The Difficulty of Approaching a Painting

The Dream: A painter, a gregarious, accomplished man, allows me to help him. First I watch. He is working with white paint only, a viscous oil. He puts his brush into a long and narrow trough, pulling the brush hairs along the edge again and again to adjust the amount of paint. He does this until I become impatient, thinking, “Get on with it!”

When he finishes applying the paint to the canvas, he has somehow managed to model a man's face and body; his strokes are perfect. I get to work on a similar piece that has been assigned to me and soon create flaws that I can't smooth out. I'm unable to mimic his perfection, try as I might. I get some paint in a spot it shouldn't be. I go for some water and a paper towel. Even though I am aware that water isn't a solvent for oil, I hope I can correct the defect before it's too set to remove.

Later there's an easel arrangement I'm expected to use that I don't understand. A platform is supported by four saw-horses near one end. At the other stands the painting. It appears balanced at the moment, but what will happen when I stand on the platform and approach the painting? Clearly the set-up has no stability.

Interpretation: I'm making some mistakes. As I face my own imperfections I try to solve (solvent) something with the wrong solution (water not turpentine). Getting closer to the problem (the painting) will throw me off-balance. The part of me that can handle it, the dream's competent male artist, has spent a very long time preparing, so long that I've lost patience with him. He works only with white, so might not see the black or gray tones (ambiguities) of the situation. Since the situation (set up) has no stability, it looks as if I'll have to address my difficulty, whether or not I'm ready.

Guest Dreamer: Rebecca: In Your Face

The Dream: I had been told that there were a bunch of horses in England. So much so that the smell of them penetrated the air. That fact didn’t bother me, and I wanted to go anyway. I ended up over there, and was with two horses in a pasture, eating from the same stack of hay. The face of the horse on the left (when looking from the front) was about twice the size, maybe could be a little more, of a regular horse. (The horse was regular size, but I’m thinking the face was that size to make a point, which I knew this while dreaming.) As the horses started eating, the horse on the left started getting after the other, so it could eat the hay by itself. This didn’t bother the other horse. As the horse on the left would nudge, I would tell it (don’t know the sex) to share. After saying this a couple times, the horse calmed down.

Carla's thoughts: As usual, I'll interpret Rebecca's dream as if it were my own. She will be the judge of whether or not my thoughts are relevant for her, and I hope she'll let us know how she sees her dream.

For me, horses are symbolic of my instincts or drives, my inner animal. Tony Crisp points out that the drives a horse symbolizes are those “that have to some extent become 'tamed' or directed.” Smell, our most basic sense, tells me that I'm dealing with something primitive, and the fact that these horses are in a foreign county says that I might be encountering something new, unfamiliar, or “foreign” in my life. In any case, the core feelings that smell represents are so strong that their odor has penetrated the air; you could say that these feelings have created an atmosphere!

The foreign land holding my horses (Hold your horses!) is England. What associations do I have with England or the British people, and how might this influence my dream's meaning? The British are known for their “stiff upper lip,” for being strong in the face of adversity and deprivation, for tolerating these without complaint and, in general, for behaving properly. Have my feelings, my drives, my instincts, been shipped over to this land to be tightly controlled?

I am becoming conscious that I have acquiesced to social pressure to “behave.” The left symbolizes feelings and instincts, again emphasizing their importance in this dream. The left horse's face has enlarged. A part of my instinctive energy or libido or desire has become a large thing for me to face. The left horse demands a bigger share of what it likes, the thing that nourishes it (its food). I intervene to stop this part of myself from taking what it wants. Interestingly, the “greedy” behavior doesn't bother the second horse, the one that I felt was being deprived. The right horse doesn't seem to mind the left horse getting something extra, but a part of me is not comfortable with it. I, as the dream ego, keep trying to get my left horse to behave, and it finally gives in to my repeated demands. The dream is telling me that I am too quick to intervene to stop my desires, and that they are not hurting anyone. I think my dream wants me to relax and enjoy life.

An Unusual Horse

This short dream is about the resolution of two opposing inner forces: one favors instinct, the other reason.

The Dream: I see a pony-sized horse with a very long body and a tiny head. It has a beautiful, shiny, black and white coat. Clark is brushing him. I think the animal is so homely that he’s cute.

Interpretation: In the telescoping way of dreams, this one tells us that it is about duality by juxtaposing three different qualities in the image of the horse: size (body, head); color (black, white); and attractiveness (homely, cute). The opposites I’m working to resolve are the instinctual (the horse) with reason (the head). The small size of the head signals a new direction for me, since I tend to over-intellectualize. The black and white of the pony’s coat echoes the Chinese yin yang, in other words, the coming together of opposites. My husband Clark (my other half) lovingly cares for the animal. My admiration for the pony in its imperfection (he’s so homely that he’s cute) symbolizes a new acceptance of my instinctive nature.  

Difficulties of Leadership

The Dream: We are going up a mountain in a rural setting; the landscape is fresh and beautiful, damp and fragrant like a primeval forest. I am on horseback, leading an expedition. My horse pulls some colorful, old-fashioned vehicles that look like circus cars. I am concerned that the cars might fall off the side of the mountain when I go around its sharp curves.

We get to a black tunnel which we must transgress before getting to the top, our destination. I see nothing in the pitch black. My left eye feels clogged: I can’t keep it open.  I am very sleepy. In order not to lose my followers over the edge I try to stick to what I “feel” is the inside track.

Blue Rider

One character we often see in myths is the helpful guide, whose job it is to point the hero in the right direction. Our dreams can also provide guides to help us through the journey of life.

The Dream: An artist is displaying his work. I look at the piece intently, admiring his skill. I notice his work is effective because he has a light background and a dark foreground which creates enough contrast to make the picture “read” from a distance. As I admire his work he talks about it, emphasizing the importance of contrast. He tells me how he backs up to look at the piece in order to gauge the impact of what he’s doing.

He invites me to go “horse riding” with him. The way he expresses it is a little odd: he doesn’t say “horse-back” riding. I say that I would love to, but the last time I was on a horse I realized it had no brakes. He thinks I felt insecure because of the sort of saddle I had used, and he describes a new one which would hold me firmly on the horse. Then I begin to wonder if this would be a date, and if Clark would object. I think of skiing, where I am frightened of losing control and careening off into danger.

Interpretation: My guide invites me to look at life in its totality, to accept the dark and the light, the contrast which makes the entire “picture” resonate. I back off from this advice. He invites me again to do the daring thing: to take the horse and ride it. I recognize my fear of losing control.