(David - man, age 33)
Dream:
"I'm in my grandmother's garden. She lived in the countryside, and behind her house was a huge garden, at least it seemed huge to me when I was a child. In a dream, I was trying to get somebody out of the garden.
"Black hole sun Won't you come And wash away the rain? Black hole sun" - Soundgarden
It was as if some child was trapped in there, but it felt more like saving a wild cat that didn't want to be caught. Eventually I managed to save a little boy and I can't remember who it was or how he looked but it felt good, as if I had done some good deed. I took him inside the house. That same night, something strange happened and I don't remember exactly, but it was as if he suddenly became mad and I had to take him back because I was afraid he would hurt himself. He wanted to go back there even though the house was nice and cosy and the garden seemed scary. I took him back to the garden, but on the way back we were flying together, and when we were almost there, he started screaming with a wild sound like he was possessed. At that moment, I woke up screaming and was terrified."
Dream interpretation:
Traumas keep objects from the past alive in one’s mind even after many years.
David in his dream is taken back to his grandmother’s garden, in order to get in touch
with repressed emotions personified as a child lost in the garden. His mind `protects ' him from unveiling something unbearable. A defence mechanism shields the dreamer and wakes him up with the little boy's scream in his mouth.
The boy personifies his younger Self and the garden, where he used to play as a child symbolises a place in his mind, where his repressed emotions are hidden. Taking the boy inside the house seemed like a good deed (as he recalls while remembering the dream). This association reflects his willingness (of the adult Self) to work through some difficult childhood memories. Metaphorically, he brings the repressed (little boy) back to consciousness (house).
He recalls that it felt as if he was trying to catch a stray cat. Just as he came close to something rejected that even saved will remain its wild side. In other words, the dream reveals the complex which comes to life when the dreamer encounters something that resonates with emotions suppressed at the depth of his mind. For example when he meets someone who unconsciously sets off suppressed memories, these echoes through his consciousness with a sudden irrational sense of anxiety that takes over his mind.
The memories that we can recall to consciousness are not reality, in the conscious mind one's past fades over time, thus when we come back to certain memories as an adults, it may seem reasonable to see certain matters as closed chapters. What we fail to realise is that between rational acceptance and true forgiveness there is a wall. And when we try to understand our emotions on a rational level, it may seem as we bang our heads through a wall. As a result, painfully getting nowhere.
The fear that wakes the dreamer up has nothing to do with what he thinks of himself on a conscious level. While his Ego captures the memories and analyses them as if they were postcards from the past, there is a small child still alive in his subconscious. This little boy is a part of his personality, a part that, devoid of emotions which the dreamer does not want to accept as an adult man, would have to die. Death on psychic terms is never just the end. It also allows us to grow, it makes space for something new to arise. However, the dream shows that David is not yet ready, to let go of something hidden deep within his personality.
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