Something Stinks

Whether we're interacting with a cousin, a parent, a sibling, a partner, or a child, the past is not as buried as we'd sometimes like to think: it's important to look at how old feelings influence our relationships in the here and now.
The Dream: My cousin Barb is visiting. Clark and I are entertaining in the garden, full of brilliant orange and purple flowers. Barb sits with her back to the house, on the lowest level near the family room and kitchen. She looks up at an arrangement of tall flowers, stepped as if they were on a grandstand. To the right is the fountain, surrounded by flowers as tall as it is.

I am mixing with the guests and don't see much of Barb. When I do see her she says, “The garden is very beautiful, but there is a bad smell coming up from under the house.”

I am relieved that she approves of the garden; I had been worried that there were too many of the same flower, and perhaps the arrangement was not exactly graceful. At the same time I'm upset by her comment about the bad smell. “How could I have let her sit there?"  I wonder. I knew about that smell. Or did I? I think I did. I feel judged inadequate.

Later I see her drinking a large glass of red wine. She calls out to me to join her, and I tell her I'm about to, as soon as I find a glass. I call out to her: “The guys (our husbands and male friends) don't drink so we'll have to keep up the tradition of our fathers.” As I say this I'm a little concerned I'll descend into alcoholism.

Interpretation: Two recently watched mysteries triggered this dream about family. In the first, set in Italy, a very attractive priest/detective says that Jesus came not to judge but to save. In the first scene with my cousin I feel judged and inadequate. She mentions a smell coming from under the house, and that was triggered by the second mystery, British, with bodies buried in the basement of a family home. What bodies of our family members lie buried underneath and raise up stinks that appall us even today? What “remains” poison our current relationships?

Having acknowledged the stink of the past my cousin and I take communion: we have wine together, but even then I worry about the legacy of our fathers. Does this communion require we numb ourselves with alcohol? Or is the dream pointing out that I'm letting overblown worries get in the way of enjoying my time with my family?

The imagery of the dream is closely tied to burial rites. The brilliant flowers mask the dark reality of decay, and they point to new growth, a resurrection of the spirit.My cousin sits near both the family room and the kitchen, the first pointing to the issue (family), and the second to transformation (our new relationship).

There's a Sock on Your Hat!

The Dream: I'm visiting one of my brothers, about to leave. I need to get to Heathrow Airport for my journey home. I go to a travel kiosk that looks like an old-fashioned counter at a train station: the clerks are behind a grill. I ask for directions to Heathrow. When I approach the counter the woman is very friendly and congenial, and says to me, “Did you know there's a sock on your hat?” It's placed the way a decorative flower might have been. We both roar with laughter, and I say:”My brother could have told me!” I feel he's played a brotherly prank on me, and I have to admit it's pretty funny.

Interpretation: Not all dreams deal with heavy issues; most, in fact, reflect day to day concerns. After my recent trip to a foreign country to visit one of my husband's childhood friends, I had two dreams featuring laughter. My relative (in waking life my husband, not my brother) played a prank on me by subjecting me to his very self-involved friend for a few days. (I was “grilled” by the ordeal.) In the dream I laugh it off. This releases tension and points out that I shouldn't take the situation, or myself, too seriously.

The Green Bug

The Dream: I'm chasing a green bug in the bathroom. It looks more like a flat, round green flower than like a bug—but it's mobile and runs from me. I try to catch it to take it outside as it scurries around the base of the toilet. As it evades my attempt yet again I lose patience and decide to squash it. Then I take pity on it, seeing it wants to live, and I let it go.

Interpretation: Something is bugging me, something that I'd like to get out of my system (it's near the toilet). I want to be rid of it, to let it go, but it evades me. My solution is to put it outside (air my feelings), but, by refusing to be caught, my difficulty refuses to be handled in this way. I lose patience and decide to suppress it (I want to kill the bug). I relent, however, when I become aware that it is a carrier of the life force (it wants to live): The color green is indicative of new life, and, besides, there's something playful about the way this creature teases me. I think it's probably a good thing that I let it live, and I hope it lets me take it outside, into the open, soon. 

Guest Dreamer: Sacred Marriage

Thanks to Susanne van Doorn for this evocative dream and the lovely photograph that illustrates it. You can read her thoughts on this dream at Susanne's Dream Blog.  In this post I'll comment on her dream as if it were one of my own.

Susanne' s Dream: I am guarding a couple that wants to be married. We are on the road, on our bikes, me and some friends. I know L. from high school; he is my male-companion in making sure the couple can get to their ceremony on time. L. was a man when the rest in high school were boys. I know with him as a guardian-companion we can make this work; we will get the couple to the altar on time.

We stop at a crossing and hold up our hands to stop the other traffic to have a safe passage. I am looking at the carriage were the couple is in and the bride, a girl with brown churlish hair, is preparing her wedding bouquet. She arranges black and red tulips and is lacing a red band onto the bouquet, carefully lacing it. I look at her with a feeling of love and guidance in my heart and I wake up knowing we are going to make it happen.

Carla's thoughts: In my version of Susanne's dream the couple that wants to marry are previously divergent parts of me that are now ready to unite—this is what Jung would call a conjunctio, often symbolized by a marriage. What might these parts be? L, my companion and helper in the dream, stands for a mature and capable part of me. In the dream I need this part in order to be effective, and that acknowledgment is the first step in our unification. Because his strength gives me a feeling of security I can rely on my Psyche to deal with life's difficulties.

Who is the bride? She is described as having “churlish” brown hair. While churlish might be a typo for “curly”, I have to look at the word I wrote down (as the dreamer), not what I might have meant to write. Churlish means “rude in a mean-spirited and surly way.” If hair, because it's coming out of our heads, symbolizes thought, and brown is slang for anger (I was “browned off”), I might be dealing with some hostile feelings that I don't want to face. The other colors hint at the topic that has evoked this reaction. I'm lacing together a bouquet of red and black flowers. For me red is life and passion, black is death and nothingness. Flowers are important in both life and death rituals, weddings and funerals. As the bride I lace these two conflicting states of being together—life and death. The red band (life) that I put around my bouquet holds the opposites together and tells me that they are part of the same thing. This is another conjunctio! Seeing this unity in the dream gives me the insight to get past my anger about death, something that I previously responded to with the surly attitude of an adolescent. Once this immature part united with my mature and strong self, represented by L, my reaction to death was no longer churlish. Now I have the understanding of a strong woman, one who can love and guide others as well as help myself along the path; L and I have made it safe for my individuation to continue.

A Failed Artist

The Dream: I'm with my mother and two friends. We start to head up to my walk-up apartment. As we are climbing the stairs I say to my mother, “I guess you're wondering why I always live in a 5th floor walk-up?” I mean this as a joke on the effort the stairs require, but it's not actually a negative to me. “Not at all,” says my mother. “It's because you are a failed artist.”

I'm stung by this, but don't feel I can deny the truth of it. I would have preferred she acknowledge the accomplishment of what I've achieved—a certain level of skill, undeniably--than to focus on my utter lack of commercial success. Then too, I don't think commercial success is what I'm after. Nevertheless, I see the career building strategies of a successful artist friend in a new light. It least she isn't seen as a failure.

Mother collapses onto the floor, and I'm afraid the effort of climbing the stairs has given her a heart attack. I bend over her, very concerned, but not ready to call the paramedics: her color looks good and I think she'll snap out of it. I feel, once the crisis has past, that I owe my friends an explanation. “I've been through this so many times before,” I say.

My friends give me gifts. One is a fused glass piece, a tube sprouting a plant. It's roots are in the tube; an exotic flower drapes out.

Interpretation: Ha! My conundrum in a nutshell: one part of me, the internalized critical mother, wants to know why I'm not a commercial success. In our culture money equals value, and if you can't show a profit you and your product must be worthless. Another part, the one that is happy to live on a higher level and doesn't mind the difficulty that entails, sees my art making as a spiritual practice and has no interest in monetizing it, only wants a bit of recognition for what she's accomplished. My critical mother collapses from the effort of the ascent, but I know she'll revive. After all, I've been through this many times.

The friends, protectors of my calling, give me a work of art: nature transformed into a glass object that could last--or might just as easily break.

House for Sale

The Dream: We go through a house that's for sale finding rooms with striking, very bold wall papers: large scale, abstract, very colorful florals. The papers overwhelm the rooms; but there's something so beautiful about them that I think I would try to work with them if I bought the place.

Interpretation: The house for sale implies a change. I am trying to deal with something overwhelming that's both beautiful and problematical. If I buy the place (accept the challenge) it will mean I can't settle for the easy, quiet, comfortable route.

She's Blossoming

Today's guest dream comes from Nasrin Beyraghdar who created the lovely artwork that illustrates her dream.

The Dream: I was talking with some of my cohorts, and then I noticed that something that looked like green thorns were coming out of my index finger. I showed it to someone (I cannot remember who), and asked that person to see what it was. She said, “Go to dissertation teacher, she knows how to take it out.” Then suddenly many flowers began to sprout on the back of my hand, all were spontaneously bursting into bloom. The flowers were violets, they had a light and darker violet shade of color and there were clusters of them all over my hands and arms. Then I woke up.

Carla's thoughts: If this were my dream, I would feel that it had been triggered by something work-related. (I'm with my cohorts.) I'm uncomfortable; it's a prickly situation, perhaps caused by my inexperience (the green thorns). I ask for help and am sent to the person who directs dissertations. Since a dissertation is a document in which I put forth my original ideas and place them before others who will judge them, my discomfort might be caused by my concern that my true thoughts and beliefs will not be accepted. Once my dream puts its finger on what's bothering me and I go to the proper guide (my inner dissertation teacher, who can speak out with authority), my true self bursts into bloom. The flowers sprout from my hand, the part of my body that touches the world and represents my “feelings.” I am blossoming. The violet color suggests I've arrived at a new spiritual understanding, perhaps one that I can hand over to others.

The Wall Flowers

The Dream: I’m in a car with some other people. At times I’m driving, at other times Clark. We come to an area surrounded by a wall covered with many beautiful flowers. The road is wooded and dense with vegetation, not like a forest, but like a suburban area that has been long established and become overgrown, yet beautiful. I ask what the wall surrounds, since something about the place seems familiar to me. I am told it’s a swimming pool; in fact it is the community pool near the house I lived in as a child. I am excited, saying, “I thought it looked familiar. I spent many hours here as a child.”  There are wide concrete steps, set at angles, going down from the pool to street level. The path meanders. I see it’s changed a lot. At some deep level I feel “activated,” but don’t stay to explore. I don’t go into the enclosed pool area.

Interpretation: The walled-off area and the pool represent the potential I had as a child, at the time of life when it seems all things are possible. But I am now like the suburban area, long established (overgrown) and changed from what I once was. The steps taking me down to reality (street level) are concrete, like the time that has past. Despite their concreteness, these steps meander. My path in life has meandered, and I can’t undo the (concrete) choices I’ve made.  Although the past can’t be changed, the way I perceive it has changed a lot. This subliminal realization is in some way exciting, but I don’t choose to explore it.

Life in the Suburbs

The Dream: A suburban subway stop is under renovation, with bulldozers and plows above ground. The area is landscaped with flowers, concrete, and grass--the attractive but institutional look often created by suburban landscape architects.

Interpretation: Here’s a neat little paradox: the suburbs, with their neat façade of order and respectability and the subway, a dark and steamy underground transport system. The composition of the landscaping—flowers, concrete, and grass—evokes a cemetery. I’m glad this stifling environment is under renovation! And of course, no matter how much it changes, the subway (unconscious) will still run below.

Mix and Match

Have you ever said of someone, “he’s like two different people”? Well, he’s not alone; we all are. And when you think of all your different ancestors, each contributing a bit of DNA, it’s not a surprise. One of the functions of dreams is to help us reconcile our own inner opposites. When this happens Jung calls it a conjuntio.

The Dream: A table is covered with a white linen cloth and set with my good china, a Lenox pattern called Castle Garden. There is a vase on the table, also Lenox, but a different pattern. It has a flower on one side and a Chinese-inspired dragon on the other. I fret over whether these two patterns, with their very different motifs, look good together. After a while I conclude that despite their thematic difference, the pieces harmonize—by design.

Interpretation: The Chinese motif has come up in many of my dreams and represents my unconscious, feeling, intuitive aspect. Dragons in western folklore are forces to be defeated; they can represent what is untamed, fierce, passionate. In this dream the lovely and serene castle garden becomes an expanded self-awareness that can co-exist—even harmonize--with the Chinese dragon.

A New Garden

Parents are more than parents in our dreams. “Father,” for example, represents what Jung calls the conscious collective: church, state, traditional mores and authority. “Mother” represents the collective unconscious: instinct and myth.

The Dream: We have a new house we’re trying to get used to. We’re talking ourselves into liking it and being comfortable in it. There is a remote part of the garden, in the front of the house, planted with attractive plants and flowers. We can see ourselves sitting out there.

There’s a door to the left of the house, framed in green, with steps leading to a large side yard with 3 trees. I point to this side yard with its trees and a couple of straggly looking bushes along the back fence close to the back of the house. I am excited about the idea of making a new garden here, under the trees, where we can sit when it’s hot. I mention this to “mother.”

Interpretation: Not completely defeated by the previous night’s altercation with the “father,” I am trying to get comfortable in a new house (new psychic center). The plural dream characters tell me this effort is complex. The attractive front garden represents my public face--or to put it another way, my accommodation to the conscious collective. The steps show this may happen in phases (one step at a time) and the color green, signifying growth, that a change is in the works. The number 3 (three trees in the side yard) says I’m on the right track toward integrating my warring parts (3 represents the complete self). What about the green framed door? A door indicates a passage from one state to another. Here is a garden I can develop where I can shelter from the heat. I mention this to “mother.” Father and mother, each with a garden near my house, are coming closer.