Make A Choice and Pay The Price

If you look at conflict between the characters in your dream you will be able to home in on the difficulty the dream is attempting to resolve.
The Dream: My daughter is going for a treatment of antibiotics at a new age facility. I get preachy and tell her that if she needs antibiotics she should see a doctor, not go to the sort of squiggly-headed pseudo-scientific place she's chosen. I point out that if she's taking antibiotics unnecessarily they might not work when she really needs them.

I become aware that she has made this choice because she thinks she can sneak in without paying, whereas if she went to a doctor she would have to come up with a co-pay. I'm surprised she would do such a thing.

Despite my reservations about the place, I go to the facility myself, into a dressing room that is a converted parking lot. A male attendant scolds me for not getting into the queue for one of the two private, curtained dressing rooms. I hadn't been aware of the queue, but when I realize there are only two private changing rooms I start to pull off my clothes where I am, thinking it would be ridiculous to wait and who cares? The rough, tough security guard is embarrassed and looks away awkwardly.

I undergo some sort of treatment at this spa, pay for it, and leave. Later a bill comes for my daughter's treatment. It's over $600.00. She won't like it, but she can afford to pay. I know she'll be upset about the amount and surprised to learn that she didn't get away with anything after all.

Interpretation: My inner child is stubbornly trying to get away with something. From my “mature” point of view this child part of me ignores the facts and chooses an ineffective treatment for my problem. And yet the older, wiser, and objecting dream ego chooses to go to the same place for treatment. Through the dream I become aware that I don't want to pay the price my cure requires.  It's as if the dream wants to show me that there are ways to grow even in situations that aren't ideal.

The healing process begins as I expose my vulnerability (undress) without discomfort.   When told I must wait my turn for a private “changing” room I change publicly, without shame. This takes place in a partially converted parking lot, and the part of me that protects my security looks away. These two things signal that the “change” is to a “parked” and closely guarded part of myself.

Finally I accept that there is a high price for my child's attempt to freeload, but I know that my child, now grown, can afford it. I won't like it, but it's a price I am able to pay. It's as if one part of my psyche is dragging another along into a more mature awareness or resolution.

The Incapacitated Father

The Dream: I am waiting for my father. A white van drives up. I see my brother and sister-in-law, looking very serious and sad, and I see my father isn't driving but is asleep in the front passenger seat. They lead him into the house, and my sister-in-law tells me that he must go into an Alzheimer's Care facility. I am shocked and very sad, and also concerned for myself: will I get this dreadful disease?

Interpretation: My father died long ago, at a young age with no sign of any sort of mental impairment. Here he represents my animus, the part of me that deals with the world, and perhaps the part that keeps my inner “mother” from taking over. This dream and the last point out that now I am the adult: these imagos from the past, mother and father, can no longer serve today's adult. The inner mother is unconscious; the inner father can't function effectively. Time for me to put myself in charge, or I risk becoming incapable (I'll get the disease.)

Not an I (Eye) Surgeon

The Dream: There is an eye surgery nearby. The head doctor, who does laser surgery, is an affable phony. He's been friendly, so I go back to see him. He's in the middle of an operation. To get to him I have to walk all the way to the end of his facility, a long, narrow room. I see him working next to a large rectangular surgical table covered by a tray filled with blood. The smell puts me off, plus I can see he's busy, so I leave.

As I get to the front door one of his assistants, an officious nurse, points to a flimsy sign, folded over in a way that makes it unreadable, handwritten on lined school paper. The sign says, “Stay Out!” or “No Admittance.” She is judgmental in that quiet, huffy, offended way that some women have perfected. She says something like, “Didn't you see the sign?” as she slams and locks the door after me.

I feel guilty and ill at ease about having trespassed, even though I hadn't seen the sign. I worry that I will be the cause, or be blamed, if there's a difficulty with the eye operation.

Interpretation: This dream was triggered by a guest dreamer post:  The Dream. I saw the dream as sexual, in some way connected to the dreamer's menses, related either to her actual father's reaction to her coming to womanhood or to the father as symbolic of the culture's values. I was concerned that the woman who offered the dream might be offended by my interpretation. My own dream tells me that I shouldn't go near the blood, that I am trespassing. Perhaps with this particular dream, I was “at the end of [my] facility;” in other words, either my comments were facile or I was out of my depth. And this could be true because, to avoid upsetting the dreamer, I did feel the need to soften my reaction to her dream. I see the doctor in my dream as a phony, but affable.

If I make a mistake with someone's “I” (eye) I leave myself open to a huffy, offended judgment. At least as far as that particular guest dream goes, my own psyche thinks it might have been better to see the writing on the wall (the sign) and “Stay out!”