A Disappointing Holiday

The Dream: I'm not hosting the holiday this year; I'm at someone else's house. I wonder about the friend who has celebrated with us for so many years. Where has she gone this year? The food at this feast is perfunctory: a bare bones meal with grocery-store preparations. It's not the way I would have done it.

Interpretation: This might be an example of Freud's concept of wish fulfillment gone wrong. I might wish to be relieved of the responsibility for the holiday, but once that wish is fulfilled, as in the dream, the result is an unfulfilling event—with the play on the word “full” duly noted. The food is inadequate, and the friend who represents my inner wounded child has been neglected. To mother my wounded child I must be a mother, in other words, take on the responsibility of hosting the event. Only then will I be happy with the outcome.

What's Going on Here?

The Dream: I hear a very young child, 2 to 3 years old, screaming in a bathroom. I fear she is being molested. I bang on the door, saying I will call the cops. I push the door open. She is standing next to the bathtub, fully clothed. There is a man with her. I leave them, and make no report. Then I wonder if I've been remiss: I should have checked her for evidence of whether or not she had been molested.

Interpretation: This dream was very disturbing; the child was screaming in terror. It seemed she was not being harmed, but I didn't take any action to make sure this was the case. The dream was triggered by a snippet of a television show I'd watched the night before on PBS about a Chinese woman who had been raped and then abandoned by her family. I remember thinking how typical it is to blame the woman for her own misfortune. In a book I'm reading, Trollope's Vicar of Bullhampton, a young woman is ostracized for “prostitution.” It seems to me, the reader, that she was either seduced and abandoned or raped.

The child's scream is the scream of womankind at the injustice of centuries of abuse. Her youth emphasizes her innocence. The water of the bathtub represents the water of the Unconscious, where these terrors lie submerged. I turn away, just as society turns away, from what is clearly wrong, but inconvenient to acknowledge and difficult to deal with.

The Bed and The Diary

The Dream: Part 1: I'm a child. I'm in a room with twin beds. My brother is meant to sleep in one; I'm meant to sleep in the other. I get into his bed with him. I think there's something wrong with my doing this, but it isn't clear to me what it is. I know I should cover up the action. Both pillows are on one bed; the other bed is pristine and clearly has not been slept in. Will Mother figure it out? I decide she'll only think I made my bed and my brother didn't.

Part 2: I'm an adult. I'm reading through an old diary that my daughter had left at the house, written on a stenographer's pad. In one part she describes an active and unembarrassed sex life. I'm very surprised that she had such a frank view of sex at such an early age. I feel uncomfortable about this on the one hand, but on the other hand I think that since all has turned out well, perhaps it's okay. In some parts of the diary I notice a different handwriting and wonder if it's that of one of her boyfriends. I feel a certain dread—but also an attraction—toward reading what he wrote.

Interpretation: These dreams further the sorting out of the “mother” theme. The child/mother relationship is central in both. In the first I'm the child; in the next I'm the mother. In both Mother judges my spontaneous relationship to life (sex) and pleasure, and in the dreams these feelings are symbolized by a socially inappropriate relationship. The fact that I am not sure what might be wrong with being in bed with my bother tells me that the dream is pointing to a very early feeling. The dream uncovers (covers play an important role here!) my earliest sexual feelings and the child's dawning awareness of parental disapproval regarding them. The dream tells me that this has colored my feelings about pleasure: some part of me believes it's something to be leery of.

In the second part my child has developed and explored her sexual feelings despite mother's queasiness on the topic. She keeps her diary in a stenographer's notebook, an interesting touch since stenographers write down what others tell them. What proportion of my view of life and sex was created by the society I live in? There is a role reversal in the dream sequence as I go from child to mother: I become the owner of  my own attitudes and mores. A kind of freedom from the influence of the mother of my childhood occurs as the mother in the second part concludes that perhaps it's okay that her child has freely explored sex.

Conversation with My Cousin

The Dream: Cousin Sandra looks ill. Her drawn and suffering face is topped by a slightly curly, dirty blonde wig. She is saying that she had thought my father was the nice one (our fathers were siblings) until I informed her otherwise. I want to correct this impression I've left her with. I try to tell her that he was, indeed, a wonderful man—but she doesn't hear me. I can't seem to get her attention.

Interpretation: Sandra represents the part of myself that suffered childhood hurts, is still suffering from them, and thinks, therefore, that Dad is not nice. The dream points out, first of all, that these thoughts are not accurate: hair represents thoughts; my Sandra hair is phony (a wig). In addition, its bright color (blonde), symbolizing illumination, is obscured by being “dirty.” In other words, while I could be thinking something that would shed some light on the subject, I'm not. This is my first clue that I need to update my inner child's way of looking at things. My inner adult, the part played by the dream ego, sees life in all its complexity and difficulty, and realizes what a good man Dad was. I want to give this realization to the sick “child” but can't get her attention. In the dream Sandra thinks poorly of her own father. This Sandra part of me is not willing, not yet, to relinquish this opinion of “the father.”

A Dangerous Illumination

The Dream: An old woman sits on a park bench with me; a younger woman sits behind us. An older child plays nearby; a baby lies in a pram with a hood the length of its carriage. The older woman speaks, sotto voce, about things the children shouldn't hear. The “nanny” behind us is alarmed that the children will hear. I look inside the tunnel created by the pram's hood and I see the baby: ugly, very ugly, its red face scrunched up in a yowl.

The older woman is murdered. The scene switches to a prequel. The older woman, the nanny, and I run into each other in a general store. They have a large stream of children with them, ranging in age from pram age to about 11. They are lined up in the order of their ages. I understand that this scene (of the dream) will help me determine who murdered the old woman.

Interpretation: This dream occurred on my mother's birthday, and the older woman in the dream allows me to reflect on her loss as I wonder: who killed her?

What is it we don't want our inner child to know, as we whisper sotto voce, if not the grim reality of our own inevitable death? Of course the baby howls—as loudly as he can—to drown out this realization. He becomes ugly from the effort. Is this what makes humans so ugly to each other? Would we behave the way we do—so grasping—if we accepted our limited time here? Death is the most basic “fact of life.” Of course it can't be discussed in front of the children who, by succeeding their parents, appear to have killed them, leaving the children with a guilt they can't acknowledge or eradicate. Or is the guilt from the unacknowledged joy of being free of them at last? Is that the murderer we can't discover?

The Lizard Mother

The Dream: A lizard-like creature is about to give birth. Her fetus gestates between her clavicle bones. She is aware of her baby and happy and excited. She also knows that once born the baby will have no idea who its mother is. It will live a completely independent life. One of these already hatched creatures walks past, resembling a porcupine. The mother lizard is very maternal and glows with the joy of nurturing life. At the same time she is aware that she cannot protect her offspring once he is born.

Interpretation: The lizard, being a primitive animal, represents something basic and primitive, perhaps a pre-verbal stage of my life. The location of the gestating baby, over the heart, tells me that its job is to protect me emotionally. To sum up: a primitive, undeveloped part of my brain has created something protective. The event that triggered this process is lost. (Once born the baby will have no idea who its mother is.) That it resulted in a prickly creature (the porcupine) tells me that it's a defensive part of me, one that keeps emotions at bay. The dream encourages me to reevaluate my reaction to this ancient (in terms of my life) event, giving me the opportunity to consciously decide whether or not this armor (the porcupine's coat) is doing more harm than good.

Diminished

The Dream: I notice I am small,small enough to lie inside a dinner tray.

Interpretation: In the dream I'm trying on the child self that my unconscious has been telling me (in previous dreams) that I have repressed. I experience the vulnerability of the child. Not only am I very small, I'm on a dinner tray, in danger of being eaten.

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).

Paint Like a Child

The Dream: I am on a bridge talking with someone about an artist friend’s painting. We are holding one of her paintings, and the other person says, “A child could do this.”

I say, “You think that. Do you have any idea how hard it is to paint like a child?”  I also point out that in any case my friend brings a lot of design sense and sophistication to her “childlike” paintings.

Interpretation: This is a dream grounded, as most are, in what I’d been doing the day before. I had been playing with Photoshop’s Mixer Brush, getting painterly effects in my mindless digital “paintings” that I liked too much to delete. One part of me judged these rather harshly; another didn’t want her playtime denigrated. That we’re having this discussion on a bridge implies that I am straddling two states of being: the proper adult and the playful child.

Guest Dreamer: My Inner Light

Today’s guest dream comes from artist and writer Gail Gray who has recently published Shaman Circus. She had the dream the night before her 61^st birthday.

The Dream:  I was at the Burgholzi Clinic in Zurich and Dr. Carl Jung was there.  He had asked many of us to bring our “patients” into a room so he could see how we were doing with their analyses.  At first we were all worried, what would these unusual people do with each other?  Would there be trouble?  Would they get along?

So I left and got my patient (I never saw myself in the dream, I just know it was me in my own skin walking around and doing things. I never talked.  I came back with my “patient” who was a large teddy bear sort of man, mute, who carried a large mason jar full of lightening bugs.  He moved very slowly--as if in a dream within my dream, sort of “not with it,” - a lumbering giant. The man himself was sad and poignant, not quite sure what to do. I was uncomfortable and feeling bad because I hadn't made much progress with my giant and had not come to know him very well. There wasn't much action after this, even when other people brought in their “patients,” except that we were all rather mesmerized by the beauty of the light in the jar, but also the bittersweet sadness of them being trapped in a jar. 

When I woke on my birthday I was elated, even though in the dream I'd been uncomfortable because of the remarkable appearance of Jung.

Carla’s thoughts: As usual when interpreting a guest dream, I’ll react to Gail’s dream as if it were my own. (If you would like to know why, read this post: Cement Men of Mars.)

Here’s my take on Gail’s dream: Dr. Jung has asked me (the dream ego) to produce my patient (a part of myself that I don’t entirely accept) so that he can assess my progress in analyzing (understanding and integrating) him. My concern about whether or not my patient will get along with the others hints at a social discomfort: I am afraid of conflict or some sort of disharmony if I allow this part of me out in public. The fact that I’m not talking in the dream tells me that I’m dealing with something that is unconscious: it can’t be “verbalized” or discussed—at least not yet.

Because my patient evokes a “teddy bear” he symbolizes my vulnerable inner child, possibly the Divine Child archetype (he carries light). That he is large tells me he represents something that is very important to me; and that he’s mute emphasizes the nonverbal, unconscious element that my own silence in the dream alludes to. This child has not been able to get through to me (he’s not quite sure what to do, and I feel bad because I don’t know him very well). The crux of the dream, however, lies in this unusual detail about the figure:  He is the source of a mesmerizing--if confined--light.

Dr. Jung represents my healing journey toward getting in touch with this source of light within me. The word “patient” is repeated four times in this relatively short dream, hinting that I need to be patient in order to understand the spiritual truth of the light I carry. My light is carried in a Mason jar; a mason works with stone; revealing this light is hard (as stone) for me.

The timing of this dream is significant. Because I had this dream on the eve of my birthday, it symbolizes the birth of a new understanding. I am elated because I’ve begun to experience my own inner light, and I can anticipate freeing it from its previously limited existence (in the mason jar).

The dreamer always gets the last word, so I encourage Gail to leave us her thoughts in a comment.

I’m a 10

The Dream: My daughter is looking for a job, in spite of the fact that she has one. Scores are given to applicants based on GPA and work experience so that prospective employers can get a quick idea of potential employees’ capabilities. My daughter’s score is 325, and we try to figure out what that means. We discover that she got credit for having an “A” average and, in addition, so much work experience that her score is over the top. We are relieved by this good news.

Interpretation: Over the years my dreams often pointed out that I wasn’t getting (or giving myself) any credit, symbolized by my not being awarded things like credit cards or loans. In this dream, my inner child (my daughter) triumphs with an out of the ballpark score, based on “credits” she has earned. The numbers of her score, added together, make 10, another symbol of perfection. Am I getting over-inflated here?

Why is she looking for a new job?  The dream tells me to keep an eye open for new opportunities; perhaps there are some that would make better use of my abilities.

It’s Not Going to Work

A further development on the theme of The High Cost of Femininity

The Dream: I am about to be married and I have just met my intended. He is extremely tall: our size relationship is that of an adult (him) to a 3-year-old (me). I look up at him as I might look up a redwood; his head is so very far away. I want to love him, because we are supposed to be getting married, but I realize I can’t. We kiss, and it has none of the passion of my kiss with the clerk in the previous dream, who is much closer to my size.

I am sitting at a table when I realize this marriage can’t go forward. I have a sinking feeling as I say, “This is like an arranged marriage.” I know it’s said one comes to love one’s spouse in these situations, but I don’t see that happening. He looks kind, and he is clearly ready to love me, but I announce—in spite of the social pressure to conform—that I can’t do it.

Interpretation: Can there be love, freely given, when such a disparity exists between would-be lovers? I reject love under these circumstances. I think Bettleheim would see the dream as a resolution of an oedipal conflict, the re-enactment of a young girl’s realization that her father is not an appropriate love object. On another level of meaning there's Jung's archetype of the father symbolizing the collective conscious, in other words, the values of society. Is some part of me rejecting these? Do I find them inapplicable to my life as a woman? That I look up to him as to a redwood implies some anger: I see red, and he's thick as a post.

The Pro Creative Cottage

The Dream: I have a studio in a one room cottage, and I later discover that this room was, in primitive times, a place where couples came to have sex as a rite if they wanted a child.

In the beginning of the dream I am unaware of what the place is. My first glimpse finds it occupied by a lone fellow, who sleeps rolled up in a sleeping bag, on the floor. He doesn’t want to mess up the bed, which is tidily made, so he sleeps wedged in between the bed and the door. I think he’s being silly.

A toilet mysteriously appears next to the “cottage” room, and I am on it defecating large quantities. At this point the fellow no longer occupies the cottage; I’ve become aware of its primitive history, and I know it’s my studio.

Interpretation: This dream about letting go shows a progression from my timid self who won’t sleep on the bed of creativity for fear of messing up to my expressive self who lets it all out. Once I realize that my perfectionism is “silly,” the means of letting go (the toilet) appears.  After I let it all out (defecate) I have the epiphany that the cottage is my studio: my sacred place, my place of creation.

Who’s in the Driver’s Seat?

The Dream: My friend Mary and I are in the back seat of a van. A man, with a child of about two years old, sits in the front. I notice the baby is driving, standing on the seat to reach the steering wheel. I am upset and concerned that the father allows his son to drive. I tell the father that I’m “not comfortable” with this baby driving the car. The father gets very angry at me. He talks about his own childhood, telling me how capable he was. He seems to feel his own capabilities were not recognized. I am surprised at his unreasonable outburst. I sit in stony silence, tightening my seat belt and suggesting to my friend that she do the same. Mary, a social worker, tries to engage the father in conversation, and afterward he takes over the driving.

Interpretation: I had been reading Bruno Bettelheim’s analysis of Hansel and Gretel, in which he looks at their actions as choices. For example, finding their way back home after their first expulsion is a regression: the children want to return to the babyish stage of life when parents give all and demand nothing. The mother, once she has expectations of her children, becomes a “witch” to them. The eating of her house symbolizes the children's infantile greediness: they eat their parents out of house and home.* From reading Bettelheim’s interpretations, my unconscious began to deal with the idea of my infantile self being in charge, in other words, with my being driven by the baby. When I protest my “adult,” who has a couple of unresolved childish issues of his own, responds with anger to my suggestion that he take control. Once this conflict is mediated by my social worker friend, who in waking life facilitates communication, a resolution can occur: the adult resumes his rightful place in the driver’s seat.

*Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, Vintage Books Edition, Random House, New York, May 2010, 208-217.

What’s Making My Head Hurt?

The Dream: I am in a large house. I hear my child crying out to me in distress. I don’t want to deal with her problem: I feel tired, but the insistence of her call provokes me to look for her. As I wander the hallways “in search of” I begin to feel distressed and worried, anxious to find her. A little panicky.

I find her in a room full of children, a primary school classroom. My child sits off to the left on a narrow table set at an oblique angle to the rest of the children, who sit quietly facing the front. She looks as I did at age seven, with blonde curly hair. There’s a big bandage across her head. She sees me, but does not acknowledge me. She wants no part of mother. I awaken as from a nightmare.

Interpretation: In the dream I have dark hair: I’ve become my mother. My child, with blonde hair (unlike my waking life daughter), is me. The well-behaved children who sit so quietly are passive receivers of instruction: cowed, proper, all alike, a nice row of good children. Something has whacked my (inner) child on the head, and she’s gained some independence, but at a cost. The adults who surround her are benign; she’s enjoying their attention as well as the empowerment that comes with rejecting her mother, who has arrived too late. Was age seven when I began to go my own way? To realize Mother can’t save me?

The Tree House

The Dream: I am with three people: a young dark-haired Frenchman, a girl of about 8 to 10, and Aunt Peggy. I know an English pub nearby that has a tree-house over a stream, and I want to show it to the young man who doubts it exists. I find the place. The tree-house has changed a lot since I last saw it. The structure looks far more planned and sturdy, as if lawyers had warned the owner about getting rid of potential hazards. It has lost a lot of its charm, but at least it's still there. It has an unusual staircase, very narrow at the bottom as if to make it impossible for an adult to gain access. I wonder if I can squeeze myself into the narrow stairwell and if I do, whether or not it will be possible to get down again. Then I notice there are some wider stairs on the other side that I could use. Nevertheless I squeeze myself into the narrow staircase and go up to the house over the stream. The four of us are at the top, wandering around. All enjoy it, but I feel it’s become too industrial, not like the more human and haphazard children’s structures of my youth. This place--too sturdy, over planned, mechanical—has lost its soul and poetry.

Interpretation: This dream reinforces what the previous dream was driving at: I’ve lost some valuable part of myself that is connected to childhood. I’ve become too rigid (the structure looks planned and sturdy).  This elevated trait of childhood (represented by the tree house) still brings pleasure, but is in danger of being changed to the point of its annihilation. The dream is pointing out the danger (losing soul and poetry) of being too careful.

The Wall Flowers

The Dream: I’m in a car with some other people. At times I’m driving, at other times Clark. We come to an area surrounded by a wall covered with many beautiful flowers. The road is wooded and dense with vegetation, not like a forest, but like a suburban area that has been long established and become overgrown, yet beautiful. I ask what the wall surrounds, since something about the place seems familiar to me. I am told it’s a swimming pool; in fact it is the community pool near the house I lived in as a child. I am excited, saying, “I thought it looked familiar. I spent many hours here as a child.”  There are wide concrete steps, set at angles, going down from the pool to street level. The path meanders. I see it’s changed a lot. At some deep level I feel “activated,” but don’t stay to explore. I don’t go into the enclosed pool area.

Interpretation: The walled-off area and the pool represent the potential I had as a child, at the time of life when it seems all things are possible. But I am now like the suburban area, long established (overgrown) and changed from what I once was. The steps taking me down to reality (street level) are concrete, like the time that has past. Despite their concreteness, these steps meander. My path in life has meandered, and I can’t undo the (concrete) choices I’ve made.  Although the past can’t be changed, the way I perceive it has changed a lot. This subliminal realization is in some way exciting, but I don’t choose to explore it.

Help!

The Dream: My child is off doing something in the next room and comes in to ask for some help. I say I’m busy, and she makes a sarcastic, flip remark. I get angry and begin to rail about children only thinking of themselves, about my being sick, about my needing some help myself once in a while. The more I yell the angrier I get.

Interpretation: In waking life I’m feeling overloaded by obligations—things I really don’t want to do. I’m at odds with my inner child who doesn’t understand why I’ve gotten myself into such a mess.

Grace Kelly’s Pendant

The Dream: I am in a large discount store with my daughter. We see a necklace pendant that is modeled on one worn by Grace Kelly. It costs $60,000. After we have left the store I realize that my daughter, who is about 3 or 4, has stolen the pendant. I feel I should return it, but I’m torn: after all, it appears we did get away with it. Nevertheless, I return the jewelry.

Interpretation:  There’s something from my past that I tend to ignore (discount), but that nevertheless is part of me (it’s stored). This thing that I have discounted is very valuable ($60,000.00). Its previous owner, Grace Kelly, gives me a clue as to what that might be: my desire for success, fame, fortune, and celebrity.  My child part is perfectly happy to take a short cut to get what I want: she steals it. I’m very tempted to acquiesce in this childish crime, but my adult intervenes in time, and I return the jewelry.

Here’s an example where Jane Teresa Anderson's dream alchemy might serve me well. (There’s a post in the April archive that describes her technique.) In this case, I'll imagine myself having an extra $60,000.00 as the result of my hard work and ability. I'll envision myself going into the store and using this money to buy the pendant (my success), saying, “I’ve earned this and I’m going to enjoy it.”

I’ll try it and let you know how it goes!

Blue Eyes

Dreams can acquaint us with thoughts we didn’t realize we had.

 Dream Image: A middle-aged woman with a round face, very big blue eyes, and fair hair.  She seems a little simple. She is compassionate in a child-like way.

Interpretation: This dream was triggered by spending time with an acquaintance who could be described this way—although before the dream I doubt I would have thought of her in these terms. To go a little further with the dream I ask myself what part of me is a little simple? What is it I just don't get? Or, to put it another shade of meaning on it, is there something I'd like to have that I'm not getting? And am I "too simple" to realize it?

The woman's eyes are blue; the color hints that she's unhappy about something. Her hair is a reference to her thoughts: both come out of the head. Then there's the child aspect of the woman. Perhaps I'm not getting what I want because, like a child, I expect it to be given to me. My dream tells me to think about that. If I want something I need to go out and get it. There it is: "Get it?"