A Portrait

The Dream: A woman and I are sitting at a table, across from each other. We're each drawing portraits, straight-on heads. I am the teacher. She's very skillful; my criticism of her work is that it lacks feeling. I take her drawing and, with her permission, make corrections. I change the mouth, making it a vibrant pink and somewhat pouty, or sensual. My other criticism is that the portrait is vague: it's very soft and lacks definition, with one color bleeding into the next.

Interpretation: The Unconscious gives me a drawing lesson! The artist I'm instructing in this dream reminds me of an egg tempera painter who wanted to meet me; she came to my house as an acolyte. When she showed me her paintings it was clear that she was highly skilled—more so than I—in handling the medium. Yet she was not satisfied with her work because, she said, it lacked imagination. This was true. As with many painters, her skill exceeded her conception. Yet she loved painting, and enjoyed her chosen subject matter. Of course I complimented her skill. I said that it only made sense for her to do what resonated with her. I suggested keeping a dream journal if she wanted to develop some original ideas.

In the dream I admire the artist's skill but feel she needs more expression, as symbolized by my “fixing” the mouth, the organ of speech. So the message for me is, of course to express myself.

When I tried drawing the face this artist drew in the dream I learned something about how to use color pencils—that is, very softly and delicately, building up color with gentle iterations. I tend to jump to the finish immediately, and that can make me heavy-handed, a hard thing to recover from! So the dream taught me this about self-expression: take it easy; let it develop; don't jump in with too much clarity and definition. The things I criticize in the dream artist are exactly what I need to do.

A Broken Engagement

The Dream: I am engaged to the fiancé of a gay friend. He and I are dancing together in preparation for our wedding. He is very small, but very self-confident, and to me this comes across as his being full of himself. He does one surprising dance move, a head to toe shimmy. I'm impressed, but—try as I might—I can't get him to catch on to the grapevine.

I become aware that I have no feeling for him. This makes me a little sad. At one point I hold him as if he were a child, across my lap. I don't know why we're engaged. I say to him, “Don't you think we should get to know one another better?” He is hurt, I can see that in his eyes, but as far as I'm concerned we've only met 3 times. He says, “You know it's right when it's right.”

It doesn't feel right to me, and I want to break it off. At first I don't think I can because people have been invited, all sorts of arrangements have been made. How many people go through with a marriage, I wonder, only because they don't know how to get out of it? Then I remember that it's the planning for my daughter's marriage that has been finalized, not mine. I call it off.

Interpretation: What is the engagement I've broken? Clearly it's to something I find inappropriate, to another's fiancé, and a gay man at that. This dream character represents a small part of myself that excels in spontaneity (the shimmy) and refuses to be trained (I can't teach him the grapevine). The dream points out that I've broken off my engagement to the emotional, intuitive side of myself, that part that knows without analysis when something is right. It's the egotistical small child side, the 3 year old who is full of himself.

I come to realize through the dream that I don't feel I know this part: despite the fact that we're engaged I don't think we know each other. He embarrasses me, and I want to be free of him. The dream points out my discomfort, giving me the first step in possibly reintegrating this alien aspect.

Guest Dreamer: The Strange Case of the Blood Red Haematite and The Philosophers Stone

One of the mysterious things about dreams is how they help us to get to know ourselves. Openfoot’s training and education emphasized the scientific and rational—which is a good thing. On the other hand, it put him at a distance from his intuitive, feeling side—not such a good thing. In this dream he resolves these two often conflicting ways of perceiving the world. Openfoot, who has his own dream website, will tell us his interpretation of the dream, and I’ll add some comments afterward.

The Dream: I am in a long thin room, a lecture theatre perhaps or the gallery of a museum. It is furnished in a nineteenth century style. There is a lot of wooden panelling and wooden framed, glazed display cases. A group of men, of whom I am one, is in the room. We seem to be wearing period costume although it is perhaps a couple of hundred years older than the furniture and decoration in the room. I get the feeling that a meeting has just ended and we remain discussing the substance of the meeting in an informal way and just socialising.

I Sacrifice My Social Security

The Dream: My daughter has been working as a prostitute in order to pay off her school debt. At first my husband Clark and I don’t react to this; we think she’s a grown woman and can make her own decisions. However, I come to realize, and can see in her countenance, that this “work” is a threat to her very soul since it demands that she cut herself off from her true feelings. I want to help her get out of this situation, so I offer her money. I don’t have much, only my social security check, but I decide, after a little internal struggle, that I don’t need it.

Interpretation: In this dream I begin to realize that I’ve been prostituting my inner vision to satisfy outside demands. I’m paying off a debt (what I owe others) for my education--or what might be more accurately called my socialization. In the course of the dream I become willing to sacrifice approval (social security) to free myself from the necessity to do work I don’t love.

The Transformative Power of the Child

After the very long analysis of the last very short dream, my unconscious offered up this delightful confirmation of the importance of the inner child.

The Dream: I’m at a doctor’s office. She sits in an enclosed cubicle and asks questions as I lie in a bed nearby. I have two problems with her questions: 1) I can’t hear them, and 2) I can’t understand them. She uses a lot of big words; strung together they create incomprehensible sentences. I become frustrated and angry and—feeling inadequate—I blurt out: “I’m a Phi Beta Kappa; I’m not stupid! And I can’t understand what you’re saying!”

I am with my daughter, who is a baby but as intelligent as an adult. She tries to tell me what the doctor is saying. I embrace my child, enjoying our closeness, but partially showing off for the doctor. “See? I have a good relationship with my child!”

The doctor comes out of her cubicle in a fairy princess outfit. She is taking part in a show the staff is putting on. One of the staff comes over and removes her doctor’s name tag.

Interpretation: There are things my intellect cannot understand and cannot cure. Progress for my psyche comes through feeling (the embrace) and intuition (the child). When I embrace my child, something magical happens.