Exposed: Part 2

The Dream: I see what I perceive to be a public monument, although it is only a rectangular concrete box, sitting in a tree. I lean against the box, dislodging it so that it falls out of the tree onto the ground next to a bicycle. I check the bike, and it doesn’t seem to have been damaged. I think I should report this to someone, but instead slink guiltily away not taking the blame for what I’ve done.

Interpretation: My interaction with the public monument tells me that I am ill at ease in the social arena. First of all, I see it as monumental, a synonym for massive and weighty. It’s concrete into the bargain. Oddly, it’s sitting in a tree, a symbol of growth. It falls out of the tree, endangering the bike, a mode of transportation – my means of getting away. By leaning against the tree and dislodging the monument I have sabotaged my means of escape – but wait – the bike is not damaged.  And yet I can’t escape on it; I feel too guilty.

Why the guilt? I don’t want to accept the limitations placed on my life by the society I live in. When I dislodge these (the massive public monument) I am faced with a conundrum which leaves me unable to go forward. If I reject these limitations, I am a traitor: I reject my mother’s life and, by association, my mother.

Exposed: Part 1

The Dream: I am wandering the streets of Brooklyn, wearing no trousers. I often adjust my sweater, pulling it down. It almost covers me. No one seems to notice, but I feel very self conscious.

Interpretation: I explore the place of my mother’s birth; I experience the self-consciousness and discomfort she endured as the child of a poor, widowed, non-English speaking immigrant from Eastern Europe. I adjust the clothes I am wearing, pulling down my sweater to cover my shame. The dream tells me that no one seems to notice I’m half naked: what is so embarrassing to me is actually unimportant to others. 

Things are Not What They Seem

Often it’s a lot of work to get to the truth of a dream. In this one, my initial reaction was far from what I later concluded.

The Dream: An evil and powerful woman -- ambitious and driven, caring only about her own advancement -- is trying to kill me in an exotic way. I am the captain of a small crew, and we are going to be shot into space. Then I will be murdered—remotely by her. The crew knows nothing of her plot and is not involved. I am frantically trying to stave off this event, which seems to be moving forward inexorably.

Working with Your Dreams: Take a Class

If you’ve been recording your dreams for a while and want to get some insight into what your dreams can teach you, you might consider taking a class. Community colleges, churches, and adult education centers sometimes offer classes on working with your dreams. What might you learn from doing this?  Of course each class will be different, but to give you the flavor of a class I’m going to use as an example a San Francisco Bay Area dream class taught by Lisa Rigge.* 

This class covers techniques for remembering and recording dreams, and puts dreams into an historical context—for example, what role have they played on the world stage? Students become familiar with common dream symbols, learn to identify dream themes, and learn techniques and exercises to better understand dreams, such as mapping dreams and learning what questions to ask of them.  In order to expand on what they’ve learned from the initial exercises, students take a dream forward through what Jung called “active imagination” techniques. One of these has the dreamer dialogue with characters or images in the dream. Others uses artistic devices—such as drawing, poetry, and creating a mandala—to further explore dream messages. To sum it up, the class introduces and explores ways of getting to know your dreams.

*Taught through the Las Positas Community Education Program in Livermore, California on two Saturdays, Oct. 23rd and Oct. 30th from 12:30 - 4:30 p.m. The class fee is $79.00. To register click here.

Woman in the Pit

The Dream: An image of a circular pit, about the depth of the passé mid-20th century conversation pit. The inner façade of the pit is in the shape of a woman, and a snake circles in the middle.

Interpretation: This dream was inspired by a silent movie I had just seen: Woman of the World, staring Pola Negri. In the movie Pola plays a femme fatale, ensnaring all men who look at her. She is defined by her relationship to men. In my dream, the woman’s body forms an enclosing circle as she enfolds the phallic snake. This one dimensional version of womanhood was prevalent in the mid-20th century, a period of time the dream cleverly evokes with the conversation pit of that era. My unconscious tells me that being limited to one role (of the many we could play) is the pits.

Shifting

The Dream: A bridge. I am aware of part of it, which looks like part of a square. It has a rail on one side and is open on the other, and there is dark gray water underneath, far below. I’m afraid when I look down on the unprotected side, so I avert my eyes in order to have the courage to proceed. I am with a small group; we are filing across. We only see the section of the bridge I’ve illustrated.

Interpretation: Jeremy Taylor says that a bridge in a dream represents the difficult but doable task of living with unresolved paradox. The greatest paradox we live with is the knowledge that being (life) is bounded by non-being (death). I see this dream as part of a series building upon the last two dreams: here I explore what really frightens me about ill health: its logical conclusion, i.e., death. I am crossing this bridge – or working on my understanding of this irresolvable dilemma -- but even so I am not quite ready to see it: I avert my eyes, in order to have the courage to proceed.

The part of the bridge that I see makes three sides of a square. For Jung, a square or circle signified a complete person, one who has attained consciousness by integrating unconscious material. My square is clearly not complete.

The Green Circle

The Dream: A circle in shades of green radiating from the center, from deep forest to yellowish.

Interpretation: This little dream gave me new insight into the meaning of the last dream I posted. In the previous dream I knew something was bothering me, but I wasn’t sure what it was. In the mysterious way of dreams, the paradox of the color green – a color of growth and health, and at the same time a color of putridity – brought the issue before me with clarity: it centered on my feelings about sickness and health. The ill health of some dear friends in the present stirred up feelings about the long illness my mother endured, and how I endured it with her. The quick fix of the previous dream alludes to my wish to quickly cure my friends, on the one hand, and on the other to prevent the horror of our earthly frailty from emerging into my consciousness.