In Memoriam

The Dream: I had this dream the night of my brother Greg's birthday. My other brother Nick and I are at a memorial service for  Greg. We are sitting about four rows back, on the left side of the chapel. I call it a chapel: it is nonsectarian, like the place where Greg's actual memorial was held. We are separated by some others, not sitting next to each other. I hear Nick weep. I weep as well. We don't interact.

Interpretation: Nick and I, united in a grief we cannot talk about. We are separated, yet also together, in the same place. Kubler Ross's 4th stage of grief (we are 4 rows back) is depression, sadness. My unconscious is telling me where I am in the grieving process.

My Days are Numbered

I had this dream the night before I received the shocking news that one of my brothers had died unexpectedly.
The Dream: I have received medical news that my days are numbered. I try to deal with it, both internally and externally. For myself, I work to accept the reality with some sort of equanimity. For others, I worry about how much trouble my condition will cause. I feel very much “the other,” as one with a death sentence hanging over my head. I think of my friend Don who had pancreatic cancer and how—at least in public—managed a robust cheerfulness, an ability to keep living.

Then I contemplate what life would be like with no death, and I realize that life would lose its sweetness, its poignancy, in some way.

Interpretation: Was this dream precognitive, or was the timing merely coincidental? If not precognitive, was there some sort of mental telepathy going on? These issues come up with dreams, and I don't think we have the answers.

Looking at the dream in its own terms, the interesting thing about it is that it tries to deal with the concept of mortality and even comes up with something positive about our finite existence. It seems the dream is trying to prepare me for the inevitable.

Guest Dreamer: The Flying Dinosaur

In this guest dream, Firequeen faces grief at the loss of her husband. Death appears as a swift raptor, a cheetah that cheats her of her beloved. The dream triggers a powerful transformation: By facing her pain in the dream, healing can begin.

Firequeen’s Dream: Weird dream last night. I was standing in my house with Wolfram, it was not this house but the room we were in was this one (office). We were standing at the window and we saw a flying dinosaur - about the size of a pelican - the name given me in the dream was velociraptor, but I just looked that up and it doesn't have wings. This had a big head and a very long sharp beak. Wolfram was intrigued with it and began making faces at it and waving his arms to annoy it (he was like that) and it turned and flew towards us. This did not make him give up. It flew straight at the window and its beak pierced the glass, making a hole. It made about three of these holes. Then it saw a small bird sitting on a bush and it speared the poor bird with its beak. Then it sat back on its haunches - it had turned into a cheetah-like creature and was holding the bird in its paws and had a grinning mouth full of teeth. It seemed able to change back and forth between these two creatures at will. I felt it was extremely dangerous and could get in the house through the holes it had made, so I persuaded Wolfram we should leave the room and shut the room door behind us.

Then we went to the door of the house and I saw the house was in a field with open space around. People were coming towards the house and I was supposed to have made food for them, but hadn't. Then Libby came and she was carrying trays of beautiful food and cakes, which she had made for us and the people. There was more but I only remember fragments - Adrian, a friend I haven't seen for a long time, was holding a pane of glass and saying he was going to repair the window.  I felt I had to warn all these people about the velociraptor, but I could not get them to listen. I kept lining them up outside the house and saying they had to listen to me before they went in. But they were too busy talking to each other. If any of them did listen, they dismissed it as imagination.

Firequeen’s afterthought: Some days afterwards, I was thinking about this dream, and how Wolfram is so often with me in dreams, and I felt sure that he is always there, even when I don’t know it, and then I received the message that this is so, and it is because we are now merged. We don’t have to wait until after my death. And maybe this was why he ‘wasn’t there’ on the holiday this year, when he had been so vividly present the year before - because he had been present in me.

Carla’s interpretation: The dreamer has shared some facts from her life that I take into account as I interpret her dream as if it were my own. I am standing in my house (my self) with my husband Wolfram, who in waking life died unexpectedly in 2006. We are in the office, which is the dream’s way of telling me that I have some work to do. The window I look through represents my view of things, and the creature that I see tells me what I need to work on. I see a dinosaur, which has mythic elements for me, reminding me of a fairytale dragon (something to be conquered), but this dinosaur is very particular—it’s a velociraptor, a word that literally means swift seizer.  My husband was swiftly seized by death, and the dream is helping me deal with my feelings around this tragedy. The dinosaur breaks the glass: my husband’s death has been a shattering experience. My soul (the bird) is held in this fearsome event, and I feel cheated (the Cheetah). I have tried not to look at this painful reality. (I persuade Wolfram we should leave the room and shut the door behind us.)

Yet having experienced the pain and fear of my loss in the dream space, I begin to heal. I go to the door (a threshold, the demarcation between one state and another), leaving the painful part of my inner world to enter the open space of a field. My world view is opening up. Because of my suffering I hadn’t been able to nourish my friendships (make food for my friends), but my friend Libby (the part of me that is now ready to interact and give to others) has provided enough for all. The Adrian part of me (a part that has been gone for a while) will repair my shattered heart (the glass pane “pain”).

My dream shows me how I have progressed through my grief, but also warns me not to forget the life lessons I have learned, even though there are parts of me that don’t want to know as well as people in waking life who refuse to accept the difficulty of dealing with death (the people who ignore my warnings about the swift seizer). As I can see from my thoughts a few days later, my spiritual beliefs were activated by the dream and console me with the realization that my love and I have merged: he lives on through me—in real time. Wolfram is not lost to me.

Mother’s Birdcage Hairdo

One of the most difficult things we do as humans is to try to come to terms with the loss of our loved ones. The grieving process goes on for years, as the next couple of dreams demonstrate.

The Dream: My mother has had her hair done by my hairdresser. It’s something like my style but with an extra feature: a configuration of hair that resembles a birdcage coming up from her scalp. I’m trying to reassure her that she looks good with this “updated” hairdo, but neither of us is convinced.

Interpretation: If hair represents our thoughts, having my mother’s hair done by my hairdresser reflects my wish to make her think as I do. But since she died some years ago, the unconscious lets me know this isn’t possible. Her hair instead becomes a birdcage. Birds represent the spirit; her thoughts, or my thoughts about her, have formed a place where her spirit can dwell (the hair twisted into a birdcage). I am not ready to release her from this earthly life, so I don’t care for her updated hairdo, but I try to accept it for both of us by telling her, however unconvincingly, that it looks good on her.

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.”

The Wailing Wall

The Dream: I look at the wall between the stairs and the guest room, and it is water stained. There is a leak coming from the guest room wall, and it has spread to a large area. I wonder why we didn’t notice it earlier. I talk to Clark about fixing it, and I am concerned that he will put it off and it will get worse. I think, “This is a disaster.”

Interpretation: My mother’s furniture is in the guest room. Something leaking from that room is contaminating, ruining my house (self). At first I thought this symbolized my mother’s influence over me, but Clark pointed out the symbolism of the Wailing Wall and suggested the image symbolized my inexpressible grief at her death.

Baring the Breast

Have you ever had a dream that seems to resolve a previous dream? Jung tells us that this is to be expected, and that it is part of our natural psychic regulation. This is similar to the way natural physical adjustments take place, for example, sweating to cool the body when you get too warm. In my chat with Jane Teresa Anderson (Episode 44 of The Dream Show) she pointed out that the title of the dream The Bodice Ripper could refer to an opening (exposure) of the heart. I had this dream the night after our chat.

The Dream: I am sitting at a table of arty and intellectual architects. After a while I realize I have no clothes on above the waist. One of the men comes and sits next to me, kissing me on the cheek and saying, “I’ve missed you.” I notice the softness of his youthful face, although his hair is thinning and he must be in his 40s. I say, “I’ve missed you, too.” His name is at the edge of my awareness but I don’t quite get it. We’re happy to be together but can’t think of anything to say.  I notice my bare breasts and think I should cover up, but do nothing about it.

Interpretation: The bodice is off; my heart has opened. The rapprochement is not only with the part of me that can deal with the outer world (my animus) but also with my first image of a man, my father. The exchange about missing each other refers to my grief over his death. That I am sitting with a table of architects tells me that something new is being built.