(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?
留言