A Portrait

The Dream: A woman and I are sitting at a table, across from each other. We're each drawing portraits, straight-on heads. I am the teacher. She's very skillful; my criticism of her work is that it lacks feeling. I take her drawing and, with her permission, make corrections. I change the mouth, making it a vibrant pink and somewhat pouty, or sensual. My other criticism is that the portrait is vague: it's very soft and lacks definition, with one color bleeding into the next.

Interpretation: The Unconscious gives me a drawing lesson! The artist I'm instructing in this dream reminds me of an egg tempera painter who wanted to meet me; she came to my house as an acolyte. When she showed me her paintings it was clear that she was highly skilled—more so than I—in handling the medium. Yet she was not satisfied with her work because, she said, it lacked imagination. This was true. As with many painters, her skill exceeded her conception. Yet she loved painting, and enjoyed her chosen subject matter. Of course I complimented her skill. I said that it only made sense for her to do what resonated with her. I suggested keeping a dream journal if she wanted to develop some original ideas.

In the dream I admire the artist's skill but feel she needs more expression, as symbolized by my “fixing” the mouth, the organ of speech. So the message for me is, of course to express myself.

When I tried drawing the face this artist drew in the dream I learned something about how to use color pencils—that is, very softly and delicately, building up color with gentle iterations. I tend to jump to the finish immediately, and that can make me heavy-handed, a hard thing to recover from! So the dream taught me this about self-expression: take it easy; let it develop; don't jump in with too much clarity and definition. The things I criticize in the dream artist are exactly what I need to do.

Guest Dreamer: Rapprochement in the Garden

Susan, whose daughter has recently divorced, contributed this dream.
The Dream: I am in the back garden with James (my daughter's ex-husband). I remember there was a time when I asked him to fix a broken tooth, and he looked into my mouth. This memory leaves me feeling exposed and uncomfortable. We have a conversation, and as it goes on my anger at him lessens. In some way I forgive him for the mess he made of my daughter's marriage. A sort of peace prevails, with a feeling also of sadness and loss.

Carla's thoughts: If this were my dream, the broken tooth would symbolize the broken relationship. My son-in-law's looking into my mouth represents a level of trust that he has betrayed by the way he treated my daughter. I'm now embarrassed that I allowed him into my life and into the close circle of my family. Yet the dream shows me that I will not hang onto these negative feelings. I acknowledge my sadness and the sense of loss that I feel because this relationship failed, and in recognizing these feelings I can begin to get past my anger and forgive him.

Can I Tame the Lion?

The Dream: I'm in a maze of cages, like the ones you might see in an old-fashioned zoo, with a lion tamer and his lions. The cages connect to each other, and from where I am all I can see are the bars of the cages and the cement floor. The atmosphere is dim.

I am supposed to learn how to tame a lion. I am uneasy and not at all sure that this is something I want to do. The lion tamer demonstrates how he can put his head into the lion's mouth and emerge safely. I'm not convinced I can succeed at this.

Interpretation: Feeling closed in and with limited vision (the light is dim; I see only bars and cement), I am given a task that I feel unprepared to perform successfully. Thinking about what the lion's open mouth suggests to me, I come up with my father's anger (the growling lion) and the gaping jaws of death. These two forces might have seemed like the same thing to me as a child. One part of me is now strong enough to overcome these fears (tame the lion). Another part still quakes in her boots.

Life and Death

This dream builds on the theme of Don’t Forget the Dogs from a few nights ago. In that dream I tried to avoid looking at the most basic reality of life—that it ends. Here I begin to accept this inevitability.

The Dream: I’m in someone’s house. She has pets; one a dog, the other a lizard. The lizard looks like a made-up animal, like a dream animal come to life. It’s very cute. My friend is pretty, and naive. She wants her animals to get along and, like a child, thinks they will. She puts them outside together. A few moments later we see one end of the lizard sticking out of the dog’s mouth. I feel sick and don’t even want to think about what shape the rest of the lizard is in. She wants to pull it out of the dog’s mouth. I think it might be better to let the dog finish the job.

Interpretation: The lizard represents the basic life force. My naïve part wants to believe that this life force can happily co-exist with death. When she puts the lizard (life) and the dog (death) together in their natural setting (outdoors), the inevitable happens: death devours life. The dream ego is distressed but accepting.

Guest Dreamer: Goodbye Kiss

Our guest dreamer today is Hunky, whose father recently died.  She has asked me to interpret her dream. An important part of dream interpretation is that the dreamer is the final authority on the meaning of her dream. When I comment about her—or anyone’s—dream I am inevitably talking about what the dream would mean to me had I dreamt it. So I’ll discuss Hunky’s dream as if it were my dream.

The Dream: Dad lies on his bed, dead.  He is small and thin, half the size he used to be.  His skin stretches tightly over his forehead and cheekbones.  His gray hair is still course and thick.  His head tilts slightly backward and his mouth is wide open.

My brother Tom stands next to the bed and looks down at his father.  He goes to a faucet and turns it on.  He fills his mouth with water, swishes, then spits it out.  He fills his mouth again and walks back to Dad.  He leans down and puts his mouth on Dad’s mouth.  Tom is using his tongue to clean his father’s mouth.  He is thoroughly swabbing all surfaces of the inside of Dad’s mouth.  Then Tom sucks the foul water back into his own mouth, turns his back and spits it out.


Carla’s projection: In his lifetime my father was a difficult person. Now that he is gone I am reassessing the man who loomed so large in my psyche, and I see him differently. (He’s now half the size he used to be.) His death is not only literal, but also symbolic as his role in my life diminishes.

My brother Tom is an animus figure in this dream; in other words, he is the strong, active part of me. It is significant that I (in the guise of my brother) am the one that turns on the faucet, which represents the flow of emotions now under my control. As I take the water into my mouth I experience the full range of my feelings—love, hate, grief, release—I swish these all around and then I spit them out, signaling that I’m done with these.

Next I (through Tom) work to purify my father.  By cleaning father's mouth I wish to cleanse him of the words, actions, and non-actions that had caused much pain.  I cleanse him, and--like the Buddhists who breathe in evil and breathe out love and peace--I transform my father by taking his failings into my own mouth and spitting them out.  As I transform my father I transform myself: he becomes the father I want, I become the woman I want to be. I am free.


Hunky, the dreamer, says: Understanding my father’s severe personality disorder makes forgiveness easier.  I believe forgiveness is a part of the message.  Maybe one of these days I'll have a dream that acknowledges the positive ways he influenced me.

Baby Under Water

As you work on your dreams, you may become aware of recurring themes that reflect your psychic progress.

The Dream: A baby is in a pool, face up under the water. It takes me a while to realize that she is having a problem: I am distracted; my attention is not on her. I’m reading the newspaper. When I perceive the danger she is in I rescue her, managing to resuscitate her. This happens again, only I’m not sure I am able to breathe life into her tiny body this time. I hold her nose and breathe into her mouth. At one point I think perhaps I see her eyes flutter. I am afraid she’s dead.

Interpretation: After the rapprochement of my warring aspects in Ménage a Trois, the dead and dumped baby of Death of the Attached Baby reappears: still in danger, but alive. The newspaper I read here (am I too concerned with worldly matters?) echoes the newspaper the baby was wrapped in before being unceremoniously thrown into the garbage. My attempts to revive the baby (my authentic artist self) are tenuous and not completely successful, but there is some small hope I have managed to breathe life into her.