The Embrace

The Dream: A couple embrace, standing in a circular pool of water. They are dressed in ancient garb, like Roman togas. After a while I notice that a long tube is emerging from the man's garment. It blends so well with his toga that it's not very noticeable. He is peeing into this tube, and the pee is going into the pool as the two embrace.

Once they've separated their entwined bodies, the woman wants a drink. She picks up a shell and bends to get some water from the pool. The man watches, aghast, but says nothing.

Interpretation: Pools are reflective; the one in this dream invites me to self-reflection. If I look at the characters in this dream as aspects of myself that I've not recognized, I see the man as representing one of my transgressions that has not been confessed: he sees something that isn't right, but doesn't speak out. He pollutes a perfection (the circular pool) and in doing so represents the damage (shelling) of my self-image. Because of this misdeed I am contaminated: but perhaps I need to drink this in before I can make things right.

A Different Kind of War

The Dream: There are two opposing armies: on one side, the Americans; on the other, the Koreans. I’m on the American side. We’re behind a high stone wall. We shoot over the wall, and then duck to keep from getting shot. The other side doesn’t have a wall, yet we never hit any of them. I think we should call in a helicopter to shell them from above since we are getting nowhere with our current method. The general tells me we won’t do that because we actually don’t want to hurt anybody.

Interpretation: I see this dream as an almost humorous image of my internal battle. On the one side is my current concept of myself (a “me” rican); on the other side, an important part of myself (a “core” ean) that I haven’t yet accepted.  The dream ego (me) has insulated itself behind a stone wall and fights it out with this unacceptable part of myself. I get impatient and want to destroy it from above, indicating it’s my intellect at war with my instinctive, more primitive nature. The general, who represents my greater, more integrated awareness—what Jung calls the Self—counsels patience. The dream tells me that there is a better way than destroying a part of myself to resolve my internal conflict.

The Incubi

Sometimes you’ll find that a dream invites you to revisit parts of yourself you once rejected.

The Dream: We are hunting for snails, which we are going to eat. We pull them out of a messy, amorphous background and put them in a red pail containing rocks. The snails climb up the pail, and I snatch them and throw them back down. They disgust me. They have soft shells which I am afraid of crushing. It occurs to me that we are not planning on cooking them, so how revolting will it be to eat them while they are crawling around on the plate?

I go over to a boarded up and rotten structure, looking for a trash area. I crank off the feeble and rotting wooden lid and see what I at first believe to be a pile of murdered babies. They are frozen. Their bodies look something like plucked turkeys; something about their faces looks girl-like, but they have no features. They look like flesh colored mummies, getting bird-like toward the bottom. Clark spots them and hollers, “Carla!” in shock, also thinking they are murdered babies.

Interpretation: At some very young age I made the determination that parts of me were disgusting. These undeveloped selves (babies) have been stored and frozen, apparently “murdered.” As an adult I might judge these incubi less harshly; my dream invites me to integrate them.