Dreams - "A walk"

(Danika - woman, age 25)

I quickly have to go to the shop to get some stuff for work and I only have 5 minutes before I need to start working. At the shop I can't find the thing I was after so I decide to go back without it and make it on time. I look at my hands and I don't have my car key and wallet any more so I go to the car park to find my car and it's nowhere to be found.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - C.G Jung

So I went back to the shop to the help desk. There are three ladies and I am telling them that someone stole my wallet and car key but they are not paying attention and they are laughing about some stuff they talk about. So I tell one of them how angry I am at their behaviour and I am trying to stress the emergency of my situation. And I demand to see the manager to tell on them, and the lady tells me ‘’okay", you can speak to the manager if you follow me’’ and she opens the door for me. I take one step in and I look and it's a hallway like a back house area of the shop very dark and nasty and there is nobody there. So in my head I realise that she just wanted to lock me in there as a punishment for shouting at her so I grab her arm and I apologise for shouting and I say that I am very stressed about my car, and beg her not to lock me in there. Then I go back to the parking space and I see my dad's car. I went over to him, I’m happy to see him as I didn't even have my phone to contact anyone. He is there with two of our dogs. I asked him why the dogs are there and he said it’s because he took them out so they don't disturb the work I do. So then I decide to walk home as I have to do my work and on the way there, right in front of me I see a funeral procession. There is a black carriage with black horses that have large black feathers on them. The coffin is surrounded by a lot of flowers. There are many black cars and a lot of people and it's very long and I am shocked and I kind of feel that this is like a sign and I find it difficult to cross that rod and then I wake up.

Dream Interpretation:

The dreamer is in need of getting something done. The work in the dream may refer to what the dreamer [her ego] is “working on” in reality. The dreamer’s association was that she moved out from her parents house and started a life of her own. She works in the family business. Recently she feels overwhelmed, and tries to make everyone (her family and her partner) happy. Her car in the dream represents a mechanical component of the psyche. The link between the work and the shop. The work in the dream corresponds with the dreamer’s association to her agreeable qualities and may as well be described as the strong need to live up to other people's expectations. The shop on the other side outlines foundations of the dreamer's ego. With its tools and diverse personas (materialised as the lady shop assistants) inside. Running out of time illustrates the pressure she feels when her energy is split between her partner and her family while she has no time for herself. This leads to unbalance between ego and the self and as a result of this conflict she loses her car key and wallet; a.) access to the tools (personas), b.) access to the car (mechanical agreeable component). Inside the shop (her ego) she feels somewhat strangled in her emotions. She wishes to speak with the manager of the shop (the person in charge of her ego). She is shown dark and dirty back of house areas. In this part of the dream she faces what Jung described as The Shadow; repressed ideas and thoughts formed out of the need to adapt to cultural norms. Her reaction is very much the same to the one from her previous dream (Mirror) in the same context. She feels paralysed. She refuses to relate with that energy and begs the shop assistant to let her back inside the shop. As she in reality would put another persona (colloquially; happy face) on the conscious surface of herself while on the parallel unconscious side she is ruled by suppressed energy of her shadow. The need to apologise and subservience of anger to the punishment reveals that it is very likely that the dreamer is ashamed of her own thoughts in reality and has a strong tendency to suppress them. The character of the father is a projection of the animus associated with loyalty and unconditional love. These values materialised in the shape of the dogs. In the dream it seems unusual to her that the dogs came along with her father in the car. They were taken out of the dreamer's house to not disturb the work (the work; to make other people happy). The dogs in this context are a liberation from the dreamer's self; release from the obligation to live up to other people's expectations. A lonely walk home is a metaphor of the individuation process and the funeral indicates an inevitable change. The black colour relates to the first alchemy process (Nigredo; putrefaction, decomposition) which Jung described as the confession in psychology. Usually the first step one needs to take to live consciously is to recognise the shadow within. The dreamer wakes up before she crosses the street.

Dreams - "Blue"

(Vienna - woman, age 27)

I think I am somewhere in Italy. My uncle, my friend's mum and I are sitting at a kitchen table. We are talking and this woman (my friend’s mum) is very warm-hearted. She let me stay in her house and is very hospitable.

“Blue: as yellow is always accompanied with light, so it may be said that blue still brings a principle of darkness with it. This colour has a peculiar and almost indescribable effect on the eye. As a hue it is powerful - but it is on the negative side, and in its highest purity is, as it were, a stimulating negation. Its appearance, then, is a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Theory of Colours"

My uncle is telling her how sad he is. Still not in peace with losing his mother and he says how unreal that feels. Meanwhile I get distracted with a big dog. A bit like a German Shepherd but bigger, similar to one I had when I was a kid. I play with him and it feels amazing. The dog went to another table in the kitchen where my friend was sitting. We haven't really talked for a while. We started to chat and I gave him a kiss on the cheek. I felt lots of unconditional love towards him, just simply warm and unconditional. Somehow nail polish came up in our conversation and then he left the room. Later he came back and bought me lots of nail polish and asked me which one I really wanted. It was not there but I found two colours which could make the one I wanted; deep blue with a touch of sea green.

Dream interpretation:

The dream is divided into two parts, each takes place at a different kitchen table. Both parts are separated by an aspect of the dog. At the first stage the dreamer interacts with the projection of the first animus; her uncle who is contemplating death of his mother. Change on the psychic level involves a decomposition aspect in self; this in dreams often appears in the form of death (here symbolically portrayed as the death of the uncle's mother). Animus (“spirit” - Latin) represents an image of the inner spirit which women tend to project on men in reality. Uncle is in a state of denial over his mother's death. This may hint on a form of a blockage of the dreamer's masculine energy, hence she finds it uneasy to relate with that part of psyche (animus). This may manifest itself as colloquially ''not knowing what one wants in life''. The friend’s mum (very hospitable) personifies a dejection of the dreamer's ego or a self-pity; soothing on the outside but perversely creating an obstacle in the dreamer's individuation process. The play with the dog is a link to the wisdom of the hidden raw instincts. This encounter opens up a second stage of the dream. Release of the energy travels with her to the other table where she connects with the second projection of her animus. She is playing with the dog and through the state of playfulness she awakens the spirit of the animus. Through the kiss she gets in touch with the masculine energy within herself. The choice of nail polish is a process of the dreamer's individuation (what Carl Jung described as becoming one's own) through the alchemy of colours by creating a colour of her desire. The visible part of the nails contains dead cells as while the new ones grow they push the old ones outside; this brings back an association with the death of the psyche from the start of the dream (uncle’s mum). As if the death of something releases space to create something new. Blue, as a colour of an ocean refers to the deep unconscious process; in alchemy blue is a form of passage between black and white. Longing for blue nails reveal the urge to express oneself in the individuation process.

Dreams - "Mirror"

(Danika - woman, age 25)

I am in the female bathroom at my university. I look at myself in the mirror. I am wearing a very sexy red dress. It is kind of a “red carpet look”. I have gorgeous expensive shoes made from deep blue silk. Everyone who walks inside compliments my outfit. I'm fixing the outfit and hair as I feel somehow bothered.

“Each of us is part heroine or hero and part coward, part parent and part child, part saint and part thief. It is in learning to identify these great archetypal motifs within ourselves, learning to honor each one as a legitimate human trait, learning to live out the energy of each in a constructive way, that we make inner work a great odyssey of the spirit.” - Robert A. Johnson

Then a transgender man comes inside. He is wearing a black lipstick. He also says that he loves my outfit and asks me if it was ok with me to do a little ritual with fire. I say that I don't know and advise him to ask the cleaning lady that was there. Then he starts doing something which looks like some sort of a satanic ritual as he is a worshipper of the devil. I am shocked and scared and I feel like I need to leave. I ran out onto the streets and kept checking behind, hoping that he didn't affect me.

Dream interpretation:

University building symbolises a collective consciousness. In the bathroom mirror the dreamer sees an image of her persona. “Red carpet look” fed on compliments refers to the subject of self esteem and the red colour of the dress in contrast with blue silky shoes reveals the complexity of the dreamer’s psyche; red is an inclination for passion, blue goes in a lock step with reason and thinking dynamics which in the dream’s context may unveil excessive concerns for the dreamer’s reputation in reality, hence the feeling of unease and need to make adjustments to her look in front of the mirror. The man who walks inside is a symbol of the dreamer's shadow in the form of a cocoon of her repressed thoughts. He embodies a picture of the animus (the unconscious masculine component of the female psyche). A transgenderity may compensate for deprivation of dreamer’s own masculine energies. He is wearing black lipstick; in alchemy nigredo (prima materia) is the first stage of development when one discovers his/her shadow. The man asks to perform a ritual which would be an invitation to integration. In the presence of her superego (a cleaning lady) being in charge, the dreamer is obliged to seek approval. Beyond the ego boundaries the ritual starts and the dreamer runs away. Neglection of the shadow is so strong that even outside of the building she feels an anxiety of “being affected” by essentially a part of herself. This rejected energy swells up and the dreamer is very likely to experience recurring nightmares.