The Rape

The Dream: A woman is friends with a man. We are living in a shared space. I leave them to go into another room. Soon I hear the woman screaming for me, horribly distressed. I find her in the bathroom. The toilet seat is up and she has immersed her bottom in the water, which is tinged with blood. It's clear to me that she has been raped by her “loving” friend. Shall I call 911?” I say. She doesn't answer. “I'll call 911,” I say, leaving her to look for a phone. This nightmare awakens me.

Interpretation: At the time of this dream I belonged to a book club sponsored by a Christian church. The meeting devolved into a discussion of the participants' personal beliefs. As I listened to others talk about “faith” and “belief” and “Christianity” I realized how alien I find these ideas. While the dream was triggered by media stories about rape, and certainly reflects the vulnerability that women face, the underlying issue for me is the rape of the intellect that I feel as a participant in a Christian group. I feel I'm not allowed to express my honest thoughts. This leaves me feeling my intellect (logical mind) has been raped; who I am (my self) denied.

The Green Bug

The Dream: I'm chasing a green bug in the bathroom. It looks more like a flat, round green flower than like a bug—but it's mobile and runs from me. I try to catch it to take it outside as it scurries around the base of the toilet. As it evades my attempt yet again I lose patience and decide to squash it. Then I take pity on it, seeing it wants to live, and I let it go.

Interpretation: Something is bugging me, something that I'd like to get out of my system (it's near the toilet). I want to be rid of it, to let it go, but it evades me. My solution is to put it outside (air my feelings), but, by refusing to be caught, my difficulty refuses to be handled in this way. I lose patience and decide to suppress it (I want to kill the bug). I relent, however, when I become aware that it is a carrier of the life force (it wants to live): The color green is indicative of new life, and, besides, there's something playful about the way this creature teases me. I think it's probably a good thing that I let it live, and I hope it lets me take it outside, into the open, soon. 

It Can Be Flushed

The Dream: I go to use a public toilet and am concerned about its condition. It's not terribly clean, but also not impossibly dirty. The lid is down and I open it, concerned I'll see an over-flowing mess. Instead I see several, 3, large ball-shaped turds lying quietly at the bottom of the bowl. I am relieved, thinking that this is an amount I can flush.

Interpretation: I had been reading Tony Crisp's thoughts on the toilet image in dreams. He said that a full toilet indicates there are things that need to be dealt with, released, so to speak. In this dream I anticipate there will be more than I can flush--that the toilet is clogged--but in fact it is manageable. It's not a tidy place I've come to, and certainly not one where I want to spend time, but it's not as bad as I had anticipated, either. Once I lift the lid on my difficulty I find I can flush it. Perhaps some unremembered dream from the night dealt with this necessary process in terms of the particular issue that needs flushing; in any case I hope that the unconscious will go forward with its own sort of resolution, whether or not I'm aware of it.

In the Toilet

Sometimes we need to cooperate with parts of ourselves we don't particularly enjoy.
The Dream: A young woman, unmarried and pregnant, is receiving help from a nun. The young woman wonders what sort of obligation this might entail; she doesn't agree with the nun's religion or values. At the same time she is grateful for the aid and feels that she will, in the future, repay the organization that helped her.

The nun and the young woman are in a small, closet-like area with nothing but a toilet. The young woman decides to sit down and, to her surprise, ends up in the toilet. The nun lectures her about making this stupid move. It's somewhat difficult, but the two of them working together manage to get the young woman out of the toilet.

Interpretation: I'm feeling closed in and restricted (in the small closet-like area). I need a kind of help that is difficult for me to accept because I don't agree with its black and white (nun's colors) unnuanced point of view. Nevertheless, without some organization, however confining it may feel, I'm going to be in the toilet (not doing well at all) and my new baby (project) will not survive. The dream tells me I need to respect and support my helpers, those annoyingly demanding parts of myself, if I'm going to produce anything of value.

No Release

The Dream: I am dressing for an event, feeling rushed. There are several women with me, and one is an artist friend. I put on a pair of black silk trousers, wide-legged. I'm wearing a white blouse. I add a black sweater/jacket, not quite as out-dated as the trousers. My friend tells me this looks fine, and while I know it's lacking in style and out-dated I decide there's no time to come up with anything better.

I have to go to the bathroom. I'm in a public toilet stall and try to pee, but find I can't. I give up, feeling uncomfortable.

Interpretation: I'm dressed in the traditional mourning colors, black and white. I look for a release (going to the toilet) that doesn't come. The clothes are out-dated; this tells me that the grief I'm experiencing is not only current, but from the past as well. My inner artist (the friend) thinks these clothes are appropriate; perhaps she is more in touch with the old pain that needs expression.

I'm in a toilet stall; indeed,being unable to find the needed release has stalled me. I will feel uncomfortable until I can let it out.

An Unnatural Split

The Dream: This vaguely remembered dream featured a park with a small adjacent area that held a parking lot and a public toilet. My companion and I are working to get the park commission to incorporate this area into the park.

Scene switch to sex. I feel I should be more sexually engaged, more responsive and demonstrative.

Interpretation: The park area represents an idealistic, unsullied nature: pure spirit without body. But what about the split off parking lot? It's in the shape of the pubis and contains a toilet. That evokes the passage from Yeat's Crazy Jane Talks to the Bishop in which she says that “Love has pitched his mansion in / The place of excrement.” * This fastidious splitting off of the physical from the spiritual means that my libido, or life force, is not joined to my soul. My inner psychic forces are working to marry the two (they should have sex), and if they don't succeed I'll be parked in the Park, living a half life in an unrealistic place that represents a nature without worms or flies, a place that doesn't exist. Again from Crazy Jane: “For nothing can be sole or whole / That has not be rent.”*

*For the rest of the poem as well as an interesting discussion of its meaning, one that is relevant to this dream, see Poetry .

I'm Stalled

The Dream: Mother and I are in an area of Manhattan that we don't know. We need a toilet, find one, and go in. As I use one of the stalls I realize the one next to me is a shower. I think it's nice, and progressive, that the city provides a place where the indigent can bathe. A woman takes advantage of this, and soon I'm getting sprayed with water coming over the stall divider. This is not pleasant, but I'm temporarily stuck where I am.

When I finish using the toilet I leave the stall in search of my mother. I don't see her, and I wander in circles yelling, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

Interpretation: I'm stuck (in a stall) as I try to release some pent up emotion (relieve myself: go to the toilet). The water that splashes me represents unconscious material coming into consciousness, and while it isn't pleasant, I must endure it. The dream emphasizes the importance of this process by pointing out that the shower is for the indigent (someone in need). The little child within me cries for her mother as I get in touch with the well of grief I feel over her death.

Guest Dreamer: Flushing the Blues

Today's guest dreamer is getting rid of the blues.
The Dream: I shove my blue jeans into a toilet--pressing them under the water. That's all there was to it! Nothing before and nothing afterward. I did feel shocked that this is what I was doing with my blue jeans.

Interpretation: If it were my dream: the toilet is a place of elimination. I am flushing (getting rid of) the blues (sadness). This sadness has been an integral part of me--it's in my genes (jeans). I have shoved this depressed part into a place in the unconscious (underwater) where it can be dealt with and eliminated. I'm surprised I could do this.

Two Toilets

The Dream: I have to use the toilet. The first one I find is the height of a baby's highchair. The lid is down, covered with debris from an infant's diaper change. I remove the pieces of trash with distaste and find it's not as disgusting as I had anticipated. I keep expecting to come across a poop-filled diaper but never do.

I abandon this toilet and find myself next to another one, a typical adult model this time, with debris in the bowl. The discards are pharmacy boxes and other bathroom detritus. A box labeled with the drug name Napoxne catches my eye. What does it treat, I wonder? I awaken, saying the name over and over to myself, trying to remember it so I can do a google search in the morning.

Interpretation: I'm looking for some sort of release; there's something I need to let go of. (I need to use the toilet.) The appearance of the baby's highchair tells me that the first thing I must get out of my system dates to my early childhood. That the lid is down tells me that whatever lurks there is unconscious. Although it never reaches the level of consciousness, I symbolically deal with this mental trash by removing and accepting it (it's not as disgusting as I had anticipated). I haven't yet discovered the really shitty event—or possibly there isn't one. (I keep expecting to come across a poop-filled diaper but never do.)

In any case, I'm now ready to take on adult crap and again find the instrument of my release (the toilet) blocked. What's clogging it this time? The dream offers up the drug napoxne. When I searched for the meaning of the term I found a similar word, naproxen, that is a drug used to treat pain. The dream is telling me that my desire to avoid pain is blocking my ability to purge myself of it.

The Indignities of Old Age

The Dream: Clark and I are in LA, going to see Clark's mother. When we get to our destination it is my mother we see, not his. She is incredibly old, tiny, and practically hairless. Clark keeps trying to get her to talk—she's lying curled up on a bed—and he wants her to get dressed so we can take her out. He is being kind, but I can feel the desperation in his voice. She seems more dead than alive, but she pulls herself out of bed saying, “I get enough exercise lurching around here.” When she “walks” she is bent over at a 90 degree angle.

She goes over to a nearby toilet and sits down, with no self-consciousness whatsoever. Her dark blue trousers are at her feet as she sits on the toilet. I go over to her. She laughs. She's laughing at finding herself in this ridiculous situation: elderly, frail, sitting on a toilet in front of others. It's a short burst of cognition. I put my arms around her and say, “You're a good sport; God bless you.” Then I feel myself ready to dissolve into tears.

Interpretation: This dream, like most dreams, is trying to come to terms with life's difficulties. In this case the problem is the inevitability of aging, of watching those we love diminish, and of making the connection that as they go so will we. The animus figure Clark wants to overcome the problem with practical action—get dressed, talk, go out: in other words, carry on. The desperation in his voice tells me that even he doesn't think these measures will work. It is the aging person herself, accepting the inevitable with humor and a dignity that transcends her situation, who shows the way.

A Royal Flush

The Dream: A public toilet: not only is it public in the sense that it is a large facility anyone can use, but also because there are no privacy stalls. Someone has defecated, and the toilet I’m about to use is full of excrement. I’m concerned that adding my contribution will cause an overflow when I flush. There is a supervisory woman who seems to think this is okay. And in fact, when I pull the lever a very small flush clears the entire mess with quiet efficiency. I am relieved.

Interpretation: This dream resolves the last two dreams, The Scream and Much Ado Over Nothing. The first sets the stage for me to confront the pain of dealing with my father’s anger. The second transforms my understanding of that pain and enables me to see that I am strong enough to withstand it. Today’s dream finishes the purge with a graphic image of shit that is a lot easier to get rid of than I had anticipated. And even mother (the supervisory woman) is on board with letting it go.

Guest Dreamer: Purification

Do you need a washing machine to take you through the complete cycle from contamination to purification? The homey images in this guest dream reveal a powerful transformation in progress.

The Dream: I am in my house, upstairs. There are guests in the house. I walk into the guest bathroom and decide to flush the toilet. When I do, watery shit bubbles out of the drain and rises to the top. It starts to overflow. I panic. The flowing stops before flooding the bathroom, but I run out of there to find a plunger so I can correct the problem. I look for the plunger downstairs in the laundry room.  A woman, my house guest, is sprawled sideways on top of the washing machine. She is clothed--at least I see she is wearing slacks, shoes and socks. The lid of the washer is up and her rear end is inside the barrel. She looks like she is just hanging out there, relaxed, with her arm over the lid.  

Carla’s interpretation: In my version of the guest dreamer’s dream, my mind (upstairs symbolizes the head) is engaged with some issues that feel alien to me (they are guests in my house rather than residents). There’s a lot of difficulty (shit) associated with these issues; repressing them has been draining me but now they are coming up with such force that they’ve risen to the top of my consciousness. In fact, they are so powerful they overflow and I panic. I run to find the device (the plunger) that can correct the problem. My unconscious is hinting here that the solution will be plunging into the difficulty rather than trying to avoid it. And, in fact, once I get to the place where I expect to find the plunger, I am in a place of purification, the laundry room. The lid is off, and I see that the problem is being addressed at its source: the rear end of my troublesome “guest.” We can guess that she is the one responsible for the excess shit in the guest bathroom. Having expelled the mess that was inside her, she is now relaxed while the washing machine completes the purge.

The Pro Creative Cottage

The Dream: I have a studio in a one room cottage, and I later discover that this room was, in primitive times, a place where couples came to have sex as a rite if they wanted a child.

In the beginning of the dream I am unaware of what the place is. My first glimpse finds it occupied by a lone fellow, who sleeps rolled up in a sleeping bag, on the floor. He doesn’t want to mess up the bed, which is tidily made, so he sleeps wedged in between the bed and the door. I think he’s being silly.

A toilet mysteriously appears next to the “cottage” room, and I am on it defecating large quantities. At this point the fellow no longer occupies the cottage; I’ve become aware of its primitive history, and I know it’s my studio.

Interpretation: This dream about letting go shows a progression from my timid self who won’t sleep on the bed of creativity for fear of messing up to my expressive self who lets it all out. Once I realize that my perfectionism is “silly,” the means of letting go (the toilet) appears.  After I let it all out (defecate) I have the epiphany that the cottage is my studio: my sacred place, my place of creation.

Not Ready to Go

The Dream: I am at the airport. The plane is at the gate. Its interior has only a few seats; it seems truncated, for example, only the first class section. Yet it feels spacious; the seats are white leather. No one is on the plane—no crew, no passengers, no gate keepers even. I decide to use the toilet but find I can’t go. After a while I must have produced a little something so I decide to flush. Immediately I feel this would be a mistake because the toilets are like train toilets and will flush directly onto the tarmac, which might not be too pleasant for those loading the plane. I stay on the toilet for a while, trying to produce more output and having very little success.

At last I leave the toilet and as I open the door I encounter a maintenance man who had been patiently waiting to clean the room. I’m embarrassed and apologize; he seems long suffering. Had I known he was there I would have cut short my visit.

Express Yourself

The Dream: I have a new two-story house, unfurnished. An artist friend gives me a wooden table and a toilet stall. This is a self-contained toilet, like the ones you would find in a public restroom. The slightly curved floor and the walls are composed of wooden slats. I examine this fixture, thinking about cleaning it.

Interpretation: I am on the way toward building a new understanding of who I am (the new house). The fact that the house has two stories tells me that I am attempting to integrate two different versions (stories) of myself that currently reside, at different levels, in my psyche. The house is unfurnished; this hints that I have the opportunity to go in a new direction. In other words, I’m not constrained by a previously set style.

My inner artist (the artist friend) immediately steps in to help. One of her gifts is a wooden table. Since tables are places where people come together for sustenance, she is trying to help me to integrate these varying, often inharmonious, aspects of myself. She also offers an unusual toilet. Toilets represent places where we can express ourselves—let things out—in privacy.  But instead of my using her gift in this way, I immediately think about the chore aspect of having a toilet: you have to keep it clean. My unconscious is pointing out that I miss out on some parts of life by being unwilling to accept the mess that's part of it, and--more to the point--part of me.

The Ubiquitous Toilet Dream

Okay, dear reader, I think we know each other well enough by now that I can post something that reeks of the indelicate: a toilet dream. Sooner or later, I’ve heard, we all have one. This example shows how dreams can help us flush no longer relevant feelings.

The Dream: I’m with a group exiting a building when I realize I have to go to the toilet. We’re starting off on a journey, but I think I can slip away and rejoin the group before departure.

I find a ladies room nearby. The seat is up, and it is already filled with urine and toilet paper. Being in a hurry I add mine to the batch. I don’t think the overloaded toilet can flush. I’m surprised when the receptacle, which now appears over-sized, empties with a great whoosh of running water. I am relieved that it flushed.

Interpretation: Urine can stand for emotions that need to be expressed. Clearly, I’m overloaded with them. But the unconscious, which through dreams helps us purge useless emotional detritus, helps me out by supplying a great cleansing whoosh. My reaction (I’m relieved) tells me the dream process has done its work.

Bogart or Redford: The Pub

When you have a very long dream, one way to begin to understand it is to break it down into sections and then work on one at a time. That’s what I’m going to do with this dream. Once you’ve explored each section in depth the meaning of the entire dream becomes clear.

Dream Scene 1: Robert Redford and I are in love. I am Jane Fonda, or someone very much like her. Redford and I are going to rendezvous in a pub-like setting. Sometimes this pub looks like a bar right out of the Old West, and sometimes it looks more like an English tearoom.

The proprietor of the pub has recently redecorated. I observe this as I attempt to use the toilet. Each time I go into the hallway to look for an empty john someone scoots in before me. As I wait I notice that the proprietor has put up Jacobean flowered wallpaper off the hallway in the dining area. The wallpaper and the redecoration are pretty, but look superficial, slapped on.

Interpretation: The first two characters, Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, are actors who were in their prime during my young adulthood. If asked to describe them I would say they are attractive, superficial, and representative of the new vision of masculinity and femininity that was evolving at that time.  The pub (public house) indicates the dream is dealing with my relationship to society, and its features again reflect the masculine (50s Westerns) and the feminine (an English tea room). Searching for the toilet indicates I’d like some privacy; I wish I could get away from the social pressure of the “pub.” As for the redecorating—what am I trying to cover up? Are the changes I’ve made so far superficial?

Not Ready to Take the Plunge

As you work with your dreams, you might find they comment on the process of working with dreams—in other words, with the process of beginning to understand normally unconscious material.

The Dream: I’m at the gym, but it looks like a hotel room. I’m with my mother, and we have stopped in to have a bath. My mother bathes first, in a small bathroom with a shower curtained tub and a toilet. When I am ready for my turn, I notice she has left many towels rolled up in the tub. I start to remove them, looking for a place to put them. I run out of room and patience when I spot a beige and brown granite tub in the bedroom. It is rectangular in shape and shallow. I wonder if it’s clean. When I am ready to get in, the tub disappears.

Interpretation: This dream is about working out (I’m in the gym) a way to access unconscious material. While the action takes place in the gym it looks like a hotel, a temporary residence, hinting that I’m neither here nor there. We have come to this place to bathe: going into water symbolizes immersion into the unconscious. Even though I thought I was ready for the experience, difficulties show me I’m not.  First, my internalized “mother” places so many obstacles in the tub that I give up trying to remove them. Then I move on to the bedroom, where a font-like tub appears. Would immersion here be a sort of baptism into the realm of the unconscious? I’m not comfortable with this tub, finding it unclean, and it doesn’t trust me either: it disappears at the moment I’ve overcome my resistance to it.