Boiling Over and Leaking Out

The Dream: I'm in a rectangular studio apartment with two girls. One is my daughter; the other, an odd girl with short dark hair, is her roommate. This girl has an off-putting face and expression; something about her “doesn't get it.” She puts my glass electric kettle onto a gas burner and turns on the flame. Clark notices and rescues the pot before it's ruined. We look again and see that she's done it again. Again Clark rescues it; this time we manage to get through to her, and she finds a traditional kettle.

A ceiling leak has created a puddle on the floor. The odd girl says, “We've told Uncle Nick, but he hasn’t done a thing about it.”

I'm annoyed at her over the kettle, and this idiotic remark ratchets up my ire. I am particularly annoyed at this odd girl's assuming the level of familiarity implied by her calling my brother “uncle.” “Why would you expect Uncle Nick to do anything about it? He lives 3,000 miles away. Have you told Clark?” Then I wonder why he should fix it. “Or the landlord?” Now I feel I have the right answer, so I say it again. “Have you told the landlord?” I feel sure he wouldn't want his building ruined by a leak. The girls assure me that they have informed the landlord.

Interpretation: This odd girl is my shadow. Her closeness to me is clear: she is the roommate of my inner child (my daughter) and feels a connection—as much as I want to deny it--to my brother. While she represents a part of myself that I thoroughly dislike--the oblivious part that wants to do what she wants to do, ignoring the consequences—getting to know her through this dream is helpful. Her insistence on boiling some water tells me I need to find a safe way to let off some steam. While I don't like the demands she makes on others to fix her problems, in the dream I catch myself doing the same when I expect Clark to fix the ceiling leak.

These girls are immature parts of me. The boiling water and leaking roof refer to emotions. After a number of false starts it seems I've finally found the appropriate place to express them. It takes a while to find the right vessel for the water, the place where it can safely boil, but the odd girl ultimately uses the right kettle. The ceiling leak is more problematical. It is not fixed during the course of the dream but, on the bright side, the landlord (consciousness) has been given the heads up.

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.

A Bossy Woman

The Dream: A stout and bossy woman, in an office, is talking too loud. She is promoting some sort of “help” she pedals to groups. At first it sounds interesting, and I wonder if she might be a good speaker for a women’s group I belong to. I try--again and again--to ask if she would like to do this, but she won’t let me get a word in. Her over-loud voice is embarrassing, and her bossy manner and unwillingness to listen, annoying. Finally I just want her to go away. She exits to the left.

Interpretation: In my last posted dream it looked as though I were reconciling conflicting parts: the stay-at-home femininity of my youth with the woman-active-in-the-world of my adulthood. But just as I thought progress was being made a shadow figure emerges to let me know that I haven’t finished. And she wants to be heard! (She's very loud.) Jung says shadow figures contain parts of ourselves that we dislike and don’t want to acknowledge. I push this bossy, embarrassing creature back down into the unconscious (she exits to the left). Want to bet she’ll be back?

Getting Around the Block

Like the dream of the mouse lady a few posts back, this dream features what Jung calls a shadow. Shadow figures represent parts of ourselves that we dislike and reject. It’s important that we get to know our shadows; otherwise there’s a danger that we will project them onto others—often with devastating results.

The Dream: There is an unsavory character who owns a shop in the city. I find his shop and then leave it by going North, then West, then South. I realize that I have lived without noticing what is on this block. There is much life, crowded storefronts, and I have passed them by without knowing what’s here. As I walk, noticing all the activity I had not previously seen, I also become aware that I can get back to the shop by continuing around the block—that I will come back to where I started. This is a revelation.

Interpretation: There’s a part of myself that I reject (the unsavory character). He’s central to something I don’t want to see or know (the block). Yet the dream tells me that not seeing (accepting) this part of myself has cut me off from “much life.” My journey around the block gives me a healing insight that feels like a revelation.  As in the plot of a classic myth or fairy tale, I come back to where I started, but the experience has changed me for the better.

The Inquisition

The Dream: In a classroom, with several rows of people seated in an orderly arrangement on the Danish modern classroom chairs of my childhood. A Chinese dictator presides. He is very angry because he has opened a package meant for me that has exploded, singeing his brows and mouth, which are the most prominent features of his mask-like face. He wants to know who’s to blame for the explosion. I admit, after a while, that it is my fault. He says, ominously, “You will suffer.” He demands to know the full story, and although I’m reluctant at first to implicate others, I tell it.

I acted at the behest of another authority figure, a white middle-aged man. As I tell my story, the Asian dictator comes to me, and he very gently hugs me. This seems out of character and I don’t know what to think. I don’t trust him, and I don’t think his affectionate gesture means that he will not administer whatever punishment he feels my deed merits.

Interpretation: I’m in a classroom; I have something to learn. The room’s furniture tells me it’s a lesson from my childhood when I did something that caused an explosion (emotional upheaval). As seems to be the case in childhood, the most important thing to the one in charge is to find out whose fault it is. But I am stuck, since my action was demanded by yet another authority, this one a white man. The Asian, being a different race from me, represents what Jung calls my “shadow,” a part of myself that I have not consciously acknowledged. My shadow shows some tenderness and compassion upon realizing my dilemma, but my dream ego is not won over. This issue needs more work, and I expect to see it arise in future dreams.

Only the Shadow Knows

Sometimes you just can’t get rid of those pesky imperfections.

The Dream: I am in an office building and a hobo is on a ladder outside the window. He puts out his hand, in a supplicating way, as if requesting money. He is unstable, and his ladder falls away from the window. I am glad, not bothering myself about his probable fate after falling from a considerable height. I am relieved to be rid of him. Moments later he is back.

Interpretation: This shadow figure, as Jung would call him, is appealing to me (he puts out his hand in supplication). I may reject him; I may think he’s dead and gone. But nope—he’ll be back until I give him what he wants: the acknowledgment that he is part of me.

Guest Dreamer: The Cement Men of Mars

The following dream was sent to me by my brother. He was very young when he dreamt it, during the era of the competition between the US and the USSR to conquer space (the 1960s).

The Dream: It started with me watching the first manned Mars landing on TV.  But as it progressed, I became one of the astronauts landing there.  (Note:  I had this dream at the height of the race to the moon.) In my dream Mars was perfectly habitable, and we found a nice little circular grove of trees to camp in for the night.  But in the middle of the night we were suddenly attacked by Martian Cement Men who would step out from behind trees and throw spears at us.  We, of course, were armed with submachine guns (I mean, what else would you take to Mars?) and started blasting away.

As our bullets struck them, the impacts looked exactly the way bullets hitting a cement wall look.  That is, there’d be a puff of smoke and dust and a shallow crater from the impact would be created: thus the name Cement Men.  Of course it also meant that it didn’t kill them, so we had a lengthy battle on our hands.

I remember being touched (in the dream) when I saw one cement man leaving the safety of the trees to grab a fallen comrade and drag him back to safety. These guys were big, built a lot like the comic book version of the Incredible Hulk. I’m still waiting for Spirit and Opportunity to find them!

Interpretation: One truism about dreams is that every character in them is us—or a part of us—no matter how alien the dream creatures sometime seem. A character we have a particularly bad reaction to is called our shadow; it shows us some part of ourselves that we need to come to terms with. This is similar to the ogre under the bridge or the wicked witch of fairy tale: a handy screen on which to project all we hate or fear.

You might notice that this dream reads something like a mythic adventure, and there’s a well documented relationship between dream and myth. Joseph Campbell analyzed the myth’s basic plotline as the hero’s journey: each stage parallels an important life passage. In this case, the passage is from childhood to young manhood.

An important part of dream interpretation that hasn’t yet come up in this blog is that the dreamer is the final authority on the meaning of his dream. When I put forth a comment about his—or anyone else’s—dream I am inevitably talking about what the dream would mean to me had I dreamt it. So I’ll discuss my brother’s dream as if it were my dream.

I am young and full of curiosity about the world. The news is full of an exciting global competition, and I’d like to take part in it. My dream takes me to Mars, where I encounter a planet that closely resembles the world I know.

And yet: there’s some interesting symbolism here. The circle, in Jungian terms, represents the integrated self. Jung felt that the circle expressed the totality of our being, containing all our sometimes disparate elements. Perhaps because I’m young and need to grow—both mentally and physically—I cannot bask in this bliss for too long, but must meet the next challenge. It’s symbolized by the confrontation with my shadow in the form of the Cement Men.

The fact that these cement men are attacking me with very primitive weapons (spears) makes me think that I’m doing battle with a primitive part of myself, a part that I feel I must conquer if I want to become a civilized adult. I’m well armed for this confrontation, maybe a little too well-armed (am I too defensive?) pitting my sub-machine gun against their spears. Nevertheless, these creatures, being made of cement, are not easy to kill. That I can be touched by the compassion of one of the Cement Men for his comrade is a very good sign that I’m on the way toward humanizing—therefore integrating—this tough and violent part of myself.

The dreamer always gets the last word, so here’s Bro’s Interpretation: Earlier that night I'd watched an episode of “The Untouchables” in which a machine gun had sprayed a cement wall. I believe this dream was inspired the space race and that evening’s episode of the Untouchables.

The Power of Moonlight

When a character in your dream does something you feel is very alien, it might be your shadow. Shadows express parts of ourselves that we have repressed.

The Dream: Walking Indian file, in a narrow procession, returning from an event in Hampshire. We go over hills and downs, snaking under the moonlight. My neighbor Jenna is naked as we head toward Hartford House (her home). Her body looks lithe and young, like a slender adolescent. I notice myself adjusting my ruffled collar blouse, making sure I am covered. I think she’s being scandalous, showing off her body. I, of course, would never do such a thing. She is completely free, unselfconscious.

Interpretation: I would like to feel freer and be less self-conscious.