The Unconscious Mother

The Dream: I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and when I come back my mother is in my place. She is almost diagonally across the bed, with her head at the foot. I try to rouse her to get her into a better position, but she remains more than asleep, almost unconscious. I am concerned that I am unable to move her.

Interpretation: Mother is lodged, inappropriately, at the root (foot of the bed) of my unconscious. While I want to reposition her—I am unable to. The dream tells me that I've got things exactly backward, upside down. And that I've relinquished too much of myself (my proper place).

Which Hat to Wear?

Dreams are a good place to discover all the different hats you are able to wear.

The Dream: I’m in a fancy hotel with my cousin and others. I notice a square rising above our heads but not as far as the ceiling. On the top of this structure are all sorts of hats on old-fashioned hat stands. I realize that I myself had placed two or three hats on this structure.

A woman who works for the hotel, the person responsible for keeping us customers satisfied, has come into our suite. She asks if there is anything we need. I ask for some sparkling water, or, if that’s not available, still water. She scurries off to get it, and I wonder if I’ve done the wrong thing; we will probably be charged a lot for this water. I feel uncomfortable, but I decide even if we’re seriously over-charged it will be okay.

Interpretation: My life is rich with possibilities (the fancy place where I’m staying). The square shape represents my potential (in Jung’s terms, the Self) and the hats my possible personas (the different roles I might play). That both are over my head implies I’ve not yet attained either; both are beyond me.

The woman who asks what we need is what we call a guide in dream work: someone to assist or point the way. I ask her for water (a symbol of the unconscious), indicating I would like some of the things locked in my unconscious to become conscious. That I specifically ask for sparkling water shows that I expect access to this unconscious material to be enlightening. As soon as I make my request I regret it: I fear the price will be too high. Is life more easily lived in a state of unconsciousness? Do I really want to take that bite of the apple? In the end I decide the price might be high, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay (it will be okay).

Guest Dreamer: The Strange Case of the Blood Red Haematite and The Philosophers Stone

One of the mysterious things about dreams is how they help us to get to know ourselves. Openfoot’s training and education emphasized the scientific and rational—which is a good thing. On the other hand, it put him at a distance from his intuitive, feeling side—not such a good thing. In this dream he resolves these two often conflicting ways of perceiving the world. Openfoot, who has his own dream website, will tell us his interpretation of the dream, and I’ll add some comments afterward.

The Dream: I am in a long thin room, a lecture theatre perhaps or the gallery of a museum. It is furnished in a nineteenth century style. There is a lot of wooden panelling and wooden framed, glazed display cases. A group of men, of whom I am one, is in the room. We seem to be wearing period costume although it is perhaps a couple of hundred years older than the furniture and decoration in the room. I get the feeling that a meeting has just ended and we remain discussing the substance of the meeting in an informal way and just socialising.

She Kills with Kindness

The Dream: A woman, a celebrity, has a lot of children 7 and under. They are all on a large bed that protrudes onto a city street and seem retractable, like the produce stands that sprout on city streets during business hours. The woman tenderly ministers to the children, but I know she’s killing them. Yet I can’t believe it; she appears to be so genuinely loving. I am confused.

Interpretation: The loving tenderness reminds me of my mother. The retractable bed brings to mind the memory of a time when all three of us children were sick, and Mom set up beds in the living room. She took wonderful care of us. Does the parent, as part of his/her “duty” inevitably “kill” aspects of her children, for example, anti-social, selfish desires or the child’s narcissism? Might the untamed unconscious see this as some sort of murder? Is my psyche still trying to understand these two conflicting roles my mother and all mothers enact?

Life in the Swamp

The Dream: Clark and I are in a wasteland, trying to get back. At one point the ground becomes muddy. The swampy earth clings to Clark’s shoes. He is wearing his “good” shoes, so this is distressing. My shoes are more appropriate to the hike, so I am not bothered. The damp and sticky ground begins to give way to streams of varying widths, and I am concerned that Clark will not be able to wade across. However, he manages easily by jumping. We return to a modern maze-like structure.

Interpretation: Clark, my other half, represents my animus. Delving into unconscious material (the swamp) finds him at a disadvantage. As the unconscious material begins to take shape (changes into streams) I realize he could be in trouble. But since he is the part of me that ignores this sort of thing, he manages by jumping over it. We leave the deeper, swampy material behind in order to attend to a current conundrum (the modern maze-like structure).
 

The Frog and the Baby

The Dream: An earlier dream about a frog morphed into one about an adorable baby, whose diaper I’m having a lot of trouble changing. I mention to no one in particular that it was not such a problem when I had to change my own children.  The baby is very patient. By the time I get her clean diaper on I think she’s already wet herself again, but I don’t want to investigate that too far because I’d have to go through the trouble of another change. Her parent is going to take her someplace in a convertible, so I place her on the back seat, propped up like a papoose. Then I think better of it, fearing she might go flying out and come to harm. I suggest to the parent that we put her on the floor of the backseat. He comes to look to make sure the spot is a good one and that she will fit into it, and then concurs.

Interpretation: This dream is about some part of me that I don’t like becoming acceptable. The appearance of the frog tips the dream’s hand: in the fairy tale the despised frog turns into a prince. The nascent part of myself (the baby) presents me with some difficulties (she is hard to change), and I underline the difficulty when I comment that my own children were “not such a problem.” After a struggle I am successful in changing the baby, but the effect doesn’t last: she immediately wets herself. This tells me she represents a persistent part of my unconscious, and one that I would rather not take a look at. (I don’t want to investigate that too far.)

But one way or another, change is going to take place. A parent (male) arrives in a convertible (a car that converts, i.e., changes). I hand the newly emergent part of myself (the baby) off to this animus figure (the part of me that deals with the outside world). Both my animus and I seek to protect this newly formed, or discovered, part. However, as we protect her we also put her in the backseat, on the floor, where she can’t be seen--or get into trouble.

For a dream featuring a baby and a spider see Baby and Spider
For other dreams featuring frogs see My Inner Frog and Pass It On

Life in the Suburbs

The Dream: A suburban subway stop is under renovation, with bulldozers and plows above ground. The area is landscaped with flowers, concrete, and grass--the attractive but institutional look often created by suburban landscape architects.

Interpretation: Here’s a neat little paradox: the suburbs, with their neat façade of order and respectability and the subway, a dark and steamy underground transport system. The composition of the landscaping—flowers, concrete, and grass—evokes a cemetery. I’m glad this stifling environment is under renovation! And of course, no matter how much it changes, the subway (unconscious) will still run below.

Splashing in the Pool

The Dream: My sister Betty is visiting. I am supposed to have some information about her arrival and departure but I can’t find it. I am scurrying about looking for it. Clark finds the data pricked into a piece of tin-foil with a stylus.

We have a swimming pool off the kitchen and Betty is happily splashing about. The pool has been sectioned; only one square part is heated and in use. The rest goes off to the left. There is no division between the kitchen ad the pool. 

Interpretation: I don’t know something about an important part of me (my sister).  Perhaps this part comes and goes (Betty will arrive and depart). I look for this information in an ineffective way, and my animus (Clark) suggests what I’m looking for might be a foil (tin foil) for something else: perhaps something ancient, as hinted by the use of a stylus.

This realization creates a psychic change that is reflected in the fact that my sister now swims happily in my pool (the unconscious). The square section of the pool reflects the integrated part of my personality; there’s more unconscious (unheated) material (the unused section of the pool off to the left). But it’s an encouraging sign that there is no division between the kitchen (a place where transformation takes place) and the pool (the unconscious).

I, the Dream

The Dream: The dream appears on my blog in the first person saying "I, the dream . . . . "

Interpretation: Apparently my unconscious, represented by the dream, wants me to know that dreams have their own particular point of view (the I) which speaks to me directly. There is also a play on words with the use of the term first person. Is the dream telling me that this unconscious material is the first, most basic,  person I ever was, in other words, the bit of myself that existed before the layers of culture and consciousness evolved? It is the primal aspect of my being.

Why Are Things Unconscious?

The Dream: I am working on an image in Photoshop. The software suggests what part of the image should be cropped out. I don’t like the software making these determinations, but after a while I realize it’s right. The areas it wants me to delete are populated with animals and plants: leaving these in detracts from the main part of the picture.

Interpretation: Our more primitive knowledge and experience, symbolized here by plants and animals, is kept at an unconscious level; so it appears to have been deleted (cropped out). This dream tells me why: consciousness evolved to enable us to focus.

My Path to Enlightenment

Dreams are said to come to us to tell us what we don’t consciously know. If you ever wonder whether or not you are doing the right thing, look to your dreams for guidance.

Dream Image: A desk that looks like the sun.

Interpretation: I’m getting thumbs up from my unconscious with this one. The sun is our source of light (enlightenment). This dream tells me that my unconscious thinks I’m on the right track with the work I do at my desk, where I write in my dream journal, do many illustrations, post this blog, and so on.

Death of the Attached Baby

The Dream: I am in a dune-like area. The sea is implied, but not seen. There is a modern road through the dunes, with a sidewalk and the sort of empty bus stop often seen in the suburbs. I wander here for a while, waiting for one of my husband’s colleagues. He works at a nearby high-tech scientific installation which will soon be dismissing its employees for the day.

It’s 5:00 o’clock, and the lab workers file out of the simple, modern building, about seven stories tall. I am with a woman who has just had a baby. She resembles an artist friend. She is obviously thrilled with her baby, and at first all seems okay; but it soon becomes clear that the baby is still physically attached to her mother—through the mother’s hand. They share capillaries. Then the shocker: we realize the baby has died.

Some medical technicians come and take the baby away. They wrap the baby in newspaper secured with twine; they throw her off a dump truck into a garbage bin. I am appalled. Why wasn’t the baby returned to the family for a respectful and loving funeral?

Back to the mother: She is now attended by her sister, a plain-looking German woman with short cropped strawberry blond hair. The sister is very upset and doesn’t feel the mother is adequately distraught. I know the mother is upset, but in a less effusive way than her sister. I put my arm around the German woman and walk her a few steps away, trying both to comfort her and to keep her from making a bad situation worse.

Interpretation: In the beginning of the dream I am in an intuitive, unconscious state (the sea, the dunes). But progress soon asserts itself in the form of a road, sidewalk, bus stop, and high-tech laboratory. This symbolically plots my early life, my personal progress between the ages of five and seven, which are the two numbers in the dream. During this time I moved from the idyll of a happy 5-year-old child living in a beautiful rural setting to the challenge of starting school and being subjected to the discipline and socialization that entails. At this age we still hold our mother’s hand. That the baby is not completely detached from the mother reflects the wrench that I felt on starting this new phase of life.

Then the dream veers into the present. How do I know? The mother resembles one of my current artist friends: this tells me the issue here is not entirely in the past. The baby, representing my authentic artist self at a critical juncture of my life (between 5 and 7), is carted away by technicians (the school system) and dumped. The dead baby’s crude disposal reminds me of a scene from the movie Amadeus. When Mozart dies he is given a pauper’s burial. The reusable casket opens at one end like a dump truck and his unsheltered body thuds into an open pit, a common grave. How could my baby artist expect any better?

The mother (my adult artist, the compromiser) accepts the death of her own potential with an equanimity that baffles her sister, the German woman, whose geographical proximity to the home of the Austrian Mozart tells me her opinion is important. But in my role as Dream Ego, I try my best to shut her up and keep her from making waves.

Yet again, the voice that seems most difficult in my dream is the one I need to listen to.

Naked at Walgreen’s

Jung tells us we can never bring all our unconscious material to consciousness. With dreams, it’s two steps forward, one step back.

The Dream: I’m going to Walgreen’s. There are showers at the back of the store to the right. I sit on the curb in front of the store and begin to remove my clothes in anticipation of showering. I begin to feel self-conscious and wonder why I didn’t wait until I got to the shower area to disrobe. I go into the store, which has turnstiles near the entrance, hoping no one will notice my nakedness.

Interpretation: Something significant to my psyche is on the cusp on consciousness, but doesn’t quite make it. What about this dream makes me think so? First, the name of the store: Walgreen’s. A wall is some sort of block or impediment. But this wall is green anticipating growth, or a breakthrough. This is emphasized by the showers (water indicates the unconscious) at the back (something from the past) but also to the right (hinting that this material may become conscious). A store, of course, is a place where we keep things, like a storehouse. I’m so ready for this immersion into previously unaccepted material that I throw off my clothes, and immediately regret it.

Self-consciousness intervenes. Jung’s term for the complete person, one who has integrated her unconscious material, is the Self. Self-consciousness here is one of those entertaining little paradoxes dreams throw at us: being conscious of myself prevents me from developing my Self.  I do get past a barrier (the turnstile) but I’m too concerned with my vulnerability (nakedness) to progress further — at least not in this dream.

Making Waves

Dream image: A low wave.

Interpretation: Water represents the unconscious, so this dream tells me that some unconscious material has come to the surface (consciousness), but not in a way that’s intrusive, scary, or even very noticeable. Looking at past dreams with similar imagery, I contrast this with a series of tsunami dreams I once had. My unconscious doesn’t think it has to shout as loud as it once did to get my attention.

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 Box Turtle

The Dream: I see a turtle emerging from the snake hole of the previous post. First I see its head and I’m alarmed, intrigued. Then its body emerges, which is inside a box. It shuffles itself and its box across the ground. Something about it is off-putting.

Interpretation: I think my unconscious has lost patience with me: “If you want to stay in your box, go ahead! But you look ridiculous!” Change and growth are never easy . . . . 

I Spy

The Dream: A fragmentary dream in which some sort of spying predominates. I had the feeling on awakening that this motif has surfaced in other, forgotten, dreams.

Interpretation: Recent dreams have focused on going deeper into the mysterious turf of the unconscious. To spy is to see (I spy with my little I). A spy observes surreptitiously, looking into secrets.

A Hole in the Wood

Your unconscious is a clever wordsmith. If you pay close attention to the words in your dream it will help you figure out what your "inner you" is trying to say.
 
The Dream: There is an opening in a large piece of wood that’s part of a house. The shape of the hole is like a knothole that has fallen out, but it feels more like the wood has separated leaving a gaping hole. I go away, perhaps to find help, and when I return the hole has filled with water. I am very alarmed and holler for Clark. Later, with Mother’s assistance, I am making repairs to a house that needs them.

Interpretation: There’s an interesting play on words here. A hole (whole) and a knot hole (not whole). My house, which represents me, has opened--which is a good thing if we think in terms of someone opening up as opposed to being closed or shutting down. However, it’s clear I’m not comfortable with this; that the hole is filled with water tells me the alarming opening probably has to do with my emotions coming to the fore. I get help from my other half (Clark), and then I can begin to make myself whole (repair the house). Since Mother assists me, the painful emotions being healed probably relate to my grief at her death.

I See Differently

This short dream illustrates the technique I described in my last post.

The Dream: I’ve noticed a change in my vision. I’m less near-sighted, especially in my right eye. The vision in this eye has greatly improved, but I’m afraid that might mean I’m getting cataracts.

Interpretation: As a result of my careful attention to my dreams I see things differently. Jung tells us that the right refers to what we’re conscious of; the left to the unconscious. The dream uses the change in my right eye (the conscious I) to symbolize an expansion in my point of view (I’m less near-sighted).  This sounds positive until I get to my worry about having a cataract. Is the improvement in vision temporary, to be followed by a dimming?

I looked up cataract in the dictionary and discovered that it is “a large waterfall; a cascade upon a great scale” and “any downpour like a cataract; a deluge.” Only when I get to the third definition: “in medicine: opacity of the crystalline lens of the eye” do I find the meaning I was aware of. The unconscious is often symbolized by water imagery, and this puts a different shade of meaning onto the dream’s ending. Instead of reflecting my worry over my new found sharp vision deteriorating, it is more likely the conscious mind’s (the right I) being concerned that it will be overwhelmed by unconscious material.

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.