Hanging on for Dear Life

If a chat with a friend influences your dream, try to figure out what part of you she represents.
The Dream: I'm walking along the edge of a rocky path overlooking a deep abyss. I lose my footing in the loose rocks and dangle above the bottom of a deep pit.

Interpretation: In this nightmare there was no one around to help. The rocky path indicates that I'm struggling with something. I lose my footing: clearly I'm off-balance. If this were someone else's dream I would think they were depressed, and yet I'm not aware of feeling unhappy. A severely troubled friend had told me about a similar dream the day before; does she represent the troubled part of me? Some part of me identifies with her depression very strongly, and my unconscious is telling me it's time to become aware of that, and to take a look at the issues that might have created the pit I'm in danger of falling into.

Pushed into a Pit

Your dream will give you some clues about the origin of the issue it deals with. Can you spot what they are in this dream?
The Dream: A difficult aunt who I remember well from my childhood is in charge of two little girls. I expect that when I find them the girls will be crying, since that the effect Aunt A usually had on people. But no, they seem fine.

I'm at a snobby art event in a magnificent old museum. Several pieces of art that I own, and one or two that I painted, are hung in a very long gallery where a crowd is lined up to enter. Inside, the elaborately carved wooden steps and walls make the exhibit look like a medieval recreation.

I hear some admiration aimed in my direction but am disappointed to realize it's directed toward the pieces I own, not the ones I created. As we wind our way around the attractive labyrinth, a woman gets into an altercation with another and pushes her down, off the steps, into a side pit.

Interpretation: The dream tells me that my issue is rooted way back in childhood with several clues. Not only are there some little girls, there are two of them. There are also two kinds of my art on display: one or two (two yet again) that I painted and some that I own. Two women have an altercation. So this issue probably first surfaced during the pre-verbal part of my life, around the time I was two years old.

The medieval decor puts the issue in the distant past (of my life), and the carved wood evokes a pattern being imposed on a malleable surface. The dream dwells on images—paintings--because the child's self-image is being created at this time.

Aunt A was a childhood difficulty, but probably not the cause of this issue since the two little girls are okay with her. So perhaps some of her traits, shared by my parents, are the core of the problem. Both parents had very high expectations—and of course that is a good thing, overall, but I might have gotten the impression at an early age that I would not be able to achieve what they expected. The self I was in the process of creating (in the dream the images I painted) was not what was liked. What was liked were the images I had bought (the imposed persona).

I wander through this labyrinth of created and imposed selves, the various “pieces” of myself, thinking I'm in an attractive place until an abrupt altercation changes the mood. One “self” pushes another into a pit. One of the selves has been pushed aside. I wonder which one?

Circle of Life: Not as Scary as It Looks

The Dream: I’m in a large structure, part cave and part man made. My friend Polly and two others are with me. Polly and I talk about taking a pattern-making or draping class just for fun and to refresh our memories (we were once clothes designers). I have some sort of hooked implement with me. We go up and up, into this structure. It’s not too difficult a climb; it’s like a Disney version of a cave. I decide to show the others how to use the hook, throwing it into a cave wall with the idea that I’ll hoist myself up. As I put my weight on it the hook breaks and I fall into a very steep-sided crevasse. I realize as I fall and fall—while my friends watch in mute horror—that there is no way I can climb out of this deep pit.

After my terrifying descent I finally hit bottom. After a little exploration I realize the spot I’m in is not far from our entry point—the place where we started our ascent. I find a door out from the dark and scary pit into the brightly lighted stairs, now looking like a lobby, that lead to the cave ascent. I know I can quickly rejoin my friends, and I feel greatly relieved.

Interpretation: The action in this dream forms a kind of circle: in some way it reminds me of life, death, and rebirth. I climb with my friends; we are involved in work-related activity (pattern making) and enjoy the gentle challenge of the climb. The cave reminds me of early peoples in the Dordogne who created art and practiced religion within similar walls. When I use my “hook” to try to attach myself to this earthly (and what’s more earthly than a cave?) life, I get a terrifying shock. My connection to the earth fails, and I fall into the depths, seemingly gone forever. As the early cave people lived their lives and passed on, I must be prepared to do the same. The reference to Disney tells me that although we would like to sanitize the difficult realities of life on the planet,  the superficiality of commercialism and consumerism don’t actually change our core experiences. At the same time, I am given the insight that what looked like the end is a new beginning.

Woman in the Pit

The Dream: An image of a circular pit, about the depth of the passé mid-20th century conversation pit. The inner façade of the pit is in the shape of a woman, and a snake circles in the middle.

Interpretation: This dream was inspired by a silent movie I had just seen: Woman of the World, staring Pola Negri. In the movie Pola plays a femme fatale, ensnaring all men who look at her. She is defined by her relationship to men. In my dream, the woman’s body forms an enclosing circle as she enfolds the phallic snake. This one dimensional version of womanhood was prevalent in the mid-20th century, a period of time the dream cleverly evokes with the conversation pit of that era. My unconscious tells me that being limited to one role (of the many we could play) is the pits.