Something I Can’t Get Around

The Dream: I encounter a large, well-proportioned black man on a path. As we try to pass one another we perform a socially awkward dance: we each move in the direction the blocks the other. We do this several times. The man is tall, attractive, middle-aged, athletic, and looks strong. There is no threat in the encounter, only embarrassment that we can’t get around each other.

Interpretation: The dream is telling me that there is something I just can’t get around. I must encounter (and integrate) something that, while not threatening, is very different from the way I see myself; it’s symbolically opposite me in just about every way: height, race, sex. The dream hints that I may be on the way toward accepting this part of myself since I see this “other” as attractive.

Goosed Girl

Is my inner trickster telling me to open my eyes? Wake up?

The Dream: A man and I are at a party. A tall woman in a champagne-colored, draped-front shift stands next to us. The man pinches her bottom, then stands there looking angelic so she won’t think he did it. After he does this a couple of times I go sit by myself on some stairs, afraid the woman might think I’m the one pinching her.

A little later the woman comes over to me. The man has convinced her that I am the one who pinched her, and she's angry. I sputter my surprise and innocence.

Interpretation: This is what’s called a trickster dream, dreams in which a badly-behaved person gets the better of the dream ego. There’s an interesting pun here, since pinching is said to be a test of whether or not we’re dreaming. (For example, “When I heard I won the Lottery I pinched myself.”)  Since we are the entire cast of our dreams, in this dream I’m literally dreaming, I’m getting pinched, and I’m pinching myself. I think my inner trickster was feeling playful. The dream made me laugh, and if it has a deeper meaning I don’t know what it is.