A Bossy Woman

The Dream: A stout and bossy woman, in an office, is talking too loud. She is promoting some sort of “help” she pedals to groups. At first it sounds interesting, and I wonder if she might be a good speaker for a women’s group I belong to. I try--again and again--to ask if she would like to do this, but she won’t let me get a word in. Her over-loud voice is embarrassing, and her bossy manner and unwillingness to listen, annoying. Finally I just want her to go away. She exits to the left.

Interpretation: In my last posted dream it looked as though I were reconciling conflicting parts: the stay-at-home femininity of my youth with the woman-active-in-the-world of my adulthood. But just as I thought progress was being made a shadow figure emerges to let me know that I haven’t finished. And she wants to be heard! (She's very loud.) Jung says shadow figures contain parts of ourselves that we dislike and don’t want to acknowledge. I push this bossy, embarrassing creature back down into the unconscious (she exits to the left). Want to bet she’ll be back?

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.”