Room to Expand

The Dream: I'm in a camper with my husband and some friends. It's very comfortable, but I realize after a while that we have forgotten to put the slide out. Polly is with us, so I get her to check that there's enough room outside. She says there is. I push the button, thinking my friends will be impressed with this wonderful trailer. I am tentative about extending the slide, and I look to reassure myself there is indeed no obstacle for it to run into. Even though there isn't, I still stop short a couple of times. But with encouragment from Clark I finally put it all the way out.

Interpretation: I am a person who finds it difficult to put herself out there. I'm in a comfortable place, but I could do more; maybe I've been sliding. I get a friend to check to see if there is room for this expansion, in other words, for me to grow by pushing myself out into the world. She tells me I can do it, and I think people will be favorably impressed—nevertheless I am tentative: I need reassurance; I keep stopping short. At last my animus kicks in and I am brave enough to extend myself.

Put on the Stockings

Sometimes the things we dislike about ourselves need to be recognized as gifts, of a sort, as this dream tells me.

The Dream: We are trying to escape the Nazis, but using an odd strategy. We’re running away from them by going back to the place we used to live even as I think, “Won’t they be able to find us here?”

One woman accepts a pair of silk stockings from a Nazi soldier with the idea of reselling them to get money for something useful, like food. At first I think her acceptance of a gift from the Nazi is morally dubious, but later feel that in transforming the gift into something useful she’s done something sensible.

Interpretation: I learn that something good can come if I can accept a gift from my inner Nazi.  My tiresome attention to detail and tendency to perfectionism are not all bad, but can and do enable (feed) my creative side.

Pulling Along Old Stuff

It’s a big jump from the Doris Day femininity of my youth to the Hillary Clinton womanhood of today. For women to successfully navigate the still patriarchal world in which we live, we need to get acquainted with what Jung calls our animus, or inner man.

The Dream: A cartoon man is driving across the country. He is in a car with a trailer loaded with his “stuff.” He drives erratically, at times paying no attention to his driving and at other times dozing. His wife is worried about him. He has decided to pull into a motel / hotel to get some rest, but before he does he goes back to check on the trailer—without stopping the car. Two highway patrol officers stop him. He looks very sleepy. The officers accost him roughly, one of them pushing the man up against his car.

Interpretation: My nascent inner man (animus) is sleepy, dozing, ready for a rest and irrational. He’s so undeveloped that he’s like a cartoon. When he tries to emerge into the role he should have in my life the censoring force of the ego (the policeman) treats him badly. This aspect of my psyche needs work.