Conversation with My Cousin

The Dream: Cousin Sandra looks ill. Her drawn and suffering face is topped by a slightly curly, dirty blonde wig. She is saying that she had thought my father was the nice one (our fathers were siblings) until I informed her otherwise. I want to correct this impression I've left her with. I try to tell her that he was, indeed, a wonderful man—but she doesn't hear me. I can't seem to get her attention.

Interpretation: Sandra represents the part of myself that suffered childhood hurts, is still suffering from them, and thinks, therefore, that Dad is not nice. The dream points out, first of all, that these thoughts are not accurate: hair represents thoughts; my Sandra hair is phony (a wig). In addition, its bright color (blonde), symbolizing illumination, is obscured by being “dirty.” In other words, while I could be thinking something that would shed some light on the subject, I'm not. This is my first clue that I need to update my inner child's way of looking at things. My inner adult, the part played by the dream ego, sees life in all its complexity and difficulty, and realizes what a good man Dad was. I want to give this realization to the sick “child” but can't get her attention. In the dream Sandra thinks poorly of her own father. This Sandra part of me is not willing, not yet, to relinquish this opinion of “the father.”

Head in a Lantern

The Dream: A friend has put her mother’s or aunt’s head in a lantern. She has also put my mother’s head in one. I am worried that my mother will starve. She will get no food in this odd cage. A part of me wants her to die so I’ll be “finished” with her; yet another part is concerned and guilt-ridden. After a while I think that she won’t starve to death; she’ll die of insulin shock before that happens. In fact, she might be dead already. I am very worried about her suffering, so her death would be a relief.

Interpretation: My mother died about five years before I had this dream, which sums up all the confused and tortured feelings that centered on my relationship with her. As a child I idolized her. When I was 17 she became diabetic, and I was in terror of her dying. Over the years, every time I saw her I thought might be the last. I saw her suffer through innumerable insulin shocks as well as cancer and heart disease. As anyone with an ill family member knows, all share the pain. In a very real way her death (at 85 in spite of everything!) was a release. Years later, as this dream shows, the unconscious is trying to come to terms with these feelings.

Besides my relief at an impossible situation being resolved, the dream gives me a glimpse of a kind of immortality. Important people in our lives don't die, but live on in us.  Mother's cage resembles a birdcage, and birds signify the spirit. That Mother’s cage is a lantern tells me her spirit still lights my way.