A Gaping Wound

If you've been reading this column for a while you might enjoy trying your hand at interpreting this dream. Read the dream, come up with your own thoughts, then read what the dreamer told me she thought it meant.

The Dream: I look down at my right leg and it has an ugly gash—the edges are ragged. Bugs crawl out of the wound. I am very upset and begin to hope it's a dream—I think it is—I don't feel the pain that such a nasty injury would cause. Finally I manage, to my relief, to awaken myself.

The Dreamer's Interpretation: I've been going through a difficult time with my boyfriend, but I've been trying to ignore the problem. The dream got me to ask myself in what way I've been wounded, and how have I deadened myself (not felt the pain). Something is bugging me and needs to come out. I need to wake up and think about what's going on in my life.

Carla: Did you get it right? Guess what? It doesn't matter. The important thing is not whether or not you interpret the dream the same way the dreamer did. The important thing is what you'll learn from your own projections.

A Short Course on Dream Interpretation

The more I've worked with dreams the more I've come to believe that what we have to learn from them is highly personal. Images that mean one thing to me will mean something entirely different to you. What I'd like to offer you today is a way to look at dreams that will help you uncover their meaning for yourself. There's no getting around it--you have to do the heavy lifting. To help you do that, here's a list to consider as you work to unravel your dream: triggers, characters, images, action, conflict and resolution.

The triggers: The first thing to look at is what is going on in your life at the time of the dream. Some event, or something that you saw, heard, or read, has triggered this dream. A dream is often about how you feel about the people and events swirling around outside you. Sometimes these churn up feelings from long ago or unresolved personal problems. Once you figure out what might have triggered the dream, think about how you feel about the issue. Your dream might offer a new way to see it. If you can't nail down the trigger, don't despair. Move on to the characters.

The characters: Look at the dream from the point of view that all the characters are a part of you. The conflict that they are having is not a conflict between you and the people who appear in the dream, but between conflicting parts of the complicated person that you are. Ask yourself what the players in your dream represent. Make a list of their most obvious characteristics, and do this for the dream ego (you, in the dream) as well.

The images: Look at any images in the dream. What does each one mean to you? Write down the images and list your reactions to them.

The action: Look at the action in the dream. What are you doing? How do you feel about it? Is it something you enjoy, or does it make you unhappy or uncomfortable in some way? Is it something you normally do? Does it have symbolic value? For example, if I am planting a garden I might think of it as creating new growth for myself. Then I'd ask myself if I am doing that in waking life. If not, what is stopping me? Does it have anything to do with the characteristics that I share with my dream adversary?

The conflict: What is your dream adversary doing? If his action destroys your action (he's messing up your carefully planted garden, for example), then you have the privilege of looking directly at an inner, unconscious conflict. That's progress!

The resolution: Finally, what does the conflict represent? What is one character (one aspect of you) trying to get another to do or to stop doing? How do you feel about it? And how does it turn out? Has the dream conflict been resolved? Or has it been put on hold?

Whether or not you feel you've resolved the dream's meaning or issue, going through this process will help you get to know that most mysterious being, yourself.

So What Does It All Mean?

Readers often ask me how I go about interpreting my dreams. An interesting technique I’ve come across recently has been developed by Scott Sparrow. While many techniques emphasize dream images, Sparrow’s focuses on the action of the dream, and he suggests we’ll learn a lot by looking at the choices we make as we create our dreams. As part of his method he teaches a technique for paring the dream down to its essential action, which can lead to a quick insight. The paring process is as much about what you leave out as it is about what you put in. Things to leave out: descriptions, images, specific actors. What to put in: what happens in the dream.

For example, here’s the pared down dream action of the dream Criticism Resolved: Someone is working on a project. She is angry when someone criticizes her, yet later realizes accommodating the criticism is trivial. For more information about Scott’s technique, which he calls the Five Star Method, click here.

For information about other ways to interpret your dreams, see these earlier posts:

1. For a way to get started using the techniques in Robert A. Johnson’s Inner Work and some helpful websites for beginners, click here. 
2. A simple way to get at the dream’s meaning is to write about the dream right after you’ve recorded it. For more about this technique, which I call a write-around, click here.

Guest Dreamer: Laid Off and Weeping

Today’s guest dreamer is Emily. She is an experienced dream worker and will interpret her own dream—although that isn’t a word she likes to use. “I'm never comfortable with using 'interpretation' when working with a dream,” she says, “perhaps because there never is one interpretation.” That’s a good point.
       
The Dream: I am in the instructor’s room at the county jail where I used to work as a teacher. I sit at a small round wooden table across from my tall blond co-worker Alyssa. Our boss Evans walks in and asks her if she has 2 ½  hours available. He then talks about how good Alyssa has been on the job; so good, in fact, that he is going to have to lay her off. Tension builds in the room. Alyssa stands up to walk out with Evans to go to that 2 ½  hour meeting where she’ll be terminated, and she starts to cry. I stand up to hug her, and I start crying as well. As we embrace and weep together, she inadvertently knocks off my Tilley hat.

Emily’s thoughts on her dream: As jail is a form of imprisonment, I see how I can imprison myself by being “too good” a daughter, wife, or friend. So good, in fact, my animus needs to deliver me from my self-imposed and compulsive responsibility that has recently resurfaced in waking life (I know my boss never took his job half as seriously as I took mine, so the message comes across loud and clear).

The weeping is timeless grief. As Alyssa grieves at leaving her “dream” job (which I held in waking life for many years with much satisfaction), I grieve at the passing of my old, unhealthy habit of needing to be needed. Allyssa knocks off my Tilley hat which represents outdoor activity, recreation, freedom.  By embracing Allyssa the dream ego shows compassion for the qualities that are not so great about the “good girl” persona. Perhaps she’ll soon put the hat on!

Carla’s thoughts: If this were my dream, I would ask myself about the significance of 2 ½ since my dream emphasizes that number by mentioning it twice.

The things I’m “too good” at are socially determined roles: daughter, wife, friend. The phrase “laid off” tells me that some part of me is saying, “Lay off! Gimme a break.”

I See Differently

This short dream illustrates the technique I described in my last post.

The Dream: I’ve noticed a change in my vision. I’m less near-sighted, especially in my right eye. The vision in this eye has greatly improved, but I’m afraid that might mean I’m getting cataracts.

Interpretation: As a result of my careful attention to my dreams I see things differently. Jung tells us that the right refers to what we’re conscious of; the left to the unconscious. The dream uses the change in my right eye (the conscious I) to symbolize an expansion in my point of view (I’m less near-sighted).  This sounds positive until I get to my worry about having a cataract. Is the improvement in vision temporary, to be followed by a dimming?

I looked up cataract in the dictionary and discovered that it is “a large waterfall; a cascade upon a great scale” and “any downpour like a cataract; a deluge.” Only when I get to the third definition: “in medicine: opacity of the crystalline lens of the eye” do I find the meaning I was aware of. The unconscious is often symbolized by water imagery, and this puts a different shade of meaning onto the dream’s ending. Instead of reflecting my worry over my new found sharp vision deteriorating, it is more likely the conscious mind’s (the right I) being concerned that it will be overwhelmed by unconscious material.

Unprepared to Go Forward

I try to keep these posts short, but in analyzing this dream I discovered a simple new technique which enabled me to glean some surprising insights. I describe it here in case it might help you mine your dreams for their often elusive meanings. When I start to unravel a dream I usually write down key words and then  list what each one suggests to me. I started this way with this dream and then discovered how to take that technique further.

The Dream:

1. A nightmare, a relentless anxiety dream, awakened me about 5:30. I am preparing to go to a convention. I had looked up the driving directions—the location was in Napa—and knew the drive would take 20 minutes. It is 9:00 am; the meeting convenes at 10:00. This convention is in some way important to my career, and I need to make a good impression. I realize I can’t find the directions, which I was sure I had put in my purse.

Dream Mapping

Today let’s look at a different interpretation technique, taught to me by my friends Lisa Rigge and Beth Okurowski in a dream class they recently led.  The method, created by Bob Haden of the Haden Institute, consists of asking yourself a series of questions about your dream. I’m following the method loosely here. If you were to learn Bob’s Mapping Dreams technique from him it would include more detail and instruction than I can cover in a blog post.

The Dream: A secretary’s chair sits near the water in a natural setting. It is upholstered and padded, either pink or turquoise. Little baby geese have been nesting on the seat. I get them to move and see lots of little goose poops on the seat. I remove the chair back to clean the seat and remark it’s a good thing the geese weren’t full grown.

Q: What is the setting of the dream?
A: The setting is natural, near water.

Weeds in the Garden

People sometimes ask if a small fragment of a dream is enough to yield an interpretation. And the answer is yes. In my dream group we sometimes spend an hour talking about a two-sentence dream. Since this is a short dream I thought it might be a good one to use to show you the process of interpreting. If you want to play along, you can pretend the dream is yours, and the interpretation you come up with will apply to you (but not necessarily to me).

The Dream: There are two weeds in the garden. I pull them and notice to my chagrin that they are back the next day.

Interpretation Process: First, let’s look at the weeds. Clearly they represent some things I don’t want in my life. Are these external, such as work problems, or are they my own unpleasant or counterproductive traits? Why are there two of them? Do I have two problems? Two difficult people in my life? Two traits that hold me back? Whatever they are, they’re persistent; I’m having trouble getting rid of them. Is there something in my life I don’t like that keeps cropping up?

The weeds are in my garden, so next I have to ask, “What does a garden mean to me?” Is this a place I go for rest and renewal? Since a garden is a place of cultivation, might this be the place where I create? Or could it be the place where I grow?

I bet you’ve got the idea. If you played along and came up with an interpretation, please feel free to leave it as a comment, or e-mail it to me at CarlaYoung10@gmail.com

Working on Your Dreams: Step 3 – Interpret

So, you’ve started to remember your dreams and you’re keeping a journal. You’d like to be able to ferret some meaning out of this mysterious material. Where to start? A book that I found very helpful when I was beginning the decoding process is a slim volume by Robert A. Johnson called Inner Work. He suggests that you make a list of the important words in your dream and then write down what you associate with each word. This is different from free association, which goes something like this: cat, hair, allergies, sneeze, got a cold, stayed home from school. The direct association chain goes like this: cat, hair; cat, catty; cat, green eyed; cat, Halloween. So, for each important word in the dream you make a list of words that are directly conjured by the dream word. As you write this list, you’ll notice that you feel a little surge of excitement around some of the associations, and that tells you that you are getting close to what the word means in your dream.
 
We live in a world that worships speed, but deciphering a dream is often a slow process. Be patient. You’ll be surprised at what you can learn, and the things you learn will gradually transform your life. In working with your dreams you are working with your essential self, and sometimes that’s an essential self that has yet to be discovered.

For some excellent and sensible information for beginning dream workers start with  Jeremy Taylor's Dream Work

Dream dictionaries are fun and tempting, but most are downright silly. Tony Crisp, however, has worked with dreams for many years and compiled suggested “definitions” based on the dream experiences of many people. His dictionary suggests alternate possibilities for most dream images and can jump start the deciphering process. Tony Crisp's Dream Dictionary

For some good material on the importance of the dreamer as the ultimate interpreter of his dream and an interesting take on Carl Jung—not entirely sympathetic—see Gayle Delaney’s Carl Jung, Dreams, and the Sexes

If you would like an introduction to people working professionally with dreams, Anne Hill interviews many on Dream Talk Radio

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.

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.