The Turquoise Box

The Dream: A turquoise box, filled with wriggling people.

Interpretation: This dream doesn’t seem to give us much to work with, just some shape and color. But in the end it has more to say than you might expect. When we dream of square shapes, like this turquoise box, Jung tells us that we have created a temenos, a safe psychic space for transformation. Turquoise, according to Tony Crisp, speaks of intuition and an expanding consciousness.  And what about the colors that create turquoise, blue and green? Blue is associated with religious feeling (the Virgin Mary wears blue for this reason) and new horizons (the vast blue sky).  Green is the color of growth.

The wiggling people? They must be all those inner selves trying to find their proper place in my psyche. There are enough positive symbols in this dream for me to think they might succeed.

Mouse Lady

Some dreams reveal their meaning best when looked at in a series. A transformation takes place over the next three dreams, but I didn’t realize it until I looked at them as a group. I'll post the rest of the series later in the week.

The Dream: There is food on the counter, and I see a mouse. As I watch it its tail lengthens. As I scream about the mouse, I notice it has turned into the head of a very unattractive woman with a long dark brown pony tail. It’s socially awkward that I took her for a mouse.

Interpretation: The good things in life (food) are contaminated by something I find revolting (a mouse). It makes me scream. But wait! It isn’t a mouse, it’s a woman—and not recognizing her for what she is has created a problem. (It’s awkward.) The dream tells me that as the mousy part of me transforms into something braver and stronger I have to guard against seeing these newly emergent qualities as unattractive.

The Inquisition

The Dream: In a classroom, with several rows of people seated in an orderly arrangement on the Danish modern classroom chairs of my childhood. A Chinese dictator presides. He is very angry because he has opened a package meant for me that has exploded, singeing his brows and mouth, which are the most prominent features of his mask-like face. He wants to know who’s to blame for the explosion. I admit, after a while, that it is my fault. He says, ominously, “You will suffer.” He demands to know the full story, and although I’m reluctant at first to implicate others, I tell it.

I acted at the behest of another authority figure, a white middle-aged man. As I tell my story, the Asian dictator comes to me, and he very gently hugs me. This seems out of character and I don’t know what to think. I don’t trust him, and I don’t think his affectionate gesture means that he will not administer whatever punishment he feels my deed merits.

Interpretation: I’m in a classroom; I have something to learn. The room’s furniture tells me it’s a lesson from my childhood when I did something that caused an explosion (emotional upheaval). As seems to be the case in childhood, the most important thing to the one in charge is to find out whose fault it is. But I am stuck, since my action was demanded by yet another authority, this one a white man. The Asian, being a different race from me, represents what Jung calls my “shadow,” a part of myself that I have not consciously acknowledged. My shadow shows some tenderness and compassion upon realizing my dilemma, but my dream ego is not won over. This issue needs more work, and I expect to see it arise in future dreams.

A New Space

The Dream: We are moving into a new place, and Clark and I discuss whether or not it needs painting. He’s concerned we’ll have to get the place back to its pristine condition before we move out (it’s a rental). I mention we’ll have to do the same with the place we’re currently renting. I tell him I’ll paint the new place in light colors so it will be easy to restore.

Interpretation: In light of the previous dream, populated with dead friends, I think this dream attempts to make me comfortable with my friends' deaths and, in addition, my own mortality. Moving to a new place can be looked at in a couple of ways (at least). It's a metaphor for dealing with an issue: people often say they're "moving on" after they have resolved a trauma. In another sense, the moves from place to place, in rented homes, reflect the impermanence of the body.  Making the new place “easy to restore” symbolizes my hope for rebirth.

Clearing Out

As I was drifting off to sleep last night I was bothered by the low level, but chronic, pain left over from a bout of sciatica years ago. I then remembered other muscular pain over the years: neck, shoulder, arm—and realized all of it was on the left side of my body. Since the left is a metaphor for the unconscious, I began to wonder if I had some psychic pain that was expressing itself physically. It seemed as if the pain lessened somewhat as soon as I had this thought. I requested a dream that would help me see the trigger.

The Dream: I have moved into a very large house that is jammed with things left by the previous occupant. I wonder why I haven’t cleared it out and put my own stamp on the place. Why am I living with these artifacts of another’s life? There is so much clutter that the task seems overwhelming. I wish my friend Stephen were here to help me figure out what is valuable so I can get rid of the rest.

I discover a plushly furnished living room leading to a dining room. I go through the sideboard and find it is full of beautifully made dresses from a previous era. One is encrusted with handmade lace; another, a lovely Claire McCardell plaid. I think I might be able to wear these lovely things until I notice each is flawed: either old sweat stains at the underarms or fabric faded in spots. My friend Alex and I look through folded garments, and I am pleased they have some value.

There is so much to throw away. I wonder if I am limited to one garbage can a week or if I can fill plastic bags with the excess and have it carted away.

Interpretation: The friends who appear in this dream have died, which is a strong clue that the dream deals with my reaction to loss—to my wanting to hold onto things from the past. Because these things are beautiful I don’t want to let them go, even though they stand in the way of my “putting my own stamp” on the life I’m now living (the house I’m in). As the dream progresses I have more energy to face the clearing out process, and by the end I’m filling garbage cans and looking for more.

The Chocolate Mondrian

The Dream: I see a rectangle, on its side, a beautiful chocolate brown color, with a smaller off-center square superimposed in a salmon or reddish color, and some cinnamon-color stripes. Mondrian comes to mind: a geometric sort of art, but with colors very different from his. The image also reminds me of a wrapped present. I think it is very beautiful.

Interpretation: Looking at this image in Jung’s terms, I see the rectangle as what he called the Self: in other words, as the totality of my potential being. The square represents the part of the Self that is conscious. The cinnamon stripes, one of which intrudes into consciousness, are gateways allowing unconscious material to come to consciousness.

A Dream Seminar with Jeremy Taylor

Instead of posting a dream today I’m going comment on a dream seminar I attended last weekend, lead by Jeremy Taylor and attended by 17 very knowledgeable and experienced dreamers whose life experiences run the gamut from analyst, event planner and musician to  priest, accountant and artist. Our topic was “Transpersonal Dreams and Dreams of the Divine.”  Simply put, Jeremy explains transpersonal dreams as those with material that includes the personal, but also has meaning for the rest of us.

Jeremy lectured, and we learned much from his invaluable store of dream wisdom, gleaned over a lifetime of work in the field. We also learned from each other. I hope that other attendees will post to this blog, so I am going to limit myself to commenting on the core lesson of the meeting, for me.  I expect it will be different for each. In my case, it was Jeremy’s emphasis on the crucial role of paradox in our dreams. For example, let’s say I dream of a dung beetle. In trying to puzzle out what the beetle means in my dream I think first that it is a disgusting insect, and then I’m reminded of the Egyptian scarab, a beautiful symbol of creative divinity. Which understanding of the beetle applies to my dream?  Is it disgusting, or is it divine? As Jung explains, when we are trying to bring something counter to our usual understanding to consciousness, “it is never a question of ‘this or that,’ but of ‘this and that.”1 Or, as Jeremy puts it, “all of the above.”

One of Jung’s best known concepts is that of synchronicity (things happening at the same time that may or may not be related but that strike us as if they were). So—the morning after the seminar as I opened my Sunday paper and turned to the book section, I was struck by a review of two books by Hans Keilson that spoke directly to the inner paradoxes we attempt to uncover through our dream work. The reviewer said that “. . . . Keilson performs the difficult trick of showing how a single psyche can embrace many contradictory thoughts, and how naturally extreme intelligence and sensitivity can coexist with obtuseness, denial and self-deception.”2

1 C.G.Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, translated by W.S.Dell and Cary F. Baynes, (San Diego, New York, London: A Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc., 1933), 21.

2 Francine Prose, “As Darkness Falls,” The New York Times Book Review (August 8, 2010): 8.