Jung introduction to dreams
More thoughts from Man and His Symbols:
1) "The two fundamental points in dealing with dreams are these: First, the dream should be treated as a fact, about which one must make no previous assumption except that it somehow makes sense; and second, the dream is a specific expression of the unconscious."
2) "The general function of dreams is to try and resolve our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium."
3) "No dream symbol can be separated from the individual who dreams it, and there is no definite or straightforward intepretation of any dream."
Before I can ramble my own thoughts about all of this, I must first get one source of anger out of my system.
A few years ago, someone suggested I share an old dream with a "noted professional". This woman was supposedly obsessed with Jung's ideas and an expert on dreams. Reread the quotes above. They are all Jung's.
When I shared the dream, just saying that someone suggested I share it and not actually asking for a specific intepretation, this expert insisted that my dream was about something solely archetypal without knowing anything about me. It had been my first post - there was no earlier ones for her to draw conclusions from. Not only was she definite about the meaning ("it is this" not "it could be this"), but she then went on to be completely condescending.
Needless to say, I threw Jung back at her and berated her for being so unprofessional and irresponsible as to impose a definite intepretation using only archetypes and not exploring personal associations. Staying on that list, I found other equally disturbing flaws in her application of the concepts she supposedly knew - ones that I had always been told were definite warning signs of an incompetent person in that field.
Not too long ago, I tried to explain to someone I had come across my animosity towards this expert and forgetting the original interaction between us (for I had presented the interactions that happened later), I'm afraid the person probably thinks I am quite unstable in this regard. However, how can someone who has read all of Jung's works and claims to be faithful to his vision overlook the phrase preceding the third quote I've listed - ". . . it is plain foolishness to believe in ready-made systematic guides to dream intepretation . . ."?
I still believe I am justisfied in seeing this person as less than reliable, no matter how many others she has conned into worshipping her. I'm not saying that she couldn't have come across something new and worthwhile, but that doesn't make her a source I should swallow unquestioningly.
Even a fool must be right now and then by chance.
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, let me wander through a few of my own dreams. In particular, those of me being an author. In truth, though I do realize on one level that I write well, I honestly don't have enough faith to believe I can be published. Yet, if Jung is correct, I should re-adjust my views, because none of my dreams related to me being a published author show me to be a failure.
Legacy?
My children and I enter an auditorium. There are no chairs, just polished light colored wood floors, with everyone camped out on it. Someone comes up to me and introduce themeselves as a science fiction author. I couldn't quite place their work but I knew who they were in the dream and greeted them warmly. Then this person began to introduce me to other science fiction authors. They look more like elderly Henson characatures than what I knew they actually looked like in real life. They don't say much but greet me warmly. Then they ask me to move from my place in the front and sit further back with them. I gather the blanket and my children and we relocate. When I sit down, the kids get excited and go to check out something nearby and a few of the authors sit next to me and snuggle just like my kids do when they're tired. I'm a bit surprised, but flattered. Then a female author invite the kids and I to come to her place afterwards. Her hair is short and silver. I am surprised to see how much she has aged. She is a widow now and we chat about all sorts of things at her place. The kids have fun with her collection of reptiles in the bathtub and I clean up the mess while she is napping. We talk some more and I finally get the conversation around to my own work. I run our to our truck and find that rain has seeped into the back seat. Annoyed, but still excited, I grab a report cover containing two of my best short stories. When I open it up, there is only the first and last page there - all the rest had been shorn away. I'm devastated, but the author just smiles, pats my shoulder and tells me it's all right, but I am still upset because I really wanted her to read my stories.
A Connection
I'm in my apartment with my parents. A respected professional man stops by to visit. He's in town for business and he thought he would drop in and meet me in person while he had the opportunity. The kids come back while we are making small talk and tell me that someone else is coming to drop something off in about 30 or 45 minutes. They're a little sheepish, because they forgot to tell me sooner, but I tell them it's okay. It's someone from church and I was expecting them.
Then my exhusband walks in scowling and being a jerk. The kids go near the door and I try to find out what he wants, but he won't say. The professional smiles and says that with things getting so tense that he should probably leave. I apologize and agree. I offer to walk him to his car and he nods. While I'm getting my shoes, I notice that he is studying some of the stuff on my walls, as if he was committing them to memory. He sees the notes on Havor (my personal universe, which Frina and Mysteria Cloverstar are a part of) that I have near my computer and examines them closely. With my shoes on, I come up and mention that I have a whole timeline mapped out on my computer for it. He gives me a smile and says that he has always enjoyed timelines.
As we go out the door, the kids ask if they can walk with us too. The professional says, "Of course, the air will do us all some good." Outside, he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get into his car and even stops to pick up some glass bottles for recycling, while talking to us. I'm a bit embarrassed because I was the one who set those bottles out to be picked up by the garbage collectors, but I don't say anything. When we get to his car, he puts the bottles in the trunk with some canned goods and suggests that we all take a ride to relax before going back to the apartment.
He takes us to downtown Dallas because that is where his hotel is. He's making the kids laugh and smiling brightly at me, but I am still worried about my ex. Then the car changes and we're in something that resembles a skyrail. I point out the West End Marketplact to him and we come very close to the roof. Playfully, he reaches out and tries to touch the roof, but the car we're in pulls back before he can. He sits back and give me an "Oh, well" smile and I chuckle and feel myself relax.
The next three dreams I had in succession:
Dream 1
I am attending a presentation ceremony in a large auditorium. Though I am one of the people to be honor, I have chosen to sit out in the audience. The place is almost full. There are only a few seats left. An usher seats a young friend of mine in one of the last open areas. The usher then asks a man behind him if he would mind letting me sit next to next to him. He doesn't use my name though and when the man turns back, his eyes quickly pass me over for the gorgeous woman walking just behind me. He agrees, but then becomes unnerved when he sees who the usher was actually talking about. He blurts out that he had thought it was the other woman. I give the man a condescending sneer and tell the usher not to worry about it. I had seen the booklet in the man's hand. He had come to the ceremony to meet me - another one who wanted the Poet and not the Woman. I go through a sliding glass door and sit so I can see the ceremony from behind the glass, while still being able to enjoy the peaceful solitude out on the neglected patio with its leaf mold and the plants trying to claim it for their own.
The man stares at the glass door in shock because the usher said my name while apologizing to me and he continues to watch me as I catch a fine shaft of light between my fingers and then throw the end of it towards a spot near the door. I throw it like a dart, but the shaft of light acts more like a rope whose weighted end I am tossing. It's an old game for me and I know that if I hit just the right area, the door will open on its own. I do it once or twice for the heck of it, but then stop because I want the glass to stay there and if I really wanted back in, I could just walk over and open the door myself.
After the ceremony, an old supervisor of mine bounces through the door and practically drags me to his office. He is excited to see me and starts checking to see if I have done certain things for myself, giving me a little affectionate lecture about how I need to take care of my affairs better. He tells me not to worry - with his help I'll have everything under control in no time.
Dream 2
I don't know if this was actually a continuation of the first dream and this was my supervisor's idea or if it just was a second dream.
Anyway, I am in some sort of exchange program and I was transferred to a major European city to a very rural mountain community somewhere in the Alps - or at least at the base of them. I am staying with a farmer. He really loves his home and it's just wonderful to follow him around and listen to him talk about it. It's a very pretty and peaceful place and I am content helping out there.
Then the village plans an art auction and all the art is brought to the farm. The man has to go off and take care of other things and I am in charge of directing everyone how to store the art until the auction. A very large painting comes in and the small woman who is in charge of the whole thing is upset because it has a new frame, so she tells us to distress the frame. All during the preparations and the auction itself, my staff and I are working on adding dents to the frame whenever we have a free moment. We finish just before it just in time for the piece to be auctioned.
Dream 3
This was a lucid dream I had while trying to wake up. I am back in the auditorium, sitting next to a blind man, while the man from the first dream is behind us. The blind man figures out that I am one of the people to be honored here and he asks me why I sound so sour about it.
I explain that it's because I know the moment I stand up, several people are going to be disappointed because my physical appearance won't match the fantasy one they have created in their minds. We go on to talk about appearances and people's preconceptions. He mentions my talents and my pretty voice and I point out that with all that, it's rather unfair to my own gender to insist on being a physical beauty too. I mean, why must I be wonderful in every area? He nods in agreement. I add that I have nice textured hair too and let him feel some of it.
Then I admit to him that I did realize that humans are more visually oriented than anything else and very few people were capable of overcoming it. But I didn't want a relationship with just anyone and I definitely didn't want a relationship with someone who was only interested in me so they could show me off. I explain that I was a Narcissistic Personality enabler and I was trained from a early age to have many of the qualities an NPD would want. I didn't want to give up my skill and talent and passion, but I didn't want to attract another NPD. NPDs want trophies they can flaunt and first impressions are very important - and by staying overweight I could almost guarantee that one would lose interest in me faster than any other thing I could do.
But then I admitted that I would have to lose the weight someday and that I wasn't sure what I would do then. Becoming a recluse sounded like the best option then. The blind man was very understanding during all of this and said that maybe all I needed was someone I could trust to be with and that a strong relationship would be enough to keep the predators at bay.
I keep rereading these dreams and no solid conclusion is coming to me, though I do have possible intepretations for them. Still, I feel there is a connection between them all - if only the fact that my unconscious thinks I'm talented. But how to take that step from being unknown to known? Do I fear what it would bring so badly?
I know I do. I have other dreams about obsessed admirers and being betrayed by those I thought I could trust.
Perhaps having primed my conscious with these dreams, I will have one tonight to help resolve things.
1) "The two fundamental points in dealing with dreams are these: First, the dream should be treated as a fact, about which one must make no previous assumption except that it somehow makes sense; and second, the dream is a specific expression of the unconscious."
2) "The general function of dreams is to try and resolve our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium."
3) "No dream symbol can be separated from the individual who dreams it, and there is no definite or straightforward intepretation of any dream."
Before I can ramble my own thoughts about all of this, I must first get one source of anger out of my system.
A few years ago, someone suggested I share an old dream with a "noted professional". This woman was supposedly obsessed with Jung's ideas and an expert on dreams. Reread the quotes above. They are all Jung's.
When I shared the dream, just saying that someone suggested I share it and not actually asking for a specific intepretation, this expert insisted that my dream was about something solely archetypal without knowing anything about me. It had been my first post - there was no earlier ones for her to draw conclusions from. Not only was she definite about the meaning ("it is this" not "it could be this"), but she then went on to be completely condescending.
Needless to say, I threw Jung back at her and berated her for being so unprofessional and irresponsible as to impose a definite intepretation using only archetypes and not exploring personal associations. Staying on that list, I found other equally disturbing flaws in her application of the concepts she supposedly knew - ones that I had always been told were definite warning signs of an incompetent person in that field.
Not too long ago, I tried to explain to someone I had come across my animosity towards this expert and forgetting the original interaction between us (for I had presented the interactions that happened later), I'm afraid the person probably thinks I am quite unstable in this regard. However, how can someone who has read all of Jung's works and claims to be faithful to his vision overlook the phrase preceding the third quote I've listed - ". . . it is plain foolishness to believe in ready-made systematic guides to dream intepretation . . ."?
I still believe I am justisfied in seeing this person as less than reliable, no matter how many others she has conned into worshipping her. I'm not saying that she couldn't have come across something new and worthwhile, but that doesn't make her a source I should swallow unquestioningly.
Even a fool must be right now and then by chance.
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, let me wander through a few of my own dreams. In particular, those of me being an author. In truth, though I do realize on one level that I write well, I honestly don't have enough faith to believe I can be published. Yet, if Jung is correct, I should re-adjust my views, because none of my dreams related to me being a published author show me to be a failure.
Legacy?
My children and I enter an auditorium. There are no chairs, just polished light colored wood floors, with everyone camped out on it. Someone comes up to me and introduce themeselves as a science fiction author. I couldn't quite place their work but I knew who they were in the dream and greeted them warmly. Then this person began to introduce me to other science fiction authors. They look more like elderly Henson characatures than what I knew they actually looked like in real life. They don't say much but greet me warmly. Then they ask me to move from my place in the front and sit further back with them. I gather the blanket and my children and we relocate. When I sit down, the kids get excited and go to check out something nearby and a few of the authors sit next to me and snuggle just like my kids do when they're tired. I'm a bit surprised, but flattered. Then a female author invite the kids and I to come to her place afterwards. Her hair is short and silver. I am surprised to see how much she has aged. She is a widow now and we chat about all sorts of things at her place. The kids have fun with her collection of reptiles in the bathtub and I clean up the mess while she is napping. We talk some more and I finally get the conversation around to my own work. I run our to our truck and find that rain has seeped into the back seat. Annoyed, but still excited, I grab a report cover containing two of my best short stories. When I open it up, there is only the first and last page there - all the rest had been shorn away. I'm devastated, but the author just smiles, pats my shoulder and tells me it's all right, but I am still upset because I really wanted her to read my stories.
A Connection
I'm in my apartment with my parents. A respected professional man stops by to visit. He's in town for business and he thought he would drop in and meet me in person while he had the opportunity. The kids come back while we are making small talk and tell me that someone else is coming to drop something off in about 30 or 45 minutes. They're a little sheepish, because they forgot to tell me sooner, but I tell them it's okay. It's someone from church and I was expecting them.
Then my exhusband walks in scowling and being a jerk. The kids go near the door and I try to find out what he wants, but he won't say. The professional smiles and says that with things getting so tense that he should probably leave. I apologize and agree. I offer to walk him to his car and he nods. While I'm getting my shoes, I notice that he is studying some of the stuff on my walls, as if he was committing them to memory. He sees the notes on Havor (my personal universe, which Frina and Mysteria Cloverstar are a part of) that I have near my computer and examines them closely. With my shoes on, I come up and mention that I have a whole timeline mapped out on my computer for it. He gives me a smile and says that he has always enjoyed timelines.
As we go out the door, the kids ask if they can walk with us too. The professional says, "Of course, the air will do us all some good." Outside, he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get into his car and even stops to pick up some glass bottles for recycling, while talking to us. I'm a bit embarrassed because I was the one who set those bottles out to be picked up by the garbage collectors, but I don't say anything. When we get to his car, he puts the bottles in the trunk with some canned goods and suggests that we all take a ride to relax before going back to the apartment.
He takes us to downtown Dallas because that is where his hotel is. He's making the kids laugh and smiling brightly at me, but I am still worried about my ex. Then the car changes and we're in something that resembles a skyrail. I point out the West End Marketplact to him and we come very close to the roof. Playfully, he reaches out and tries to touch the roof, but the car we're in pulls back before he can. He sits back and give me an "Oh, well" smile and I chuckle and feel myself relax.
The next three dreams I had in succession:
Dream 1
I am attending a presentation ceremony in a large auditorium. Though I am one of the people to be honor, I have chosen to sit out in the audience. The place is almost full. There are only a few seats left. An usher seats a young friend of mine in one of the last open areas. The usher then asks a man behind him if he would mind letting me sit next to next to him. He doesn't use my name though and when the man turns back, his eyes quickly pass me over for the gorgeous woman walking just behind me. He agrees, but then becomes unnerved when he sees who the usher was actually talking about. He blurts out that he had thought it was the other woman. I give the man a condescending sneer and tell the usher not to worry about it. I had seen the booklet in the man's hand. He had come to the ceremony to meet me - another one who wanted the Poet and not the Woman. I go through a sliding glass door and sit so I can see the ceremony from behind the glass, while still being able to enjoy the peaceful solitude out on the neglected patio with its leaf mold and the plants trying to claim it for their own.
The man stares at the glass door in shock because the usher said my name while apologizing to me and he continues to watch me as I catch a fine shaft of light between my fingers and then throw the end of it towards a spot near the door. I throw it like a dart, but the shaft of light acts more like a rope whose weighted end I am tossing. It's an old game for me and I know that if I hit just the right area, the door will open on its own. I do it once or twice for the heck of it, but then stop because I want the glass to stay there and if I really wanted back in, I could just walk over and open the door myself.
After the ceremony, an old supervisor of mine bounces through the door and practically drags me to his office. He is excited to see me and starts checking to see if I have done certain things for myself, giving me a little affectionate lecture about how I need to take care of my affairs better. He tells me not to worry - with his help I'll have everything under control in no time.
Dream 2
I don't know if this was actually a continuation of the first dream and this was my supervisor's idea or if it just was a second dream.
Anyway, I am in some sort of exchange program and I was transferred to a major European city to a very rural mountain community somewhere in the Alps - or at least at the base of them. I am staying with a farmer. He really loves his home and it's just wonderful to follow him around and listen to him talk about it. It's a very pretty and peaceful place and I am content helping out there.
Then the village plans an art auction and all the art is brought to the farm. The man has to go off and take care of other things and I am in charge of directing everyone how to store the art until the auction. A very large painting comes in and the small woman who is in charge of the whole thing is upset because it has a new frame, so she tells us to distress the frame. All during the preparations and the auction itself, my staff and I are working on adding dents to the frame whenever we have a free moment. We finish just before it just in time for the piece to be auctioned.
Dream 3
This was a lucid dream I had while trying to wake up. I am back in the auditorium, sitting next to a blind man, while the man from the first dream is behind us. The blind man figures out that I am one of the people to be honored here and he asks me why I sound so sour about it.
I explain that it's because I know the moment I stand up, several people are going to be disappointed because my physical appearance won't match the fantasy one they have created in their minds. We go on to talk about appearances and people's preconceptions. He mentions my talents and my pretty voice and I point out that with all that, it's rather unfair to my own gender to insist on being a physical beauty too. I mean, why must I be wonderful in every area? He nods in agreement. I add that I have nice textured hair too and let him feel some of it.
Then I admit to him that I did realize that humans are more visually oriented than anything else and very few people were capable of overcoming it. But I didn't want a relationship with just anyone and I definitely didn't want a relationship with someone who was only interested in me so they could show me off. I explain that I was a Narcissistic Personality enabler and I was trained from a early age to have many of the qualities an NPD would want. I didn't want to give up my skill and talent and passion, but I didn't want to attract another NPD. NPDs want trophies they can flaunt and first impressions are very important - and by staying overweight I could almost guarantee that one would lose interest in me faster than any other thing I could do.
But then I admitted that I would have to lose the weight someday and that I wasn't sure what I would do then. Becoming a recluse sounded like the best option then. The blind man was very understanding during all of this and said that maybe all I needed was someone I could trust to be with and that a strong relationship would be enough to keep the predators at bay.
I keep rereading these dreams and no solid conclusion is coming to me, though I do have possible intepretations for them. Still, I feel there is a connection between them all - if only the fact that my unconscious thinks I'm talented. But how to take that step from being unknown to known? Do I fear what it would bring so badly?
I know I do. I have other dreams about obsessed admirers and being betrayed by those I thought I could trust.
Perhaps having primed my conscious with these dreams, I will have one tonight to help resolve things.