Learning My Limits

Many dreams are about work. Sometimes they can solve a problem that your waking mind couldn't.
The Dream: Someone is looking through my artwork, rejecting most of it. Some pieces he “doesn't get;” others he dislikes for technical reasons. Finally he comes to a grayscale painting, an under-painting that is finished as far as its values go, but has no chroma. He almost likes this one. He still doesn't “get it:” the subject, based in dream or myth, eludes him, but he likes the pieces formal qualities: composition and value. I haven't paid too much attention to his criticism, but I have an aha at this one. “Oh,” I say, “ I should limit my color palette, perhaps to 3 colors.” I am excited about trying this and think it will improve my painting.

Interpretation: I am working on a painting that has become fraught with color and design problems I find I like more simplicity and organization in my designs now, and don't think I can rescue this one from its chaos. I started it as an experimental piece, and the dream tells me to let it go—to learn the lesson it's teaching and move on.

Searching for the Perfect Solution

The Dream: I'm in a costume shop working on a plaid fabric. After working for a while I feel what I've done isn't right so I redo it. Later I've completed the project but feel the colors aren't quite right—they're too intense—so I destroy the work and start over. I work a while longer then start to leave to run some errands at the mall. The shop foreman runs after me, followed by most of the workers, to tell me I'm still wearing my soiled apron. I'm aware that I've done this several times.

Back at work I'm very frustrated with the lack of progress on my project. As I work on it I say to the boss, “I'm going to quit; this is too hard!” But I'm not sure I mean it; I'm sorry I said it. Nevertheless, I'm not getting anywhere with my work.

Interpretation: This is one of those typical, mundane sort of dreams that, like most, are rooted in day-to-day frustrations. I have too many irons in the fire, and I'm having a difficult time focusing on any one thing, so nothing seems to “work.” The fabric of my life is not working for me. The interwoven colors of the plaid just don't seem to go together, in the same way that my many projects are pulling me in different directions. Time to take a break. Maybe going shopping isn't such a bad idea, as long as I shop for a different approach to my frustration. Perhaps I need to learn that the solution doesn't always have to be “perfect,” just good enough.

Free to Be Me

The Dream: I look out my window. There is a birdhouse full of beautiful birds very close. I enjoy seeing their colors and I want to entice them into a cage I've prepared for them, in the house. After making an attempt I have second thoughts. The birds should be free. I can see them well enough where they are. I decide it would be wrong to cage them and I no longer try.

A little later I see a duck with it face pressed to the screen, wanting to come in. A duck was never in my plans. I don't want him. I feel a little sorry for the creature and its strong wish to enter.

Interpretation: The dream was triggered by something I was reading last night about Daffy Duck and its creator, Chuck Jones. He mentioned his first experience of Daffy. When he was 6 years old he wanted all his birthday cake for himself and was taught the meaning of the word “selfish.” The conflicted feelings he experienced became the cornerstone for building Daffy. Earlier in the day I had been thinking of my own childhood / young adult selfishness, so it's no surprise that Daffy turned up. In the dream I move from being the selfish child who wants what it sees (the beautiful birds) with no thought for their well-being, to an adult who understands that what she wants may not be good for others. Yet Daffy is pressing his nose to the glass and wants to come in. Perhaps the dream is telling me that it's okay to accept the small selfish part that's still there. I also need to be free: free to be me, warts and all.

Taera is the Color of the Earth

The Dream: I am painting Taera, a mythological goddess who represents the Earth. I paint her the color of earth. It seems very dark to me; I am concerned as I put this color down that I will not get smooth transitions.

I didn't remember this dream until later in the day when I was reading Marija Gimbutas' The Living Goddess. On page 208 she mentions that an Old European goddess, the Lithuanian Zemyna, is black. Her name comes from the word “zeme,” meaning earth.

Interpretation: My dream evoked an archetype: the earth, fertile and black, represented as a female deity. I accept this concept, but with some misgivings: when I wonder if she is too dark. I am looking at the difficulties of the life she symbolizes, with its inherent pain and inevitable darkness. And yes, the transitions are difficult!

Time and Eternity

Can color and texture hold a dream's meaning? Read on.

The Dream: My child is wearing a red crocheted dress over a lavender and purple silky skirt; in some way these pieces don’t go together. The child is very pleased with herself for selecting this outfit and doesn’t seem to realize the pieces clash.

Interpretation: The meaning of this dream lies in its colors and textures. The color red is associated with life (childbirth, menstruation) and death (flowing blood). A crocheted texture is rough and bumpy. Taken together, the red color and uneven texture of the crocheted dress symbolize the rough road of our lives in time.  Meanwhile, underneath, is a silky smooth violet garment. According to Tony Crisp’s Dream Dictionary, violet often “appears in dreams containing a deep sense of one’s eternal nature . . . .” My intuitive (child) awareness can accept these two apparently contradictory modes of being: temporal and eternal. (She doesn’t realize they clash.) On the other hand my reason (the adult) can’t accept the dichotomy, pointing out that the pieces “don’t go together.”

Goosed Girl

Is my inner trickster telling me to open my eyes? Wake up?

The Dream: A man and I are at a party. A tall woman in a champagne-colored, draped-front shift stands next to us. The man pinches her bottom, then stands there looking angelic so she won’t think he did it. After he does this a couple of times I go sit by myself on some stairs, afraid the woman might think I’m the one pinching her.

A little later the woman comes over to me. The man has convinced her that I am the one who pinched her, and she's angry. I sputter my surprise and innocence.

Interpretation: This is what’s called a trickster dream, dreams in which a badly-behaved person gets the better of the dream ego. There’s an interesting pun here, since pinching is said to be a test of whether or not we’re dreaming. (For example, “When I heard I won the Lottery I pinched myself.”)  Since we are the entire cast of our dreams, in this dream I’m literally dreaming, I’m getting pinched, and I’m pinching myself. I think my inner trickster was feeling playful. The dream made me laugh, and if it has a deeper meaning I don’t know what it is.

The Evaluation

The Dream: Clark has entered a project in some sort of judged event, and he is receiving recognition. His piece has been evaluated, with people writing comments on colored pieces of paper that they paste onto a light pink support. The comments are in different hands and follow curved paths, creating something like an abstract piece of art. I am impressed and happy that his project has generated so much interest.

Interpretation: Dreams let us know we are on the right track sometimes, especially if we are not quite aware of it in waking life. Clark, who represents my animus (the part of me that takes on the world), is having some success. I am pleased.

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.

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

The Beautiful Bird

Do you dream in color? Dream specialists attach significance to the way we color our dreams.

The Dream: A beautifully patterned bird flies overhead, its flight path a half-circle. The bird is brilliantly colored: red, green, black and white.

Interpretation: A bird is symbolic of the spirit and indicates my awareness is expanding. Its half-circular flight, however, suggests the expansion is incomplete.  The colors in the dream are complementary pairs: red/green; black/white. As such, each intensifies the other. Red signals that this dream is important. Green is a color of growth and transformation; here it points to previously unconscious material becoming (growing into) consciousness. Black represents the unknown, the unconscious, the things I’m not aware of; it’s paired with white, associated with consciousness.  This pairing of opposites gives a strong hint that I must resolve something that’s pulling me in two directions. If I can I will complete the circle, becoming whole.

The Lampshade

Have you ever had a dream that interpreted itself for you? I haven’t had many, but this one did.

The Dream: A lampshade features prominently. It is colorful, made of translucent geometric forms in shades of yellow, green and orange. The dream explains its own symbolism: it tells me that the lampshade’s significance is that it both conceals and reveals illumination.

Taera of the Waterfall

Dreams are very good at turning ideas into images, as this one does.

The Dream: A woman tells me about an art gallery where she is exhibiting her work. She thinks I should also exhibit there. We look at several of my very large paintings. One in particular catches our attention: on the left is an abstractly rendered waterfall with discrete patches of color suspended in space; on the right sits a female goddess. The picture is called Taera of the Waterfall.

Interpretation: Over the years I’ve come up with an idea about why making art is difficult. It requires two contradictory qualities: control and abandon. The waterfall in the dream, with its flowing water made out of rigid shapes, is a pictogram of this concept. 

Kaleidoscope Mandala

Societies across all cultures have created religious art based on a circle: in the West we see halos and rose windows in cathedrals; in the East are the mandalas of Hindu and Buddhist temples. Jung considered this an archetypal symbol of what he calls the self.

The Dream: A young royal with many connections is arranging a Christmas party for some even younger relatives. He has set a table with a linen cloth and much fine, if rather arbitrarily chosen, china and silver. It’s as if the prince has furnished the event with items he found discarded in the palace basement. The seat of honor, a throne-like chair, is old and very delicate. Nevertheless, it’s very pretty. Two children are in attendance, one on either side of the rectangular table. I am helping the attractive young prince, although I’m not sure why. Am I toadying to his rank, trying to gain favor or status? I’m not sure. 

I offer to serve the cream to the children and go to retrieve the pitcher. When I return I ask each child in turn if he or she would like some. They are very polite little British children and say, “Yes, please!” with their adorable accents. I pour a large quantity of a thick yellow goop onto the little boy’s plate, then feel I’ve overdone it and scoop some back into the pitcher hoping my action has gone unnoticed. The other child also gets an over-large quantity. I look at their plates, everything obscured by a thick layer of cream, and I feel embarrassed; but the children don’t seem to mind.

I hear a distant voice approaching. Pavarotti, one of the famous 3 tenors, is singing. The young royal who organized the party pressed him into service for the event.

All at once I’m at the table with the children, in a seat with a rounded hood like a bassinet. There’s a dome over my head, and I see a beautiful kaleidoscope of color. To my left I see Santa Claus. He is very beautiful, perfect. Everything is perfect and theatrical. For a brief moment I think I can again believe in this child’s land of wonder—then the alarm went off. 

Interpretation: According to Jung one of the functions of dreaming is the attainment of the self. Briefly put, the self is realized potential. This almost never occurs completely; it is as rare as sainthood. But when we make some progress in the right direction our unconscious gives us thumbs up. By joining the children at the table I’ve integrated my child--one of the fragmentary, shadowy, unconscious aspects of myself--so my dream shows me symbolically that I’ve made some progress, in this case by producing a mandala.

Your Money or Your Life

Many who are interested in dreams are artists. If you are, I think you’ll find this dream relevant to the age-old artist’s conundrum: make art or make money.

The Dream: I go to an art supply outlet. It is an old-fashioned office in an industrial firm. The room is not at all glamorous, with beige file cabinets, clutter and a utilitarian wooden desk. Behind this desk sits a younger middle-aged woman (about 40). She is thick-set, has dark brown hair and wears horn-rimmed glasses. She is a little chubby, with a round face and in a very dull dark blue dress.

I give her a list of pigments and other art supplies that I would like to purchase. I realize I don’t have the money to pay for my supplies, which have amounted to $200.00. I ask if it is okay if I write her a check, and then ask my mother if the money is in the account: she might have to transfer some money.

I can see the woman is disapproving. She is wondering why I don’t earn my own money. I arrange that I will call her after I get my mother’s approval, and then she will send me the supplies. Since I have been a long-time customer I am annoyed that she didn’t trust me enough to let me take the art supplies home with me.

Interpretation: The short one: I’m not getting any credit! To elaborate: Some part of me is unsure if I have the right to color (the pigments). In this dream color represents an expressive outlet. My color is controlled by the rigid forces of practicality: industry, busy-ness, clutter (old unresolved stuff lying about). I can’t give myself any credit for the choice I’ve made or the work I do. As Oscar Wilde said, “All art is utterly useless.” I am dependent on my internalized “mother” for approval. Another part of me is disgusted with this dependence and thinks I should “earn my own money;” in other words, be my own source of affirmation.

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 Medieval Poisoners

Two women in a woman’s dream can allude to two conflicting parts of herself, as in this dream, where it’s a fight to the death.

The Dream: Two women have a rivalry. One is young, attractive, and dark-haired. I pretend to be her friend. The other has dark blonde hair and looks about 50; she is slightly stout. I don’t know her very well. I know about their plots and machinations but saying nothing, letting events take their course. Both the women wear medieval costume:  the younger one in dusty mauves and pinks, the older in autumnal rich ochres. The beautiful dark-haired woman has been poisoned and dies in my arms while I watch without much reaction. The other woman has also been poisoned, and I know she too will die soon. I look at her face and see a kindly older person. It’s like a small revelation. So I suggest that, if she is capable of it, she try to vomit. Once I have given her this heads-up I realize that she was the one responsible for poisoning the other woman. So how kind could she be?

Interpretation: I see a conflict from the past, as symbolized by the medieval costume. On the one hand I have the part of myself that cleaves to the roles inculcated in my youth: the beautiful young woman refers to the beautiful aspect of woman in my girlhood. How lovely she was, in her elegant Vogue splendor: hats, gloves, chic costume—and what fun it was to be completely preoccupied with fashion and elegance.
The older woman symbolizes the “older and wiser” part of me, the part that rejects being limited to a superficial and decorative role. (Not to mention the part that, being older, would have a hard time pulling it off.) So, inevitably perhaps, the older self kills the younger. But she must face the possibility that in killing off her younger self she also poisons herself. The dream ego steps in just in time to save her, but not without some reservation.