Wicked

Do you have a dark side? Yes, you do.

The Dream: An image of a wicked woman; her hat is composed of a lampshade in yellow, green, and orange. A voice in the dream says that a lampshade both conceals and reveals illumination.

Interpretation: This dream attempts to bring my dark (wicked) side to some level of consciousness (illumination.) The dream hints that I won’t get it, at least not entirely. It tells me that what’s on top of my head (my current thoughts, symbolized by the lampshade) conceals as well as reveals insight (illumination). From the way I have drawn the wicked woman I can see that I find her attractive and powerful—she's not something I am likely to eradicate. That might be okay, as long as I can know her for what she really is.

The Complications of Eradicating Evil

The Dream: Some very evil men can’t be controlled. My husband Clark decides to murder them. Their bodies are placed upright in a public space, as if embedded into a curtain that surrounds a public square. We wait for them to be discovered and to see what sort of public reaction there will be. Clark is convinced he’s done the right thing and has the courage of his certainty. I’m nervous and unsure. Who will back us up? Who will turn us in? Who knows?

Interpretation: This is a dream about something we confront every day as we listen to the news: evil people commit evil deeds; what can I do about it? In the dream my public, active side, represented by my husband (my other half), takes action. My introverted, more reflective, less impulsive side (represented by the dream ego) is not sure the action taken was a good idea. 

A more complicated ethical dilemma arises: we’ve covered up (veiled) our action. By privately making a decision for the group (the public) we risk alienating ourselves from the society we live in. Taking action has left us hanging out, much like our victims.

And then there’s another way to look at the dream: what evil part of myself am I veiling from public view? And isn’t the evil hidden in my breast the most difficult to eradicate? Partially because even I can’t see it: it’s veiled, embedded and enclosed!

Things are Not What They Seem

Often it’s a lot of work to get to the truth of a dream. In this one, my initial reaction was far from what I later concluded.

The Dream: An evil and powerful woman -- ambitious and driven, caring only about her own advancement -- is trying to kill me in an exotic way. I am the captain of a small crew, and we are going to be shot into space. Then I will be murdered—remotely by her. The crew knows nothing of her plot and is not involved. I am frantically trying to stave off this event, which seems to be moving forward inexorably.

The Snake

The Dream: Later that night, after the dream of the malicious masks (last post), I dreamed of a snake.

Interpretation: In our culture the snake has connotations both negative (the Garden of Eden provocateur) and positive (the doctor’s caduceus, a healing symbol). By its ambiguity this image warns me that good and evil can and do co-exist: as Solzhenitsyn says, if you want to rid the world of evil you must rip out half your own heart.

Jung has a different take: “The idea of transformation and renewal by means of a serpent is a well-substantiated archetype. It is the healing serpent, representing the god. . . . Probably the most significant development of serpent symbolism as regards renewal of personality is to be found in Kundalini yoga.”*

*Carl Gustav Jung, Dreams, Translated by R.F.C. Hull, (Princeton: Bollingen Paperback Edition, 1974),  218.

The Dumb Blonde

This dream has mythological roots echoing back to Venus emerging from the sea.

The Dream: A blonde woman has a partner who’s like an evil magician. I come across the two of them at the shore, in the water near some rocks. Her partner is trying to get her to stay under water for longer and longer periods of time. She doesn’t like this and finally gets out and walks away from him. I wonder if her partner had been trying to get her to kill herself.

I am pregnant.

Interpretation: The dumb blonde, the one who could not speak, refuses to exist solely in the unconscious, here symbolized—as it often is—by the sea. She walks out of the water, and a new potential life is conceived.