Totem

Jung tells us that “The ancestral spirits play an important part in primitive rites of renewal. . . . This atavistic identification with human and animal ancestors can be interpreted psychologically as an integration of the unconscious, a veritable bath of renewal in the life-source . . . .” *

The Dream: Near the door of the house is a totem, going from the top of the entry way to its floor. The entry way is very tall; the style of the house a combination of Spanish hacienda and 20th c. contemporary. The totem is a bas relief. The shape near the door first appears to be a tear-drop, but part of it morphs into something like the head of a bull. Other shapes flow from this to the ceiling where the totem wraps overhead. Colors are rich: reds, greens, ochres: a painted wood look. One shape is an antique looking sun. It’s modernist and old-fashioned (primitive?) at the same time.

I don’t like it and wonder if Clark put it there without consulting me. Then I realize it came with the house and is the work of a famous architect. I try to like it.

Interpretation: I come out of my house (myself) through a door (changing from one state of awareness to another) and see this very ancient complex representation of myself: a totem. I am an expression of my genetic history:  a carrier in time and space of the life force of my ancestors. I try to dissociate from this unfamiliar way of seeing myself (I blame my other half for putting up the totem) but soon realize it came with the house (it’s who I am). Reconnecting with the archaic part of my psyche will result in a kind of rebirth. Jung again: “The case before us proves that even if the conscious mind is miles away from the ancient conceptions of the rites of renewal, the unconscious still strives to bring them closer in dreams.”**

*C.G. Jung, Dreams, translation by R.F.C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX from The Collected Works of C.G. Jung Volumes 4,8,12 16 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974) 205
**C. G. Jung, op. cit., 211

Baring the Breast

Have you ever had a dream that seems to resolve a previous dream? Jung tells us that this is to be expected, and that it is part of our natural psychic regulation. This is similar to the way natural physical adjustments take place, for example, sweating to cool the body when you get too warm. In my chat with Jane Teresa Anderson (Episode 44 of The Dream Show) she pointed out that the title of the dream The Bodice Ripper could refer to an opening (exposure) of the heart. I had this dream the night after our chat.

The Dream: I am sitting at a table of arty and intellectual architects. After a while I realize I have no clothes on above the waist. One of the men comes and sits next to me, kissing me on the cheek and saying, “I’ve missed you.” I notice the softness of his youthful face, although his hair is thinning and he must be in his 40s. I say, “I’ve missed you, too.” His name is at the edge of my awareness but I don’t quite get it. We’re happy to be together but can’t think of anything to say.  I notice my bare breasts and think I should cover up, but do nothing about it.

Interpretation: The bodice is off; my heart has opened. The rapprochement is not only with the part of me that can deal with the outer world (my animus) but also with my first image of a man, my father. The exchange about missing each other refers to my grief over his death. That I am sitting with a table of architects tells me that something new is being built.

Not Ready to Take the Plunge

As you work with your dreams, you might find they comment on the process of working with dreams—in other words, with the process of beginning to understand normally unconscious material.

The Dream: I’m at the gym, but it looks like a hotel room. I’m with my mother, and we have stopped in to have a bath. My mother bathes first, in a small bathroom with a shower curtained tub and a toilet. When I am ready for my turn, I notice she has left many towels rolled up in the tub. I start to remove them, looking for a place to put them. I run out of room and patience when I spot a beige and brown granite tub in the bedroom. It is rectangular in shape and shallow. I wonder if it’s clean. When I am ready to get in, the tub disappears.

Interpretation: This dream is about working out (I’m in the gym) a way to access unconscious material. While the action takes place in the gym it looks like a hotel, a temporary residence, hinting that I’m neither here nor there. We have come to this place to bathe: going into water symbolizes immersion into the unconscious. Even though I thought I was ready for the experience, difficulties show me I’m not.  First, my internalized “mother” places so many obstacles in the tub that I give up trying to remove them. Then I move on to the bedroom, where a font-like tub appears. Would immersion here be a sort of baptism into the realm of the unconscious? I’m not comfortable with this tub, finding it unclean, and it doesn’t trust me either: it disappears at the moment I’ve overcome my resistance to it.

Abducted by Aliens:The Chosen

         
Not to be outdone by my brother (see yesterday’s blog), I also have an encounter with aliens—but mine ends in a party instead of a fight. You can probably put that down to the difference between boys and girls. (Oops, I think I’d better duck!)

The Dream: I’m wandering around the streets of NYC on a bright sunny day, preparing for a move by loading things into a big open cart placed near the curb. Mother is helping. I’m in a residential part of the city, with tall apartment buildings and wide streets, somewhere on the upper West side.

In the next scene a group of us (we’re young adults or teenagers) have been abducted by aliens. This is a sort of privilege; we don’t understand much about what’s going on but we know we’ll be informed as events unfold. We know a party is being planned; our group will meet with other similar groups in a “mixer.” The entire group is attractive and smart: the chosen.

Interpretation: Clearly, I’m ready for some sort of large change (a move). The street symbolizes my path in life. The change is probably some sort of spiritual move since my possessions (worldly goods) are being “curbed.” West can be a symbol for the unconscious, and upper a symbol for consciousness. So the upper West side suggests some unconscious material is integrating into my conscious awareness.
As in my brother’s dream, the aliens stand in for parts of me that I find, well, alien. Since we use only a very small part of our potential brainpower, it stands to reason that quite a bit of what’s going on within us is alien. The dream tells me that getting to know these aliens within is a good thing. Let’s party!

The Chicken and the Egg

When someone you know appears in a dream you have to puzzle out whether the dream is about that person and your relationship or that person as an aspect of yourself. In this dream, which I interpret as being about my development as an artist, I see my husband symbolically as “my other half.” In this role, as my Animus, he supports my desire to “steal” some creativity. There’s often a parallel between myths and dreams: in this case it’s Prometheus stealing fire from the gods.

The Dream: I’m walking with my husband Clark in a large garden. I pass by a chicken and a rectangular box of eggs, but then have second thoughts and call it to Clark’s attention. “Look,” I say, “You don’t have to buy chickens. You can have a wild one.” The chicken is very colorful, looking more like a rooster than a hen. It is small and struts behind the box of eggs, apparently guarding them. I suggest to Clark that we take some of the eggs; meanwhile I’m worried about the chicken’s reaction. I wonder how she sits on them to hatch them; they are spread out in a rectangular box and she would have to sit on them sequentially. As we begin to cull the eggs I have a new worry: what if some of the eggs have begun to develop into chicks? How awful would it be to open an egg and see a partially developed chick! We select some eggs. They vary in size. We try to avoid the ones with developing chicks in them.

Interpretation: The incubating creativity is here and available. It’s up to me to be aware of it. It is part of the deeply instinctive. It is guarded by the Eternal Maternal, in herself very beautiful, but a force that needs to be worked around and placated because she represents both the good and the bad of the traditional. A rigid conventionality, represented by the box, could hamper the potential of the eggs, some of which are developing in a conventional manner. We want the ones that have not started to develop: infinite potential.

The Divine Child

Jung discovered that some symbols are what he called archetypal. He felt that these were so basic to human experience that all cultures created myths about them. One such prevalent symbol is the Great Mother; another is the Divine Child. Often dreams refer only to our day-to-day activities, but the occasional dream touches a deeper level, as I think this one does.

The Dream: A friend has recently had a baby. Since she has several other children and is very busy she gives me the baby to care for. Although the baby is a newborn, she can talk and walk. I’m very entranced by this child. I tell her that she’s as intelligent as a 3-year-old, although in fact she seems far more intelligent than that. I don’t feel the parental anxiety my own children engendered, and I find myself becoming quite attached. The dream details are foggy, but I do remember a lot of discussion about giving her a bath. At one point her arms break out in a rash. The child explains why and pulls out a salve which cures her the moment she applies it. There’s a lot of moving around from place to place, sometimes up and down stairs.

Interpretation: This dream is a visitation from the Divine Child, the part of me that holds my untarnished, limitless potential. The Child is self-healing, representing my ability to heal myself. We move together through various levels of consciousness, shown by our movement from place to place and up and down stairs. The bath is symbolic of my baptism into a new life: some sort of transformation is at hand.