Yet Another Brown Baby

What does it mean when famous people appear in our dreams? To figure this out we need to take a look at which aspects of ourselves they represent.

The Dream: Obama is having an affair, and a brown baby is the result. I go to see the baby with some trepidation. I am a relative, perhaps the grandmother. Obama’s paramour has short curly brown hair and a soft and acquiescent feminine affect. She is a woman who stays in the background; she lacks assertiveness. She’s a shadowy, if central, player.

I am disappointed in Obama for being unfaithful to Michelle, but he says he “needs a rest.” I can see his current lover would be just that, and that Michelle’s relentlessly high standards could be hard to live with. I begin to understand, and accept, his behavior, but I think the baby will nevertheless be an embarrassment.

Then I meet the baby and am completely charmed. He is a beautiful shade of brown with an egg-shaped, slightly conical head. He wears red glasses and—just like the baby in the last dream—is preternaturally smart. I am very drawn to him and want to hold him.

Interpretation: In the dream Obama represents my ego, the central organizing force of my personality. His paramour is my shadow feminine side (She’s a shadowy, if central, player). I need a rest from the demanding part of my personality (Michelle); this is the part that drives me to work too hard and never seems satisfied with my accomplishments. My weaker, intuitive side (the shadow feminine) has produced something that feels illegitimate (the baby born out of wedlock). This makes me uneasy, and there’s a strong hint that what makes me uneasy is my fear of social opprobrium. But the reality of the baby changes everything; this new life that is being born in my psyche is something important and elemental (brown like the earth). This is something to embrace.

The Turquoise Box

The Dream: A turquoise box, filled with wriggling people.

Interpretation: This dream doesn’t seem to give us much to work with, just some shape and color. But in the end it has more to say than you might expect. When we dream of square shapes, like this turquoise box, Jung tells us that we have created a temenos, a safe psychic space for transformation. Turquoise, according to Tony Crisp, speaks of intuition and an expanding consciousness.  And what about the colors that create turquoise, blue and green? Blue is associated with religious feeling (the Virgin Mary wears blue for this reason) and new horizons (the vast blue sky).  Green is the color of growth.

The wiggling people? They must be all those inner selves trying to find their proper place in my psyche. There are enough positive symbols in this dream for me to think they might succeed.

The Transformative Power of the Child

After the very long analysis of the last very short dream, my unconscious offered up this delightful confirmation of the importance of the inner child.

The Dream: I’m at a doctor’s office. She sits in an enclosed cubicle and asks questions as I lie in a bed nearby. I have two problems with her questions: 1) I can’t hear them, and 2) I can’t understand them. She uses a lot of big words; strung together they create incomprehensible sentences. I become frustrated and angry and—feeling inadequate—I blurt out: “I’m a Phi Beta Kappa; I’m not stupid! And I can’t understand what you’re saying!”

I am with my daughter, who is a baby but as intelligent as an adult. She tries to tell me what the doctor is saying. I embrace my child, enjoying our closeness, but partially showing off for the doctor. “See? I have a good relationship with my child!”

The doctor comes out of her cubicle in a fairy princess outfit. She is taking part in a show the staff is putting on. One of the staff comes over and removes her doctor’s name tag.

Interpretation: There are things my intellect cannot understand and cannot cure. Progress for my psyche comes through feeling (the embrace) and intuition (the child). When I embrace my child, something magical happens.