The Bed and The Diary

The Dream: Part 1: I'm a child. I'm in a room with twin beds. My brother is meant to sleep in one; I'm meant to sleep in the other. I get into his bed with him. I think there's something wrong with my doing this, but it isn't clear to me what it is. I know I should cover up the action. Both pillows are on one bed; the other bed is pristine and clearly has not been slept in. Will Mother figure it out? I decide she'll only think I made my bed and my brother didn't.

Part 2: I'm an adult. I'm reading through an old diary that my daughter had left at the house, written on a stenographer's pad. In one part she describes an active and unembarrassed sex life. I'm very surprised that she had such a frank view of sex at such an early age. I feel uncomfortable about this on the one hand, but on the other hand I think that since all has turned out well, perhaps it's okay. In some parts of the diary I notice a different handwriting and wonder if it's that of one of her boyfriends. I feel a certain dread—but also an attraction—toward reading what he wrote.

Interpretation: These dreams further the sorting out of the “mother” theme. The child/mother relationship is central in both. In the first I'm the child; in the next I'm the mother. In both Mother judges my spontaneous relationship to life (sex) and pleasure, and in the dreams these feelings are symbolized by a socially inappropriate relationship. The fact that I am not sure what might be wrong with being in bed with my bother tells me that the dream is pointing to a very early feeling. The dream uncovers (covers play an important role here!) my earliest sexual feelings and the child's dawning awareness of parental disapproval regarding them. The dream tells me that this has colored my feelings about pleasure: some part of me believes it's something to be leery of.

In the second part my child has developed and explored her sexual feelings despite mother's queasiness on the topic. She keeps her diary in a stenographer's notebook, an interesting touch since stenographers write down what others tell them. What proportion of my view of life and sex was created by the society I live in? There is a role reversal in the dream sequence as I go from child to mother: I become the owner of  my own attitudes and mores. A kind of freedom from the influence of the mother of my childhood occurs as the mother in the second part concludes that perhaps it's okay that her child has freely explored sex.

Putting the Pieces Together

The other day I posted a guest dream from Emily called Killing Gophers. She worked on this dream with a projective dream group and has sent me the insights she gained from the process. As you read what she has written you'll get a sense of the rich material your unconscious gives you in dreams as well as the benefits of having a group to work with in exploring them.

Emily: I, as dreamer, retold the dream to the group. The act of retelling rather than reading my written report brought out additional details. These included the acorn woodpecker eating the tail end of the swallowtail butterfly, and the fact that the scene had pastures in it as well as the brown hills with the gopher holes.

When the group looked at the dream, one of the first thoughts was of food: "swallow", "acorn", "meat". Food is used to nourish us, feed us, keep us alive. Poison is the antithesis, so the dream immediately pictures nourishment/poison and poison/natural environment as the contrasting elements. There is also much about things being hidden: the poison hidden in the meat, the gophers hidden in the ground, the hidden claws of the woodpecker, and the hidden thought that the meat is too expensive. The colors came into play: the yellow of the butterfly and red of the acorn woodpecker verses the brown of the land. Another contrast of vibrancy/lifelessness.

The nature of "twinning" arose - when a dream images two of the same things: ie, the two "tails" for "tales". There was the "swallow-tale" butterfly and the woodpecker eating the "tale of the butterfly".

It was noted that although poison was in the dream, it was not harming the dreamer. It was a source of potential harm. Such as what happens when we swallow something that is not healthy. Both the holes and the poison were round, circular elements of the same size, so their weight was equal in the dream. A status quo.

Phil is a fatherly figure (the dreamer gave 3 adjectives for Phil during the clarification phase and fatherly was one of the adjectives, as were compassionate and caring), who is getting overwhelmed by the invasion of the gophers. The dream doesn't actually resolve any issues, but rather leaves the questions for the dreamer to ponder:

What is something costing the dreamer? (high cost of the meat and choice not to mention this cost to the animus Phil)
What is the dreamer getting to the meat of? (the pork chop)
What tale is the dreamer swallowing? (tail of the butterfly, and the acorn woodpecker eating from the tail end of the butterfly)
How is the compassion of the dreamer becoming overwhelming or to much to bear?

Which, in fact, was the outcome of the dream for the dreamer. For, she had swallowed a pretty big family tale while attending a funeral 2 days earlier. The dream imaged the cost to the dreamer of making the decision not to debunk a myth the other family members believed. It pervaded her sense of integrity and wholeness (or self-righteousness), but it did not destroy her. By keeping the myth alive, at least for now, balance of wholeness for both herself and the rest of the family was maintained.

In Tony Crisp's online Dream Dictionary, he states an idiom "One man's meat is another man's poison". Exactly - what was the meat of the tale nourished the family members' memories of the deceased, but it was poisonous to the dreamer.

Finally, at the IASD Conference, it was suggested at one of the workshops to change the title after working the dream. Thus, the new title for this dream is
"The Hidden Tale".

P.S. Plays on names: (but I think you got them all by now!)
Phil - "fill"
Cooper - "coop her"
Tail - "tale"
Gopher - "go for it"
Holes - "wholeness"