Entangled in a Mask

The Dream: Clark and I are surprised to find an extra, unattractive room, and we don't think we have a use for it except perhaps for storage. Then I notice it's full of my old clothes. I pull out several items, excited to have found these old things: it's a sort of rediscovery. I am about to discard many of these items when I come across a skirt that attracts me: it's dated, with a fitted waist, a full skirt, and a ruffled edge. Nevertheless there is something appealing about it. It doesn't hang well, and I discover that's because it's entangled with a mask.

Interpretation: A newly discovered room (part of my psyche) is not so attractive at present, especially to my integrated self (anima: dream ego; and animus: Clark). It seems to us the room is useless except for storage. Yet when I start to discard my old clothes (outdated concepts) I discover there's something appealing about them. What are these old ideas? Perhaps they, like the ruffled skirt, are part and parcel of outdated ideas of femininity. They no longer hang well, and the reason they don't is because they've become entangled in a mask; in other words, they are not true, but part of a socially imposed persona.

Remembrance of Things Past

The key to this dream is sisterhood.

The Dream: I see a stylish woman wearing a Kappa Kappa Gamma key as an ornament. I think this looks good, and I go to find my own sorority key. In looking for it I find information about the early Kappas, and I become interested in the history of the group and in the sorority itself, things I didn't care about as an active. I realize things have changed, but my own interest in the group, and my feeling of attachment for it, is greater than I remember its being.

A woman appears who is an official of Kappa Kappa Gamma. I tell her that I’ve written a biography of the founder. She asks to see it, and I realize—if I didn’t know it when I spoke—that I made that up. I say I’ve misplaced it, and in the meantime I plan to go to the library and see what I can discover. I tell myself not plagiarize; I hope to find more than one source of information.

I find records of my past Kappa Kappa Gamma activities. There’s a light yellow silk blouse with a v-neck and ruffled collar that seems important. I find an old play that I thought I’d written in New York, but it turns out I wrote it shortly after I was married. It has a large cast of just about everyone Clark and I knew at the time. I think it must not have been too embarrassing a venture, since I don’t remember anything about it.

Interpretation: I’m dealing with my past here, re-evaluating the worth of some of my activities. My participation in a college sorority seems more valuable in the dream than it did at the time. The dream tells me it’s time to look at things differently (I realize things have changed): the history I’ve say I’ve written (the woman’s biography) doesn’t exist. I need to do some research and find some new sources of information. And, what’s more, what I discover must be unique to me: I’m not to plagiarize someone else’s version of the woman’s (my) life.

“Sisterhood” represents my early family life, when I was the “sister.” Looking back, I see I wore a beautiful, well-made silk blouse; I see the experiences I had and the bonds I developed are more positive, and that the gifts of the organization (my family) are greater, than I realized at the time. 

The tie-in between sisterhood and my subsequent life (the play in New York) hints that my awkward feeling that everything I did as a young person was awful and embarrassing might not reflect reality. (Maybe it wasn’t too embarrassing a venture.)  The dream symbolically points out that the sinking feeling I get when thinking about my own past—partially feelings of loss, partially feelings of embarrassment—might not be accurate. It’s time to take a second look so I can find a more comfortable way to integrate the past with the present.