Guest Dreamer: Trying to Turn a Corner

Today's guest dreamer, Wild Rice, is having some trouble turning a corner. I'll interpret her dream as if it were my own. Only she knows the personal associations that play a part in her dream, but I hope to give her some ideas about its universal symbols.

The Dream: I was with an older man. He had caramel colored hair. The hair reminds me a little of the sleazy attorney from the TV series “Breaking Bad.” This man wanted me to hypnotize him (I am a Hypnotherapist IRL.)

He had status in the community. He was a high ranking business man. He had a lot of interest in receiving my help. He took my hand in his. Part of the time, he held his arm out, in a chivalrous fashion, for me to take, I took it.

We kept walking along, as we moved from the indoors, down an easy set of wide stairs, and were then suddenly outside. I was very worried what others would think, as this felt very improper to be with him this way. It was a feeling of an illicit affair, or something very wrong.

We had a destination in mind. We were headed toward a place where I could perform the hypnosis for him. I saw others around us, making a similar journey, walking near us. He also had a woman on his left arm. I was on his right. We were moving around a curve then, in this roadway, which had only foot traffic. It was almost like a wide track. It was as if my body were a vehicle that I had to steer. It was difficult to move my body around this curve. I could feel a lot of force pressing against me as I attempted to steer myself to move with him smoothly. It took every ounce of my strength, almost super human strength. I really had to focus. He seemed to do this easily.

*I have had a similar dream on many occasions, where I am on a road, and instead of a car, I only have my body, maybe it’s got a set of wheels on a bare frame under it. I have to move it with my body. It feels so difficult to make the journey home, or to my place of residence. I keep trying to get there, despite the difficult circumstances. Sometimes I have a bike, but no proper car. I am usually on a highway, and the last time I dreamed this, I was at a shady place of town, under the bridge, near the freeway exit. There is usually hardly any traffic in these dreams.

Carla's commentary: An older man who lives in my psyche both attracts and repels me. Who he might be based on in waking life only Wild Rice can say. His caramel hair suggests something appealing--warmth and sweetness--but at the same time alludes to something unsavory (the sleazy attorney). As the dream ego I want to forget about him: his request that I hypnotize him is my own desire to move him into my unconscious (put him to sleep). It's difficult for me to do this for several reasons. For one thing, he is important to me (he has status in the community). Perhaps he is associated with the part of me that is successful in the world (he is a high-ranking businessman) or maybe I am intimidated by his status. And there's another aspect to “businessman:” what do they wear? Suits. Is he my suitor? That he needs my help, takes my hand, and offers his arm tells me that what he represents is a part of me, or of my life, that I need to integrate rather than push away from my conscious awareness. When I take the arm he offers I am taking the first step.

Once I've taken the step toward acknowledging this uncomfortable part of my inner life and I walk outside, into the “open” with it, I have immediate misgivings. It feels wrong and improper. My feelings about the impropriety are centered on what others will think more than on what I think, yet they might be telling me that there's something I need to look at that is socially or culturally unacceptable.

We are headed for a destination, but at this point in the dream I've circled back to my original goal of “hypnotizing,” or “putting to sleep” this uncomfortable psychic element. Suddenly another woman is with us. In my dream, this 2nd woman is my mother, and the thing I want to put to sleep is my oedipal desire to monopolize my father. My body has become mechanical—a vehicle I must steer (control) in spite of the fact that I find it very difficult. I've lost touch with my body in order to deaden feelings I find inappropriate. This conundrum has thrown me a curve (the curved track), and I'm having a difficult time negotiating my path. I need to resolve this particular issue so that I can find my way home, that is, to the place where my authentic self can reside comfortably.

Guest Dreamer: Well Armed

Guest dreamer Openfoot has contributed today's dream. You can read more of his dreams and see how he illustrates them by going to his interesting website here.
The Dream: I'm working in a trench. I've clearly been engaged on a plumbing job. I've also put in some electrical cabling and perhaps some fibre-optics too. It's all infrastructure work. I look up to see a group of friends arriving. They look surprised and I immediately know, without previously having been aware of the relevant facts, what they are surprised about. As if in answer to their questioning looks I shout out "Yes! My arms are fine! Look they work well! Just see all this work I've been doing! And look at the scars! They are well healed and translucent!" I show my friends my forearms. Just below each elbow a clean scar about 0.5 mm wide and slightly raised can clearly be seen. Each scar completely circles its respective forearm. Its obvious, I've had a forearm transplant on both my arms and things have worked out well.

Carla's thoughts: If this were my dream I'd think that something in the preceding couple of days has triggered my defenses. By paying attention to my dreams and feelings I've been plumbing my own depths, and my unconscious has brought my adaptations to the fore. My new awareness is around something I've been reluctant to change: I've dug in; I'm entrenched in my position. I've defended my vulnerabilities by building up my infrastructure with cabling and fibre-optics: this hints that I've been remote (both communicate over a distance) and protective (both, especially fibre optics, are encased).

My friends (other parts of my psyche) are surprised over my re-arming, but I explain that the work I've been doing has healed old wounds. The scars are there—but I've been healed and I am beginning to have some clarity (the wound is translucent) about a past difficulty. My dream forewarns me about my forearming and tells me that I am now sufficiently strong. All is well; I am now safe to back off from my entrenched position.

Guest Dreamer: My Inner Light

Today’s guest dream comes from artist and writer Gail Gray who has recently published Shaman Circus. She had the dream the night before her 61^st birthday.

The Dream:  I was at the Burgholzi Clinic in Zurich and Dr. Carl Jung was there.  He had asked many of us to bring our “patients” into a room so he could see how we were doing with their analyses.  At first we were all worried, what would these unusual people do with each other?  Would there be trouble?  Would they get along?

So I left and got my patient (I never saw myself in the dream, I just know it was me in my own skin walking around and doing things. I never talked.  I came back with my “patient” who was a large teddy bear sort of man, mute, who carried a large mason jar full of lightening bugs.  He moved very slowly--as if in a dream within my dream, sort of “not with it,” - a lumbering giant. The man himself was sad and poignant, not quite sure what to do. I was uncomfortable and feeling bad because I hadn't made much progress with my giant and had not come to know him very well. There wasn't much action after this, even when other people brought in their “patients,” except that we were all rather mesmerized by the beauty of the light in the jar, but also the bittersweet sadness of them being trapped in a jar. 

When I woke on my birthday I was elated, even though in the dream I'd been uncomfortable because of the remarkable appearance of Jung.

Carla’s thoughts: As usual when interpreting a guest dream, I’ll react to Gail’s dream as if it were my own. (If you would like to know why, read this post: Cement Men of Mars.)

Here’s my take on Gail’s dream: Dr. Jung has asked me (the dream ego) to produce my patient (a part of myself that I don’t entirely accept) so that he can assess my progress in analyzing (understanding and integrating) him. My concern about whether or not my patient will get along with the others hints at a social discomfort: I am afraid of conflict or some sort of disharmony if I allow this part of me out in public. The fact that I’m not talking in the dream tells me that I’m dealing with something that is unconscious: it can’t be “verbalized” or discussed—at least not yet.

Because my patient evokes a “teddy bear” he symbolizes my vulnerable inner child, possibly the Divine Child archetype (he carries light). That he is large tells me he represents something that is very important to me; and that he’s mute emphasizes the nonverbal, unconscious element that my own silence in the dream alludes to. This child has not been able to get through to me (he’s not quite sure what to do, and I feel bad because I don’t know him very well). The crux of the dream, however, lies in this unusual detail about the figure:  He is the source of a mesmerizing--if confined--light.

Dr. Jung represents my healing journey toward getting in touch with this source of light within me. The word “patient” is repeated four times in this relatively short dream, hinting that I need to be patient in order to understand the spiritual truth of the light I carry. My light is carried in a Mason jar; a mason works with stone; revealing this light is hard (as stone) for me.

The timing of this dream is significant. Because I had this dream on the eve of my birthday, it symbolizes the birth of a new understanding. I am elated because I’ve begun to experience my own inner light, and I can anticipate freeing it from its previously limited existence (in the mason jar).

The dreamer always gets the last word, so I encourage Gail to leave us her thoughts in a comment.

Guest Dreamer: Goodbye Kiss

Our guest dreamer today is Hunky, whose father recently died.  She has asked me to interpret her dream. An important part of dream interpretation is that the dreamer is the final authority on the meaning of her dream. When I comment about her—or anyone’s—dream I am inevitably talking about what the dream would mean to me had I dreamt it. So I’ll discuss Hunky’s dream as if it were my dream.

The Dream: Dad lies on his bed, dead.  He is small and thin, half the size he used to be.  His skin stretches tightly over his forehead and cheekbones.  His gray hair is still course and thick.  His head tilts slightly backward and his mouth is wide open.

My brother Tom stands next to the bed and looks down at his father.  He goes to a faucet and turns it on.  He fills his mouth with water, swishes, then spits it out.  He fills his mouth again and walks back to Dad.  He leans down and puts his mouth on Dad’s mouth.  Tom is using his tongue to clean his father’s mouth.  He is thoroughly swabbing all surfaces of the inside of Dad’s mouth.  Then Tom sucks the foul water back into his own mouth, turns his back and spits it out.


Carla’s projection: In his lifetime my father was a difficult person. Now that he is gone I am reassessing the man who loomed so large in my psyche, and I see him differently. (He’s now half the size he used to be.) His death is not only literal, but also symbolic as his role in my life diminishes.

My brother Tom is an animus figure in this dream; in other words, he is the strong, active part of me. It is significant that I (in the guise of my brother) am the one that turns on the faucet, which represents the flow of emotions now under my control. As I take the water into my mouth I experience the full range of my feelings—love, hate, grief, release—I swish these all around and then I spit them out, signaling that I’m done with these.

Next I (through Tom) work to purify my father.  By cleaning father's mouth I wish to cleanse him of the words, actions, and non-actions that had caused much pain.  I cleanse him, and--like the Buddhists who breathe in evil and breathe out love and peace--I transform my father by taking his failings into my own mouth and spitting them out.  As I transform my father I transform myself: he becomes the father I want, I become the woman I want to be. I am free.


Hunky, the dreamer, says: Understanding my father’s severe personality disorder makes forgiveness easier.  I believe forgiveness is a part of the message.  Maybe one of these days I'll have a dream that acknowledges the positive ways he influenced me.