The Resurrection of Don

Dreams about the departed are called visitation dreams. Whether or not the person we dream about lives on in some external realm, it's clear he lives on in our internal reality. 

The Dream: I am at Ruth’s house. The entry wall is wider than it is in waking life; it’s a room with a table, like a dining room. The staircase is in its normal place. Someone says that Don is upstairs. I feel concern, thinking that this person does not know that Don has died. 

“Don is dead,” I tell her. She goes upstairs to verify what I’ve said.

“No,” she says, when she returns. “He’s upstairs, and he wants to see you.”

“I’m not going up there,” I say.

Don comes down, naked from the waist up, radiant and glowing with health. He glows with something else besides. I am filled with joy to discover he is alive and healthy.

Interpretation: Visitation dreams are a way of grappling with the anxiety and loss we feel after a death. The dining table in the entry way tells me that the dream has come to provide some sustenance. Don is “upstairs,” in other words, he’s in my thoughts. I try to accept his death by telling myself (in the guise of the person who doesn’t know) that Don has died, but I don’t really believe it. I go upstairs to see for myself.  There I see that he does live—upstairs; in my mind he’s alive, while at the same time my down-to-earth self (the part who insists on remaining on the ground floor) refuses to accept it. I won’t go there. But Don gets the last word, as he often did: he won’t allow me to deny him life after death: he appears, transformed and radiant, and I am also transformed by joy when I see this new reality.

A Remodel

The Dream: I am remodeling my very large apartment in the city. One room looks quite spectacular. It is the dining room. A large wooden table sits in its center. The walls are covered in a velvet-like pattern, a simplified medieval design in rich shades of green and golden brown with black accents. Brown wood molding surrounds the windows. I think it looks wonderful, but I am concerned this decoration has been slapped on to a base that can’t support it. On the other hand,  perhaps it really is okay.

Interpretation: This dream seems to be a continuation of Not A Black Hole. My psyche is attempting to shift its center; in other words, the Self that Jung talks about is trying to expand in order to include some previously unconscious material. The dining room, being a place where we come together for nourishment, symbolizes this process. But at the center of the room is the large wooden (not pliable, rigid) table (in a meeting to table the motion stops forward progress). I can see there is richness here: the velvet, the warm colors—but I’m not sure I’m strong enough to support it. The jury is still out on this one.

It’s a Mystery

Have you ever noticed your unconscious makes mash ups of what you’ve seen and heard over the past few days? Nevertheless, if you look at the images carefully you can usually discover something about yourself you weren’t aware of.

The Dream: I live in a boarding house. Poirot and I share a room. I begin to realize that he has murdered several previous tenants, among them Rock Hudson. I obliquely try to discuss this with our landlady, who resembles Sherlock Holmes’s Mrs. Hudson. Poirot overhears us, and I say to him, “You’re going to try to kill me, aren’t you?” 

“Yes,” he replies. I think this will be quite a contest, me against the great Poirot.

I stand in line at a college. The advisors are sitting at folding tables outside. One of them is Dr. ______ from Emory, an English professor who impressed me. When my turn comes I tell Dr. ______ about Poirot’s intention to kill me. I‘m not sure she is the proper advisor for this particular problem, but if not I hope she can direct me toward the right person.

Interpretation: A strongly masculine part of me, represented by Rock Hudson, has been “killed” by another powerful force of the psyche represented by Poirot. The starting line up: Rock Hudson—so masculine he doesn’t even have sex with women; Poirot—cunning, devious, intellectual, repressed, very effective, prissy.
At the beginning of the dream this realization is so frightening that I cannot face it squarely, but must allude to obliquely. Even this disguised reference doesn’t save me from the all-seeing Poirot, who admits he will kill me for uncovering his earlier murder.

As the dream progresses I get stronger: I don’t react to Poirot’s threat with the terror that previous dream annihilations engendered, but rather pluckily refer to the upcoming “contest.”

I look for help from some established members of the psychic team, most especially an admired but nameless English professor. The teacher and her subject (English) are hints that my writing in this journal is a helpful tool of re-integration of previously “killed” aspects of the psyche.

I am impatient with this process (waiting in line), and not completely sure I have the proper “advisor.” However, I do have more confidence than previously; that’s obvious from my having not retreated in terror from my threatening “killer.” And I am hoping my advisor, if not the person to solve the problem, can at least point me in the right direction.

A New Old Home

The basic work of our psyche is to create wholeness by integrating all the sometimes warring elements within. Some dreams show that we’re on the path of integration; this dream shows the opposite.

The dream: A friend has bought a Victorian house. I am thinking about buying a house nearby, and my friend is  condescending toward it. I feel hurt and diminished by her reaction. The house I am considering, which I defend as being “Queen Anne vintage,” has elements of both an older style house and a modern tract home. There is a large laundry room downstairs which I joke can be the children’s playroom. I am not sure that I like the dining room, or rather the living room dining room combo: one large rectangular room. A moment later the dining room splits into an L alcove with a half-height white fence.

Interpretation: The friend represents the part of me that has made an accommodation to collective reality. She has found a Victorian house in which to live, with all its symbolism of a strictly ordered public life and the hint of a secret private life. Another part wants a home that combines the old--the values and expectations of the very different culture of my youth—with the contemporary. Of course there are hints this modernity is narrow in its own way, with its tract homes, but in the dream it was presented as practical and serviceable. I make room for the disruptive anarchic children, even if the space (downstairs, in the laundry) seems grudging and tentative--not to mention implying they need to be cleaned up. I can’t combine all the background chatter (din-ing room) with life (living room) so I split off the unconscious elements (the L shaped alcove indicates the unconscious) and fence them in. The future work is to face these elements and give them adequate space.

No Longer a Child

When you look at your dreams, be aware of the setting. In this dream the action takes place in the dining room,  where we usually relate to others. It's a family area and a place where we receive the most basic necessity of life: food.

The Dream: I am sitting at the dining room table. My younger daughter is studying, working very hard. I sit across from her and look at her. I say I'll be quiet. I feel as if I haven't seen much of her lately. At the same time I sense that my interest is annoying to her.

Interpretation: Parents and children connect and disconnect and reconnect, partners in an elaborate dance performed across time. At times the child needs the mother; at other times the mother needs the child. Sometimes these needs are in synch; more often they are not. The dream expresses the mother's sense of loss as she sees her child becoming independent. The wise part of the mother knows that she must "be quiet" and allow her daughter to develop in her own way, as she
"studies" life from her own perspective.