Dreams: "The letter"

(Vienna, woman - age 28)

Dream:

In the dream I received a letter with my address which I found strange as this was the new address that I didn't yet give to no one. I didn't pay much interest to this letter and wasn't interested in opening it. I only took it from the postman and put it down in my flat. Then, I was in my old classroom and interestingly one of my old classmates was there too.

“There is something in you I like more than yourself.” - Jacques Lacan

He used to be in love with me when we were kids, but I wasn't interested. He wasn't my type and he was not very popular. In my dream he was a teacher. In the dream we were both adults and he asked me to do a task on the blackboard. While i was doing the task, he said something that I found offensive. I can't remember what it was, but I replied something very harsh to him and then class was over. When everyone was leaving the room he wanted to give me a high five and make peace with me but I ignored him. I told him that I am not the kind of person who is pretending and because I am still angry I won't put a mask for him. Then me and my best friend went to the cafeteria and we couldn't find a place to sit, so the main teacher sat us down at one of the tables. Soon after he brought my friend from childhood to the table along with his best friend to sit with us. That made me boil inside because I had no intention to deal with this guy whatsoever.

Dream interpretation:

The letter signifies an unconscious message suppressed by the dreamer's psychic defence mechanisms. The Ego avoids awareness of the content of the unconscious in her present life. In the dream, she has kept her new address to herself, and when to her surprise, she receives the letter, she does not open the envelope. She puts the letter aside. Later in her dream, she meets a man whom she remembers as a friend from childhood. Her friend in fact embodies the unconscious contents of "the letter”. Vienna remembers how in the past, she rejected her friend and his advances. Now, the same person appears in the dream as her teacher. We can assume that in some way, the emotions embodied by the teacher take control of her Ego in the present. His appearance in the dream may resemble a psychic complex that started in childhood, yet reflects her relationship to men at present. As a result, this gives rise to an internal conflict. Her dreaming Ego stands by the blackboard in the classroom which resembles the feeling of being exposed that may subconsciously accompany the dreamer in reality. The feeling that is likely to be caused by some recent events in her life. When the complex (i.e. the teacher in the dream) takes control, it evokes her anger and triggers her defence mechanism. While in the dream she feels offended by her teacher, in reality she may be experiencing similar feelings triggered by some man or a men in general. Vienna recalls that her teacher in the dream wants to make peace (“high five” her), but she rejects him. This shows how she holds on to the internal conflict. She is not ready to accept this part of herself and integrate it. She replies that she won't "put on a mask". Perhaps there is a conflict inside the dreamer that causes a feeling of frustration and she is tired of trying to mask on a conscious level. At the end of the dream, "the letter" finds her again, and the head teacher brings her friend/teacher to her table. Which again makes her feel angry. The character of the head teacher resembles a higher sense of herself which is trying to make her aware of something that she represses. The dream exposes an internal conflict, and the question worth asking is, if there is a way to integrate it rather than just mask it?

Dreams: "A building from the past"

(Pascal, man - age 40)

"I am standing in front of the house where I lived with my parents as a child. It was an old tenement house in the town centre where I grew up. I am standing in the back yard where I used to hang around with my friends. In the summer we used to play on that field every day even after dark. In the dream, I face the building and notice that all of the windows are open. Nothing actually happens, I just stand there, but it's hard to describe the feeling I get and the whole dream is about that feeling.

“There were corporeal, psychic, and spiritual people. Somatics, psychics, and pneumatics, they called them, from the Greek. Equality goes against nature, however rightly one might strive toward it. Some are made of more earthly elements, and those people are thick, sensual, and non-creative. They are only good for listening. Others live with their hearts, their emotions, in bursts of the soul, and others still have contact with the highest spirit, distant from the body, free from affects, spacious inside. It is to this final group that God has access.” - Olga Tokarczuk

There was something extraordinary about this dream, something timeless. As if I went back in time and space, to some specific moment from years ago. Like at the post card. So I am standing there, I feel kind of fulfilled, the happiness penetrates through my body. It's hard to explain, but I felt connected to everything around me, as if everything including me and the building, and the smell of the late summer evening were a whole. There was not a living soul around, and time seemed to stand still. I look through the windows and among others I recognise the window of my parents apartment. Generally, I don't have good memories related to my childhood and this place, where I grew up. My mother was an alcoholic and I was often afraid to come home and see her drunk. But in the dream I felt good and completely safe, as if I had gone back in time and discovered that there was so much beauty around me that eventually became a part of me. I felt grateful for life itself as I stood there, and I felt tears roll down my cheeks. Then I looked at the other windows, I felt that I was part of each apartment, all the windows were wide open and I felt part of all the interiors. When I woke up I felt as if something exploded in my head, it was a pleasant tingling feeling like some tension had been released.

Dream interpretation:

Dreams may reveal what we fear or what we desire, but they can also guide us. By closely looking into the dreams we may sometimes discover not necessarily what we were looking for but something we have lost in the past. And find (out) maybe just what we need at the present but we don't quite realise ourselves. This dream reveals how something deeply hidden in the dreamer's mind is trying to come to voice. The emotions associated with the repressed content transform into somatic sensations which are felt after the dreamer becomes awake. The dreamer recalls the feeling of explosion in his head and the pleasant tinglings passing through his body. These sensations are caused by the discharge of the energy suffocated underneath the images seen and experienced in the dream. When Pascal is asleep, his defence mechanisms lose their vigilance. In consequence, suppressed memories and emotions come back to the surface of the dreamer consciousness as the memory of his dream. His adult mind in the dream, connects with his younger Self i.e. the source of the energy from which his Ego developed. The dreamer in a metaphor, yet how literally in the world of the dream (when he faces the building when he grew up) comes face to face, with his primary mechanisms of his personality. In fact the whole dream features himself looking at the place where he grew up which allows him to get in touch with what has been closed off because of the alcoholic mother. As Pascal recalls, all the windows in the building were open and he also emphasises the importance of the pure experience more than anything else: “there was something extraordinary about this dream, something timeless”. The dreamer is taken back to the place and time when he had to learn how to block his emotions. He created the defence mechanisms that helped him back at the time. As a result, the emotions which he wasn't able to express/experience become repressed and distorted. The dream allows him to experience wholeness within himself and get in touch with the full essence of his potential.

Dreams: "Fire"

(Adrian - man, age 28)

Dream:

"The dream began in a closed world that was like a separate planet of a huge forest. Something was burning and the fire started spreading. Before I realised what was happening, and whether there was a chance to put it down before it would spread, I noticed that one of the animals, a squirrel, got caught on fire and ran into the forest. I realised that it will cause fire in many places and there is no way to save the forest. In some strange way, there was a feeling that this fire had great consequences, something like the end of the world.

"There is the source of fire, there is the fullness of energy. A man who is not on fire is nothing: he is ridiculous, he is two-dimensional. He must be on fire even if he does make a fool of himself. A flame must burn somewhere, otherwise no light shines; there is no warmth, nothing.” - C.G Jung

In the second part of the dream, I found out that there was also an outside world beyond this planet. The council of wise men from the outer world became aware that something happened in the inner world. They only knew that there was a problem but they didn't know the details. One of the druids (the man in charge of the council) was sent to find out what happened in the inner world. In order to enter, he had to defeat the guards at the gate. He was very powerful and easily dealt with the guards and got into the crypt to look into the crystal ball where he could see into the inner world. He saw the fire burning everything to the ground. He came back and reported it. When the matter came to light, it caused quite a stir among the council of wise men who seemed to be very concerned with that situation. However the druid who was in power said it wasn't important and it wouldn't change anything.

Dream interpretation:

The dream shows two worlds. In the first part, the dreamer is on the planet of the so-called “inner world” which in fact resonates with the dreamer's Ego. The second part unveils the fields of the mind that reach beyond the boundaries of the Ego and deeper into the subconscious mind of the dreamer. The druid figure who in the dream discovers the fire resembles the Self of the dreamer, and the fire itself is a symbol of desire. In the given context the animal that gets caught on fire and runs into the woods may be interpreted as a loss of control. The squirrel in the dream is the cause that allegorically burns everything that his Ego identifies with in reality to the ground. The fire appears to the dreaming Ego as the end of the world, however in a broader perspective of the dreamer's Self it is (just) a signifier of a change that is taking place beyond his control. The fact that the druid i.e. the Self needs to defeat the guardians in order to see into the inner world. This is pointing to the psychic defence mechanism that in reality is being used to defend the image of the Ego. In consequence Adrian may be losing the touch with his intuition. The dream reveals an anxiety caused by the fact that deep in his mind something is changing. What his ego experiences as the end of the world, in a broader sense, symbolises a change.