An Uphill Struggle

In this dream I try to come to terms with the cycle of life.
The Dream: I'm with others, my brother Greg (who died recently), my husband Clark, a man from Boston and a man from Spain. We're a team participating in a sporting event that is considered the equivalent of the Spanish bullfights. We have a huge snake in our RV: the animal is so big that its head and tale stick out the ends. The idea of the event is that we run along the outside of the camper, pushing it and its snake up a very steep, icy, snow-covered mountain. When we get to the top we are to dispose of the snake in some way, butchering and eating it, or maybe throwing it into the sea—but butchering and eating it is somehow involved.

Interpretation: My path is slippery (icy), cold and difficult, and our objective (destroying the snake) is one I'm not in complete sympathy with. My brother Greg represents the inescapable reality of my own mortality. But what about the other “players?” Clark represents my other half. We're both in the dream, so all parts of me are engaged in this struggle. The other two men represent my unresolved conflict. The man from Boston is propriety, a person who knows how the game is played, and the man from Spain evokes the dramatic ghoulishness of that country's church art. This tells me that my psyche is trying to integrate the acceptable social reaction to death (stiff upper lip, don't make others uncomfortable, pretend it doesn't happen) with my innate horrified emotional response.

In an attempt to resolve my dilemma my dream presents me with several rebirth symbols. Snakes, of course, are traditional symbols of rebirth. By eating the snake we take in his qualities and he lives on through us. Since water accompanies birth, the alternate action of throwing the snake into the water implies that he will be reborn. The issue is not resolved, but I'm working on it.

Nowhere to Hide

The Dream: I'm on an iceberg in a frozen world. I am taking part in a documentary meant to demonstrate how a person can create an ice fortress for protection from roaming beasts.

I have my own patch of territory, a rectangle marked with an edge of shoveled snow. The beasts begin to appear. I demonstrate how to make a small mound to hide behind. After I make the mound I'm told to crouch behind it, cradling my head in my arms. Even as I do this I have doubts that it will work. In the first place, the mound is a pile of dark earth. It seems to me that against the white snow this will only call attention to my hiding place. Next, as I try to hide behind it and tuck my head down I realize I can't see what's going on, and I don't see how that's going to help me avoid a predator.

Interpretation: This dream shows me that my defenses are useless. I've tried to make myself safe by isolating myself on a frozen patch (a place free of emotion). Yet the only way the rectangular territory is cut off from its greater environment is visually; it's ridiculously simple for any threat to breach the boundary. And the threats do come, in the form of wild animals (my unacknowledged strong feelings). My attempts to hide from these are ludicrous and only make me more vulnerable.

It's interesting that I'm making a documentary, perhaps a symbol for my dream journal. I'm following the dictates of the “director” as I build my idiotic “fortress.” The message here is that I will not find my safe place—the place where I can live—by following the path laid out for me by others. In the final dream sequence the fact that I'm questioning what I've been told will keep me “safe” is a kind of progress.

Getting to the Warmth of the Kitchen

Dreams can resolve issues we aren't aware we have.
The Dream: I am walking along a sidewalk. I come to a barrier. On the other side is a patch of ice, running down the center of the sidewalk and tended by a boy, about 12 years old, whose dumpy middle-aged mother tells me he likes to play on it. The “tending” consists of spraying the patch with water to keep it smooth. After we chat I cross over to my side of the street. The sidewalk on my side is circumscribed by a tall wood fence around my home. A gate opens to my garden. When I open it I am surprised to discover snow piled as high as the wall.

I wonder how I will get back to my house. I think I will attempt to jump up onto the snowbank. The boy offers to help. His mother watches. He moves as if to lift me up under my arms; at the same time I seem to effortlessly rise to the top of the snow. We're all pleased, and I tell the other two that now I will roll down to the house. The kitchen looks out over this snow-laden garden. Clark is inside, cooking.

Interpretation: Something that I don't often look at (it's a side walk, in other words, something that's not part of my usual preoccupation) is a barrier to me. Some part of me is frozen, and the 12 year old in me likes it that way; this part works at maintaining the freeze and smoothing it over. The two images, of barriers and ice, recur in the form of a tall wood fence around my home (me) and snow as high as the fence.

There is a gate, however, even if it opens onto a pile of snow so high that I don't think I can get into my house. This inability to gain access to my own home symbolizes an alienation from my true self. Once I let it be known that I intend to attempt to conquer the snowbank, my inner 12 year old changes from the care taker of the ice to my willing helper. Now in sync with this inner force I effortlessly surmount the obstacle. And having come this far, I can accomplish the rest by coasting ( I roll down to the house). Once inside and in the kitchen (symbolizing a place of both warmth and transformation) Clark, my other half, is cooking—yet another symbol of transformation. I've found a place where I am nurtured and can grown (the gate that opens to my garden).

The Dream Journal

Figuring out who’s who is this dream’s puzzle.
The Dream: Mary tells me her friend is interested in dreams and shows me her dream journal. When I see it I feel inadequate. The woman has illustrated every scene of a dream that goes on for seven pages. The illustrations are creative and clever. She has made an illustration of little iced cookies in the shape of animals that represents Mary: Mary doesn’t care for it; she thinks it’s “too sweet,” but I think it’s charming. The illustrations are colorful, playful, and chic at the same time.

Interpretation: The Mary in this dream is a waking life friend. I am the only friend she has who keeps a dream journal. So—does this make me the friend whose dream journal she is showing me? Is she, in fact, showing me my own dream journal? And if she is, why do I feel inadequate when I see it? This leads to the next identity puzzle: is Mary actually Mary, or is she standing in for someone else? As an old friend she stands in for someone from my past. Who, I have to ask myself, in my past reacted to my work in a judgmental way? This leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the Mary in my dream stands in for my inner “mother.” The seven pages and the iced cookies hint at the era the dream evokes: when I was seven years old. A hopeful sign: I stand up for myself, disagreeing with Mary’s (mother’s) assessment of my artwork.

Trying to Find the Center

Life is an on-going readjustment, as this dream tells me.

The Dream: I am looking at a picture of a skating woman on a Nook; the orientation is landscape. I try to center the scene on the device, moving the drawing from right to left, but I can’t get the picture properly aligned.

Interpretation: Some part of me is skating (on thin ice?) as I go round in circles trying to adjust my psychic “center."  So far I'm not getting the picture.

Only the White Silhouette Remains

Jung says that dreams show us the way forward; they sometimes deal with emotional pain, expressing it through symbols. These sorts of dreams help us, over time, to accept what we must.

The Dream: There is an icy river: big chunks of ice and snow predominate, but the river flows, nonetheless. A woman falls in and is carried downstream. She is near the edge of the river, and I try to pull her out but she keeps eluding me, moving downstream. At last I succeed. She is like a paper cut-out doll: a white silhouette that looks like a 1950s fashionable woman, complete with the broad-brimmed hat of the era. Only the silhouette remains, but it is her.

Interpretation: The icy river symbolizes my emotions, frozen in their inability to come to terms with my mother’s death. The fashionable woman in the water (my mother) is in danger, and I desperately would like to save her but it’s difficult. Finally I think I’ve succeeded, only to discover that she is not a real person, only the ghost (white silhouette) that exists in my mind.

Rats in the Raspberry Ice Cream

You probably won't want to eat dinner at my house after you read this one:

The Dream: There is some homemade raspberry ice cream in the freezer. Perhaps it is my older daughter's. Some rats have managed to pry the lid off the ice cream, and several are in the container. I am grossed out. My husband takes the container out to the back garden to dispose of the rats. I hope he will kill them rather than let them go, since I'm afraid they'll be back. I tell him not to throw all the ice cream away, just to scrape the bad part off the top.

Interpretation: (This dream is a continuation of the last dream I blogged.) I've created a special environment that I've given to my children (the raspberry ice cream), but it cannot remain unchangeable (frozen). Nature (the rats) will penetrate any barriers. I'd like to have them disposed of permanently, but I'm not sure that's possible. In asking my husband to preserve what he can of the ice cream I'm hoping everything I've built as a parent and homemaker will not be "thrown out."