Status (Quo?)

The Dream: A dream that featured one of  my mother's relatives, her brother's son. In some way I felt I had to prove myself, that I was seen as inferior.

Interpretation: At first I thought this dream was about an envy rooted in an old family rivalry that has refused to die. The older relative in the dream is wealthy and accomplished. My ridiculous and unworthy feeling, considering the ill health he has endured, springs from the poisonous soil of my youth and my poor mother's resentment that her husband was not as successful as this fellow. In the dream I feel inferior to his son who has screwed up in just about every way, and that's interesting because I don't—who could?

When I looked at the image I drew to illustrate the dream, I realized it gave me a different answer. The exotic flowers had their own kind of life force and beauty. The caption asked, “What grows from the poisoned soil?” and answered, “Everything.” The rivalries we have push us forward, compel us to do better, to be more, than we otherwise might. The confusion of our own worthy and unworthy feelings, if we can look at them honestly, makes us more empathetic. Our dark side gives us depth. So what springs from the poisonous soil of our earthly life? The things that make us human, for better and for worse.

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.