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.