Taxi

The Dream: I'm in a taxi with my mother. The driver is a very sweet and intelligent older man,who I assume is working beneath his station. He's very patient and chatty, friendly. I think he has this job as a way of meeting people. At some point I realize I've lost something and search frantically through my purse.

Interpretation: I'm with my mother in this dream, and the taxi driver stands in for my feeling that she worked “beneath her station.” In other words, I felt my mother never had a chance to demonstrate her many talents and abilities in the larger world. And perhaps she did “drive” her children as a compensation for her own frustrated ambition. The driver's patience, chattiness, and friendliness line up with some of her other traits: she drove us in the nicest possible way. With her death I lost her, and the sense of purpose she instilled might be the thing I am frantically searching for.

I’m a 10

The Dream: My daughter is looking for a job, in spite of the fact that she has one. Scores are given to applicants based on GPA and work experience so that prospective employers can get a quick idea of potential employees’ capabilities. My daughter’s score is 325, and we try to figure out what that means. We discover that she got credit for having an “A” average and, in addition, so much work experience that her score is over the top. We are relieved by this good news.

Interpretation: Over the years my dreams often pointed out that I wasn’t getting (or giving myself) any credit, symbolized by my not being awarded things like credit cards or loans. In this dream, my inner child (my daughter) triumphs with an out of the ballpark score, based on “credits” she has earned. The numbers of her score, added together, make 10, another symbol of perfection. Am I getting over-inflated here?

Why is she looking for a new job?  The dream tells me to keep an eye open for new opportunities; perhaps there are some that would make better use of my abilities.

Guest Dreamer: Laid Off and Weeping

Today’s guest dreamer is Emily. She is an experienced dream worker and will interpret her own dream—although that isn’t a word she likes to use. “I'm never comfortable with using 'interpretation' when working with a dream,” she says, “perhaps because there never is one interpretation.” That’s a good point.
       
The Dream: I am in the instructor’s room at the county jail where I used to work as a teacher. I sit at a small round wooden table across from my tall blond co-worker Alyssa. Our boss Evans walks in and asks her if she has 2 ½  hours available. He then talks about how good Alyssa has been on the job; so good, in fact, that he is going to have to lay her off. Tension builds in the room. Alyssa stands up to walk out with Evans to go to that 2 ½  hour meeting where she’ll be terminated, and she starts to cry. I stand up to hug her, and I start crying as well. As we embrace and weep together, she inadvertently knocks off my Tilley hat.

Emily’s thoughts on her dream: As jail is a form of imprisonment, I see how I can imprison myself by being “too good” a daughter, wife, or friend. So good, in fact, my animus needs to deliver me from my self-imposed and compulsive responsibility that has recently resurfaced in waking life (I know my boss never took his job half as seriously as I took mine, so the message comes across loud and clear).

The weeping is timeless grief. As Alyssa grieves at leaving her “dream” job (which I held in waking life for many years with much satisfaction), I grieve at the passing of my old, unhealthy habit of needing to be needed. Allyssa knocks off my Tilley hat which represents outdoor activity, recreation, freedom.  By embracing Allyssa the dream ego shows compassion for the qualities that are not so great about the “good girl” persona. Perhaps she’ll soon put the hat on!

Carla’s thoughts: If this were my dream, I would ask myself about the significance of 2 ½ since my dream emphasizes that number by mentioning it twice.

The things I’m “too good” at are socially determined roles: daughter, wife, friend. The phrase “laid off” tells me that some part of me is saying, “Lay off! Gimme a break.”

Get It Together

Look at the words in your dream carefully. You will often discover meaning hiding behind word-play or a pun. For example, in the following dream, the word “apartment” contains the word “apart.”

The Dream: We live in an apartment building. One of us has a job elsewhere and must leave. I notice the things we have improved in the place, especially a large picture window looking out over the city. We have replaced all the old windows in the apartment with new ones. I feel ambivalent about leaving and point out the improvements we’ve made. “I thought we would stay here forever,” I say.

Interpretation: The components of the psyche are still apart; one part is ready to move on. I want to stay in a place of self-congratulation and so point out the progress made in improving where we are at the moment. However, I’m beginning to get the picture.