The Dream: Clark and I and two friends,
Tom and Joan, are sitting on the floor in a circle. Tom is being very
sweet and congenial, but I feel angry and resentful toward him; I'm
not ready to forgive his past bad behavior.
Clark doesn't seem bothered at all, in
fact he quickly builds a wooden shutter for the guest room window.
The morning sun is very bright in there, and he wants to screen it
out so that the room is more comfortable. He builds a 4-panelled
folding screen, but doesn't paint or finish it. He decides to put it
in the guest room closet: when someone visits he'll finish it.
Interpretation: This unforgiven friend,
Tom, is a screen for a part of myself that I find unacceptable. In
the beginning of the dream the four dream actors are together; the
circle they sit in emphasizes their unity and tells me they are all
part of the same thing: me, in this case. Even the unacceptable one,
the one I resent, is congenial.
My husband, who represents my animus,
doesn't see—or admit—that there's a problem. Even as he denies
the difficulty he works to shut out the light (awareness), making the
excuse that the room is more comfortable this way. This tells me that
I really don't want to see this—it's too uncomfortable. The screen
has four panels, echoing the four dream actors and Jung's four
aspects of the Self. It isn't finished, but closeted (hidden away).
This difficulty will be worked on again when the next guest (insightful dream)
arrives at my house.
