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Working with Short Dreams and Fragments · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you wake up with a very short dream and
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you think, well, that's not really worth it, and you
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: don't write it down, you may be providing a disincentive
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to your unconscious to help you remember dreams the next night.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: So even if it's a little fragment, even if it's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: just a little bit, write it down and be prepared
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: to spend time with it because it might really reveal
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: rich insights.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Well, welcome. We are here to share some exciting news
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: in this episode. Our book that we co-wrote, Dreamwise, Unlocking
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the Meaning of Your Dreams, is coming out in paperback.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: It's going to be out in paperback on June 9th.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I don't actually have the paperback yet, so this is
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the hardback. But I'm super excited about that. And in
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: honor of that, we wanted to bring this episode to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: you where you look at the importance of short dreams.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: So I'm thinking like a single image, a dream that
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: you can convey in two to three sentences.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. How many times... Have we heard and have you
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: out there thought that, oh, this isn't a real dream?
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: You know, all it was was this little fragment.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: You know, a little wisp. And of course, there can
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: be an awful lot in what seems like a tiny
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: little short dream. So we're going to go take a
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: look at those today.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: In DreamWise, there are about 120 sample dreams that we
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: got sometimes from some of you, sometimes from some of
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: our clients, sometimes they're our own dreams. And we wanted
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to find dreams that illustrated different principles that we talk
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: about in the book. But Deb, I remember you and
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I have this conversation as we went through.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: I know exactly where you're going.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: That we didn't want just these big, archetypal, very dramatic dreams.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Yes. And when we were in training, particularly, and studying dreams,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: some of the books that we had that were wonderful...
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: gave these incredible dreams that were brilliant illustrations of some
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: point in dream theory or archetypal imagery or something like that.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: And so we wanted to make sure that the dreams
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: we selected, that some are like that because that happens.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: But most of the time, what do people really dream
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: about that look pretty sort of everyday, ordinary, not blockbuster,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: but if you take another look and then a look
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: after that, you find real depth and meaning. Anyway, that's
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: what we wanted to get across with a whole lot of, quote,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: regular old dreams, unquote.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: We did try to make sure that there are plenty
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of Short dreams, ordinary dreams, and dream-wise as well.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: And I really love that, the so-called ordinary dreams that
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: have much deeper tap roots, take a little time. Something
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: is really there. So we're going to hope that we
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: prove our point here this morning with a lot of
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: short dreams and spiking your interest in taking a look
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: at DreamWise if you haven't done so already.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Right. And no better time than now because you can
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: get it in paperback, which is good for taking with
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: you to the beach. I'm not sure it's beach reading,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: but maybe it is. I don't know. In some world. Sure.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Why not?
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: But I also want to say, you know, one of
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the things that we discuss in DreamWise is dream recall.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: which is a question that we get from lots and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: lots of people is I don't remember my dreams or
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: how can I remember more dreams? And you know, this
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: matter of short dreams is relevant to that because if
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: you wake up with a very short dream and you think, well,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: that's not really worth it and you don't write it down,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you may be providing a disincentive to your unconscious to
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: help you remember dreams the next night. So even if
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: it's a little fragment, even if it's just a little bit,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: write it down and be prepared to spend time with
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: it because it might really reveal rich insights.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: And the whole point of the dream work is really
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: fertilizing the connection between conscious and unconscious. And I think
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: of it sort of like going down and up like,
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: you know, easily and fluidly. And so when you get
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: something that seems like just a short little dream fragment
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: and very ordinary, it's a connection with the unconscious. And
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: it is kind of like priming the pump and telling
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: the dream maker, hey, you know, if you send me something,
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  Speaker 3: I'll pay attention to it. I'll take a look at it.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Deb, while you were talking, I had this image of
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: going fishing and maybe you get a very small fish
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and you're just like, I'm going to throw it back,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: you know, which is maybe a good idea if you're fishing.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: But I think if you're dreaming, if you've hooked it,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: reel it in.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's great.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's look at, speaking of fish, the first
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: dream that we're going to look at is... couple sentences long. Deb,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: do you want to read this one?
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Sure. This is from a woman who's 34, and here's
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: the dream. My fiancé and I walk into a room
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: to encounter a table where five glass containers with betta
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  Speaker 3: fish have tipped over. I direct us to slowly and
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: carefully right the glass containers, discover any leaks, and feed
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: the fish. I find later that my fiancé has entirely
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: filled one of the containers with food, thus suffocating the fish.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: For context, she says, recently engaged but experiencing doubts in
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: the relationship. I hope to be a mother someday. The
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: main feeling, she says, suffocated, identification with the fish, worry
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: and fear at first encounter, and frustration and exasperation. at
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: her fiancé, and she adds some additional associations. I had
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: pet fish when I was a child, including a betta fish,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: and enjoyed caring for them. The wooden stands that the
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: vases sat on reminded me of the base of a
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: crystal ball that was given to me as a gift. Huh.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So just to lift this up for a second, this
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: dream is two sentences long. And I mean, I'm having
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: a pretty big reaction to it. I could imagine the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: dreamer might have as well. So again, just so much
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: rich imagery in two sentences. So one of the first
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: things I wonder about with a dream like this, and
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: this is something, again, that we give some space to
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: in DreamWise, is with the subjective versus the objective meaning
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: of a dream. So a subjective interpretation means that we're
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: seeing that the dream is about the inner world. And
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: most of the time, dreams are about the inner world.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: But an objective interpretation, that can happen too, where the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: dream is commenting on something in the outer world. It's
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: tricky to know which is which, and sometimes it's definitely both.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's almost always a subjective component
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: to dreams. But Sometimes a dream is commenting on something
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: in the outer life, and that usually happens, as we
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: explain in the book, where it deals with someone who's
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in our life in a very immediate way. So this
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: is her fiancé, presumably someone very important to her. So
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: we might wonder whether there is an objective component to
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: this dream. In other words, is the dream commenting on
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: some aspect of her relationship with her fiancé?
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: Hmm. I'm going to back us up to just the
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: facts of the dream. So she's with her fiancé. There's
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: a table, and there are five glass containers that contain
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: betta fish, and they have tipped over. So my first
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: question was, well, what on earth is a betta fish?
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: I thought it was a symbolic meaning. Here's the value here.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: in really checking the associations. A betta fish is a
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: real honest-to-goodness tropical fish. So it's a pretty colorful fish.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: There were several examples on Google, and I thought, oh, okay. And,
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: of course, our dreamer says that she had pet fish
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: as a child. So there is life experience, attachment, enjoyment,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: a whole history with just this one image. Our dreamy
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: goes in charge. She is the one who says to
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: her fiancé, okay, let's get the glass containers right side
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: up again. inspect them for leaks, feed the fish. And
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: then she discovers her fiancé has filled one of them
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: with food and that has suffocated the fish. Hmm. So
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: here is some childhood history and an attachment and someone,
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: some force has tipped over the glass containers. So somebody offstage,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: some energy, some something has done something that looks like
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: it's very fixable. All they have to do is set
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: the containers back upright and put the fish back in.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: And that's the mystery for me in this dream is
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: that the glass containers are tipped over and the rescue
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  Speaker 3: operation doesn't go well. It promises to go well, but
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  Speaker 3: it doesn't because the fiancé dream figure kills the fish
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  Speaker 3: he's responsible for saving.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: You know, Deb, your laying it out like that takes
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  Speaker 1: me to the dramatic structure of a dream. And there's
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: a whole chapter in the book about dramatic structure and
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: how to work with it, how to recognize it. And
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: even though this dream is two sentences, there's a clear
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: dramatic structure. There's the setting, an exposition. The dreamer walks
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: in with her fiancé and finds the scene as described.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Then there's some kind of tension and development. She and
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: her fiancé are able to rescue the fish. And it
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: seems like that's it, that things are resolved. But there's
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: a resolution to the dream that is a kind of
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: negative ending. where she realizes later that this fish has
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: been suffocated. So there's a sort of reversal in expectations.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: It's like, wow, we have this problem. These bowls have
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: been tipped over. Let's fix it. Oh, phew. And then
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: this kind of surprise at the end that you alluded to.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: So even just looking at it through that lens of
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: dramatic structure is revealing.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: So we know what has happened to the dream ego?
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: And that's the subjective level of the dream. The dream
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: ego does all these things and discovers that her fiancé
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: has suffocated the fish. So we say, well, part of
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: that is our dreamer. Where does that reside in her?
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: The fiancé is her dream image. And it may also
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: be commenting on the outer world relationship with this person.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: But I want to go to the very last thing
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: that our dreamer adds, which is that these vases holding
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: the fish are on wooden stands that remind me of
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: the base of a crystal ball that was given to
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: me as a child. So what is a crystal ball? Well,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: we look in the crystal ball and it tells us things,
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: especially the future. I might think to myself here, as
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: our dreamer has already said, experiencing doubts in the relationship,
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: and these bases had crystal balls associated with looking into
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: the future, to pay attention to the feelings that she's having. Now,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: they are her feelings, but worth paying attention to.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's really astute, Deb, and
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I just want to kind of build on that and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: note that she says, I direct us to slowly and
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: carefully write the glass containers. So it feels very much
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: in the scene like she's the very competent one and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: that her fiancé is the one who misjudges and overfeeds
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: the fish. And I wonder a little bit, She says
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: that in the dream she felt suffocated in identification with
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the fish. And I wonder if there's any way she's
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: feeling suffocated in the relationship. And I thought it was
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: interesting she mentioned that she hopes to be a mother
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: someday because from just this little dream image of two sentences,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I think I hear that she's very competent at caring
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: for things. And that is also in her association. She
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: remembers it being really enjoyable to care for her pet fish.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: But I wonder... You know, again, if this is kind
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: of an objective dream or there's an objective element to it,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I wonder if she has some doubts about whether or
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: not her fiancé is as competent as she is about
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: caring for things. You know, I do just want to say,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: just to show how we can build this out and
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: build this out and build this out, there are some
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: archetypal resonances in this dream as well. First of all,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: we could go to town with fish, but even setting
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: that aside, You know, this image of so much food
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the fish suffocates, there are some fairy tales that are
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: related to that. One that many people may know is
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the story of Strega Nona, which was popularized as a
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: children's book. And Strega Nona, she's a grandmother witch. She
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: has this pasta pot. She says, boil, boil, pasta pot.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Make me some pasta, nice and hot. And then the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: pasta pot boils and boils and boils, and there's just
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: noodles everywhere that threaten to engulf the town unless you
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: know the way to tell it to stop. Well, that's
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: kind of based on a Grimm's fairy tale called Sweet Porridge.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And it's kind of along the lines of The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: It's a similar kind of mythologem that there is a
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: porridge pot that will just cook as much porridge as
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: you want. It's magic. But you need to know not
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: only how to tell it to start, but also how
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: to stop. And we can be engulfed and smothered by
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: too much sweet porridge, that that's not always what we need,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: that sometimes we need that to stop and we need
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the opposite of it. So that image came up for
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: me as I was reading this dream.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm really amazed as I am every time I
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: encounter a dream of like, wow, look what's here.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Look at all the richness that's here. Objective, subjective, fish relationship,
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: mythological fairy tales. Shall we move on to another?
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, let's do that. This dream is from a
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: 45-year-old man, and he is a machinist, and here's the dream.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I was outside at night beneath the moon near a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: tree sensing danger when a woman dressed in white linen
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: ran by me and went into a cave to hide.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: A voice said to me, that was Thisbe. As I awoke,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the same strange voice commanded me, go find your Thisbe.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And he notes, at the time, I was in a
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: fairly intense recovery therapy group trying to figure out my life.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: after it had significantly fallen apart. When I had the dream,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I had never heard of Pyramus and Thisbe or read
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: the Greek myth before. After I woke up, I looked
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: up the story and was amazed at how much my
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: dream resembled the story of the myth.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: And he says the main feelings in the dream were wonder, mystery,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: slight fear that he would never find her, lonely and gnomonous,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: And that it felt like he was visiting a painting
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: or a work of art, none in particular that I
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: can recall. So very briefly, the story of Pyramus and
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Thisbe is basically the early version of Romeo and Juliet.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: They were male and female. They were in love with
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: one another. Their respective families were feuding, and so they
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: were forbidden to meet. And they met and spoke through
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: a crack in a wall until they could finally arrange
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: to meet. So they had their designated meeting place under
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: a mulberry tree or something like that. And Thisbe, the female,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: gets there first. And a lion has been there and
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: had a kill. And as she runs past, she drops
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: her veil and becomes stained with blood. and she darts
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: into a cave. And then when her lover, Pyramus, shows up,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: he sees her veil, sees it stained with blood, and
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: believes she has been killed. So without her, he feels
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: life is pointless, and he kills himself. And then later,
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: of course, she's fine. She comes out, discovers him dead,
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: and kills herself. Yeah.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: So here we have a dream. It's another dream that
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: is two sentences. It's two sentences. And it's remarkable because
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: it so closely follows this myth. I mean, as you
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: were recounting the myth, I found myself smiling, actually, because
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: my exposure to Pyramus and Thisbe, as I'm sure is
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: true for many people, It goes back to, you know,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: high school English class when we were reading A Midsummer
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Night's Dream. And there are some very funny scenes where
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the troupe of amateur actors are playing out the scene
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: where they talk to each other through the wall. So
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Shakespeare had a bit of fun with it in A
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Midsummer Night's Dream. But it's a serious and, in fact,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: a tragic story in the Greek myth.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: But this dream illustrates... how sometimes when there is imagery
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: like this, you go immediately to the collective and the
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: collective wisdom that we find in mythology and fairy tales.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: And these eternal stories from ancient times that Shakespeare had
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: a good time with in Midsummer Night's Dream. And of course,
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: he wrote Romeo and Juliet as well. So we go
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: right there first, sometimes.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a great example of a very archetypal dream. Yeah.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: And so what is this myth about? What can it
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: tell us about what the dream might be about? We
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of context about the dreamer's life,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: but there's something about the yearning for connection with the anima,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: with the soul. And that there's a danger that you'll
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: miss it, right? That's the tragic irony in this story
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: in Pyramus and Thisbe and, of course, in Romeo and Juliet,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: is that, in fact, Thisbe is fine. She's fine. But
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: he missed it. He didn't see what there was to see.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: He misinterpreted something, jumped to a conclusion, and total tragedy ensued.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: So there's something about the anima, one's connection with soul,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: being just there. It's just within your reach. But then
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: somehow consciousness doesn't see what there is to see and
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: things go south.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: It's a significant dream, I think, about the archetypal feminine.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Outside at night, so we're already sort of in the unconscious.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Beneath the moon. classic symbol of the feminine. And a
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: woman dressed in white linen, very symbolic here, runs by
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: and goes into a cave to hide. And I'm really
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: building on what you said. And then a voice says,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: that was Thisbe, go find your Thisbe. Go do this.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: Don't do what Pyramus did and figure all is lost.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Go after this image. Go after this woman. Go after
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: your inner feminine.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: You know, Deb, you make a really good point because
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the difference between the myth and this dream is that
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the dreamer sees Thisbe run past him and go into
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the cave. So he has knowledge to what has actually
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: happened and he has the opportunity to to unite. So
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: I wonder a little bit if the story of Pyramus
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and Thisbe, if we want to look at it like this,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: is a story about being kind of tricked by the ego,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: as it were, who makes some assumptions, who jumps to conclusions,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: and gets in our way as we're trying to have
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a kind of inner connection. And sometimes we're too smart
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: for our own good or something like that, or we
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: We see things and we put it together in what
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: might be a logical conclusion, but it's not true. And
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: here the dreamer, again, is able to know that. And
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the voice is saying, go after it. Yes. Yeah.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: It's really a very encouraging dream. And here, you know,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: really the symbolism is not about an outer world figure.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: which seemed like it might be a possibility in the
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: preceding dream. This is about finding anima, finding soul, the
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: inner feminine and an inner connection. And I love that
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: there is a voice that tells him what to do.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: Go do this. Yes.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: We have a section in DreamWise where we talk about
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: what we refer to as dialogue in the dream. Sometimes
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the dream ego, the I in the dream, will make
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: a statement. And that can be interesting. Sometimes you say
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: something odd in a dream and it's like, why did
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: I say that? But it may reveal the attitude of
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: the dream ego or at least how what the unconscious
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: thinks of the attitude of the dream ego, sort of
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: like this is what you look like. But in dreams
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: like this, which is not uncommon, where there's either a
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: disembodied voice or there's a kind of, you know, strange
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: figure who says something that's a little bit mystical or
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: difficult to interpret. Sometimes you can sort of assume that
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: that is the unconscious speaking directly to you, of course,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: in symbolic language. And I think we have a very
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: clear case of that here. So there are also further
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: examples of that in the book. Yeah.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: This is also a dream that really proves Jung's whole theory,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: to which he devoted so many years of his life,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: of the collective unconscious. Right. That there are these inherent
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: mythical sort of patterns in us. Our dreamer was not
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: familiar with the tale himself. But there it is as
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: a universal kind of narrative.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: And a voice inside that is in touch with this
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: universal substrata that says, go find your Thisbe.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's great. That's a great injunction. Yeah.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Okay. Our next dreamer is a woman who is 44
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: years old. And here's the dream. I'm lying exhausted on
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: an island of black, hardened lava with ice-cold, choppy, dark
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: water all around. My ex and his ex-wife are parading
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: away in a ceremonial way while she plays some instrument
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: behind him and rings a bell. My feet are bleeding
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: and I realize I can't follow them. I lie watching
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: the blood run down my feet while I watch them
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: walk away. they don't see me. And for context, she adds,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: my narcissistic ex broke my heart after the most passionate, intense,
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: and destructive relationship of my life. Our breakup was such
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: a betrayal and shock to my system that I had
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: to undergo something like a catharsis and have, since this dream,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: been going through what I hope to be an important
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: part of my journey toward individuation, And she adds, the
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: main feelings were exhaustion that had taken over after deep
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: fury and rage, a sense of giving up and surrender
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: because I have no choice.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: She does provide a few more associations. She said that
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: her ex, she describes him as a manipulative, hot, older
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: spiritual man who I still love and hate at the
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: same time. And she says his ex-wife, Beautiful, creative woman
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: who he betrayed and cheated on for many years, but
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: she doesn't know, and now they're besties again. And I'm
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: left with this secret of what he did to her
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and also what he did to me, and I almost
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: died on that island of hard, sharp black lava. It
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: was what our love had turned to after the deep
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: red passionate explosions that it used to be, now deadly
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: if I keep following him. The iciness of the water
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: is the shock of betrayal. The waters are my emotions, deep, cold, choppy, uninviting.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: The blood running from my feet is a clear and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: loud warning sign. The brightness of the red against my
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: feet and the black rocks are a loud warning sign
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to change my direction. So it seems like the dreamer
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: herself has some good ideas about what this dream might
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: be about. And again, we have three sentences this time.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: A little bit longer. It's three sentences. So the dreamer
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: is hearing it as a warning. I like what she
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: did about the lava, that, you know, lava results from
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: a fiery, hot, destructive explosion.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, volcanic.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: But then it does harden into sometimes very sharp rocks
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: that are black. So I like her. I like what
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: she did with lava there, that what she's left with
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: now is, is this kind of cold, sharp, very inhospitable
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: terrain that resulted from this, it sounds like, kind of
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: explosive relationship.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So there's the dream setting, which, as we can
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: go into more in the book, you know, really is
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: a reflective of the psychic situation as it is. So that's,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: you know, just literally a hard place, hard place, unnurturing,
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: exposed place to be. And then the next sentence that
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: her ex and his ex-wife are parading in a ceremonial
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: way while she plays an instrument behind him and rings
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: a bell. So that does look like some kind of
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: a ritual that is going on. And then the third
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: sentence and the end of our story here is, My
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: feet are bleeding. I can't follow them and watch the
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: blood run down my feet. So I think about feet
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: and I think about blood. I walk barefoot on rocky, hard,
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: stony terrain. And your feet will bleed. And you don't
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: have a standpoint. Shoes often are a giveaway about standpoints.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: And we get it automatically sometimes when we're people watching of, oh,
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: what is on their feet? You know, we see some
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: really overdetermined shoes or spikes or gladiator sandals or something.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: We get that there's a message there. There was a
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: real choice. But here our dreamer cannot stand. Her feet
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: are bloody and sore and torn up, and she can't
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: follow them.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And there's something she says, she watches while the blood
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: runs down my feet.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: And I watch them walk away.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm just, I'm thinking of that image of
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the blood flowing. and how that is an image of
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: purification in some sense, that sometimes we have to let
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the blood flow to wash it away, to wash out
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: the wound, as it were. You know, there's also another
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: hint in this dream. You know, she talks about being
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: on an island of black hardened lava. Well, one of
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: the things that can happen with a major eruption is
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that volcanic eruptions can give rise, to new islands. And
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: of course, we're very familiar with islands that have been
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: created through volcanic eruptions. So an undersea volcano erupts and
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: spills up all of this material. And suddenly there's a
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: new area of land. And the suffering that we go through,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: that the streamer is describing and going through this relationship,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: can give rise to new islands of conscious awareness. And
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: that is not an easy process, and it doesn't always
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: feel good. But I do wonder, and the dreamer absolutely
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: speaks to this, that this process has awakened something in her,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: awakened a new capacity for self-reflection and a process of
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: That is leading her toward individuation. So very, very, very
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: hard-won self-knowledge. But she is unable to follow them in
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: the dream. And they're, you know, they're going off in
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: perhaps some kind of folie a deux.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: And.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: The separation has already taken place. They don't see her.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: They don't see the dream ego. And I'm very taken
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: by the vividness of the imagery of the blood and
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: the bleeding feet on this hard, cold, black lava. The
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: blood has mythologically often stood for life itself. The life force...
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: And she's wounded and does not now have a standpoint.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: But I agree with you, Lisa. You commented before that
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: she's done work herself on this dream of what our
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: love turned to after the deep red passionate explosions that
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: it used to be. The shock of betrayal. The waters
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: of her emotions are deep, cold, choppy. And the blood.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: A warning to change her directions. So the next step
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: symbolically is what will it take for her feet to heal?
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Yes. And, you know, she says the feet are a warning.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I agree with that. But I think it could go
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: a little deeper as well. I mean, Deb, I like
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: very much your bringing up that blood is associated with
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: the life force. And the spilling of blood is also
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: often sacrificial. and that something needs to be sacrificed. And
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: this may speak to your question about what will allow
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: it to heal, because when we consciously sacrifice something, we
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: create the opportunity for it to transform. So if she
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: can allow herself to suffer, to have conscious suffering, that
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: will be a growthful and transformational experience. You know, I
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: also want to mention that She talks about the water, cold, choppy, uninviting,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: and she says, you know, these are her emotions, which again,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I think, yes, and, you know, it could be something
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: broader than that. You know, we talk about symbols in
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: the book and the fact that a symbol is not
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: the same thing as a sign. You can't say cold
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: water equals cold feelings. That's too pat and that's too simplistic.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: But Jung did talk about relatively fixed symbols, and there's
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: a section in the book where we talk about that.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: So water, especially large bodies of water, it can be
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: associated with feeling and with the unconscious, and we just
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: have to be careful about not making it too pat.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Should we do another one?
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, go for it.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is a woman who's 63 years old, and
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: she is a retired project manager, and here's the dream.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I'm on a country road. The air around is whitish.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: At an intersection, there's a shrine with a life-sized head
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and torso of Christ that is also all white as
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: if covered in flour or talc. He has ropes around
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: his torso. One is tightened so much that the Christ's
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: belly starts bleeding. His eyes are open. I think that
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: was four sentences. So very, very striking image, by the way.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: For the context, the dreamer says, I had this dream
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: last year soon before I decided to start therapy again.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: My husband and I are going through some difficulties and
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: also had recently moved to a place we're not too
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: happy about. The main feelings in the dream, she says,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: I'm very much a solitary observer in the dream. I'm
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: in a strange land. It's the countryside, but it's rather
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: desolate with no trees and an otherworldly white air. I'm
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: diagonally opposite the shrine. When the rope tightens and the
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Christ opens his eyes, I feel deep compassion as I
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: can see how much he suffers. His eyes are sorrowful.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: She says, I'm not religious, though I feel a need
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: for more spiritual life than I lead right now. I'm
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: at many intersections in my life and dealing with different
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: forms of grief. Death of a mother, a friend, left
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: a country I liked very much, etc. So again, I
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: think we're looking at four sentences. And of course, she
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: has already kind of picked up on the image of
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the intersection. the crossroads, and that she's at some crossroads too. And,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: you know, the image of Christ on the cross is,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: of course, an image par excellence of suffering, and she
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: seems to be suffering greatly in many ways right now.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So we have that image again, crossroads, intersection, Christ
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: on the cross. So here it is, just what she
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: talks about in her associations of being in a difficult
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: marital transition and living somewhere that they're not crazy about.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: So there is this sort of vague idea of the atmosphere,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: that it's desolate, no trees, kind of otherworldly, sort of
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: like being in a fog. Here on the Cape, sometimes
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: it's foggy and it's actually pretty well lit and bright
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: and can't see anything. So that's where I went in
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: my own imagination of kind of entering the dream imaginally.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: And then same thing of this sort of no distinctive features.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: Everything is white. There's a torso. And one of the
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: ropes around the Christ's waist has tightened so much that
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: his belly starts bleeding. And one may might say, and
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: then his eyes open. So blood, as we touched on
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: in the last dream, is often the life force. And
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: here is this dream taking place in a sort of
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: featureless place, no color, no trees, desolate. And then all
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: of a sudden, the blood of injury, of wound, comes
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: pouring out and adds energy dramatic feeling of there's life here.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: There is suffering here. And there's consciousness. Because the eyes
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: open and we're, you know, forever saying eyes are the
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: window to the soul. We see things. I see your point, consciousness.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: So it seems that when she's in this situation and
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: at the crossroads and sees just a torso, but in
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: a shrine, so something connected to spirituality, then the life
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: comes back as suffering. And she feels compassion.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And Deb, I just want to lift up
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: what you just did there because you used this construction
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: that we share in DreamWise. When, then. So when Christ's
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: belly starts bleeding, then he opens his eyes. So when
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: there is so much suffering, that actually produces consciousness. And
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: you know, Jung talks about that all the time, and
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: we just saw that in the last stream too, that suffering,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: produces consciousness. And, you know, it's so striking because, of course,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: the head and torso of Christ in a shrine, I mean,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of all the things, you know, that you
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: see in churches and museums in Europe and these kind
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: of lifeless but sometimes quite beautiful figures. But this, as
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: you said, Deb, is alive. There is life here. And
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: it looked quite deadened with this whitish air and the
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: the torso being covered with talc or flour or something
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: like that. It was all kind of misty and covered over.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: But here is something that is vivid and bright red,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: and then the eyes open. And I'm thinking, too, that
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: when the eyes are open, there's a chance that she
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: might look into those eyes, that there might be eye contact,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: there might be a meeting with this suffering. And it
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: also universalizes her sufferings. It places her suffering. She's had
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: all of these losses recently. She's lost a mother, a friend,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and she's left a country, and she's going through some
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: difficult things. And I think that, you know, Christianity does
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: do this for people, right? Like, if you're a practicing Catholic,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: you know, a devout Catholic, and you're suffering, you see
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: your suffering reflected in the suffering of Christ on the cross,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: or perhaps in the suffering of, you know, Mater Dolorosa.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: His suffering mother, you know, those paintings of Mary with
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: her brows knit as she takes him down from the cross.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: So that has always been an important feature, I think,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: in Christianity is that it allows us to experience the
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: universal nature of our suffering. And that dream certainly does
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: this here.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And Jesus suffered. It can be very reassuring. to
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: know that you're part of a greater human story. Many
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: have trod this path. And we see that in all
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: kinds of dreams and mythologems and fairy tales. It's very
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: reassuring to know I'm part of a great human story,
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: not alone, not alone in this. And that the point
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: of suffering, is to bring greater consciousness. If we can
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: engage it and feel it as hard as it can be,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: we can metabolize something. We see it. We can bring
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: it inside to serve us. and make us more conscious,
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: more compassionate, more aware, which was the point of the crucifixion,
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: is followed by redemption of a new life, a greater life,
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: a different life. So I don't know what meaning this
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: dreamer will have taken from the dream, but I hope
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: it is that, that there is life here. And suffering.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I want to just back up for a
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: second to show, because, you know, one of the things
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: that we tried to do in DreamWise was we wanted
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: to really break down the skills that we learned through
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: our years in analytic training and in the years of
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: working with clients in their dreams and find the specific
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: skills that we were sort of practicing. It's a little
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: bit like tying your shoe. You You don't even know
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: what you're doing. You just do it. And we wanted
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: to break those down and present them to people who
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: maybe didn't have the background and dream interpretation that we
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: did to make it easier for you to work with
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: your own dreams. So that little technique that you did there, Deb,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: when then, which, by the way, you know, it's not
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: original to us. We do cite the source, one of
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: our teachers in the book. But we go through that
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: technique and how to use it and how to apply it.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: And we give you some examples. And this was a
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: great example here. You know, when Christ bleeds, then his
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: eyes open and there is consciousness. And you can see
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: how that little technique, assuming that two things that happen
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: consecutively in a dream are causally related. When Christ bleeds,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: then his eyes are opened. And again, we give more
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: context to this in the book. But you can see
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: how focusing on that moment led us into some very rich,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: mysterious territory in understanding this dream. So my hope is
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: that DreamWise is full of these little techniques that are
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: relatively easy to understand. We've broken them out. We've presented
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: them in very plain language. We give them to you
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: in a direct and straightforward and accessible way. And then
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: if you apply them to your dreams, sometimes they do
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: just what you just did, Deb, which is to really
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: open something up and you can see the deeper levels
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: of meaning.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: You know, I would like to add, no doubt as
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: a point of pride, that the book in bringing some
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: of these ideas, theory, techniques, to an accessible level is
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: also incredibly faithful to Jung's work. He is past master
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: and present champion. There are many others who have expanded,
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: built on his work. At one point, I thought, I
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: must have read them all, but that can't be true.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: But I believe we have been faithful to the master
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: in dream interpretation. And what we did was very much
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: like what happened in training where we have all this
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: theory and then we would do case colloquium of, you know,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: what does this look like in working with a particular person?
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: And that's the gift of the book, is the application
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: of these concepts to your dreams. So at any rate,
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: shall we go on to another dream?
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: Okay, here is a very short dream, two sentences. This
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: is a woman's dream. She's 36, and she's a therapeutic
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: art facilitator and PA, I guess physician's assistant. Here's a dream.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: I see a spider web with a furry, dark gray
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: spider that looks almost cute. I'm scared of it. It
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: jumps on me and bites me. And in context, she says...
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: She's choosing whether to have a second child and choosing
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: a therapy method that I want to study professionally, her
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: first step in therapy education, and whether it's the right time.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: Choosing what should go first, a baby or my professional development.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: And she says the main feelings in the dream were fear, surprise,
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: and disgust. And she adds... a cartoon character, or my
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: daughter's spider toy. How she loves them and tells me
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: to be brave. Spider felt nice and fluffy like our cat,
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: but I didn't like him. Symmetry. Everything was symmetrical and neat.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: So I am taken with these juxtapositions of things that
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: are cute And what does it mean to be bitten? Yeah.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: I almost wrote my thesis on bitten. What bites us?
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: And how do we get bitten by something? So I
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: obviously didn't do that, but here's my chance to take
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: another look at a spider bite.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Yes. First of all, you know, there are some spiders
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: that are kind of cute, you know? I'm thinking of
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: this one. I mean, it's cute until you realize that
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: it has, like, 32 eyes or something, and then you're like,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: get out of here. But, you know, sometimes they do
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: look kind of fluffy, and I can see it. I
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: can see it. Well.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: I'm glad one of us can because I'm out. Yet,
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: this spider is cute. Going to the comment about this
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: spider looking like nice and fluffy, but like our cat,
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: I didn't like him. So I'm willing to grant that
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: in this dream, there is a fluffiness. to this dark
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: gray spider and he looks almost cute. And yet our
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: dream ego is scared.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and didn't like him.
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: Here's another little rule of thumb that we often use,
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: which is if anything in the dream is wrong, it's
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: likely to be the dream ego.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Right. We actually spend quite a bit of time talking
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: about this in the book. Because this is one of those,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: a little bit like when then, this is one of
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: those nuggets that comes in handy a lot. So the
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: idea is if there's conflict or a negative emotion or
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: experience in the dream, try on for size. It's not
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: always true, but it's usually helpful to try it on.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: What if the attitude of the dream ego is wrong?
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: In other words, what that would mean here is, what
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: if there's actually nothing to be afraid of with a spider?
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: And that would lead us to understand the spider bite
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: as something that was necessary, something that perhaps was transformational.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: You know, when you get bitten by a spider bite,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: I think, I'm really not an expert on this, but
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: I think there's some toxin that basically kind of starts
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: to break down the tissue. Does that sound right? When spiders,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: you know, wrap up their prey and inject, I guess
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: they sting their prey, I do believe that it kind
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: of like pre-digests the meal, as it were. So I
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: think something like that goes on, at least with some
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: spider bites. But the point is, when we get bitten, Deb,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: to go to your question, it changes us.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: Yes. You know, for me, just the imagery is that
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: something penetrates us and something that is unwelcome. Mm-hmm.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Unwelcome from the perspective of the ego.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: Exactly. We don't like to be bitten. It breaks the skin.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: Something goes in that we did not choose and has
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: to be metabolized. Mosquito bites, spider bites, something like a
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: snake bite that maybe can't be metabolized. But something is
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: penetrating and getting our attention and injecting a toxin that
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: we must deal with. Once it's in, it's in. However,
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: this dream just leaves it with the fact that it
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: bit her. And I'm holding the juxtaposition of this sort
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: of association to a kitten, a cat, nice and fluffy.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: and almost looks cute, with spider, and, you know, dream
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: ego says, ooh, spider is bad, spider is scary. So
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: what has bitten her? That, to me, would be the question.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: What has come in, punctured the skin in her system?
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: What happened here? And she says, choosing whether to have
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: a second child or.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: Do some study about therapy and develop her professional career. Hmm. Right.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: What's, what is she getting bitten by? One of the
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: things that came up for me when you were talking, Deb,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: is that there's something about cute and cat-like that is,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: it's a little dismissive. It's like we don't, things that
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: are cute, we don't take them very seriously. You know,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: it's like we minimize the gravitas, let's say, of the spider.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, there's a spider, but it's cute. It's fluffy.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: We're kind of minimizing the potential of it. I mean, archetypally, boy,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: if we wanted to pull out the archetypal resonances of
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: a spider, we would be here all day. You know, interestingly,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: it's associated with creation because a spider spins a web.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Spiders are sometimes trickster figures in some mythology and fairy tales.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: And also spiders can be associated with the Great Mother.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: So we could spend a long time talking about what
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: the spider might mean archetypally, but to say that it's
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: cute minimizes its significance. So I wonder if there's something
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: very big coming up that she wants to sort of
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: imagine the attitude of the ego is to want to
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: make it something cute and fluffy and kind of manageable
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: like a house cat. But it's not. But it's something
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: that's a bit more unpredictable than that. It can't just
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: be patted on the head. And it has something for
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: her that it needs to deliver. Yeah.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: I am putting this together with choosing whether to have
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: a second child. The child she has, a daughter, the
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: daughter has spider toys and says to her how she
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: loves them and tells me to be brave. So I'm, again,
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: holding that tension between the tendency, as you're saying, to
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: minimize it. It's soft and fluffy like a cat. with
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: the fear and the being bitten? And is it like
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: a child's toy? And her daughter tells her to be brave.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: So what needs to be faced here in a way
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: that is not either too much kind of glossing over
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: and minimizing it, and neither is it too much fear
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: that's out of proportion to a relatively small creature. I
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: have this temptation. I wish I could say, oh, the
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: dream means, you know, which one of these life choices
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: to make.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: But what I think we can safely say is something
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: is really getting your attention.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: And asking to be understood as you work through this
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: dilemma of which direction is right for you.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: And, you know, the last chapter of DreamWise is about
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: active imagination. And I think if I had a major
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: decision to make and I had this dream, I would
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: want to sit down and have a conversation with that spider.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: And in the book, we provide some very, I think,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: clear examples and illustrations of how to do exactly that.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: How to talk to your inner spider.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: How to talk to your inner spider. That's right.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: And see what it, he, she has to say.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: And it will.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: So the book is Dreamwise, Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: We wrote it. It's been out in hardcover since November 2024.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: And It's out in paperback on June 9th. So we
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: feel like it's always been accessible and clear. That was
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: one of our goals. And now it's even more accessible
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: because now it's a paperback and you can throw it
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: in your book and take it on your summer travels.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: So we hope that you will buy many, many copies
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: and share them with all your friends and tell everyone
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: how much you love it because we're very proud of it.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us today. And keep up with all
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: things TJL by following us on Instagram, Facebook. X, and TikTok.