Guest Dreamer: My New Life

Today’s guest dream leads the dreamer toward a glowing transformation. 

The Dream: I dreamed I was present at the birth of another woman's baby.  It was very large for a newborn, plump and mature looking.  The baby was big enough to weigh about 20 pounds but it was not at all heavy to hold. I held the baby close to my breast immediately; it wanted to nurse but of course I couldn't comply.  I covered both of us up with a sheer yellow fabric.  The baby sat quietly in my lap and we both looked toward the light that surrounded us. It didn't matter that we could not see beyond the fabric. Inside our glowing yellow light-weight tent, we were safe and warm without distractions.  We were both pacified.  

Carla’s interpretation: In my version of your dream, I am experiencing the emergence of a new sense of who I am and what I do. That I refer to the baby as an “it” rather than a “her” or “him” tells me that the baby represents an abstract quality: some important aspect of myself is being born. This new me is not yet integrated into the self I know, so I see the person who is giving birth as another woman. My creativity is channeled through this newly emerging self (the woman's new baby). The baby looks good to me (good-sized, plump, and mature looking) and I want to nourish it. Although I take it to heart (my breast), I am not quite ready to feed this new self. I need to acknowledge that its mother and I are one and the same. I find a safe and beautiful place, the color of life and enlightenment (yellow, sunlight) for me and the new baby to be together while I wait until I can recognize that what seems like someone else (the mother of my most precious creative force) is me.

On(e) Stage

Have you ever noticed that you’re not quite yourself in dreams? The lead character in your nightly drama is called the dream ego.

The Dream: I’m in an odd-shaped structure, something like a tent except that it’s solid. It has various entrances, some of them in surprising places. I get up on a stage which has been set up inside this very large, yellow-ochre structure and begin to give a speech. I’m full of self-confidence as I begin. “Girls inherit their lungs from their mothers . . . .” I trail off as I begin to realize I have no idea where boys get their lungs. I try to find a way to retreat, to get off the stage. I escape through a back exit I hadn’t known was there. The “I” in the dream (dream ego) has dark brown curly hair and a perky demeanor. She doesn’t actually look like me.

Interpretation: The part of me that internalized the opinions of my mother and the female culture of my youth is beginning to realize she doesn’t know everything. She is in retreat. Her domain, the half circle of the tent, shows itself to be incomplete. She is missing what Jung calls the animus, the part of a woman--symbolized by her inner man--that enables her to take on the world.