The Transformative Power of the Child

After the very long analysis of the last very short dream, my unconscious offered up this delightful confirmation of the importance of the inner child.

The Dream: I’m at a doctor’s office. She sits in an enclosed cubicle and asks questions as I lie in a bed nearby. I have two problems with her questions: 1) I can’t hear them, and 2) I can’t understand them. She uses a lot of big words; strung together they create incomprehensible sentences. I become frustrated and angry and—feeling inadequate—I blurt out: “I’m a Phi Beta Kappa; I’m not stupid! And I can’t understand what you’re saying!”

I am with my daughter, who is a baby but as intelligent as an adult. She tries to tell me what the doctor is saying. I embrace my child, enjoying our closeness, but partially showing off for the doctor. “See? I have a good relationship with my child!”

The doctor comes out of her cubicle in a fairy princess outfit. She is taking part in a show the staff is putting on. One of the staff comes over and removes her doctor’s name tag.

Interpretation: There are things my intellect cannot understand and cannot cure. Progress for my psyche comes through feeling (the embrace) and intuition (the child). When I embrace my child, something magical happens.

Dream Mapping

Today let’s look at a different interpretation technique, taught to me by my friends Lisa Rigge and Beth Okurowski in a dream class they recently led.  The method, created by Bob Haden of the Haden Institute, consists of asking yourself a series of questions about your dream. I’m following the method loosely here. If you were to learn Bob’s Mapping Dreams technique from him it would include more detail and instruction than I can cover in a blog post.

The Dream: A secretary’s chair sits near the water in a natural setting. It is upholstered and padded, either pink or turquoise. Little baby geese have been nesting on the seat. I get them to move and see lots of little goose poops on the seat. I remove the chair back to clean the seat and remark it’s a good thing the geese weren’t full grown.

Q: What is the setting of the dream?
A: The setting is natural, near water.

On(e) Stage

Have you ever noticed that you’re not quite yourself in dreams? The lead character in your nightly drama is called the dream ego.

The Dream: I’m in an odd-shaped structure, something like a tent except that it’s solid. It has various entrances, some of them in surprising places. I get up on a stage which has been set up inside this very large, yellow-ochre structure and begin to give a speech. I’m full of self-confidence as I begin. “Girls inherit their lungs from their mothers . . . .” I trail off as I begin to realize I have no idea where boys get their lungs. I try to find a way to retreat, to get off the stage. I escape through a back exit I hadn’t known was there. The “I” in the dream (dream ego) has dark brown curly hair and a perky demeanor. She doesn’t actually look like me.

Interpretation: The part of me that internalized the opinions of my mother and the female culture of my youth is beginning to realize she doesn’t know everything. She is in retreat. Her domain, the half circle of the tent, shows itself to be incomplete. She is missing what Jung calls the animus, the part of a woman--symbolized by her inner man--that enables her to take on the world.

Pulling Along Old Stuff

It’s a big jump from the Doris Day femininity of my youth to the Hillary Clinton womanhood of today. For women to successfully navigate the still patriarchal world in which we live, we need to get acquainted with what Jung calls our animus, or inner man.

The Dream: A cartoon man is driving across the country. He is in a car with a trailer loaded with his “stuff.” He drives erratically, at times paying no attention to his driving and at other times dozing. His wife is worried about him. He has decided to pull into a motel / hotel to get some rest, but before he does he goes back to check on the trailer—without stopping the car. Two highway patrol officers stop him. He looks very sleepy. The officers accost him roughly, one of them pushing the man up against his car.

Interpretation: My nascent inner man (animus) is sleepy, dozing, ready for a rest and irrational. He’s so undeveloped that he’s like a cartoon. When he tries to emerge into the role he should have in my life the censoring force of the ego (the policeman) treats him badly. This aspect of my psyche needs work.

Weeds in the Garden

People sometimes ask if a small fragment of a dream is enough to yield an interpretation. And the answer is yes. In my dream group we sometimes spend an hour talking about a two-sentence dream. Since this is a short dream I thought it might be a good one to use to show you the process of interpreting. If you want to play along, you can pretend the dream is yours, and the interpretation you come up with will apply to you (but not necessarily to me).

The Dream: There are two weeds in the garden. I pull them and notice to my chagrin that they are back the next day.

Interpretation Process: First, let’s look at the weeds. Clearly they represent some things I don’t want in my life. Are these external, such as work problems, or are they my own unpleasant or counterproductive traits? Why are there two of them? Do I have two problems? Two difficult people in my life? Two traits that hold me back? Whatever they are, they’re persistent; I’m having trouble getting rid of them. Is there something in my life I don’t like that keeps cropping up?

The weeds are in my garden, so next I have to ask, “What does a garden mean to me?” Is this a place I go for rest and renewal? Since a garden is a place of cultivation, might this be the place where I create? Or could it be the place where I grow?

I bet you’ve got the idea. If you played along and came up with an interpretation, please feel free to leave it as a comment, or e-mail it to me at CarlaYoung10@gmail.com

The Distracting Child

In dreams, references to lower levels or the left usually refer to unconscious elements, and the kitchen is a place where transformation takes place.  The divine child represents rebirth.

The Dream: A young child, about three, is fretful and we don’t know how to amuse her. I don’t have any toys for her. It occurs to me I could give her a very simple recipe to follow and she could make some food. This would occupy her and leave me free to concentrate on other work, such as cooking the rest of the dinner. I make a work station for her on the kitchen table—at a lower level, to my left.

Interpretation: A part of me that I wasn’t aware of is kicking up a fuss and demands my attention. The dream ego finds a useful job for her and brings her closer (integrating her) while at the same time pushing her back down into the unconscious (I put her on a lower level and to my left). That the dream ego is “cooking the rest of the dinner” implies a mixing and blending of ingredients and a magical or alchemical (as Jung might put it) transformation.

Vulnerable

Have you ever wondered why myths are appealing? Perhaps it is because they, like dreams, tell the story of the ever evolving psyche. This dream echoes Humpty Dumpty.

The Dream: I’m trying to put something back together but the pieces don’t fit. The image is of a cheese round, about 2 inches thick and 10 inches in diameter. The cheese on the inside is a creamy white color. Its crust, a plastic like khaki covering about ¼ inch thick, is gone.

Interpretation: As I try to rebuild the self from the newly activated elements released by all this dream work I am having trouble getting the elements unified. Initially the soft center was protected by a phony, neutral covering. This begs the question: What will protect me now?