Guest Dreamer: Uninvited Guest

Today's guest dreamer, Myamystic, is looking for the key that will unlock her dream. It's found by looking beyond the waking life people who populate her dream to figure out which part of her the characters represent.
The Dream: My dream kicks off with me visiting my boyfriend in Mumbai. I enter the house with a key, I don’t know how I got it. The house is in total darkness and empty. I then realise that I am in his parent’s house and am about to leave when the parents return . . . . The mother gets all worked and questions me.

I apologise and leave with my bags.

Carla's thoughts: It's certainly possible that a dream like this is about Myamystic's feelings about her boyfriend's parents, or about how she feels society judges her relationship. She will know if that is the case. It's also possible that the dream is about her own feelings, and in this analysis I'll explore the dream from that point of view. As usual, I'll talk about Myamystic's dream as if it were my own.

In this dream I'm working through my feelings about intimacy. How do I feel about this relationship? How do I think it will go? The key represents a new insight. The "uninvited guest" of my dream title refers to these unconscious thoughts intruding into consciousness. I've been in the dark about my own feelings when it comes to closeness and trust: I am exploring unknown territory here, and that's why the dream is set in someone else's house.

I am in his parent’s house. All the people in a dream have been created by the dreamer and have more to do with her than with the waking life people they represent. So I will look at what I have in common with the dream mother. Like her, am I worked up, suspicious? Do I feel that someone has invaded my space just as the dream ego has invaded this woman's house? Perhaps I'd like an explanation for things about my boyfriend that I don't understand, or about feelings I have that I've pushed away.

That I apologize tells me I might be wrong here. There's something I haven't seen (I've been in the dark). The luggage I take away represents my emotional baggage, things from the past that I'm still lugging around. I think my dream wants me to look at these things in a new way in hopes that it will be the key to my avoiding an empty house (loneliness).

Self Defense

The Dream: I am leaving my apartment building at 61st and 1st. As I exit I want to lock the outside door, but I don't have the key. A slightly built young man with close cropped blond hair is standing uncomfortably close. I'm not too concerned about the missing key because the door is self-locking, but I do wonder how I'll get in later, and whether my unlocked apartment is safe.

As I exit the man shows no sign of leaving but comes toward me in a threatening manner. I go across the street, toward total darkness. He starts to follow and I threaten him with a pair of kitchen scissors. Even as I threaten him, trying to drive him off, I question whether or not I could actually stab him. I'm not sure my posturing is convincing. I awaken in fear.

Interpretation: Dreams are generally triggered by a recent event. At a dinner party the night before Hilda, a woman from Germany, told the story her mother's teaching her to carry scissors as a defensive weapon. At 17 Hilda had the opportunity to test their effectiveness: she saw a man attacking a woman and used the scissors to drive him off. The story and the storyteller provided the raw material for a dream that weaves these influences into my personal issues.

The setting of the dream tells me that the conflict goes way back: I lived at 61st and 1st many years ago. I can't lock the door on this, even though I'd like to. (I don't have the key.) The fact that this door is “self” locking says two things about my dilemma: that it limits the full expression of who I am, and that I'm the one responsible for my own limitation. The dilemma is subtle: I am threatened by being locked out (denied) my authentic self—but equally threatened by being open, by leaving the place where I feel safe (my apartment) unlocked.

The German lady telling the story activates my familiar inner Nazi (my rigid, totalitarian part) who, in the form of the young man with close cropped blond hair, frightens me here. I'm pleased that he is now “slight” (diminished) but he still scares me. To get away from him I retreat into total darkness. (I'm sure in the dark about this problem!) It is probably a good sign that I threaten him and attempt to drive him off, even if I haven't quite convinced myself that I'm capable of getting rid of him.

Free To Be Me

At times (alas, not always!), there seems to be a sort of progress in dream life. After accepting my inner seven-year-old in the dream from a couple of night’s ago (It’s a Free Country) I move on to liberate myself from an old feeling of being ostracized.

The Dream: I am in the neighborhood I lived in as a teenager, about to take a trip with my two brothers. We get into a small car and are about to pull away from the curb. For some reason I have removed my slacks, but then decide I must go back into the house to get something. I exit the car, holding my trousers first in front, then in back, switching between the two, trying to cover my underwear from public view and hoping, in vain as it turns out, that no one is about. A group of curious neighbors assembles. As I awkwardly try to cover myself, they surround me. I search for the key to the house, which I can’t find.

Water or wine?

According to Jung, the goal of our nightly dream journey is to bring to consciousness as much of our potential totality as we can. And what, you are probably asking, is this potential totality? According to Jung it’s:

• the conscious (what you are thinking about);
• the subconscious (the name of your 4th grade teacher: you could think of it if you tried);
• the personal unconscious (personal memories we’re unaware of); 
• and the collective unconscious (species memories; symbols we respond to that are buried in our ancestral history).

Jung calls the process of increasing our awareness and integrating the often opposed internal factions individuation, and the expanded psyche he terms the self. As you go on this journey you will become aware of your own disparate elements, and occasionally you might notice some push back from them, as illustrated in this dream.

The Dream: On a sightseeing tour with a group, we stop to eat in a restaurant. I am concerned that Clark and I will have to pick up the tab for the entire group and they will eat too much. The food is not very expensive, but the drinks are. I wish I had ordered only water, but then, as the hostess, would I appear niggardly? I think of a solution that might have worked: I could have ordered the water after everyone had put in their order. Then the others would not feel constrained by my example.

When we return to the limousine the keys are in the ignition. Clark is the driver, but he is not here. I sit in the front passenger seat and worry that anyone could hop into the vehicle and make off with it.

Interpretation: The ego needs a rest (rest-aurant) from this psychic activity. It fears paying the price for all this activation and isn’t comfortable ceding power to the other components of the psyche. The ego discovers that its sustenance (food) is not so expensive: I can give them this much. But keeping them numb (the effect of alcohol, i.e. drink) is expensive. I wish I had stayed unconscious (ordered water). I decide to let them have what they want as long as I can remain unconscious. This results in no more movement, as the initial stop (at the restaurant) predicted.  My driver does not reappear. But on the positive side: the keys are in the ignition, and we’re ready to go.