Guest Dreamer: Laid Off and Weeping

Today’s guest dreamer is Emily. She is an experienced dream worker and will interpret her own dream—although that isn’t a word she likes to use. “I'm never comfortable with using 'interpretation' when working with a dream,” she says, “perhaps because there never is one interpretation.” That’s a good point.
       
The Dream: I am in the instructor’s room at the county jail where I used to work as a teacher. I sit at a small round wooden table across from my tall blond co-worker Alyssa. Our boss Evans walks in and asks her if she has 2 ½  hours available. He then talks about how good Alyssa has been on the job; so good, in fact, that he is going to have to lay her off. Tension builds in the room. Alyssa stands up to walk out with Evans to go to that 2 ½  hour meeting where she’ll be terminated, and she starts to cry. I stand up to hug her, and I start crying as well. As we embrace and weep together, she inadvertently knocks off my Tilley hat.

Emily’s thoughts on her dream: As jail is a form of imprisonment, I see how I can imprison myself by being “too good” a daughter, wife, or friend. So good, in fact, my animus needs to deliver me from my self-imposed and compulsive responsibility that has recently resurfaced in waking life (I know my boss never took his job half as seriously as I took mine, so the message comes across loud and clear).

The weeping is timeless grief. As Alyssa grieves at leaving her “dream” job (which I held in waking life for many years with much satisfaction), I grieve at the passing of my old, unhealthy habit of needing to be needed. Allyssa knocks off my Tilley hat which represents outdoor activity, recreation, freedom.  By embracing Allyssa the dream ego shows compassion for the qualities that are not so great about the “good girl” persona. Perhaps she’ll soon put the hat on!

Carla’s thoughts: If this were my dream, I would ask myself about the significance of 2 ½ since my dream emphasizes that number by mentioning it twice.

The things I’m “too good” at are socially determined roles: daughter, wife, friend. The phrase “laid off” tells me that some part of me is saying, “Lay off! Gimme a break.”

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.