The Creative Process: Finding the “I”

The Dream: I'm with a group of graphic designers. I see them as very cool, and being accepted is important to me. The “leader” is a small, wiry black man, about the size of a 12-year-old. He's very energetic and charming, and recounts stories by acting out all the parts as he tells them. He also thinks things through very thoroughly. When a project of any sort is mentioned it's apparent he's thought of every angle and is prepared down to the details. “He's the first person I've met who is just like me,” I think, and I'm very attracted to him.

I'm invited on a weekend with him and his two assistants, partially a working weekend, but it's clear I'll be expected to sleep with him. I find this exciting—at first. I hop into the front seat of his small but well made convertible; the windows are up and the roof is down. As we pull away, beginning to go into an urban tunnel passing under another road, we have the appearance of being on a lark, a joy ride. But I start to feel uneasy.

The leader's character changes from charming to peevish. I start to feel uncomfortable about the expectation that I will have sex with him. It occurs to me that this group probably take drugs as a matter of course, and that I will be expected to participate. Suddenly the whole “adventure” sours and becomes a source of anxiety rather than fun.

Interpretation: The “leader” is a trickster figure. He looks like my typical trickster: wiry, energetic, and black, my opposite and yet—“exactly like me” in his approach to things. The dream was inspired by a recent visit to an Alan Ginsberg exhibit that reminded me that the guiding lights of art in my childhood were the rebels who stood against middle class morality, often in self-destructive and adolescent ways. (The “leader” is the size of a 12-year-old.) The dream portrays my discomfort with certain aspects of this art world, the idea that it's a place that demands undisciplined behavior and morals. At the same time, there is something attractive about a life without restrictions. Do I see conformity as my only other option?

A basic conflict has emerged here: creativity and freedom versus the straight and narrow. My experience with the graphic designers helps me  get the picture. As the dream goes forward the creative group attempt to put me in their own kind of straight jacket. Each of the two supposedly antithetical groups demands conformity, each has its “standards” and expectations for the behavior of its members. True freedom exists in neither. A conjunctio (a union, symbolized by having sex) with one of the choices does not take place.

Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?

This dream seems to say, "Hang in there! It will be okay."
The Dream: I'm driving through a long tunnel that turns out to be an enclosed bridge. Frosted glass windows, simple and contemporary in design, light its interior. I think the enclosure is never going to end, and then it does, opening through an arch onto a rural scene.

Interpretation: The tunnel evokes a birth canal, and the fact that it's a bridge reinforces the idea that I'm moving from one state of being to another. The frosted glass implies that while something is being illuminated, giving me a new understanding, what it is isn't perfectly clear at the moment. That the style of the window is contemporary tells me that what is happening now is instrumental in the transition, rather than something from the past. The passage seems to take a long time (I think it's never going to end), but the result, when it comes, is natural (the rural scene).

Light at the End of the Tunnel

This dream exemplifies the importance of looking at a sequence of dreams: it answers the previous nightmare.

The Dream: I'm in a tunnel. There is a long line of traffic going slowly in the left lane. I follow along at first, then become impatient, wondering why I don't go around the other cars. I pull to the right and pass the other cars, coming into daylight.

Interpretation: In the previous dream, I was waiting for a train (on a fixed track) in a very black tunnel. It clearly wasn't going to take me where I needed to go. In this dream I'm in the driver's seat, controlling my own vehicle, and getting around an obstacle. Something unconscious (on the left) has been slowing me down; I pull to the right (the obstacle becomes conscious). I get past the block and see the light.

Difficulties of Leadership

The Dream: We are going up a mountain in a rural setting; the landscape is fresh and beautiful, damp and fragrant like a primeval forest. I am on horseback, leading an expedition. My horse pulls some colorful, old-fashioned vehicles that look like circus cars. I am concerned that the cars might fall off the side of the mountain when I go around its sharp curves.

We get to a black tunnel which we must transgress before getting to the top, our destination. I see nothing in the pitch black. My left eye feels clogged: I can’t keep it open.  I am very sleepy. In order not to lose my followers over the edge I try to stick to what I “feel” is the inside track.