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.

Put on the Stockings

Sometimes the things we dislike about ourselves need to be recognized as gifts, of a sort, as this dream tells me.

The Dream: We are trying to escape the Nazis, but using an odd strategy. We’re running away from them by going back to the place we used to live even as I think, “Won’t they be able to find us here?”

One woman accepts a pair of silk stockings from a Nazi soldier with the idea of reselling them to get money for something useful, like food. At first I think her acceptance of a gift from the Nazi is morally dubious, but later feel that in transforming the gift into something useful she’s done something sensible.

Interpretation: I learn that something good can come if I can accept a gift from my inner Nazi.  My tiresome attention to detail and tendency to perfectionism are not all bad, but can and do enable (feed) my creative side.

Halfway There

Jung tells us that a circle represents the center of creative change.

The Dream: A half circle with radiating triangles.

Interpretation: The triangle traditionally represents things that come in threes such as father, mother and child. This suggests I’m putting older things together to produce something new. But since a circle signifies wholeness, I’m only halfway there.

The Egg and I

Often in dreams real world events or activities take on a symbolic meaning. This dream uses an ancient paint binder—egg yolk—to help me get over a creative block.

The Dream: I am wandering around in the streets of San Francisco in search of an egg to use to make paint. I am at Liz’s house, and I think I’ll use one of her eggs. I get one out of the fridge and crack it open, but it doesn’t look right and I find I can’t get the white part separated from the yolk. I try two more eggs, thinking I owe Liz 3 eggs, but also remembering that she mistakenly took a quart of my yogurt the last time she visited me—so perhaps she won’t mind.

Interpretation: My friend Liz and I are egg tempera painters. Symbolically the egg represents the germ of creation. I don’t have what I need (the right egg) to be creative in the way I’d like. As I take my friend’s eggs I am identifying with her qualities: we both had perfectionist parents, and the dream tells me that I need to get past their perfectionist expectations to be creative in my own way. The dream points the way to a more relaxed attitude by letting me off the hook for taking my friend’s property; my action becomes part of the give and take of life.

Celery in the Garden

When you take the wrong path in life, your dreams will let you know.
The Dream: Giant celery stalks are growing around the borders in the garden. I feel dissatisfied with the garden.

Interpretation: My recent foray into a new painting style—with its different aims and sensibilities—has created a situation in which I feel as if I’m trying to please someone other than my own deepest self. I feel as if I have sold out (celery: sell-ery). This feeling is represented by my dissatisfaction with my garden, the symbol of the well-spring of my creativity and the sacred place of my soul.

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.

Let Me Entertain You

If you're interested in looking at what your dreams are telling you, writing them down is the first step. Once they are on paper they begin to reveal their secrets. This dream, for example, is about roles--but until I wrote it down and looked at it closely I was unaware of the connection between my struggling with a social role in the first paragraph and the endless stream of role players in the last.

The Dream: At a very large meeting of women, in a living room so large it's almost like an open-air setting. I feel I have a job, or a responsibility, for this meeting but I'm not sure what it is. Was I supposed to time something? How can I do it without seeming overbearing on the one hand (too bossy) or, on the other, too timid and self-effacing to be effective? I wonder what sort of voice I should use to move things along. Loud and commanding? Or should I have a bell of some sort?

 We are now outside in a big open space. The group is going to be photographed. I am sitting next to a very tall woman; we're positioned on a block in the front row, with the rest of the group spread out behind us. We are located left of center. I'm wondering how the people in the back will all be seen in the photo, but soon realize the photographer will take the picture from the high vantage point of a stage that we're facing. He seems very grouchy, and I comment to one of the women that he'll never get us to smile with his attitude. She replies that he is probably having business worries in this bad economy. The photographer asks the tall woman sitting next to me to move because she is shielding me from view. I am left sitting alone and feel like a social pariah.

To my surprise, a large cast of costumed figures emerges from behind the photographer and begins to parade down curving staircases on either side of the stage. It resembles a Ziegfeld Follies revue. Women are costumed in circus-like sequined outfits; there are fantasy sultans, a whole panoply of show-figures. Of course we all smile and the photographer begins his shoot. There are many of these characters--an endless parade it seems--and I wonder how he can afford to pay them all if business is bad.

Interpretation: In the first paragraph I struggle to define my role in the group. The vast scale of the room implies that the issues here are large. Look at some of the plays on words in the second paragraph. I'm sitting on a block, a word often used to mean mentally stuck as in writer's block.  I am located off center (I need to integrate some aspect of myself). The picture (a record of a moment in time) is taken from the stage, a word describing where someone is in life. (It's just a stage!) At the end of this paragraph I am "facing" the stage I'm in by myself. And I don't like it. (He'll never get us to smile.)
The third paragraph offers a resolution. A surprising rush of creativity trumps the practical worries about how to perform that came up in the first part of the dream. All the conflicting aspects of my psyche come together in a smile. But I'm not completely ready to accept this rapprochement: the dream ego points out that someone is going to have to pay for this.

The Baby and the Spider

The Dream: A baby is sleeping. A giant spider with a large round black body sits next to her head. I try to ignore this, feeling squeamish. If I ignore it maybe it isn't there. After a short while I realize I must face the situation, take action, deal with it. First I try to move the spider without killing it, but it seems stuck to its spot. So I crush it. Then I realize the spider was stuck because it was laying eggs. I've never seen a spider of this size or type before, and I wonder if it has come from the tropics.

Interpretation: There is an important part of myself, represented by the black circular body of the spider, that I resist recognizing and integrating into my persona. This rejected and ignored part contains a lot of creative potential (its eggs) which it is depositing near a baby, symbolic of  a new life phase. The tropics, where the spider originates, represent a more primal part of myself. That the spider wants to deposit the eggs near the baby's head implies that an attempt is being made to infuse the intellect with something more basic and earthier.