the next challenge. It’s symbolized by the confrontation with my shadow in the form of the Cement Men.

The fact that these cement men are attacking me with very primitive weapons (spears) makes me think that I’m doing battle with a primitive part of myself, a part that I feel I must conquer if I want to become a civilized adult. I’m well armed for this confrontation, maybe a little too well-armed (am I too defensive?) pitting my sub-machine gun against their spears. Nevertheless, these creatures, being made of cement, are not easy to kill. That I can be touched by the compassion of one of the Cement Men for his comrade is a very good sign that I’m on the way toward humanizing—therefore integrating—this tough and violent part of myself.

The dreamer always gets the last word, so here’s Bro’s Interpretation: Earlier that night I'd watched an episode of “The Untouchables” in which a machine gun had sprayed a cement wall. I believe this dream was inspired the space race and that evening’s episode of the Untouchables.