What is Woman?

Jung calls our inner versions of people their imagos; these live in us and are part of us. Besides carrying the person they represent, in this dream the imagos reflect my earliest ideas of what it means to be a woman.

The Dream: In a hotel room with three double beds in a line. My mother and my aunt Ann share the center bed. Mother chooses this particular bed because, she says, she “won’t need to get out.”

Interpretation: At the center of my being are two archaic versions of femininity, represented by my mother and my aunt. The mother: giving, nurturing, relentless in her control and supervision, self-sacrificing, beautiful, a care-taker. The aunt: single, childless, demanding, flamboyant, artistic, temperamental.  I need to update my conceptual framework! The two empty double beds leave me room for other, happier couplings.

The Angry Man

This is one of many dreams in this series where I struggle to come to terms with what Jung calls the animus, or a woman’s inner man.

The Dream: I am in the garage with an older man. He is dressed in a business suit. He resembles the man who plays the Lieutenant in Law and Order CI. He has a full head of salt and pepper gray hair, stylishly cut, and he is very meticulously dressed.

We are in some way wedged into a small space between the seats and the side door of the car. It is essential to get along since we’re in such close quarters. He is congenial enough to start, but when I imply that I could overcome him he becomes infuriated, frighteningly so. I back down and work to placate him.

Interpretation: Father is the first man to model male characteristics for most of us. In this dream I try to subdue the imago (my inner image) of the angry father. In Jungian terms: My animus has been infected by a rigid, authoritarian part of myself. This realization is drifting upwards toward consciousness, where it might be able to be recognized and integrated. My shadow animus and I are wedged into a space in which we don’t belong and which was never meant to accommodate us. I try to overcome this negative animus, but it’s too strong for me.