It's All in My Head

Sometimes it seems as if the unconscious is our private cheering squad, trying to tell us the things we need to know. It helps a lot if we learn to pay attention.
The Dream: A man tells me that his shrink thinks his sexual difficulties are all psychological. He resists the idea, but I say, “Maybe they are.”

Interpretation: I thought this little dream was meaningless until I applied it to my life situation. In this case, sex (libido, the life force) stands in for life. My life at the moment feels very tense due to my anxiety over some medical tests and the 10 people that are coming to dinner later. But actually—nothing is wrong at the moment except my own anxiety. All my worries are in my head, and they are making my enjoyment of life impossible.

Longing for Union with God

It's not unusual for spiritual longings to appear in dreams as carnal desire.
The Dream: This dream featured a Christ-like figure that I would like to have sex with, but he is too otherworldly for that sort of thing.

Interpretation: This dream was inspired by a story I heard commemorating the huge Alaskan earthquake 50 years ago that destroyed just about everything, except for a wood frame Russian Orthodox Church. My spirit (soul) would love to unite with this religion, but it's too far from my “world” of science and logic, not to mention feminism, for this to happen.

Hunger

The Dream: This dream centered on hunger that can't be satisfied. In the first fragment, a man wants to have sex with two women. The woman who's mind we're in wants marriage in return, or at least fidelity, but neither is on offer. The man more or less says, “All I want is sex; I'll get it from you or from someone else.” The woman acquiesces.

In the second fragment, a woman cannot satisfy her hunger, even though food is available. It is said, in explanation, that she had once gone through a period of starvation and could not now feel satiated, no matter how much she ate.

Interpretation: Keeping in mind the previous dream, I see religious overtones here. I thought of the Biblical phrase about those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. My rejection of the religion I grew up in has left me hungry for spiritual nourishment. The dream uses the carnal, food and sex, as symbols of this need. The first segment of the dream points out that the thing on offer doesn't fulfill my needs. The man's demand for sex on his very unpleasant terms stands for my reaction to my religious experience. Yet as the dream character I acquiesce. It seems I've decided this pathetic offer is better than nothing.

In the second fragment, the dream points out that there is plenty of sustenance available. Just because I “starved” in the past doesn't mean I must go hungry now.

The Creative Process: Finding the “I”

The Dream: I'm with a group of graphic designers. I see them as very cool, and being accepted is important to me. The “leader” is a small, wiry black man, about the size of a 12-year-old. He's very energetic and charming, and recounts stories by acting out all the parts as he tells them. He also thinks things through very thoroughly. When a project of any sort is mentioned it's apparent he's thought of every angle and is prepared down to the details. “He's the first person I've met who is just like me,” I think, and I'm very attracted to him.

I'm invited on a weekend with him and his two assistants, partially a working weekend, but it's clear I'll be expected to sleep with him. I find this exciting—at first. I hop into the front seat of his small but well made convertible; the windows are up and the roof is down. As we pull away, beginning to go into an urban tunnel passing under another road, we have the appearance of being on a lark, a joy ride. But I start to feel uneasy.

The leader's character changes from charming to peevish. I start to feel uncomfortable about the expectation that I will have sex with him. It occurs to me that this group probably take drugs as a matter of course, and that I will be expected to participate. Suddenly the whole “adventure” sours and becomes a source of anxiety rather than fun.

Interpretation: The “leader” is a trickster figure. He looks like my typical trickster: wiry, energetic, and black, my opposite and yet—“exactly like me” in his approach to things. The dream was inspired by a recent visit to an Alan Ginsberg exhibit that reminded me that the guiding lights of art in my childhood were the rebels who stood against middle class morality, often in self-destructive and adolescent ways. (The “leader” is the size of a 12-year-old.) The dream portrays my discomfort with certain aspects of this art world, the idea that it's a place that demands undisciplined behavior and morals. At the same time, there is something attractive about a life without restrictions. Do I see conformity as my only other option?

A basic conflict has emerged here: creativity and freedom versus the straight and narrow. My experience with the graphic designers helps me  get the picture. As the dream goes forward the creative group attempt to put me in their own kind of straight jacket. Each of the two supposedly antithetical groups demands conformity, each has its “standards” and expectations for the behavior of its members. True freedom exists in neither. A conjunctio (a union, symbolized by having sex) with one of the choices does not take place.

Can I Live with Mother?

The Dream: I am with my aunt and my mother. They tell me that Mother is coming to live with me. I realize they've mentioned this once before, and that I had failed to respond, hoping the request would go away. This time there's no ducking it. I am annoyed that they've told me rather than asked me, and I envision myself as the old maid daughter living with her mother. I feel that her close proximity is a threat to my autonomy. In the dream my mother is youngish and attractive, and I'm a young single woman.

I can't see how to say no, or get out of it, and I wonder what sort of sex life I'll have. Will she accept my adult sexuality or will I never be able to spend the night with anyone? I say to her, “You can stay with me, but you can't be too bossy.” She looks surprised that anyone would think she's bossy.

She says, “We can move into Grandma's neighborhood. It will be nice and inexpensive.” My heart lifts at this idea. Grandma's neighborhood has become arty and trendy. I think I'll enjoy the area and meet interesting people. Suddenly I'm excited about the thought of a move.

Interpretation: The dream was inspired by a piece that Helen Hwang wrote about her relationships with her mother and grandmother. She had been closer to her paternal grandmother than to her mother, and at a point in her life she realized she needed to connect with her mother. In the dream I become happier and stronger when I connect with my maternal ancestor, my mother's mother. The dream is a step in my working out my own autonomy. In the dream I confront who I am as an adult with my now internalized “mother.” Can I live with what I've inherited from my ancestors and still be myself? The dream tells me that I can: I learn that I can be in the place I want to be even with Mother in my life. She has been integrated into my psyche to the point that we both want the same things; I unconsciously realize that at this point in my life she does live with me, even if not physically, and I'm getting the two of us in sync.

The Bed and The Diary

The Dream: Part 1: I'm a child. I'm in a room with twin beds. My brother is meant to sleep in one; I'm meant to sleep in the other. I get into his bed with him. I think there's something wrong with my doing this, but it isn't clear to me what it is. I know I should cover up the action. Both pillows are on one bed; the other bed is pristine and clearly has not been slept in. Will Mother figure it out? I decide she'll only think I made my bed and my brother didn't.

Part 2: I'm an adult. I'm reading through an old diary that my daughter had left at the house, written on a stenographer's pad. In one part she describes an active and unembarrassed sex life. I'm very surprised that she had such a frank view of sex at such an early age. I feel uncomfortable about this on the one hand, but on the other hand I think that since all has turned out well, perhaps it's okay. In some parts of the diary I notice a different handwriting and wonder if it's that of one of her boyfriends. I feel a certain dread—but also an attraction—toward reading what he wrote.

Interpretation: These dreams further the sorting out of the “mother” theme. The child/mother relationship is central in both. In the first I'm the child; in the next I'm the mother. In both Mother judges my spontaneous relationship to life (sex) and pleasure, and in the dreams these feelings are symbolized by a socially inappropriate relationship. The fact that I am not sure what might be wrong with being in bed with my bother tells me that the dream is pointing to a very early feeling. The dream uncovers (covers play an important role here!) my earliest sexual feelings and the child's dawning awareness of parental disapproval regarding them. The dream tells me that this has colored my feelings about pleasure: some part of me believes it's something to be leery of.

In the second part my child has developed and explored her sexual feelings despite mother's queasiness on the topic. She keeps her diary in a stenographer's notebook, an interesting touch since stenographers write down what others tell them. What proportion of my view of life and sex was created by the society I live in? There is a role reversal in the dream sequence as I go from child to mother: I become the owner of  my own attitudes and mores. A kind of freedom from the influence of the mother of my childhood occurs as the mother in the second part concludes that perhaps it's okay that her child has freely explored sex.

On Love

The Dream: I am walking with my friend/lover/soul mate. We stop to sit on the curb by the side of the road. I say, “It's hard to be in a sexual relationship with a good friend.” I think about this for a while. “I'm so afraid!”

I feel the fear. I wonder about the alternative: anonymous sex? He says, “I know.” He lifts me from the curb and enfolds me, gently and lovingly, in his arms.

Interpretation: The sexual relationship represents the vulnerability of giving myself, of being open. This leads to inevitable pain. Right before having the dream I had visited a very ill relative, and I was forcefully reminded of the separation that mortality entails. I saw the relative's spouse in unspeakable pain at her husband's inevitable succumbing to death, as we all must. Strong attachments, as the Buddhists say, are one source of pain in the world. But I don't agree that the solution is not to have them, that seems not only cowardly, but life-denying.

In this dream the stronger part of myself, the male friend/lover, knows what the curbed part doesn't. He lifts her to her feet, and they embrace: a symbolic acceptance of love with both its joys and sorrows. Love is shown to be a totality of communication and involvement, made up of both the spiritual (friendship) and the physical (sex), important here as the grounded, if mortal, part of us.

Guest Dreamer: Caged and Constricted

Guest Dreamer: Weird dream last night with a very strange man in it. He was taciturn, tall, of sallow complexion and said very little. I had apparently met him a couple of times but not got to know anything about him. Now he was coming to my house. He said, "I have a car but I don't like to take it anywhere". However, it appeared he was prepared to drive this to my house.

Then it seemed I was in his car and so was my daughter Diana, and she was grown up, not a little child as she so often is in dreams. We were driving to his house. I heard her saying, "Mum, there is a poster flapping about on the front of the car, about something that happened in 1931!" Then I opened my eyes, which I did not know were shut, and looked out along the bonnet, which was green and of a long, rectangular shape. I realized this was a vintage car, so I told Diana that the poster was meant to convey that the car was authentic. The bonnet was made of loose plates of metal that were not firmly attached, and were rattling and flapping about.

At the house it got even weirder. This house was built to his own design and we were walking down a narrow corridor which had cages built into the wall, floor to ceiling and stretching out either side. The cages were full of little animals, mice, hamsters, even some small cats, and there was mechanical apparatus - like toys and railways, connecting the cages and the animals were going on rides round and round. They were all silent, but had bright eyes and looked healthy. They were all dressed in exquisite small garments in bright colors - they even had hats and bonnets - all neat, clean and well washed. Since there were so many, I thought he must spend a great part of every day washing, ironing and dressing these creatures in clean clothes. I got the impression he was looking for a woman to do this for him, and then Diana told me, "He says he is into submissive sex, he wants a woman who will give up her free will and do whatever he says." I found this oddly fascinating - that was the end of the dream!

Carla's thoughts: This dream has some similar elements to a dream that Firequeen posted on this blog some time ago: Previous Dream  If it were my dream, I would first look at the similarities and differences between the two dreams. In the first dream I find the man very attractive; in this dream he's sallow and uncommunicative. In the first dream he has presented me with an exciting red car that he offers to teach me to drive, and in this one he doesn't even like to drive his own. If, as in the last dream, he represents the part of me that works and engages with the larger world (my animus), I'm fed up with that world at the moment! However, in this dream I think he represents something else.

My (inner) child and I leave the place where I live (my customary way of looking at things) and join this rather unattractive fellow en route to his house. The dream mentions the year 1931, so I need to puzzle out what that particular number means to me. Did something significant for my life happen that year? If not, I need to look at the number in a different way—for example, was my 1st, 9th, 3rd, or 19th year important in some way that influences me now? (The dreamer will have to mine her own associations to figure out what the number means to her.) Excavating its significance may be difficult for me, because it is something I have shut my eyes to without even realizing it. But they are open now.

The long rectangular shape of the bonnet makes me think of a coffin, but the fact that it is green, the color of new life, implies that the part of me that has died will be replaced with something new and vital. Vintage evokes something that has improved with age (my understanding, perhaps?), and once I become aware of this in the dream I know that my dream (the car, the vehicle) will take me to an authentic insight. The hard things I've had on my plate (the metal plates) are not firmly attached to my journey, and after they rattle and flap around for a while I expect they will shake loose.

Nevertheless, I still have this house—the one I don't inhabit—to contend with. My journey has lead me here, so what will I discover? The house was designed by someone else. The corridor is narrow, implying that the vision of my life as seen in this house not of my making is constricted. My animals, that is, my instincts and life force, have been caged. This confinement of the vital part of me goes back to childhood, to the time of toys and little trains. And trained I was: to be neat and tidy and clean. How much time have I spent since then trying to make my animal presentable (acceptable)? The rules of society are attached to the “father” archetype, and my inner child (my daughter) knows this. She points out that “the man” is looking for submission: Be a good little girl and don't make a mess! At this point in my life I am fascinated to discover the unconscious forces that have shaped my life and behavior.

An Unnatural Split

The Dream: This vaguely remembered dream featured a park with a small adjacent area that held a parking lot and a public toilet. My companion and I are working to get the park commission to incorporate this area into the park.

Scene switch to sex. I feel I should be more sexually engaged, more responsive and demonstrative.

Interpretation: The park area represents an idealistic, unsullied nature: pure spirit without body. But what about the split off parking lot? It's in the shape of the pubis and contains a toilet. That evokes the passage from Yeat's Crazy Jane Talks to the Bishop in which she says that “Love has pitched his mansion in / The place of excrement.” * This fastidious splitting off of the physical from the spiritual means that my libido, or life force, is not joined to my soul. My inner psychic forces are working to marry the two (they should have sex), and if they don't succeed I'll be parked in the Park, living a half life in an unrealistic place that represents a nature without worms or flies, a place that doesn't exist. Again from Crazy Jane: “For nothing can be sole or whole / That has not be rent.”*

*For the rest of the poem as well as an interesting discussion of its meaning, one that is relevant to this dream, see Poetry .

Guest Dreamer: Coming Up

In Elizabeth's dream a lot has come up; let's take a look at it.

The Dream: I was in a large house (not my own, but I felt comfortable there), on a lake or sea (I'm not sure which-but it was large, calm, but vast). I was with several couples, whom I knew in the dream and felt at ease with but can't put names on most after awakening. I was there with a young, prepubescent boy, and in the dream I felt obligation to have an intimate/sexual relationship of sorts with this boy. I felt it was not right, and I remember thinking it would have to wait until he had matured, if ever. This young boy brought me a condom, the condom was different than one I'd ever seen, it was large and reusable, similar in ways to a female condom. I felt absolute in my decision to not be with him when he asked how it worked, even though I myself was unsure. I took the condom and walked out onto the deck, and hid it under a computer desk there. The group was outside quickly after, and a few of them were going out on the water to go fishing. The next thing I remember in the dream is a woman "swimming" back towards the dock (this woman I believed to be a very good friend's mother, someone I've known for 16 years-extremely wealthy family, I feel close to them, but distant in some ways as I've gotten older). Except, she wasn't exactly swimming, she was kind of shooting through the water at warp speed and popped up at the deck I was standing on. Following behind her were thousands or more fish, dead fish, floating on the top of the water and drawn to the deck almost as if by a magnet attached to this woman. I asked how they had fished, and somehow (I don't remember who told me or if I just knew) understood that they had used a method of fishing that was controversial, possibly illegal. It was a weapon that exploded under water but sent out shrapnel to catch all the fish in a several mile radius.

The next thing I remember in the dream was a barge of junk that had been uprooted from the deep sea in the fishing process. At the top of the clump of objects floating in the water were several old, classic cars. As the barge of junk approached the deck, everything was becoming coated in this whiteness. Almost like spray foam that insulates windows, but it was covering everything. As I noticed this whiteness covering the barge of things, I was walking across it. It had formed a sort of large boat. As I was walking across it, I met my father (my waking life father), and we were looking at the old cars, walking from each one to another. I remember thinking I'd like to preserve one for him, possibly with paper-mache. As I walked back onto the deck, I approached a man from the group holding a paper. I asked what it was, and he told me it was a map that he'd commissioned to be made, but it was a secret. He showed me the map, and explained that there were 3 hidden rooms under the sea, and he'd had enough information to work with a mapmaker to find the coordinates. The map had to be a secret, because he would have been in trouble with everyone else if they'd known he'd done this. Suddenly, the man was no longer there and I was holding the map. As I noticed all the other people around, I quickly went to hide the map under the same computer desk on the deck as before, except it was also now covered in the white foam like the barge of sea junk. I hid the map next to the condom I'd earlier hid there. And that is when I remember awaking in my bed, and I grabbed the journal feeling an urgent need to write it down, that there was significance to it. When I re-read what I'd written, I only remembered half, and I barely remember writing it. It felt as though I was in a half-waking space...

Carla's thoughts: As usual with guest dreams, I will think about Elizabeth's dream as if it were my own and hope that it will inspire her to look at the images carefully to ferret out their meaning for her. Only the dreamer can figure out what her dream means, and that's because the images in a dream can mean completely different things to different people. I'm afraid there's no getting around the hard work of figuring out your own dreams.

In my version of Elizabeth's dream, the house represents my Self, the totality of who I am. While I am comfortable in this Self, I don't feel it belongs to me. In other words, I have yet to get in touch with my authentic core. This dream is placing me on course to make that discovery.

The sea is a birth metaphor: my rebirth will take place here. However, as with most of the images in this dream, the sea has contradictory meanings. Yes, it is the place of my rebirth, but it is also the place that obscures the feelings and experiences that make that rebirth a difficult one.

The young boy represents a part of myself that I'm deeply ambivalent about. I feel obligated to integrate, or unite with (have sex with) this aspect of myself, but at the same time this assimilation is distasteful to me (I don't feel it's the right thing to do), and I'm not ready for it (he's not mature.) A condom is something that prevents the union of sperm and egg, and here it symbolizes the barrier to finding out what my union with this young part of myself would bring to fruition. I temporarily avoid the problem by going outside (At least I'm in the process of airing the issue) and placing the impediment (the condom) in my subconscious (under the computer, or thinking function).

The other people in this dream represent various aspects of myself. At times they are the parts that hold the views of a disapproving society, but some are ready to fish around for what's going on in my depths. A pivotal role is played by the woman who swims back to the dock. With her the ambivalence surfaces again: she is someone I am both close to and distant from. This tells me that the information she symbolizes is getting close to consciousness even though I might want to keep it at a distance. Her wealth symbolizes the immensity of my potential.

This process is moving too quickly for my comfort. (She shoots through the water.) She comes from below the surface, and what she brings up is scary and distasteful. Water represents the flow of emotion, and dead fish, according to Tony Crisp, can symbolize the “ non-expression of basic urges.” The magnetic quality of this woman emphasizes the duality of attraction and repulsion, the same ambivalence that we saw earlier with my feelings about my potential sexual union with the young boy. Again I see that something isn't right: the fish (the basic instincts) have been caught in a way that is not only controversial but possibly illegal.

What was murky is bubbling up into enlightenment (the foam with its white color). The underwater explosion that results in foamy whiteness is also evocative of a male orgasm. Cars represent our “drives.” The classic cars take me back to the past, perhaps to a time of my life when one of those drives, the one that results in a male orgasm, would have seemed to me an overwhelming thing that covers (obscures?) everything. I meet my father (the holder of the society's values) and we walk around looking at the cars (drives). Why do I want to give him a paper mache car? Am I trying to make sex drives less substantial, transforming them from the steel of a classic car to the kind of paper children use in craft projects? This hints that the child part of myself does not want to accept adult sexuality. Or perhaps it doesn't want to accept its own (the child's) awareness of that sexuality.

Then I meet the man with the secret map. He is the part of me that is sorting out these old secrets of my Psyche. There are 3 hidden rooms under the sea (in my unconscious). Again we have the unacceptable, the thing I think I'm not supposed to acknowledge. (The mapmaker would be in trouble if it were known he was giving me the route to this secret world.) The map, now covered in the white foam, is stored next to the condom. The various things that I've deemed unacceptable have been dredged up from my depths and are now in one place. I can take them out and look at them when I am ready to: I'm the one who's put them here. These things, hidden right under the computer desk (consciousness) are now very close to the surface. At some point I'll be comfortable taking them out into the fresh air of the deck.

Bald as an Egg

The Dream: I'm attracted to a small, unappealing, no longer young little man. His head is egg-shaped, and he's as bald as an egg. We are close to having sex when I remember that I'm a married woman.

“I've never cheated on my husband,” I say. But at the moment I say it, I'm planning to. Suddenly the mood changes; it's as if this practical consideration has awakened others, and I no longer want to go through with it. He also seems to have lost interest. In fact, he might have lost interest before I did.

Interpretation: In my youth an egg-head was anyone who appeared intelligent. In the dream I'm attracted to the intellect passionately, but it doesn't seem practical, partially due to my age (like the little man, I'm no longer young) and partially due to the fact that intellectual pursuits are innately impractical. In any case, the dream tells me that I see them as inappropriate. By cheating on my husband (animus) I ignore, or attempt to ignore, the practical contingencies of life, but soon discover I'm not really interested in following this path. With this fizzling of passion, the dream points out that I need to ask myself just what it is that I'm "married" to, and whether or not it's time for a new interest.

What am I Looking For?

The Dream: I see my friend with a drink and want a glass of wine, even though I've just finished one and feel slightly tipsy. I go to the circular bar, in a room that separates the one I'm in from an adjoining theater. From the entry it looks as if I need to circle around to the back to get the bartender's attention, but once I do I realize that's not right: I need to go back to the place where I started. As I get near the bar—my turn is next—an older lady and her daughter shove in front of me. “I'm next,” I tell them. They don't seem offended, but on the other hand while they smile and appear to acquiesce, they push past me and get the bartender's attention.

The bar staff, in stage makeup, leave the bar to join the troupe in the theater. A woman, in particular, is clownishly made up—very white skin, with a little bow mouth. She's dressed like a flapper in pinkish lavender with cheeks and curly hair to match. She's middle-aged or older. The man's style matches hers. They resemble Otto Dix caricatures.

I'm left standing at the deserted bar, still waiting for my drink. On their way out one of bartenders says, “Look at yourself, you're ridiculous.” Then I realize how silly I look, futilely standing at the deserted bar waiting to be waited on.

I leave, in search of –I don't know what. I go into room after room of bunk beds, many of them filled with couples lying together suggestively, no doubt having sex, but discreetly. Some are alone in these bunk beds, all occupied, all jammed close together. People are covered with blankets, yet I have a strong sense that something is going on underneath. I notice one couple: the young woman has long blond braids. I feel intrusive and uncomfortable, and I'm not finding whatever it is I'm looking for.

Interpretation: As the dream begins I look to numb myself: I want a drink even though I'm already tipsy. There's something I want to avoid. If there's a bar that prevents me from seeing what I need to see, there's also a bar to my numbing myself, and in this dream the literal bar is central to the action. Everything conspires to deprive me of my soporific—others press ahead of me, and the bartenders go off duty. As a parting shot they tell me I'm ridiculous (like the Otto Dix characters), and I have to admit they're right.

Having accepted their assessment of what I'm doing, I go in search of the thing I need. I discover people in intimate relationships—all jammed together. I realize that something is going on underneath (in my unconscious) that I've been unaware of. The dream hints that what I've missed, what's going on underneath, is a passionate wish for connection, symbolized here by sexual union.

Is Anatomy Destiny?

The Dream: I am at a dance with Clark. Women are wearing décolleté gowns that remind me of Anna's ballgown in The King and I. A man places a wine bottle into the neckline of a woman's dress; I wonder if it will fall out. Soon afterward as I bend forward I notice my nipple protruding from my own low cut gown. Soon my partner and I are having sex, during the dance, fully clothed. He says, “I almost came as I entered,” at the same time that I am thinking, “I won't be able to have an orgasm in this position.”

Interpretation: I'm not in the right place (out in public) or in the right position to achieve the release I'm desiring. I feel exposed (my nipple protrudes). I associate femininity with providing nourishment, but also with something else: what does the wine bottle represent? Dionysian exuberance or numbness? The bottle is in a precarious position where it's been thrust by an unknown male, just as patriarchy thrusts its insistence that women nurture even as we try to dance. The sex, or union, that results in this situation can hardly be satisfactory. The dream tells me that I must have the inner strength to define my own role, to create my own position. It's time to stop wearing the clothes of a previous era.

Guest Dreamer: A Man in My House

This dream is from Firequeen, who recently published Dream Diary of a White Witch.
As usual with dreams contributed to this blog, I will interpret Firequeen's dream as if it were one of my own

Firequeen's Dream: I dreamed I went to a large house where I met a man. I felt very drawn to this man and we sat and relaxed and talked a long time. We sat close together and I felt sexually attracted to him. He was talking in an authoritative way and said ‘We must get you a car, a red one’. I said that would be nice but I had never learned to drive. He said that was not a problem as he would teach me.

Then it was next morning but there was nothing in the dream concerning the night, where I had spent it, whether with this man or not. I was getting ready to leave the house to go to work, but it was filling up with other people who were all coming there to see the man or to do business with him. It seemed that he was an important person and some of what he did was directing films, so he had to see everyone and tell them what to do. He was very busy, with this and other things.

I began to feel left out of this side of his life, and wondered what was going on. When I wanted to speak to him it was not possible, he was too busy. Then someone unseen (or a Voice) told me that this was my house and that he was taking it over, and that I should not allow this to happen, it was foolish of me.

But inside I had this wonderful feeling like when you are tremendously in love and all you want is to be with the other person, and I knew this was worth anything, any sacrifice, because it is the most marvelous feeling in the world, which money can’t buy. And I woke up with the feeling, the urge, the longing for this person still with me, and I felt its full force.

And now I cannot even remember what it was like, I cannot call up the memory of that emotion. I only know I felt it once again, as I must have felt it in the past. Only it is long gone.

Carla's thoughts: In this dream the house represents me, and the man I meet there is a part of myself that I haven't integrated. Jung tells us that a sexual encounter in a dream can be a conjunctio, a coming together of two aspects of the Self that have been alienated. My attraction to this man indicates that I am getting ready to accept this strong, engaged, authoritative part of myself. When he offers me a vibrant red car, my animus is offering me a new zest for life. Since a car represents our way of negotiating the road of life, when I tell him that I have not learned to drive I am expressing my fear that I am unable to actuate my life. But this unrecognized part of me is not afraid at all; he will teach me.

In the second and third paragraphs of the dream I begin to see why I have resisted accepting this animus figure as part of myself. The man is very busy and must lead and direct a lot of people. If I completely accept this role, I feel that I am taking on a burdensome amount of responsibility. As I become so busy supervising others and working in the outside world (the realm of the animus) I feel I am losing the other part of myself, the the spiritual place where I customarily live. I don 't want the strong, directive part of me to take over at the expense of the more sensitive, intuitive part.

In spite of my conflicted feelings, my longing in the final paragraph of the dream tells me that I want to make room for this emerging part of me—the part that leads and is in charge, the part that enjoys driving the red car. My animus is generating excitement in me and uniting with him will give me renewed passion for life. With this dream my unconscious tells me that at this point in my life I am able to unify and balance what have been, until now, sparring aspects of my psyche.

The Pro Creative Cottage

The Dream: I have a studio in a one room cottage, and I later discover that this room was, in primitive times, a place where couples came to have sex as a rite if they wanted a child.

In the beginning of the dream I am unaware of what the place is. My first glimpse finds it occupied by a lone fellow, who sleeps rolled up in a sleeping bag, on the floor. He doesn’t want to mess up the bed, which is tidily made, so he sleeps wedged in between the bed and the door. I think he’s being silly.

A toilet mysteriously appears next to the “cottage” room, and I am on it defecating large quantities. At this point the fellow no longer occupies the cottage; I’ve become aware of its primitive history, and I know it’s my studio.

Interpretation: This dream about letting go shows a progression from my timid self who won’t sleep on the bed of creativity for fear of messing up to my expressive self who lets it all out. Once I realize that my perfectionism is “silly,” the means of letting go (the toilet) appears.  After I let it all out (defecate) I have the epiphany that the cottage is my studio: my sacred place, my place of creation.

Ménage a Moi

The Dream: A woman is thinking, “It’s Saturday night; I should remind my husband this is the night we have sex.” As she thinks this, another woman goes to the man and says, “Remember it’s Saturday night and that’s when we have sex.” The first woman realizes that her husband has two wives. This doesn’t upset her; she has noticed the man’s annoyance when the other woman nagged him about having sex, and she thinks that because the other woman has said something she no longer needs to. She wonders how the night will play out: A ménage a trois?

Interpretation: Taken out of sequence I would have no idea what this dream means. Seen as the culmination of the last two dreams, however, it makes sense. I split into three in Death of the Attached Baby and into two in Both of Them Are Me. In this  potential ménage a trois my various selves try to come together. (Yes, I noticed the pun.)

Bodice Ripper Scene 2

Dream Scene 2: The marriage has been celebrated, and it is the wedding night. The Lady and the Viscount are in a cloakroom or closet which is situated behind the bedroom. They share one bedroom. The lady, new to this class and situation, looks to her husband for clues on how to behave. He disrobes; she observes him in his 18th c shirt with no trousers. He takes off his clothing layer by layer, placing it on hangers, and puts the hangers on hooks that protrude from the wall. She is surprised by such tidiness, having thought that this would be a job for the servants. She mimics her new husband: disrobing, placing her garments on hangers, and hanging these up. It is a passionless scene, and, as I observe, I run varying scenarios for the wedding night. Will the husband be concerned about his new wife’s pleasure or merely do the deed? Is the Lady a virgin? If so, will she be able to enjoy the act? If not, will the Viscount be seriously displeased?

Interpretation: The wedding represents the tentative union of two aspects of my psyche, represented by the Lady and the Viscount. The closet is the storehouse for my attitudes and emotions; its location behind the bedroom means the relationship we’re observing is intimate, close to the core of my being. What about the emphasis on clothing? The Viscount takes the first step in revealing himself by taking off his clothes. Not entirely comfortable, but not knowing what else to do, the Lady follows suit. By emphasizing the passionless nature of this encounter the dream tells me again that this union is more like putting a toe in the water than diving in. For Jung--unlike Freud who would probably describe inhaling as a substitute for penetration--even sexual intercourse is not necessarily about sex in a dream. And I think you can see its symbolic relevance here as I conjecture about the physical union, not at all sure how successful the joining of these two will be.

This dream has also been interpreted by the well-known dream worker Jane Teresa Anderson in Episode 44 of The Dream Show

Don’t Send in the Cavalry

Look at the words and images in your dreams carefully. Often what seems like nonsense at first glance can be deciphered if you look for puns and plays on words, and think about the possible alternate meanings of the images.
 
The Dream: The dream is set in a barren, hilly setting. I’m sitting with a group of people on a bleacher facing a valley formed by other hills. There’s a deep crevice between the hills. We hear the sound of hooves and see the cavalry approaching. Their uniforms are gray, and they seem antiquarian. They stop at the foot of our bleacher and begin to sing. Their leader faces us and we all sing with him. His name eludes me, and I decide to practice writing it. He is Major Paul Baurow, pronounced Bo-Ro. I practice spelling and pronouncing it. There are two letter combinations in his last name, both pronounced “oh” but spelled differently. When I address him I still can’t remember his last name and call him Major Paul.

There is a man in the group (not a soldier) I am attracted to. He seems to be attracted to me as well. At first my husband encourages me to go to an event with the man, then Clark seems to become suspicious. I say flippantly, “We’re going to have monkey sex.”

Interpretation: The deep crevice tells me I’m dealing with some sort of split, and the dream exposes a conflict between my independence from--and my submission to--societal restraints. The cavalry and Paul Baurow (pall bearer or politburo) represent societal coercion, which “palls” the spirit. They expect me to sing along with the group. The attractive man is the part of me that is not regimented, “not a soldier,” and that wants to be uncivilized and experience the freedom of the animal (monkey sex).  My husband (my other half) is divided, just like the split in the hill. One moment he is encouraging me, the next not.

Bogart or Redford: Bogart

Continued from yesterday:
Dream Scene 4: In the pub, I expect to see Robert Redford, but instead find Humphrey Bogart. Bogart is sexy and makes advances as I lie on a bed. After a while I begin to think Redford is not going to show. I feel hurt and decide to go in search of him. I find him in a Western version of a Buddhist colony. He is small, has curly hair, and a young/old face. As I look into his face I see other-worldliness. He has moved on and is no longer interested in earthly things. I begin to think that Bogart might be the better choice.

Interpretation: What sort of masculine energy do I want in my inner man? I thought I wanted the modern, sensitive man: Robert Redford—the sort of man who might go on a Buddhist retreat. But no--I’ll take sex and machismo, the old-fashioned 50s tough guy.