(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.
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