Latest / This Jungian Life Podcast / Wedding Dreams: Symbols of Sacred Union and Inner Transformation
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
- 0:06Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
- 0:10Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
- 0:14Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues.
- 0:17Speaker 2: Of the day. I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian
- 0:21Speaker 2: analyst in Philadelphia.
- 0:23Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
- 0:28Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
- 0:43Speaker 2: Hello. Now that our new book, Dreamwise, is out in
- 0:47Speaker 2: the world, I want to tell you about a few
- 0:49Speaker 2: ways that you can get involved. First, we're going to
- 0:51Speaker 2: be recording a live podcast book launch this coming Sunday,
- 0:56Speaker 2: November 17th at 1 p.m. Eastern. You can catch me
- 1:01Speaker 2: the next weekend, Sunday, November 24th in Chicago. There will
- 1:06Speaker 2: be a brunch, a book signing, and a workshop. Finally,
- 1:09Speaker 2: there will be an event near Philadelphia. where I'll be
- 1:13Speaker 2: the present to talk about the book and sign books.
- 1:15Speaker 2: And that will be Sunday, December 1st. So you can
- 1:18Speaker 2: catch me live either in Philadelphia area or in Chicago.
- 1:23Speaker 2: Most importantly, read the book and write us a review
- 1:26Speaker 2: on Amazon. Thanks so much. Welcome to our second installment
- 1:31Speaker 2: of our special year-long series that we're calling Dreamography, where
- 1:35Speaker 2: we're looking at different types of dreams. We're asking you
- 1:39Speaker 2: to submit your dream. And then we're going to look
- 1:41Speaker 2: at a bunch of dreams of that type and just
- 1:43Speaker 2: see what they might all have in common, what we
- 1:46Speaker 2: can learn about this type of dream. So today's dreams
- 1:50Speaker 2: are wedding dreams. Wedding dreams seem pretty common. I was
- 1:55Speaker 2: interested that we got many, many more submissions from women
- 1:58Speaker 2: than men, although we did get some dreams from men,
- 2:01Speaker 2: and we will talk about some of those today. But
- 2:04Speaker 2: so we're going to talk, first of all, a little
- 2:05Speaker 2: bit about the archetype of weddings and what that might mean,
- 2:08Speaker 2: the archetype of marriage, and then Look at how they
- 2:10Speaker 2: appear in your dreams. And this is part of our
- 2:15Speaker 2: year-long exploration of different dream types, which corresponds with the
- 2:20Speaker 2: publication of our book, Dreamwise, Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams.
- 2:25Speaker 2: Next month for December, we're going to be looking at
- 2:28Speaker 2: children's dreams. So we get lots and lots of those
- 2:32Speaker 2: on the podcast, and we usually don't talk about them,
- 2:34Speaker 2: but we're going to focus on that in December. So
- 2:37Speaker 2: you can go to our website, our book website, which
- 2:41Speaker 2: is dreamwisebook.com. Click on Dreamography and submit your dream, either
- 2:49Speaker 2: a dream that you had in childhood, or if you
- 2:53Speaker 2: have a child who has shared a dream and you
- 2:55Speaker 2: feel comfortable sharing that, you can do that as well. So,
- 3:00Speaker 2: for next month, childhood dreams. For this month, let's progress
- 3:05Speaker 2: and see what we can find out about weddings, the
- 3:08Speaker 2: archetype of the wedding, and how it shows up in dreams.
- 3:11Speaker 3: So, the first thing I'd like to say in very
- 3:14Speaker 3: broad terms is that for Jung, he would often use
- 3:18Speaker 3: the term hieroskimos, which is a Greek word for sacred marriage. Also,
- 3:24Speaker 3: in the collected works, he would refer to the chemical wedding,
- 3:28Speaker 3: which is an old medieval way of saying the word chemical.
- 3:33Speaker 3: And it represents a reconciliation of fundamental polarities within the psyche.
- 3:43Speaker 3: And so as we're talking about dreams, that can look
- 3:46Speaker 3: like many, many different things, because there are many polarities
- 3:51Speaker 3: inside of us as human beings. But the sacred wedding
- 3:55Speaker 3: is is the bringing together of opposites.
- 4:00Speaker 4: And it's infused with archetypal, spiritual, sacred power. It's more
- 4:09Speaker 4: than just two people. There is the third dimension that
- 4:13Speaker 4: makes it sacred.
- 4:16Speaker 2: And it's a great example, I think, of an archetype
- 4:19Speaker 2: because it's something that comes up a lot in films. Oh, my.
- 4:25Speaker 2: It comes up in stories and fairy tales. There's almost
- 4:29Speaker 2: always a wedding. Often fairy tales end with a wedding.
- 4:33Speaker 2: And we know, Deb, that the archetypal power that you're
- 4:36Speaker 2: referring to, I think we all know that, right? I mean,
- 4:39Speaker 2: it's partly why it's such a mammoth industry, I think,
- 4:42Speaker 2: because when we're getting married and we're planning a wedding,
- 4:45Speaker 2: we have a sense of like, oh, this is it.
- 4:48Speaker 2: And so we're kind of encouraged to maybe part with
- 4:50Speaker 2: more of our hard-earned cash than we really need to.
- 4:53Speaker 2: But when we go to a wedding, whether it's our
- 4:55Speaker 2: wedding or a friend's wedding, I mean, there's a reason
- 4:58Speaker 2: why you pack tissues. You feel deeply, deeply moved. And
- 5:05Speaker 2: you know that something special is going on. And, you know,
- 5:09Speaker 2: I know lots of people. I've known lots of people
- 5:12Speaker 2: through the years who lived together, maybe for years, and
- 5:16Speaker 2: then decided, oh, let's do it. Let's get married. And
- 5:20Speaker 2: if you ask that person, well, does anything feel different?
- 5:22Speaker 2: In my experience, people always say, well, yes, actually it does.
- 5:27Speaker 2: So there's some, something gets constellated. I like your use
- 5:33Speaker 2: of the notion of a third thing, that something happens
- 5:37Speaker 2: in this sacrament that is bigger than us. So we're
- 5:43Speaker 2: really tapping into something archetypal.
- 5:46Speaker 4: A third thing gets created, you know, like when you
- 5:50Speaker 4: combine chemicals in a vase, and it was substance A
- 5:57Speaker 4: and substance B. But when the new thing comes together,
- 6:01Speaker 4: it's really neither A nor B. It is C. They've combined,
- 6:09Speaker 4: and something new has been created, and it's an indissoluble substance.
- 6:14Speaker 4: kind of union, at least archetypally. And I think that
- 6:18Speaker 4: speaks to what you were just saying. And we've all
- 6:20Speaker 4: known people in this day and age who've lived together
- 6:23Speaker 4: for some number of years. And then it's different when
- 6:29Speaker 4: after three years or eight years, they finally get married.
- 6:34Speaker 4: We all feel it. And when you attend the ceremony,
- 6:39Speaker 4: there isn't a dry eye. Everyone rises. There is a sacred, archetypal, magical,
- 6:51Speaker 4: mystical feeling to a wedding.
- 6:56Speaker 3: And particularly the ritualization of it. There's just the idea,
- 7:00Speaker 3: but whether it's a ritual that people have created themselves,
- 7:05Speaker 3: or it's an arcane ritual that is maybe a thousand
- 7:08Speaker 3: years old, that the symbolism... of the coming together of
- 7:14Speaker 3: the two to be one is really, really potent.
- 7:19Speaker 2: And it goes to, so what are we talking about psychologically, right?
- 7:23Speaker 2: We're talking about there can be kind of an inner
- 7:25Speaker 2: marriage where there's a union of heretofore kind of competing
- 7:31Speaker 2: or separate aspects of self. So it might, you know,
- 7:35Speaker 2: the inner marriage, you know, you might marry the inner
- 7:37Speaker 2: husband if you're a woman, which might mean really embracing
- 7:41Speaker 2: and coming to terms with your inner masculine qualities. And
- 7:46Speaker 2: that can feel very fulfilling and rewarding. And also, you know,
- 7:53Speaker 2: on a more mystical level, it's the union between the
- 7:55Speaker 2: earthly and the divine. So in the Christian tradition, it
- 7:59Speaker 2: might be the spiritual marriage with the, you know, the
- 8:03Speaker 2: bridegroom who is Christ, for example. So So we're in
- 8:09Speaker 2: the realm of mysticism and also analytical psychology when we're
- 8:17Speaker 2: talking about what this looks like on an inner level.
- 8:19Speaker 2: Let's take a look at the first dream because I
- 8:21Speaker 2: think it's going to help us see what we're really
- 8:23Speaker 2: talking about here. So this is a dream from a
- 8:27Speaker 2: woman who's currently 61, but she was 42 when she
- 8:30Speaker 2: had this dream. I find myself in an ornate vestibule
- 8:35Speaker 2: of a cathedral. Having come in on one side of it,
- 8:38Speaker 2: I see a bride in a beautiful white gown entering
- 8:41Speaker 2: through the archways on the opposite side. I see a
- 8:44Speaker 2: gorgeous rose window above her, like the one in Notre Dame.
- 8:49Speaker 2: The luminous bride was being led by a huge Great
- 8:52Speaker 2: Dane dog with a gold medallion on a red satin
- 8:56Speaker 2: ribbon around its neck. I looked to my right and
- 9:00Speaker 2: an orchestra was raising their instruments to begin playing the
- 9:03Speaker 2: wedding march. I could just peek inside the church doors
- 9:06Speaker 2: to my left at all the people inside, turning and
- 9:09Speaker 2: rising to their feet, and the incredible beauty of tall,
- 9:13Speaker 2: stained-glass windows inside. I did not go in because I
- 9:17Speaker 2: noticed a ladder leaning on the wall and ending in
- 9:20Speaker 2: an opening in the wall far above me. I climbed
- 9:24Speaker 2: the ladder and entered a strange room filled with books.
- 9:28Speaker 2: One book stood out. It was on a pedestal and
- 9:32Speaker 2: was incredibly large. I went over to it and flipped
- 9:35Speaker 2: through some pages. A voice said over my shoulder that
- 9:39Speaker 2: this book contained all the knowledge in all the world,
- 9:43Speaker 2: but that I had all the knowledge I needed. I
- 9:47Speaker 2: notice another opening to the outside with another ladder that
- 9:51Speaker 2: I descend on. Outside the church, I find a large
- 9:54Speaker 2: table filled with all the teachers I have ever known
- 9:57Speaker 2: and will ever know, all having a meal together. A
- 10:01Speaker 2: place is there for me, and I join them in
- 10:04Speaker 2: a wonderful meal. Afterward, none of them speak to me,
- 10:08Speaker 2: even though I'm trying to continue to speak to them,
- 10:10Speaker 2: and they scatter in all directions and on different roads
- 10:13Speaker 2: down the mountain. There is only one road left that
- 10:16Speaker 2: no one takes. and I begin to walk on it
- 10:20Speaker 2: up the mountain. Wow, what a, what a, sort of
- 10:26Speaker 2: have chills. And I'll just point out this, you know,
- 10:29Speaker 2: the dreamer had this dream 40 years ago, and she
- 10:33Speaker 2: either wrote it down and remembered it when she heard
- 10:36Speaker 2: our call for wedding dreams, or she's just always remembered it.
- 10:39Speaker 2: So this is one of those really big dreams. Here's
- 10:43Speaker 2: the context. At the time, I had been studying art,
- 10:46Speaker 2: history and mythology, and taken up music again, playing guitar
- 10:51Speaker 2: and singing after many years. I was studying painting and
- 10:55Speaker 2: had studied with many wonderful teachers. I was, however, longing
- 10:59Speaker 2: for a mentor and not finding anyone for direction on
- 11:02Speaker 2: my next steps. So, the main feelings were a sense
- 11:08Speaker 2: of awe, curiosity, and wonder, a feeling of joy, and
- 11:13Speaker 2: also longing. as my teachers were leaving me one by one.
- 11:19Speaker 2: And she notes that weddings give her a sense of
- 11:22Speaker 2: uniting together of various parts of herself. She says, I
- 11:26Speaker 2: found it curious, the gold coin medallion on the Great Dane.
- 11:30Speaker 2: I related to the gold coin given to the ferryman
- 11:33Speaker 2: at the River Styx, the library of knowledge, the meal
- 11:36Speaker 2: with my teachers I relate as a sort of communing with.
- 11:41Speaker 2: And this dreamer works as a visual artist, a curator,
- 11:45Speaker 2: and a musician.
- 11:46Speaker 4: I think we all have, the three of us, and
- 11:50Speaker 4: I hope many people out there, dreams that continue to
- 11:55Speaker 4: stay alive for us. That they are memories of experiences
- 12:02Speaker 4: that we have had that continue to infuse us with
- 12:09Speaker 4: special feeling and a sense of connection.
- 12:11Speaker 2: So, I mean, the symbols in this dream are just
- 12:16Speaker 2: sort of one right after another. So first of all,
- 12:18Speaker 2: there's the symbol of a cathedral, which can be seen
- 12:21Speaker 2: as a symbol of the self that obviously references spiritual life.
- 12:26Speaker 2: You know, it's where the holy thing happens. And of course,
- 12:31Speaker 2: it's usually where weddings take place. Rose windows are mandalas,
- 12:36Speaker 2: another symbol of the self. And the one in Notre
- 12:40Speaker 2: Dame is a beautiful example of that. And then we
- 12:43Speaker 2: have the woman in her white dress. And we might
- 12:49Speaker 2: imagine that this is an aspect of the dreamer who's
- 12:55Speaker 2: ready to kind of engage in the sacred wedding.
- 13:00Speaker 3: The bride who comes without the groom and who is
- 13:04Speaker 3: associated with the rose is a very archetypal symbol of
- 13:09Speaker 3: the Virgin Mary, which is so woven into the cathedral,
- 13:17Speaker 3: into Catholicism particularly. So to me, there is a veneration
- 13:25Speaker 3: of the divine, feminine, pure, unto herself, the bride of God.
- 13:35Speaker 3: And so she gets a glimpse of that. And then
- 13:38Speaker 3: she immediately goes into this world of books, knowledge, teachers,
- 13:44Speaker 3: and teaching. So in many of the old monastic traditions
- 13:50Speaker 3: for women and men, whether it's a convent or a monastery,
- 13:55Speaker 3: there is a way in which one would wed the
- 13:57Speaker 3: spirit and dedicate one's life to study and solitude and introspection.
- 14:06Speaker 3: And so the wedding here, I think, is being wedded,
- 14:09Speaker 3: as you had mentioned earlier in the episode, being wedded
- 14:12Speaker 3: to the self and possibly being wedded to the mission
- 14:18Speaker 3: in one's life, which for this person may be a
- 14:22Speaker 3: life of knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge, which is
- 14:27Speaker 3: a worthy thing to marry if that is true and
- 14:32Speaker 3: in one's heart and if that is the object of
- 14:34Speaker 3: your love.
- 14:35Speaker 2: Joseph, you have inspired me with that. I just love
- 14:40Speaker 2: what you did with that. And you really helped me
- 14:43Speaker 2: because I've been thinking, what the heck is that Great Dane?
- 14:47Speaker 2: But when you said that about her being the virgin,
- 14:49Speaker 2: it reminded me of the medieval myth of the unicorn,
- 14:54Speaker 2: that a unicorn could not be captured except by a virgin,
- 14:57Speaker 2: and it would come and lay its head in the
- 14:59Speaker 2: virgin's lap. So I wonder if our Great Dane is
- 15:03Speaker 2: a sort of, I don't know, a little bit like
- 15:06Speaker 2: a unicorn who was accompanying the virgin. And I'm sure
- 15:11Speaker 2: so much more, too. I mean, right? We could have
- 15:13Speaker 2: talked about this dream last month, too, when we had
- 15:17Speaker 2: our episode on dog dreams.
- 15:19Speaker 3: There's also the eighth tarot key called strength. And there
- 15:25Speaker 3: is a feminine figure in white who is leaning over
- 15:28Speaker 3: a lion, taking its mouth and opening it and, in
- 15:32Speaker 3: a sense, subduing it or tethering it to a kind
- 15:37Speaker 3: of higher wisdom. So this also captures a bit of
- 15:42Speaker 3: that energy that the animal nature, rather than being lost
- 15:48Speaker 3: purely in the instinctive world, is in service to the
- 15:52Speaker 3: great mission, in service to the self, but in service
- 15:55Speaker 3: to the life as the dreamer is destined to lead it,
- 15:59Speaker 3: rather than working against her. It's a wonderful, wonderful dream.
- 16:04Speaker 2: Yes. Beautiful dream.
- 16:05Speaker 3: It'd be interesting to know the arc of her life
- 16:08Speaker 3: from the point she had that dream to where she
- 16:10Speaker 3: is now.
- 16:11Speaker 2: I was really wondering about that. It would be, you know,
- 16:15Speaker 2: I'm so sorry we don't have that. You know, the
- 16:19Speaker 2: ending too is just so poignant, right? That there's only
- 16:22Speaker 2: one road. No one else has taken the road. She
- 16:24Speaker 2: has to take her own road. And I think there's a,
- 16:28Speaker 2: isn't there a great quote from Jung where he says,
- 16:30Speaker 2: if you're, if you're, if you're, traveling on the path
- 16:33Speaker 2: then it's not your journey or something like that it's
- 16:35Speaker 2: that's a that's a a poor substitute i think for
- 16:41Speaker 2: what he actually said but it's something like you've got
- 16:44Speaker 2: to find your own unique journey you can't just follow
- 16:48Speaker 2: someone else but the dream the dream makers being very
- 16:51Speaker 2: encouraging here.
- 16:51Speaker 4: Yeah and i think i mean it all feels very
- 16:56Speaker 4: the theme of having to do it yourself runs through
- 17:02Speaker 4: the dream. The dream ego doesn't go and sit down
- 17:06Speaker 4: in a pew.
- 17:07Speaker 2: Right.
- 17:09Speaker 4: It's another figure whose wedding it is. You have to
- 17:13Speaker 4: climb up a ladder that's for one person. Only one
- 17:17Speaker 4: person at a time can do that. And it says,
- 17:22Speaker 4: here's the book that contains all the knowledge in the world,
- 17:26Speaker 4: but I had all the knowledge I needed. So there's
- 17:30Speaker 4: an image there of completeness. You have enough. You have
- 17:34Speaker 4: all the knowledge you need. Then she goes outside and
- 17:38Speaker 4: sits down with all the teachers that she ever knew
- 17:42Speaker 4: or will know and can join them for a meal.
- 17:46Speaker 4: And it seems like a repetition of that same theme,
- 17:52Speaker 4: that they go in different directions on different roads down
- 17:56Speaker 4: the mountain, There's only one road left, and I begin
- 18:00Speaker 4: to walk on it up the mountain. So it's a
- 18:04Speaker 4: lovely dream of being part of a lot of these
- 18:09Speaker 4: gatherings and ceremonies, but you are good to go. You,
- 18:16Speaker 4: you know, no one else can do it for you.
- 18:20Speaker 4: And the Robert Frost line about, you know, I took
- 18:23Speaker 4: the road least traveled by, and that's made all the difference.
- 18:29Speaker 4: It's a wonderful dream that says, go on your individual
- 18:34Speaker 4: journey up the mountain.
- 18:36Speaker 2: Yeah. And she was 42.
- 18:38Speaker 4: Yes. And a mountain like pyramids and ziggurats and so on,
- 18:45Speaker 4: things in mythology, people go up on a mountain in
- 18:49Speaker 4: order to connect with the higher power. The spirit, the
- 18:53Speaker 4: higher we can go, the closer we are to spirit,
- 18:57Speaker 4: symbolically speaking.
- 18:59Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great.
- 18:59Speaker 4: So she's going up the mountain. It's a sacred journey.
- 19:03Speaker 4: It's a wonderful dream.
- 19:04Speaker 2: You know, Deb, you also just triggered another realization for me.
- 19:09Speaker 2: I love what you said about how it's an image
- 19:11Speaker 2: of completeness that the book says you have all the
- 19:14Speaker 2: knowledge you need. Well, a marriage, a wedding is an
- 19:18Speaker 2: image of completeness.
- 19:20Speaker 1: Yes.
- 19:21Speaker 2: Two things have come together to become one, and there
- 19:23Speaker 2: is a sense of completion. That's why the coniunctio, in
- 19:30Speaker 2: some sense, was the goal of the work.
- 19:38Speaker 3: The three stages of the dream also remind me of
- 19:42Speaker 3: three ways that we can approach our own psychological process. Wisdom, understanding,
- 19:54Speaker 3: and knowledge, which are really quite different. If we remember
- 19:58Speaker 3: that Sophia, that name, means wisdom. So if we take
- 20:06Speaker 3: the first as the vision of wisdom, the vision of Sophia,
- 20:12Speaker 3: which is to know what is true. Understanding is to
- 20:17Speaker 3: discover the consequences, the logical consequences of what we have
- 20:23Speaker 3: discovered is true. And that is the teachers and the
- 20:27Speaker 3: books and all of the implications of the truth. And
- 20:32Speaker 3: then knowledge has to do with carrying wisdom and understanding
- 20:38Speaker 3: into the world, that you have gnosis, or a direct
- 20:44Speaker 3: knowing of how that is in the world. And so
- 20:49Speaker 3: in the last part of the dream, she's finished with
- 20:53Speaker 3: wisdom and understanding, and then she is taking the road
- 20:57Speaker 3: to gnosis, which is the direct experience of those earlier
- 21:02Speaker 3: two things. And so in that way, it has A
- 21:05Speaker 3: very logical sequence of processes.
- 21:08Speaker 2: Well, let's maybe try another dream. This one is from
- 21:15Speaker 2: a man who's 54 years old.
- 21:19Speaker 3: So a 54-year-old male sends him this. In my dream,
- 21:24Speaker 3: which is in black and white, I'm standing inside a
- 21:28Speaker 3: church very dimly lit that I can hardly see it
- 21:31Speaker 3: in its entirety. It is bare of furnishings and feels
- 21:36Speaker 3: like several centuries old. Although I do not see them
- 21:40Speaker 3: with my own eyes, it feels to me that inside
- 21:44Speaker 3: the church, weddings are going on, one after another. In
- 21:49Speaker 3: the next scene, I see a beautiful and dusky young
- 21:54Speaker 3: woman in a white wedding dress. I recognize her as
- 21:58Speaker 3: a classmate studying nursing back in college who I have
- 22:01Speaker 3: not seen for nearly 20 years. She opens the church
- 22:06Speaker 3: door and walks all by herself towards the inner part
- 22:09Speaker 3: of the church. I see no one else inside the church.
- 22:14Speaker 3: As I watch her make her walk, I start feeling
- 22:17Speaker 3: that it is 1969, the year of my birth. At
- 22:22Speaker 3: that point, it makes me wonder how it could be
- 22:24Speaker 3: possible for me to be in that place and the
- 22:27Speaker 3: event at a time when I was just being or
- 22:30Speaker 3: about to be born. For context, he writes, I had
- 22:35Speaker 3: this dream during the COVID-19 lockdown. It came soon after
- 22:39Speaker 3: I turned 50 and was going through a period of
- 22:41Speaker 3: uncertainty in my life. The main feelings in the dream
- 22:45Speaker 3: were awe at the air of mystery in the church,
- 22:48Speaker 3: fascination at the wedding ceremonies, curiosity towards the young woman
- 22:53Speaker 3: and puzzlement at my being there during the year of
- 22:56Speaker 3: my birth. For associations, he says, Union and profound relationship
- 23:03Speaker 3: between two individuals. The unique milestone in one's life. A
- 23:09Speaker 3: roaming Catholic sacrament and ritual. Celebration. Those are his associations
- 23:14Speaker 3: to the term wedding. And his occupation is a teacher.
- 23:19Speaker 2: So it's interesting because I didn't notice this when I
- 23:24Speaker 2: was initially kind of selecting the dreams. But first of all,
- 23:27Speaker 2: this one, like the last one, starts in a church.
- 23:30Speaker 2: And we have another solitary woman in the church. Very interesting.
- 23:36Speaker 2: And that the church, it's specified that it's very old
- 23:39Speaker 2: or it seems very old. So this is something that's
- 23:45Speaker 2: been laid down in the psyche for a long time
- 23:47Speaker 2: and a kind of ancestral content harkening back to something
- 23:52Speaker 2: in the collective psyche. I mean, one of the things
- 23:55Speaker 2: that we might do with a dream image like this,
- 23:58Speaker 2: I love the idea of a dusky, a beautiful and
- 24:02Speaker 2: dusky young woman. I'm not sure exactly. That conjures up
- 24:06Speaker 2: a real image for me. But this would be a
- 24:11Speaker 2: classic image of the anima that we might imagine. And
- 24:16Speaker 2: so in our book, Dreamwise, we have a whole chapter
- 24:20Speaker 2: on the anima and the animus. And in fact, we
- 24:22Speaker 2: talk a little bit about wedding dreams in the chapter.
- 24:25Speaker 2: And that this is one of the kind of ways
- 24:31Speaker 2: that an anima might appear. Someone, you know, not currently
- 24:36Speaker 2: in your life who feels compelling and represents this function
- 24:44Speaker 2: of the anima, which in a man's psyche is usually
- 24:48Speaker 2: pictured as a woman. And part of what that aspect
- 24:52Speaker 2: of the psyche does is to connect you with the
- 24:55Speaker 2: deep interior so kind of marrying the anima is a
- 25:00Speaker 2: real image of um a kind of initiation into your
- 25:06Speaker 2: own depths maybe and he is.
- 25:10Speaker 4: In the deep interior uh he's in this church that
- 25:15Speaker 4: is centuries old How is it possible to have this
- 25:21Speaker 4: happen just at the time that he's being born?
- 25:25Speaker 2: Yes. So interesting.
- 25:27Speaker 4: You know, it sort of floats time.
- 25:31Speaker 2: And the.
- 25:33Speaker 4: Anima image is a classmate studying nursing. So there's an
- 25:40Speaker 4: image of his inner other, someone he was connected to,
- 25:45Speaker 4: a classmate, who was in a caring profession, a healing profession,
- 25:51Speaker 4: and that there is this inner figure. And I agree,
- 25:59Speaker 4: it's interesting that the bride is alone. And who might
- 26:05Speaker 4: be the bridegroom? It's really a very touching, a touching
- 26:11Speaker 4: dream of this reconciliation with the inner other.
- 26:17Speaker 2: And it does hint at birth, doesn't it? And it
- 26:20Speaker 2: also makes me think about the way that these sacraments,
- 26:23Speaker 2: whether it's birth, marriage, or death, kind of can get overlaid.
- 26:27Speaker 2: There was that movie that came out, Four Weddings and
- 26:30Speaker 2: a Funeral, if you remember that a million years ago.
- 26:33Speaker 2: But there's some kind of conflation, like you said, Deb.
- 26:35Speaker 2: It sort of just erases time. And he's both being
- 26:39Speaker 2: born and he is getting married.
- 26:42Speaker 4: And that's a rebirth image that you will be, you're different.
- 26:48Speaker 4: You're changed.
- 26:51Speaker 2: Yes.
- 26:51Speaker 4: After you get married, there is a fundamental... in the
- 26:58Speaker 4: psyche from being single, being engaged, to being married.
- 27:05Speaker 3: So I'd like to take it in an additional direction.
- 27:09Speaker 3: So the one thing I would say is that Jung
- 27:12Speaker 3: was very clear that archetypes activate during times of crises,
- 27:19Speaker 3: and particularly when ruling ideas have lost their meaning.
- 27:25Speaker 2: Oh, that's great.
- 27:26Speaker 3: So he's in a time where he's turned 50, he's
- 27:30Speaker 3: going through a period of uncertainty, and it seems that
- 27:34Speaker 3: there's an archetypal activation. And this beautiful woman who has
- 27:41Speaker 3: existed from the moment of his birth presents to him.
- 27:47Speaker 3: And so this, to me, is a vision of his
- 27:49Speaker 3: destiny and the goddess Fortuna.
- 27:54Speaker 4: Hmm.
- 27:55Speaker 3: To believe that since the moment you were born, that
- 27:59Speaker 3: there has been a presence. There has been one waiting
- 28:04Speaker 3: for you. Now, we could literally think of this as
- 28:08Speaker 3: the anima, the one that's waiting for you, is actually
- 28:12Speaker 3: all of the potential that you have yet to live.
- 28:14Speaker 3: And that's a way that's in a very pragmatic way
- 28:18Speaker 3: of thinking of what is waiting for you.
- 28:20Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that.
- 28:22Speaker 3: But also, you were in nursing. school with this person.
- 28:27Speaker 3: And so I think it is a reaffirmation that becoming
- 28:32Speaker 3: a nurse for you earlier in your career was destined
- 28:35Speaker 3: for you at the moment of your birth. Now, am
- 28:39Speaker 3: I understanding that from the associations?
- 28:42Speaker 2: I don't know that he was studying nursing. They may
- 28:45Speaker 2: have just been in school together and he was studying
- 28:47Speaker 2: one thing and she was studying nursing. We don't know
- 28:49Speaker 2: for sure.
- 28:49Speaker 4: He says he's a teacher.
- 28:51Speaker 3: He is now.
- 28:53Speaker 2: So one fantasy.
- 28:55Speaker 3: Is perhaps that has to do with the earlier career.
- 29:00Speaker 3: Perhaps it has to do in general, the idea of
- 29:03Speaker 3: destiny and fortune. And the idea that something was set
- 29:08Speaker 3: in motion at the moment of your birth, which is
- 29:12Speaker 3: alive and well, and can be glimpsed in the barely
- 29:17Speaker 3: lit realm of the cathedral, the ancient church. which is
- 29:23Speaker 3: really the deep archetypal religious function inside of us. And
- 29:28Speaker 3: not religious, meaning organized religion, but a sense of spiritual numinosity.
- 29:35Speaker 3: And also, at a time you're turning 50, you're not
- 29:39Speaker 3: sure what to do with your life, to have a
- 29:42Speaker 3: vision that there is something beautiful inside of you that
- 29:47Speaker 3: was there since the moment of your birth is a wonderful, inspiring,
- 29:54Speaker 3: and encouraging vision.
- 29:57Speaker 2: That's really lovely, Joseph. I really like that. That's great. Yeah,
- 30:03Speaker 2: these dreams, most of the wedding dreams that I got
- 30:06Speaker 2: or that we got as submissions were very inspiring and
- 30:12Speaker 2: kind of beautiful and a little mysterious. But let's look
- 30:15Speaker 2: at one that wasn't so happy. It's a 26-year-old woman
- 30:19Speaker 2: and here's the dream. Coincidentally, I saw this post, I
- 30:22Speaker 2: think meaning our social media post asking for wedding dreams.
- 30:25Speaker 2: Last night, I had a dream my husband was going
- 30:28Speaker 2: off to marry another woman, and she was just like
- 30:32Speaker 2: my father's mistress in real life. He was leaving me.
- 30:36Speaker 2: I felt so much pain in my body when I
- 30:38Speaker 2: woke up, and I cried, too. And I am emotionally
- 30:42Speaker 2: preparing because I believe this might happen, as so many
- 30:45Speaker 2: of my dreams do. For context, she says, I feel
- 30:48Speaker 2: distant and that my husband is annoyed at me. So
- 30:51Speaker 2: I think that's the waking life context. The main feelings
- 30:54Speaker 2: in the dream were pain in my body. In the dream,
- 30:57Speaker 2: I fall to the floor and I cry so painfully.
- 31:03Speaker 2: And her associations were he was getting married and planning
- 31:06Speaker 2: his wedding. And she works as a vendor. So this
- 31:16Speaker 2: is a very poignant dream. And I'm just noticing how
- 31:19Speaker 2: many times the word pain appears. appears in the entry,
- 31:23Speaker 2: in the associations, and in the dream itself. So the
- 31:25Speaker 2: person's in a lot of pain. And we might, for example, imagine,
- 31:32Speaker 2: I mean, this dream brings up, especially because she says
- 31:36Speaker 2: she's worried it might happen and she's feeling very removed,
- 31:39Speaker 2: it brings up another concept that we work with in
- 31:44Speaker 2: DreamWise about the subjective, interpretation of a dream and an
- 31:50Speaker 2: objective meaning of a dream. So is the dream commenting
- 31:53Speaker 2: on the inner world or the outer world? And of course,
- 31:56Speaker 2: sometimes it's both. Most of the time, we say that
- 32:00Speaker 2: dreams are commenting on the inner world, but they sometimes
- 32:02Speaker 2: do comment on the outer world.
- 32:04Speaker 3: So what occurs to me is a really profound and
- 32:10Speaker 3: important stage in a marriage. But when we first often meet,
- 32:18Speaker 3: often work much younger, maybe in our 20s, that the
- 32:23Speaker 3: inner potential, which we call anima animus, is projected onto
- 32:29Speaker 3: the spouse, which lends them a kind of fascination. Now,
- 32:36Speaker 3: the other person probably does have many of those qualities,
- 32:40Speaker 3: which are latent in ourselves. And so it is useful
- 32:45Speaker 3: and beneficial and in service to our growth to be
- 32:48Speaker 3: fascinated by someone who is evidencing qualities and traits that
- 32:54Speaker 3: we are destined to know more about. And in fact,
- 32:57Speaker 3: we often do by virtue of being with our spouses.
- 33:03Speaker 3: Later in life, after the marriage is ripened, those experiences
- 33:11Speaker 3: have been integrated. And then there is an internal discovery
- 33:16Speaker 3: of the inner partner, Every man discovers that he has
- 33:21Speaker 3: an inner wife. Every woman discovers that she has an
- 33:25Speaker 3: inner husband. And when these dreams begin to surface, often
- 33:30Speaker 3: the ego is in a lot of conflict. The anima
- 33:34Speaker 3: comes to a man in the dream and offers to
- 33:38Speaker 3: be his partner, and the man will reject him, saying, No,
- 33:41Speaker 3: I'm already married. I don't want to hurt my wife.
- 33:44Speaker 3: I'm not interested. But in the inner world, The man
- 33:48Speaker 3: needs to consent to have the metaphoric second wife in
- 33:54Speaker 3: the same way that a woman in the inner world
- 33:57Speaker 3: needs to consent to have the inner spiritual husband. When
- 34:03Speaker 3: this actually happens in a marriage, the spouse can really
- 34:08Speaker 3: feel it, can feel that a number of the projections
- 34:12Speaker 3: that used to fuel the marriage have actually been withdrawn
- 34:16Speaker 3: and there is an internal image that is deeply interesting
- 34:21Speaker 3: to the spouse. Another way of saying it is that
- 34:26Speaker 3: the spouse becomes more interested in their self-development and a
- 34:31Speaker 3: little bit less or a lot less interested in the
- 34:35Speaker 3: romance that is generated by the projection. This happens to
- 34:39Speaker 3: men and women and we call it a midlife crisis,
- 34:42Speaker 3: by the way. if we understood it correctly, we would
- 34:46Speaker 3: understand that it is time to prioritize the inner marriage
- 34:51Speaker 3: and the inner spouse. And I have a feeling that
- 34:54Speaker 3: might be happening, and that she's really, really feeling the
- 35:00Speaker 3: change in the relationship, and for lack of understanding it
- 35:04Speaker 3: in that psycho-spiritual way, could find it really threatening initially.
- 35:08Speaker 4: I think I'm seeing it, you're seeing it very much
- 35:12Speaker 4: from a subjective, or internal world point of view, but
- 35:16Speaker 4: I'm very willing to consider it from the objective or
- 35:21Speaker 4: external world relational point of view. She's only 26, so
- 35:27Speaker 4: it'd be a little young for her to be meeting
- 35:33Speaker 4: her inner other, although of course that happens, not on
- 35:39Speaker 4: any strict timetable. But I'm thinking about the unresolved lingering
- 35:49Speaker 4: reverberations and repercussions of a family trauma of what happens
- 35:54Speaker 4: when your father goes off and abandons your mother in
- 36:00Speaker 4: order to marry somebody else. That the father has had
- 36:06Speaker 4: a mistress who he then marries. And so that threatens,
- 36:12Speaker 4: in a way, the archetype itself of the marriage, of
- 36:15Speaker 4: your loyalty bonded to one person versus there was somebody
- 36:22Speaker 4: else on the side who eventually became the new partner.
- 36:27Speaker 4: And that this has led to her own insecurity, perhaps,
- 36:35Speaker 4: in her own marriage, that could this happen to me too?
- 36:42Speaker 4: And she says, I feel distant and that my husband
- 36:46Speaker 4: is annoyed with me. I'm kind of looking at it
- 36:50Speaker 4: from the point of view of her relational history with
- 36:53Speaker 4: her father and the current state of her relationship with
- 36:58Speaker 4: her husband.
- 36:59Speaker 2: What I love about what you guys have just done
- 37:01Speaker 2: is given this like masterful explanation of what this could
- 37:05Speaker 2: look like if it were subjective and masterful explanation of
- 37:10Speaker 2: what it could look like if it were objective. And
- 37:12Speaker 2: of course, both might be true.
- 37:14Speaker 3: I do want to jump in that I was actually
- 37:18Speaker 3: interpreting it as subjective because I think the dream maker
- 37:22Speaker 3: was giving her information about her external husband, not about her.
- 37:26Speaker 2: That's true.
- 37:27Speaker 3: And sometimes the unconscious is very aware of other people's
- 37:32Speaker 3: level of development and what's going on. So I think
- 37:36Speaker 3: Deb and I are on the same page, that the
- 37:38Speaker 3: dream does seem curious about the husband. Deb thinking about
- 37:43Speaker 3: this from a traumatogenic standpoint, and I from having insights
- 37:48Speaker 3: about how our partners grow and develop.
- 37:50Speaker 2: But yeah, and yeah, thank you, Joseph. That's a good clarification.
- 37:54Speaker 2: These ideas are so subtle. I know. But I do
- 37:58Speaker 2: want to say, though, that, you know, sometimes dreams can
- 38:01Speaker 2: be very.
- 38:04Speaker 2: Kind of blunt and reality-oriented. And I have a friend
- 38:09Speaker 2: who was married, and when his partner would, you know,
- 38:17Speaker 2: kind of begin to stray, he would always have a
- 38:19Speaker 2: dream that tipped him off, you know? And so there
- 38:22Speaker 2: can be a way where sometimes the unconscious is picking
- 38:26Speaker 2: up on something that's actually happening in the outer world.
- 38:31Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
- 38:31Speaker 2: And, you know, she says that many of her dreams
- 38:34Speaker 2: do come to pass. And it is possible, not that
- 38:38Speaker 2: the dream is precognitive, but that the dream is underlying, underlining,
- 38:45Speaker 2: excuse me, something she already knows, which is that there's
- 38:49Speaker 2: a drift in her marriage. But it may be saying,
- 38:53Speaker 2: and there's even some part of it you haven't attended
- 38:56Speaker 2: to or that you're not quite seeing. We don't know.
- 39:00Speaker 2: It could be more about what's going on in the
- 39:04Speaker 2: partner's inner life, like you said, Joseph, or it could
- 39:08Speaker 2: be more kind of factual that perhaps the partner is
- 39:13Speaker 2: beginning to pursue another relationship. But I think I think
- 39:17Speaker 2: where this is a dream that is about the inner
- 39:21Speaker 2: world and the inner world of the dreamer is we
- 39:26Speaker 2: would wonder about the quality of her animus. Because as
- 39:29Speaker 2: you said, Deb, we know that there's kind of been
- 39:31Speaker 2: a family trauma. You know, the animus of a woman
- 39:35Speaker 2: is often really influenced by her relationship with her father.
- 39:38Speaker 2: We can have an imagination about how it might be
- 39:42Speaker 2: affected by a father who goes off and has an affair.
- 39:46Speaker 2: Oftentimes daughters really sort of, um, align with the experience
- 39:51Speaker 2: of their mother and really identify with that and feel
- 39:53Speaker 2: really hurt and devastated when a father leaves the family.
- 39:57Speaker 2: And that may be kind of the way things feel
- 40:01Speaker 2: in the inner world, too. is that she doesn't have
- 40:05Speaker 2: good access to this animus energy. So, you know, in
- 40:11Speaker 2: our book, Dreamwise, we talk about what might the positive
- 40:17Speaker 2: animus look like in the dreams that women have, and
- 40:22Speaker 2: what might the negative animus look like. And I think
- 40:25Speaker 2: this is a dream of the negative animus, We also
- 40:29Speaker 2: talk about, you know, for men, what the dreams look like,
- 40:32Speaker 2: the positive anima and the negative anima. So all of
- 40:36Speaker 2: that is in our anima animus chapter in DreamWise. But
- 40:40Speaker 2: this is a good example, I think, of a negative
- 40:42Speaker 2: animus dream.
- 40:44Speaker 4: So time to move on to another dream. This is
- 40:49Speaker 4: entry 668 for you guys. Our dreamer is a woman.
- 40:55Speaker 4: She's 45 years old. and she is a web designer,
- 41:00Speaker 4: and here's the dream. I've been invited to Kate Middleton's wedding,
- 41:05Speaker 4: and I'm waiting for her to arrive with a crowd
- 41:08Speaker 4: of guests. We're waiting in a desert landscape. Someone in
- 41:13Speaker 4: the crowd sees her in the distance, and everyone starts cheering.
- 41:17Speaker 4: We are all happy and excited. Then I see a
- 41:21Speaker 4: big four-story house, but it's only a facade like a
- 41:25Speaker 4: theater prop. It is decorated with street art and graffiti.
- 41:31Speaker 4: On each level is a long balcony filled with bridesmaids.
- 41:36Speaker 4: They're not wearing traditional bridesmaids' dresses, but rather dark blue
- 41:41Speaker 4: outfits trimmed with white, a cross between a school uniform
- 41:45Speaker 4: and a Middle Eastern men's robe. I think approvingly of
- 41:50Speaker 4: how creative and different Kate has made this ceremony. and
- 41:54Speaker 4: how she has rejected some of the boring sexist norms
- 41:58Speaker 4: of a wedding. I decide to say loudly, wow, she
- 42:02Speaker 4: has so many friends, I couldn't fill even one level
- 42:06Speaker 4: of this house. The crowd laughs approvingly, but I feel
- 42:10Speaker 4: a little ashamed and wonder if they actually feel sorry
- 42:14Speaker 4: for me. Then I notice that there's a large graffiti
- 42:18Speaker 4: saying Saudi Airy Iran, which makes me feel uneasy. For context,
- 42:27Speaker 4: she says, the day before this dream, I had a
- 42:30Speaker 4: psychological breakthrough where I realized I'd been defensive my whole
- 42:35Speaker 4: life and hadn't committed properly to many things. I felt
- 42:40Speaker 4: energized and ready to be different. The main feelings in
- 42:45Speaker 4: the dream, she says, And for additional context, she says,
- 43:03Speaker 4: Kate Middleton, my mother has always been unhealthily obsessed with
- 43:07Speaker 4: the British royal family. My mother was neglectful and cruel
- 43:12Speaker 4: to me and my brother as kids. She follows the
- 43:16Speaker 4: royals every move and passes unkind judgments on them, although
- 43:21Speaker 4: she approves of Kate. Partly in reaction, I've always held
- 43:25Speaker 4: the position that the royal family is a terrible anti-democratic institution. However,
- 43:32Speaker 4: I think Kate is beautiful and admire the way she
- 43:35Speaker 4: does a hard job. The balcony, she says, a big
- 43:40Speaker 4: royal symbol, but it's been messed with in the dream
- 43:44Speaker 4: so it's long and crowded and has only a facade
- 43:47Speaker 4: behind it. Of the gowns, she says, I wore a
- 43:52Speaker 4: school uniform as a high schooler that was dark blue
- 43:55Speaker 4: and white. I loved my school and liked the uniform.
- 44:00Speaker 4: As for Saudi Arran, hard word to make out, Arran,
- 44:06Speaker 4: I think this made me realize that the wedding was
- 44:09Speaker 4: in the Middle East and that this could be dangerous.
- 44:12Speaker 4: I've traveled for work to Saudi and found it scary
- 44:15Speaker 4: and weird but fascinating. I'm deeply anxious about the conflict
- 44:20Speaker 4: in the Middle East and distressed by anti-Semitism at home.
- 44:25Speaker 2: So, I mean, it's interesting that here we have a
- 44:28Speaker 2: royal wedding, which is what often happens in fairy tales, too.
- 44:32Speaker 2: I mean, this is a complex dream, and I think
- 44:35Speaker 2: it's obviously touching on some complex dynamics in the dreamer's life.
- 44:41Speaker 2: But I wanted to say two things about it as
- 44:44Speaker 2: sort of opening salvos. One is, you know, she mentions
- 44:49Speaker 2: that she realizes she's not properly committed to many things,
- 44:53Speaker 2: and so... in that sense, the image of a wedding
- 44:56Speaker 2: is very important because one of the key things about
- 44:59Speaker 2: a wedding is that it's a commitment. It's a, it's
- 45:02Speaker 2: a deep psycho-spiritual legal, you know, if you think about
- 45:08Speaker 2: actual weddings, it's legal, it's financial, it is, um, it's,
- 45:13Speaker 2: it's a commitment, uh, a profound import of every, in
- 45:17Speaker 2: every dimension in our culture. Um, And also she had
- 45:22Speaker 2: this psychological breakthrough and she was feeling energized. And then
- 45:27Speaker 2: she has this dream, which is very often what dreams do.
- 45:31Speaker 2: You know, we talk about in the book, we talk
- 45:33Speaker 2: about how dreams are compensatory. And so she's, you know,
- 45:38Speaker 2: consciously she's feeling kind of elated and she just had
- 45:41Speaker 2: this big breakthrough. And then the dream just has a
- 45:47Speaker 2: slightly more somber tone. and brings in this nagging anxiety.
- 45:54Speaker 2: So that feels just right. That feels just like what
- 45:57Speaker 2: our dream maker would do is sort of always bringing in,
- 46:01Speaker 2: what about the other side of this?
- 46:03Speaker 4: What I am paying the most attention to is the
- 46:06Speaker 4: image of Kate Middleton and that this is a royal wedding.
- 46:14Speaker 4: On the other hand, the wedding is taking place in
- 46:16Speaker 4: a desert which is a place that is not very fertile.
- 46:21Speaker 4: And this big four-story house is only a facade. And
- 46:30Speaker 4: it is decorated with street art and graffiti, which is
- 46:36Speaker 4: not the same kind of decoration that one would usually
- 46:41Speaker 4: have at a wedding. So there are so many people
- 46:44Speaker 4: here that are wearing different kinds of clothes. And that's
- 46:48Speaker 4: kind of nice, and Kate has made it different and
- 46:52Speaker 4: has flouted some of the norms of the wedding. But
- 46:57Speaker 4: I'm just paying attention to that aside from her comment of,
- 47:01Speaker 4: is it a royal wedding? Is it a facade? Is
- 47:06Speaker 4: she demonstrating her own individuality in having this unique kind
- 47:12Speaker 4: of wedding? Or does this mark that this is not
- 47:17Speaker 4: quite a genuine wedding? So I think this is a
- 47:21Speaker 4: dream about a lot of ambivalence that is being mirrored
- 47:27Speaker 4: with a scene in the dream, in the dreamer, around
- 47:32Speaker 4: commitment and having to comply versus rebel and what exactly
- 47:39Speaker 4: is going on.
- 47:40Speaker 3: I think the.
- 47:44Speaker 3: Similar to you, Deb, I'm finding myself indexing on her
- 47:52Speaker 3: ambivalent relationship with her mom and the mother being neglectful
- 47:57Speaker 3: and cruel, and yet the mother somewhat idealizing Kate Middleton
- 48:04Speaker 3: and particularly being contemptuous towards other aspects of the royal family.
- 48:13Speaker 3: So there's something about when the dreamer says, I think
- 48:17Speaker 3: approvingly of how creative and different Kate has made the
- 48:20Speaker 3: ceremony and how she has rejected some of the boring
- 48:23Speaker 3: sexist norms of a wedding. And it makes me wonder
- 48:28Speaker 3: if that is an intrusion from the negative mother complex
- 48:33Speaker 3: and that the facade may very well be the way
- 48:39Speaker 3: that her psyche has to mask her legitimate interest in
- 48:48Speaker 3: the wedding symbolism from the negative mother inside her. The
- 48:53Speaker 3: dream maker wants her to consider the symbolism or perhaps
- 48:56Speaker 3: even the reality of a wedding. The inner mother is
- 49:01Speaker 3: very negative about what she finds interesting, doesn't provide a
- 49:07Speaker 3: lot of support for what pleases her. So she's going
- 49:11Speaker 3: to make a wedding look like some kind of a
- 49:13Speaker 3: theater pop event with graffiti and other kinds of masks.
- 49:20Speaker 3: and misdirections. But hopefully, despite all of the costuming, she'll
- 49:28Speaker 3: find that she can actually entertain this idea of at
- 49:32Speaker 3: least the inner marriage. We have another example. I think,
- 49:38Speaker 3: intrusion of anxiety around the Saudi Arabia, because for her, again,
- 49:44Speaker 3: that feels like a very frightening association. And I think
- 49:48Speaker 3: this is, again, this sense of danger that if I
- 49:53Speaker 3: were to approach my own interest in wedding, or even
- 49:58Speaker 3: the archetype of the wedding, that something bad is going
- 50:02Speaker 3: to happen. But I think it's still... surfaces because of
- 50:07Speaker 3: her associations around the negative experience with her own mother?
- 50:11Speaker 3: And how does she set that aside to decide what's
- 50:14Speaker 3: important to her without being affected by those memories or
- 50:18Speaker 3: whether or not she pleases her own mother?
- 50:20Speaker 2: You know, there's something about that image of the facade
- 50:24Speaker 2: that's filled with people. And Joseph, I like what you
- 50:28Speaker 2: said about it. For me, what comes up is this
- 50:30Speaker 2: image of kind of like the manic defense. Like it's
- 50:33Speaker 2: this big facade and there are these big balconies and
- 50:36Speaker 2: it's filled with people, but there's nothing behind it. So
- 50:39Speaker 2: often what's underneath a manic defense, what a manic defense
- 50:43Speaker 2: is covering up is feelings of smallness, shame, insecurity. And
- 50:48Speaker 2: in fact, she makes this statement and then she feels
- 50:52Speaker 2: that people are feeling sorry for her. She feels ashamed.
- 50:56Speaker 2: So I think there's probably shame here too, which we
- 51:02Speaker 2: can understand given what we know about her biography. And
- 51:12Speaker 2: the Saudi stuff, you know, it's interesting because I was
- 51:15Speaker 2: I wish we knew a little bit more about what
- 51:17Speaker 2: was scary and weird and fascinating about it for her.
- 51:20Speaker 2: But I can imagine that I really don't know much
- 51:24Speaker 2: about Saudi Arabia. I've never been there. But of course,
- 51:29Speaker 2: women are treated very differently in that society. And I wonder,
- 51:34Speaker 2: you know, it's very, very rigid and oppressive. And she's also,
- 51:39Speaker 2: of course, really anxious about the conflict. I thought that
- 51:41Speaker 2: was interesting. She's anxious about the conflict. So it's possible
- 51:46Speaker 2: that having had this revelation about her need to be
- 51:50Speaker 2: more committed, what comes on the heels of that is
- 51:54Speaker 2: an awareness of, um, of ways that commitments may require
- 52:00Speaker 2: her to face things that are shameful, to face her
- 52:04Speaker 2: weaknesses and to come into conflict. So that, that really
- 52:09Speaker 2: deciding to, uh, change her ways and become more committed
- 52:16Speaker 2: is going to ask a lot of her, I think.
- 52:18Speaker 4: I'm thinking about all the images in the dream and
- 52:23Speaker 4: in the context about this incredible ambivalence about attachment and
- 52:32Speaker 4: commitment that builds on what you were saying, Joseph, about
- 52:38Speaker 4: the relationship with the mother. If your primary attachment figure
- 52:43Speaker 4: has not been safe, it's very, very difficult to commit
- 52:47Speaker 4: to other things and other people. And here's the wavering.
- 52:53Speaker 4: The mom disparages the royal family. And our dreamer says
- 52:59Speaker 4: that the royal family is a terrible anti-democratic institution. However,
- 53:05Speaker 4: I think Kate is beautiful. And I admire the way
- 53:10Speaker 4: she does a hard job.
- 53:13Speaker 2: Me too. I'm a Kate fan.
- 53:14Speaker 4: And that is a both and.
- 53:18Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's great.
- 53:20Speaker 4: Of, yes, you can be in the royal family. You
- 53:23Speaker 4: don't have to have a facade. You don't have to
- 53:26Speaker 4: have graffiti at your wedding. And neither do you exactly
- 53:32Speaker 4: have to conform. And Kate Middleton has carved her own path.
- 53:38Speaker 4: So I think there might be something in that image
- 53:41Speaker 4: for our dreamer to consider as symbolic of the both-and.
- 53:46Speaker 2: Well, and that's great, Deb. And weddings are the both-and, right?
- 53:50Speaker 2: They are the kunyuntio, the coming together. And so I
- 53:53Speaker 2: think that's perfect, that the framing of the dream is
- 53:59Speaker 2: that it is Kate Middleton's wedding.
- 54:02Speaker 3: I think there's also an important pivoting moment in the
- 54:07Speaker 3: dream where You've been invited to Kate Middleton's wedding, which,
- 54:11Speaker 3: by the way, is not something that most people get
- 54:14Speaker 3: invited to.
- 54:15Speaker 2: That's right.
- 54:16Speaker 3: That you're special. And you have some relationship.
- 54:20Speaker 2: Oh, I love that.
- 54:21Speaker 3: To her at the event. And that when Kate is glimpsed,
- 54:26Speaker 3: that the entire psyche starts cheering. They're happy and excited.
- 54:32Speaker 3: So we have a real... feeling about how the larger
- 54:37Speaker 3: psyche feels about the bride. And after there is all
- 54:43Speaker 3: of this cheering and excitement, then things become more and
- 54:47Speaker 3: more problematic. And what that shows us is how difficult
- 54:53Speaker 3: it is in general for her to be happy and
- 54:57Speaker 3: excited and for the complexes in the psyche to tolerate that.
- 55:03Speaker 3: And which goes back to what you were saying, Deb,
- 55:04Speaker 3: about having a very ambivalent experience of our primary caregivers.
- 55:10Speaker 3: So happy and excited. Then there's facades and theaters and bridesmaids,
- 55:17Speaker 3: but they're disguised in uniforms, you know, blue things with
- 55:21Speaker 3: white piping. Certain convent orders wear that. Certain police officers
- 55:28Speaker 3: wear it. Certain airline stewardesses wear it. But it is
- 55:32Speaker 3: kind of a disguise that way. she's able to hang
- 55:37Speaker 3: on to a little bit of positive feeling about Kate secretly.
- 55:42Speaker 3: And then she has to use this self-denigrating humor. That's
- 55:47Speaker 3: the thing I'd love to lean into if she were
- 55:49Speaker 3: my analysis. What's happening? And I think there's a problem
- 55:56Speaker 3: here that I think approvingly about how creative and different
- 56:01Speaker 3: Kate is. And then This attitude of the mother comes in,
- 56:06Speaker 3: which is rather critical and is worried about sexist norms.
- 56:11Speaker 3: And then once those two things come together in the psyche,
- 56:16Speaker 3: then there is something self-denigrating that pops out of the
- 56:20Speaker 3: psyche as a reaction to those two things. So, here
- 56:26Speaker 3: we have a little kid who's really excited about something.
- 56:30Speaker 3: The parent comes. and says something that's rejecting and critical
- 56:34Speaker 3: about it, then the kid learns how to make a
- 56:37Speaker 3: self-deprecating joke to back out of the tension with the
- 56:42Speaker 3: critical factor in the family. It's a survival technique. It's
- 56:47Speaker 3: not a humor. It's a very effective way to manage
- 56:50Speaker 3: all of that. But there's this feeling of a little
- 56:55Speaker 3: bit of shame as if they feel sorry for her,
- 56:57Speaker 3: but I think it's also about self-betrayal. It was hard
- 57:02Speaker 3: for the ego to just hold on to. I like her.
- 57:06Speaker 3: I'm cheering when she shows up. Do I really have
- 57:10Speaker 3: to put on a facade? Do I really have to
- 57:13Speaker 3: tolerate the critical mother inside of myself? Do I have
- 57:16Speaker 3: to hide from that? Or can I fight for whatever
- 57:19Speaker 3: my authentic attitude is? And saying things that make people
- 57:25Speaker 3: feel sorry for her which is a realization that I
- 57:29Speaker 3: think is happening in the end of the dream, to
- 57:31Speaker 3: be able to go, do I do that a lot?
- 57:34Speaker 3: And do I do that a lot in order to
- 57:37Speaker 3: resolve a kind of tension? And then I feel a
- 57:41Speaker 3: little uneasy about that. And the quote-unquote Saudi Arabian or
- 57:45Speaker 3: the fear of the oppressive energy, again, it's, I think,
- 57:52Speaker 3: the oppression of the parental complexes. It's a good dream.
- 57:58Speaker 3: She's fighting for something that's important to her, and her
- 58:02Speaker 3: psyche is cheering her on.
- 58:04Speaker 2: I think you just landed it. I think that's a
- 58:06Speaker 2: slam dunk.
- 58:08Speaker 3: And here's our final dream. A 57-year-old male has this dream.
- 58:17Speaker 3: Got a ticket to go to a wedding. It's a flight.
- 58:20Speaker 3: But the wedding is very soon, in an hour or so,
- 58:23Speaker 3: and I've not even got on the flight. I'm trying
- 58:26Speaker 3: to get to the airport on a road whose lanes,
- 58:29Speaker 3: on one of them at least, turns into a waterway.
- 58:32Speaker 3: I think one goes to a boat, and the other
- 58:34Speaker 3: lane goes to an airport. Then, I'm waiting somewhere, possibly
- 58:39Speaker 3: at the airport foyer, and there are other people there
- 58:45Speaker 3: who are going to the wedding. I seem not to
- 58:48Speaker 3: be well regarded. and I seem to be regarded as
- 58:52Speaker 3: strong and uncompromising, and also dangerous in a physical sense.
- 58:57Speaker 3: A woman there has a go at me for flashing
- 58:59Speaker 3: my money about. I tell her that I think if
- 59:03Speaker 3: I have enough, then I should be able to give
- 59:05Speaker 3: it to other people. I look at my ticket, which
- 59:09Speaker 3: is like a small booklet comprised of scratch games to
- 59:14Speaker 3: win prizes. I can't see any details of the flight
- 59:17Speaker 3: or how to get the flight. The person who got
- 59:21Speaker 3: me the ticket should have explained it. For context, he writes,
- 59:27Speaker 3: I'm buying a house with my wife. We have previously
- 59:30Speaker 3: had one apartment each, but we are selling both. In
- 59:35Speaker 3: the dream, he feels confused. His associations to weddings are
- 59:41Speaker 3: that I quite often buy scratch cards in the hope
- 59:44Speaker 3: of winning big. I like weddings, but secretly feel that
- 59:49Speaker 3: they are unnecessary, and he works as a psychotherapist.
- 59:53Speaker 2: You know, in a way, this reminds me of this
- 59:55Speaker 2: other category of dream that we talk about in DreamWise
- 59:58Speaker 2: that we call chain reaction dreams, right? It's just sort of,
- 1:00:04Speaker 2: the structure is a little chaotic. It's just sort of
- 1:00:07Speaker 2: one thing leads to the other, but there's kind of
- 1:00:09Speaker 2: no resolution a little bit. It's interesting because in a way,
- 1:00:13Speaker 2: this reminds me of the last dream in that, you know,
- 1:00:16Speaker 2: you guys both really got that the Kate Middleton dream
- 1:00:19Speaker 2: was sort of like about ambivalence. Which, of course, is
- 1:00:23Speaker 2: in contrast to the image of a wedding, which is
- 1:00:25Speaker 2: about commitment. But there seems to be a lot of
- 1:00:29Speaker 2: ambivalence in this dream, too. And the dreamer says, I
- 1:00:34Speaker 2: like weddings, but I also kind of secretly think they're unnecessary.
- 1:00:37Speaker 2: So he's even consciously ambivalent about weddings. I wonder if
- 1:00:42Speaker 2: he's ambivalent about buying this house.
- 1:00:45Speaker 4: There is a kind of disjointed quality about this dream
- 1:00:51Speaker 4: that puts it for me in that category of sort
- 1:00:57Speaker 4: of like a pinball that's ricocheting around. And so I'm
- 1:01:03Speaker 4: just tracking what is it. He's going to go to
- 1:01:06Speaker 4: a wedding, but he hasn't gotten on the flight, turns
- 1:01:10Speaker 4: into a waterway. One goes to a boat and the
- 1:01:16Speaker 4: other goes to the airport. A lot of people there.
- 1:01:21Speaker 4: And then I seem not to be well regarded. He
- 1:01:25Speaker 4: seems to be regarded as strong and uncompromising and dangerous.
- 1:01:33Speaker 4: So it's a kind of menacing quality. And then it
- 1:01:37Speaker 4: flips over to the opposite, that a woman has a
- 1:01:41Speaker 4: go at me for flashing money about I think if
- 1:01:45Speaker 4: I have enough, I should be able to give it
- 1:01:47Speaker 4: to other people. So I'm kind of landing on this
- 1:01:52Speaker 4: inner ambivalence of that part of him is coming across
- 1:01:58Speaker 4: in his persona aspect as strong, uncompromising, and a bit,
- 1:02:04Speaker 4: I would say, menacing. And another part is I am
- 1:02:09Speaker 4: flashing what I have to give around. And I want
- 1:02:14Speaker 4: to give it to other people. And then there is
- 1:02:19Speaker 4: this resolution, which is just a total non sequitur, the
- 1:02:23Speaker 4: small booklet of scratch games to win prizes. I'm back
- 1:02:27Speaker 4: on what you said about, I wonder if there's a
- 1:02:29Speaker 4: lot of ambivalence about buying a house. Each of them
- 1:02:33Speaker 4: has had their own apartment. And now they're going to
- 1:02:36Speaker 4: live together and, in a sense, take flight. We're going
- 1:02:41Speaker 4: to fly off together. We're going to.
- 1:02:44Speaker 2: I think even the first sentence, Joseph, I know you
- 1:02:48Speaker 2: like to really look at the language. I've got to
- 1:02:51Speaker 2: take a ticket to go to a wedding. It's a flight.
- 1:02:52Speaker 2: It's a flight from what? That's great. There it is.
- 1:02:55Speaker 2: That's the pun.
- 1:02:56Speaker 3: It looks like.
- 1:03:05Speaker 4: You mean an airplane flight to go towards something? Oh, no,
- 1:03:09Speaker 4: says Psyche. It might also be a flight from something.
- 1:03:12Speaker 2: You know, speaking of language, I want to just pick
- 1:03:15Speaker 2: up on something else that I find curious about this stream.
- 1:03:19Speaker 2: He says, I seem to be regarded as strong and uncompromising, right?
- 1:03:23Speaker 2: And this is in the context of being not well regarded.
- 1:03:27Speaker 2: But strong and uncompromising can be very good qualities, right?
- 1:03:32Speaker 2: And what I kind of make up about this, and
- 1:03:34Speaker 2: I'm really having a bit of a fantasy about it,
- 1:03:37Speaker 2: but being strong, uncompromising, and let's say like physically competent,
- 1:03:42Speaker 2: you know, this is dangerous in a physical sense. So,
- 1:03:45Speaker 2: you know, maybe kind of big and strong and uncompromising
- 1:03:48Speaker 2: are qualities that we typically associate with the masculine quality.
- 1:03:52Speaker 2: And this man works as a psychotherapist. And as we've
- 1:03:55Speaker 2: discussed before on the podcast, I think the three of
- 1:03:57Speaker 2: us are in some degree of agreement that there's sort
- 1:04:00Speaker 2: of a way that masculinity can kind of get a
- 1:04:03Speaker 2: bad rap in our culture. And I think especially if
- 1:04:06Speaker 2: you're a man who works in a caring, healing profession,
- 1:04:09Speaker 2: you may have an ambivalent relationship with your masculinity. So
- 1:04:14Speaker 2: in the dream, we have someone who is strong, uncompromising,
- 1:04:18Speaker 2: And has so much money, has so much kind of
- 1:04:21Speaker 2: psychic energy, so much psychic wealth, that he wants to
- 1:04:25Speaker 2: be able to give it to other people. And this
- 1:04:27Speaker 2: is all badly regarded. So I think it's like the
- 1:04:32Speaker 2: ego is worried that he's being poorly regarded. But there's
- 1:04:36Speaker 2: really no evidence that he's a problem. All he's doing
- 1:04:40Speaker 2: is being strong and compromising and giving away money. None
- 1:04:46Speaker 2: of those things are a problem, actually.
- 1:04:49Speaker 3: His actions in the dream are very opaque. He's definitely
- 1:04:55Speaker 3: tracking what other people appear to be thinking or feeling
- 1:05:00Speaker 3: about him. But his own behavior is a little unclear.
- 1:05:08Speaker 3: He doesn't really describe himself. He doesn't say that I
- 1:05:12Speaker 3: got into a car. Or I got into a boat
- 1:05:17Speaker 3: and the boat was like this. And then I walked
- 1:05:20Speaker 3: down the, through the airport.
- 1:05:24Speaker 2: He's not really in it very much.
- 1:05:26Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very hard to tell where he is. But
- 1:05:31Speaker 3: the thing for some reason I'm indexing on is just
- 1:05:35Speaker 3: the first and the last sentence of the dream. Got
- 1:05:38Speaker 3: a ticket to go to a wedding. The person who
- 1:05:41Speaker 3: got me the ticket should have explained it. So one
- 1:05:47Speaker 3: thing I'm left with is this feeling of powerlessness and passivity.
- 1:05:56Speaker 3: Somehow we don't know what's driving him to attend the wedding,
- 1:06:00Speaker 3: but someone else is making a bunch of choices. And
- 1:06:04Speaker 3: whoever got the ticket didn't provide instructions. It may not be,
- 1:06:09Speaker 3: is it on a boat? Is it on a car?
- 1:06:11Speaker 3: Is it on a plane? Is there a gate? What
- 1:06:13Speaker 3: time is it supposed to be? someone else is put
- 1:06:18Speaker 3: in charge of whatever this process is to get him
- 1:06:22Speaker 3: from one place to another. That one thing I would
- 1:06:25Speaker 3: say is that it does remind me a little bit
- 1:06:27Speaker 3: of buying and selling property, which is like unbelievably complicated
- 1:06:31Speaker 3: and you need like teams of people passing you these
- 1:06:36Speaker 3: inscrutable documents that very few of us even read fully
- 1:06:39Speaker 3: because it's overwhelming to look at a 25-page small print
- 1:06:45Speaker 3: document so all of a sudden there's a lot of
- 1:06:50Speaker 3: things going on it's hard to track there's a lot
- 1:06:54Speaker 3: of trust that we have to give to the bureaucratic
- 1:06:57Speaker 3: system that we're being guided by people that know what
- 1:07:00Speaker 3: the hell they're talking about this idea of lashing money
- 1:07:04Speaker 3: they're selling to apartments and then they're going to buy
- 1:07:08Speaker 3: something else there's something about status yeah You know, maybe
- 1:07:13Speaker 3: you'll sell those two apartments, get something that's a lot fancier,
- 1:07:18Speaker 3: carries a higher status, a little bit like you're flashing
- 1:07:21Speaker 3: some cash and there's worry about what are people going
- 1:07:25Speaker 3: to think of us if we move into the fancier lifestyle.
- 1:07:29Speaker 3: I think his anxiety may manifest as being rather precise,
- 1:07:37Speaker 3: even perfectionistic, strong and uncompromising. There's a little heat in it,
- 1:07:42Speaker 3: you know, And as a psychotherapist, you're trained to put
- 1:07:45Speaker 3: all that stuff under the ground. You're not supposed to
- 1:07:49Speaker 3: ever look uncompromising or aggressive or assertive. So all that
- 1:07:56Speaker 3: stuff is now sometimes necessary when you're making what for
- 1:08:01Speaker 3: many people is the largest transaction of your lifetime. This
- 1:08:05Speaker 3: is the largest asset you'll ever be moving around. And
- 1:08:11Speaker 3: I think the idea of the airport road becomes a
- 1:08:14Speaker 3: waterway and it's a boat and it might be a
- 1:08:16Speaker 3: plane and then it's a car reminds me of James Bond.
- 1:08:20Speaker 2: You know, I want to say, right. So the other
- 1:08:23Speaker 2: thing that really strikes me about this dream is the
- 1:08:26Speaker 2: scratch off and that he wants to win it big,
- 1:08:30Speaker 2: which says there's something about oh, I don't know, what
- 1:08:35Speaker 2: is that? But it's the tendency to maybe live in
- 1:08:40Speaker 2: fantasy a bit, something like that.
- 1:08:44Speaker 3: And how that can prop us up. In fact, when
- 1:08:50Speaker 3: I was in social work school, there was a great
- 1:08:53Speaker 3: lamentation that people in lower socioeconomic strata were spending a
- 1:08:58Speaker 3: lot of money getting lotto tickets because it was so
- 1:09:06Speaker 3: exciting to even imagine for a week or a couple
- 1:09:09Speaker 3: of weeks that we're going to win it big. And
- 1:09:14Speaker 3: that has to go with arousal dopamine. One of the
- 1:09:18Speaker 3: things that dopamine does is when it kicks off, that
- 1:09:22Speaker 3: we have this really strong amount of energy to go
- 1:09:25Speaker 3: for it, go for the thing, go ahead. And we
- 1:09:29Speaker 3: can become a little addicted to the striving dopamine. And
- 1:09:36Speaker 3: there's a big difference between the wanting and then the
- 1:09:39Speaker 3: liking when you get it. Two very different things.
- 1:09:43Speaker 4: Right.
- 1:09:44Speaker 2: And also, you may not get it. So there's something
- 1:09:48Speaker 2: here about the way that the fantasy can take you
- 1:09:54Speaker 2: away from what's right in front of you, too. So
- 1:09:57Speaker 2: I wonder about that. So for next month, please do
- 1:10:03Speaker 2: come over to our book website, which is dreamwisebook.com. Click
- 1:10:07Speaker 2: on Dreamography, and there'll be a form there where you
- 1:10:10Speaker 2: can submit either a dream from your childhood or perhaps
- 1:10:16Speaker 2: even a child's dream if you have a child in
- 1:10:19Speaker 2: your life. And we'll be talking about children's dreams. Thanks
- 1:10:25Speaker 2: for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
- 1:10:28Speaker 2: or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisunionlife.com. If
- 1:10:33Speaker 2: you enjoyed this episode, give us five stars and a
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