Guest Dreamer: Raw Inside

The dreamer told me that her divorced daughter's ex-husband has recently remarried. The family became aware of this because the wedding was held at their local church. Lana's friend Jane had been abused as a child. Keeping those waking life facts in mind, I'll react to Lana's dream as if it were my own.

Lana's Dream: In this fragment of a dream, friends are bringing food to a gathering. I've assigned each person to bring the same thing: a filled loaf of bread. Jane and I meet, and we open hers. We're upset to realize that the filling, looking like eggs, is uncooked, raw; it might also contain some fish. Something needs to be fixed. I feel this is my responsibility.

Carla's thoughts: My friend Jane, having been abused as a child, is the symbol of my own injured child: my daughter, who feels wounded by her ex-husband's remarriage. Whether or not having the wedding in our local church was designed to be hurtful, seeing it there opened up something that still feels raw, and I thought there was something fishy about it. The uncooked eggs represent the potential of my daughter's marriage that went unfulfilled, and we are upset that things didn't go as anticipated. As the mother, I feel it's my responsibility to fix things for my injured child.

Guest Dreamer: Where Do I Belong?

This dream was contributed by a woman going through a divorce after close to 30 years of marriage.
The Dream: I was jolted awake by a dream, imagine that! I was on a bus and couldn't remember my address. I went through my purse and nothing in it told me where I lived. I looked up what it might mean....loss of direction in life, loss of goals, identity? What do you think?

Interpretation: Dreams are rooted in what's going on in the dreamer's life and tend to be triggered by a waking life event that occurred in the last few days. Naturally you are the most knowledgeable on that topic. Did anything happen recently that created a feeling of not knowing where you belong?

While triggered by a recent event, a dream is also a reaction to your life situation. Dreams come to tell us things we don't consciously know. Let's take a look at some of the details. A bus is a communal conveyance and so can represent our social self, the part that goes along with the direction of the larger group we belong to. When in a bus we aren't driving, but are being driven. Putting myself into your dream, and into your life situation (in terms of your divorce), I see myself losing the aspect of my identity that is socially defined: that of a married woman. The purse I'm looking into would be expected to hold valuables and ID cards, but there is nothing in this bag to tell me where I live--because I no longer live in this particular social identity. The dream came to help me make the transition to a new single identity, and perhaps to make me aware that I do miss the social status of my marriage, even though I'm happy to be out of a draining and unhappy situation.

Guest Dreamer: Rapprochement in the Garden

Susan, whose daughter has recently divorced, contributed this dream.
The Dream: I am in the back garden with James (my daughter's ex-husband). I remember there was a time when I asked him to fix a broken tooth, and he looked into my mouth. This memory leaves me feeling exposed and uncomfortable. We have a conversation, and as it goes on my anger at him lessens. In some way I forgive him for the mess he made of my daughter's marriage. A sort of peace prevails, with a feeling also of sadness and loss.

Carla's thoughts: If this were my dream, the broken tooth would symbolize the broken relationship. My son-in-law's looking into my mouth represents a level of trust that he has betrayed by the way he treated my daughter. I'm now embarrassed that I allowed him into my life and into the close circle of my family. Yet the dream shows me that I will not hang onto these negative feelings. I acknowledge my sadness and the sense of loss that I feel because this relationship failed, and in recognizing these feelings I can begin to get past my anger and forgive him.