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House Dreams: Schematics of Your Psychological Functioning · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: Today we're going to talk about the house. The image
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: of the house, the archetype of the house, the symbol
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: of the house is so powerful, ancient. something that all
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: of us understand and have a relationship to way back
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: from antiquity forward. And one of the ways that we're
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: going to move around the symbolism of the house is
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: by interpreting several dreams where houses figure prominently. So for
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: those of you that submitted dreams on houses, thank you
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: so much. Your dreams were incredibly helpful and we're going
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: to be referencing a number of them in today's episode.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: We are doing this periodic thing where we gather your
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: dreams on specific images and dreams that show up frequently.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: And this time is houses. Next time we'll be doing
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: pregnancy and babies and dreams. So we'll put a link
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: where you can submit your baby and pregnancy dream if
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: you want to be part of this project as well.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: And everyone who submits a dream goes into a drawing
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: for a free copy of our book, Dreamwise, Unlocking the
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Meanings of Your Dream.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: So, houses in dreams and what houses could mean. So,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: if we start from the general, often dreams will start,
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: and many of you as listeners have had these dreams,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I'm in my childhood house, and then thus and thus happens,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: or I'm in the house I just bought. And then
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: the sequence continues. So the setting of things that happen
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: in the house are ubiquitous. And often, the house can
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: represent the whole personality of the dreamer. And what happens
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: in the house, the different rooms, whether or not they're
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: lit or unlit, their colors, all of that is a
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: way of capturing something we can see about our psyche.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I think probably the house is the
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: single most common setting for dreams. And I think you're right, Joseph.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I think it does kind of tell us something about
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: our psyche overall, how our house looks in a dream.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: And I have some particular stories about my dream house,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: which I think are somewhat hilarious. But I'll also say
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: in the early years of my training to become a therapist,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I worked with a man who most of the time
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: functioned really well, but sometimes when he was under a
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: lot of stress, he would begin to develop kind of
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: psychotic symptoms. So like hallucinations and maybe some delusions. And
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: I could always tell when that was on the brink
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: of happening because he would come in and talk about,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: I hear the neighbors again. It's like the walls are
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: too thin was the thing. So most of the time
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I didn't hear that content. But when he started breaking down,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: the reality function started breaking down a little bit. He
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: was kind of beset by this belief that the walls
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: were too thin, the neighbors were right on the other side,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: that they were going to come through the walls. And
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I thought, what a profound metaphor, really, for kind of
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: how our psychic structure is.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Right, how troubling it can be if the wall between
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: the conscious and the unconscious mind is too thin or
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: fraying or has breaches in it, particularly when we're awake
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: and we need to be oriented to the outer world
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: so that we can navigate successfully. I think also the
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: feeling tone, like for instance, to sense, oh, I can
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: hear the neighbors through the wall. Is that terrifying? Is
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: it comforting? That gives us a sense of whether or
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: not we're on really thin ice.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. And, um, Jung talks about houses in dreams,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: and we have a little section on house dreams in Dreamwise,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: and I'll just read a little bit from the book
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: as we quote Jung. He says, a house depicts a
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: life situation. One is in it as one is in
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: a situation. And he noted that when patients brought him
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: dreams of houses, or even when he himself dreamed of houses,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: they were always unfinished, always in need of another room,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: or perhaps there was a mysterious corridor attached to one's
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: actual residence that led to rooms that were not there
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: in reality. And when the dreamer awakened, there was always
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: the conscious feeling that one should solve the question of
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: this house to do something with it. And that's actually
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: a quote from Deirdre Bear talking about Jung on House Dreams.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: So we want to take a minute to remind you
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: that we have a Patreon where you can support us,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: which will feel good regardless, but you also get bonus material.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: We answer questions and interpret dreams from our supporter community.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: And today we answered a really interesting question. Someone asked
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: this great question about whether or not we can trust
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: our dreams. You know, do they always give us good advice?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And we had a lot of fun answering it. So
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: if you want to hear that, check out our Patreon.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: And you can either do that on our website, but
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: you can also become a Patreon directly on Spotify. So
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: if you're listening on Spotify, you can just click on
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: the little banner and join.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: So we might want to just have fun and jump
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: into a really life-changing dream about houses that Jung had.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do that.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: And he publishes this in his memoir, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: And here's Jung's dream. I was in a house I
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: did not know which had two stories. It was my house.
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  Speaker 3: I found myself in the upper story, where there was
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: a kind of salon, furnished with fine old pieces in
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  Speaker 3: Rococo style. On the walls hung a number of precious
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  Speaker 3: old paintings. I wondered that this should be my house,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: and thought, not bad. But then it occurred to me
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  Speaker 3: that I did not know what the lower floor looked like.
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  Speaker 3: Descending the stairs, I reached the ground floor. There, everything
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  Speaker 3: was much older, and I realized that this part of
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: the house must date from about the 15th or 16th century.
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  Speaker 3: The furnishings were medieval. The floors were of red brick. Everywhere,
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  Speaker 3: it was rather dark. I went from one room to another, thinking,
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  Speaker 3: now I really must explore the whole house. I came
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: upon a heavy door and opened it. Beyond it, I
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  Speaker 3: discovered a stone stairway that led down into the cellar.
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  Speaker 3: Descending again, I found myself in a beautifully vaulted room
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: which looked exceedingly ancient. Examining the walls, I discovered layers
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  Speaker 3: of brick among the ordinary stone blocks and chips of
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: brick in the mortar. As soon as I saw this,
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  Speaker 3: I knew that the walls dated from the Roman times.
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  Speaker 3: My interest by now is intense. I looked more closely
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: at the floor. It was of stone slabs, and in
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: one of these I discovered a ring. When I pulled it,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: the stone slab lifted, and again I saw a stairway
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: of narrow stone steps leading into the depths. These two
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: I descended and entered a low cave cut into the rock.
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  Speaker 3: Thick dust lay on the floor, and in the dust
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  Speaker 3: were scattered bones and broken pottery, like the remains of
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: a primitive culture. I discovered two human skulls, obviously very
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: old and half disintegrated. Then I woke.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: And, you know, I thought it might be fun to
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: add a little bit of context about when Jung had
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: this dream. So he was on a voyage. It was, what, 1907, maybe?
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I don't have the date exactly, but it was somewhere
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: in there. And he and Freud traveled. Oh, no, it
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: was 1909. He and Freud traveled to the United States.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: I think this was when they were going to deliver
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: talks at Clark University. So he says, the trip to
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: the United States, which began in Bremen in 1909, lasted
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: for seven weeks. We were together every day and analyzed
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: each other's dreams. And so this is one of those
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: dreams that Jung had when he was on this voyage
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: with Freud. So yeah, so what did he make of
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: this dream?
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  Speaker 3: Well, In his own commentary, he starts by saying the
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: house represented a kind of image of the psyche. And
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: then he goes on to say that my then state
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: of consciousness with hitherto unconscious additions. So he starts, as
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: we had said earlier, seeing the house which contains us,
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: and yet we are in possession of as part of
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  Speaker 3: the psyche. And I want to share a definition of
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: psyche that Murray Stein added in one of his books.
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  Speaker 3: He says that psyche is everything that we could be
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  Speaker 3: conscious of, whether or not we are at the moment,
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  Speaker 3: but could be conscious, and everything else is the collective unconscious.
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  Speaker 3: So I love the clarity of that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it helps us with this dream
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  Speaker 2: in particular, right? Because as with many dreams, we have this,
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  Speaker 2: you know, there's one level, there's the salon level, and
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: then there's a descent. And a lot of times in dreams,
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  Speaker 2: I went upstairs, I went up to the attic, we'll
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: hear Here he's going downstairs and he's going further and
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  Speaker 2: further down into this realm that I think is right
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  Speaker 2: at the border that you just referenced, Joseph, between the
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. And that's that bottom layer.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: So descent in dreams to the basement is often an
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  Speaker 2: image of going down into the unconscious and going up
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: into the attic might sometimes be an image of maybe
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: being in your head, perhaps. But we would think about
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: personal associations to these areas, kind of what their function is,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: all these kinds of things that we talk about in Dreamwise.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, he starts and he's in the salon, which he
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  Speaker 3: thinks of as his conscious personality. It's inhabited. It has
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: a certain kind of lived-in atmosphere. It's familiar, although it's
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  Speaker 3: a bit dated. And then, As he descends, he goes
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  Speaker 3: into deeper layers of the unconscious. What I think is
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: important relative to Jung's theory is that from the known
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  Speaker 3: salon down, down, and down into this very ancient primordial cave,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: it's all in his house. So the one psyche participates
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  Speaker 3: in all of these different levels. from the most ancient
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: of times to the modern experience of having tea and
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: coffee in his salon. And that inspired his understanding about
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: how each of our psyches are layered, and that we
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  Speaker 3: participate in an ancient information that we couldn't possibly have
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  Speaker 3: personally experienced.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he says explicitly that this was the
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: dream that drew him to the concept of the collective unconscious.
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  Speaker 2: That underneath the pleasant salon where we have tea and coffee,
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  Speaker 2: there are these levels that we all partake of. We
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: have them within us. And they go right down into
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: this unknowable layer of the collective unconscious.
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  Speaker 3: In terms of the utility... Jung was taking his dreams
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  Speaker 3: and getting a sense of how this is a statement
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  Speaker 3: on the human condition, which then informed his clinical work.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a hugely significant dream. And it was
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  Speaker 2: significant because of where it led him theoretically. It was
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: also really important in terms of what happened in his
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: discussions with Freud. Freud didn't quite know what to make
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: of this dream. So it's a great story, and if
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: you want to hear more, you can read Memory Streams Reflections.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: You know, Joseph, one of the things I'm aware of,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: and I've known this for a long time, is how
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: psychically disruptive it is to be either displaced from your home,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: or I remember a few times I kind of had
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: to move out of an apartment fairly precipitously, and I
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: didn't know where I was going to live, and just
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: how disruptive that felt. having home renovations done. And you
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: were recently interviewed for the Wall Street Journal on this topic.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. I think an article came out yesterday or
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: the day before. This wonderful features writer had had a
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: really awful experience struggling to get her home renovated. And
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: so she was asking various designers and thought to ask
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: a Jungian analyst, myself, to just chime in a little
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: bit about how wonderful powerful it is when one that
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: your home is being renovated and then additionally when it
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: turns into this enormously painful process fraught with all kinds
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: of nonsense but it got me thinking and we had
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: predicted we would do this episode a while back about
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: how much we identify with the house that we live
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: in and one of the things that I find interesting
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: is the translation of the house into the home. That
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: apparently it takes about six to nine months for our
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: psyches to ensoul our new house, our new living space.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: So then it becomes home. And in that regard, it's
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: the place where we belong and we belong to it.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: And so it then becomes a psychological factor for us.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: You know, it's so interesting because we moved in 2021.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: And one of the fascinating things is, you know, we
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: knew we were going to be moving. We started packing
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: up and all this stuff. And I started dreaming about
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: the new house even before we got here. Isn't that interesting?
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Reminds me a little bit of pregnancy, the way moms
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: will have dreams of the future being of their babies.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But yes, I have seen very competent, extremely intelligent,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: well-put-together people really in distress over a planned home renovation.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: And I get it because there's something that's so profoundly
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: disorienting about having your personal space in disarray, right?
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And just the rapid changes of an environment or
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: an image that is so integrated into us, even if
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: it's a beneficial change, can put us into a bit
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: of grief and disorientation. Grief being the sensation when an
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: internal image is changing rapidly. So walking back into the
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: house and thinking, my stuff isn't there anymore, it's a
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: different color, the cabinets are all different. Where am I?
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: in this space that I don't recognize, although I was
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: fantasizing it and thought it would be so wonderful to
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: have it. Same thing with people graduate from university and
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: they're so excited about it. And then those next few
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: months can often fall into a depression, even though it
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: was the thing they really wanted to have happen. Change
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: is hard.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Well, let's look at a house dream submitted by one
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: of our listeners.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: This is a 52-year-old male. The dream opens with me
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: walking through a deeply set front garden along a lengthy path,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: and I'm approaching the front door of a large two-story
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: wooden house. It spreads out before me, the expansive main
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: building having two two-story wings extending for quite a distance
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: on either side. Although clearly in use and occupied, It
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: is somewhat decayed and in disrepair. I could see it
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: was structurally sound and whole, however, and I remember thinking
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: that really it just needed some love and attention. I
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: climb the low stairs onto the porch and open the
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: front door, walking into a large entry hall that is
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: as high as the second floor ceiling and as wide
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: as the main house itself. Like the exterior, it is
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: somewhat neglected. Before me, sitting on a chair on a
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: platform or stage raised about a meter above the floor,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: is me, just as I am as I enter the
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: house and am now standing below looking up at myself.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: The version of me sitting up on the platform has,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: behind him, an enormous spider poised upon a thick, dark,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: gray web that stretches across the entire space, forming a
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: seemingly impenetrable veil obscuring any side of the house beyond it.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Each of the spider's eight legs are over five meters
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: in length and extend out across the web like the
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: ribs of an immense fan. Its huge head, which curiously
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: is circular, is that of a woman, and it hovers
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: at the center which is just beyond and above the seated, Me.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Right shoulder. I can't see the spider's body but assume
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: it extends into the web. Her face is arcane and
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: is fixed with an expression that is both knowing and indifferent.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: She is as ancient as all time. Her eyes emanate
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: a withering intelligence and power. Her mouth is held in
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: a seemingly smug half-grin. I approach the platform and all
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: the while our eyes are fixed on each other's. No
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: one blinks. There's an intense air of anticipation as we
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: sum each other up, poised for whatever the next move
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: will be. For context, he writes, this dream came in
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: an extended period of depressive episodes that were motivated by
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: a deep wanting to unmask my troubled history. It's no
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: exaggeration to state that I suffered through a very hybrid
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: and difficult childhood that was centered on my mother, who
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: had her own very extreme trauma history, and how I
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: normalized a ton of stuff that was hugely dysfunctional. So
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: to function as an adult, I had to mask all
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: of the crap and weirdness that these episodes of depression
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: I now see were my deeper self-wanting, going back and
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: confronting for what they really were. During this, on my own,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: was a huge challenge. The lowest point was a six-week
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: period at the start of 2023 of me being suicidal.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: I've never been as dark as then, but I feel
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: like I've made it through with an appreciation for how
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: screwed up it all was and how that too had
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: rhyme and reason. I'm mostly now a well of compassion
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: and understanding for what took place in my childhood and
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: the consequences for my adult life and have been the
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: process of letting it all be. He says the main
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: feelings in his dream were, as I approached the house,
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: I felt buoyant and centered, curious too. Then upon entering,
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: I became steely, calm and alert, but also poised and ready.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: I knew I had to hide my reaction to it
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: to get by. as really the scene was intensely disturbing.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: When I woke up, I completely freaked out and couldn't
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: go back to sleep. The version of me atop the
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: stage was present, as in aware, but also in a
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: kind of stupor, as in drugged. It was like I'd
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: been turned to stone, and the dream ego, as in
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: the me that's walked into the house, could tell the
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: spider was biting that part of me and keeping me captive.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: There's a little bit more here about, uh, the dreamers, uh,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: associations with houses, but, but I think we've got a
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: lot to go on here. And, and just to say that,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: obviously that the, the headline in the stream is the spider. Um, and,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: and I, I think it's a very compelling image of
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: the archetypal negative mother, obviously. And, and I mean, there's a,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: I don't want to make it too pat by saying
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: that but we could we could probably talk about just
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: that image for the rest of the episode but i
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: but i think it's also an interesting uh dream in
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: terms of the house because it starts with the house
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: and the house has these two wings that are almost
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: like embracing arms potentially and he says you know the
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: house isn't just repair but i can tell that it's
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: really whole actually it's kind of got you know good
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: bones it might need a little fixing up, but it's
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: basically solid, which I think is a kind of a
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: preamble to the encounter with the spider. He's given this
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: knowledge that his psyche is basically solid, which is a
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: good thing to know walking into an encounter like that.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: So I think that the preamble of the dream, which
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: focuses on the house is really, really important because there's
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: no way that you could look at archetypal material like
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: that and survive. without a sturdy, structured ego.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: As we are putting our hands on these delicious dreams
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: and really asking our imagination to enlarge and to inhabit
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: the psychological structure of other people, I want to bring
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: up that it's a skill to do that, both in
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: terms of entering into someone else's dream that they have
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: shared with us, or entering into our own dream life
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: in some creative and novel way so that we can
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: extract the gold from it. We have found that to
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: be life-changing in our personal lives. We find it life-changing
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: when we work with Arnella Sands. And that confidence in
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: the power and effectiveness of dreams has led us to
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: create Dream School. If you find mulling over these dreams
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: to fascinate you, if your own dreams feel like they're
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: asking more of you, please take a look at Dream School.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Our students tell us that they're having a wonderful time
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: developing friendships, learning, really learning how to look at their
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: dreams objectively, and to mine all kinds of good stuff,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: and A fantastic international community has sprung up in Dream School,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: forming their own private dreaming groups, meeting us in our
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: live events, and we'd love to have you join us.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: So go to thisjungianlife.com, J-U-N-G-I-A-N, and click on Dream School.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: Take a look. If it's right for you, we'd love
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: to see you there. Yes, I think that his evaluation
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: of the house is, it's just a bit neglected. It
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: needs to be brought into awareness. It needs some maintenancing,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: which could mean clarity of thinking around it. So in
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: the beginning, it seems like he's taken possession of something
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: that still, like you said, has a lot of value,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: but he may have to scrub it, paint it, do
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: some repairs. And then it sounds like he's got a
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: rather remarkable space.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. And, and there's another kind of specific reference
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: to the house that I wanted to, to lift up,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: which is, you know, he says the spider's web stretches
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: across the entire space and it obscures any sight of
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: the house beyond it. So again, he has this really, um, valuable, sturdy,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: and potentially really lovely space. But he can't see it
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: right now because of the spider's web, which is actually
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: an incredible metaphor for depression, among other things. That when
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: we get depressed, we often feel... I mean, one of
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: the hallmarks of depression is that you think that everything's
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: bad and it's always going to be that way, which
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: makes it really difficult to work with because part of,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: you know, part of what we need to do when
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: we're depressed is kind of realize like this, this is now,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: this won't last forever. You know, this isn't everything, but
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: the gray web of this enormous spider is this kind
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: of totalizing perspective that blots out what's in the house.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: So in some ways in this dream, there, there's, there's
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: the dream ego, there's the him who's kind of been drugged.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: And then there's almost these two opposing values. One of
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: the values is represented by the spider. And that would
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: be many things, like I said, at the negative mother,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: we could think about it almost like representing Freud's death drive.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: But the other value that's represented in the dream is
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: the house. And that is full of potential.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: So as you were talking, I was noticing in my
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: mind that this could be the beginning of a heroic quest.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: That in order to lay claim to the treasure might
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: be all of the space, the discoveries, and the two
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: wings of the house. He is going to have to
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: face the spider.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: That's perfect.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: And we don't know what that's going to require. Is
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: it going to require a sword in a battle? Is
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: he going to have to be a trickster like Odysseus?
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: Does he need to save or rescue the proxy of
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: him that seems stupefied?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I think the file of Galadriel might come in handy too.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, I was thinking about Shelob in Lord of the Rings.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: That difficult and challenging energy.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: But Joseph, that's perfect that it's a hero's quest. This
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: is exactly what the quest is, right? You have to
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: meet the dragon and get beyond to the treasure.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: And we have the opening scene. They're eyeing each other up.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: The dream ends at that moment that I would imagine
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: there's an enormous amount of tension, heroic tension building up,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: and it's going to be up to our heroic dreamer
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: to decide, is he going to take this on? Is
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: he going to go back home? Is he going to
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: go to sleep? Because there's a stupefying effect.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: And it sounds like actually, because this dreamer had this
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: dream a number of years ago and is kind of
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: reporting it in hindsight that he's done a lot of,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: he says he's a well of compassion for himself. It's
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: really lovely. You know, your association to the hero's quest
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: reminds me of a kind of archetypal, you know, like
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: a mythologem about the watcher at the threshold, the guardian
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: at the threshold. And this spider is a guardian at
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: the threshold. So he's walked into the door and then
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: he's met with this. And before he takes another step,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: he's going to have to deal with this. So in
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: a way, this dream reminds me of another dream that
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: is so common. I've heard, I've had this dream many
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: times myself. I've heard other people share this dream. I
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: think most of us, if we're lucky, have this dream
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: a couple of times in our life where we're in
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: a house and we realize it's ours and there's a
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: whole wing we didn't know was there. And we're finding
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: room upon room upon room that we didn't know was there,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: which is such a beautiful metaphor for for beginning to
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: be aware of our own capacity. I haven't had that
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: dream in a really long time. I don't know if
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: that's good or bad, or perhaps it's relevant to a
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: particular developmental stage in our lives, but that's always such
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: a beautiful dream.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Very exciting. I would like to add a little archetypal amplification,
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: because the image is so striking. And if we look
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: at the second tarot card, tarot card number two, the
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: High Priestess, We have the figure of a feminine priestess
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: sitting in a very still, almost mantic or trance-like state.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Behind her are two pillars, and there is a veil
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: between the two pillars that one cannot pass. And it
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: is sometimes interpreted as an image of Isis, And there's
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: an old Egyptian idea that Isis cannot be unveiled. And
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: what the mystics, the initiates know is, but she can
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: unveil herself. But what will that take to create the
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: conditions where the priestess will lift the veil for you
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: and then grant you access between the pillars into the
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: temple proper? which suggests that in the antechamber or the portico,
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: things have to mature. Again, it could be a heroic attitude,
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: but it could be any number of different psycho-spiritual disciplines
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: or attainments have to come together in order for the
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: unconscious to grant us access to these other areas. So
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: the heroic attitude is one piece, but there might be
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: other attitudes that the feminine that guards the portal could
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: require of you. And fighting it is one, but it's
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: not the only one.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: So I love that, Joseph, because one of the things
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: that that association does is lift up something that is
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: in the dream, actually, that this figure of the death mother,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: the negative mother, the spider... is bipolar like all archetypal
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: images are. You know, he says there's this incredible intelligence
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: and that she's ancient as time. And so she is,
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: the spider is a kind of mantic figure. And as always,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: you know, there's this incredible wisdom in the darkness. And
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: then you linking it to the high priestess raises that
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: up a notch. So I think that's perfect. All right.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: Let's go to dream number in the Swiss house.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: So this is a woman who is 47 and she says,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: the house in Switzerland. I dreamed my family and I
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: were walking on a rough trail through the Swiss Alps
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: and came into a small mountainside village. A middle-aged man
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: was standing outside one of the ancient rustic stone houses
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: and approached us and asked if we'd like a tour. Curious,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: I said yes, and we all followed him into this
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: little home. Inside, the house was much larger than I expected,
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: and the floors and wall paneling were made of beautifully
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: worked wood. Everything in the house was skillfully and beautifully made,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: from the house itself to the furnishings and ornaments. The
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: man led us through the house, which had been arranged
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: room by room like a museum. with curated collections of
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: furniture and artifacts arranged for display behind red cordons. We
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: talked and appreciated the display and the artifacts. In one
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: dark room, off to the left, I briefly glimpsed an
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: elderly couple sitting together. They seemed very private and didn't
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: speak to us or interact with us as we continued
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: the tour. I assumed they were the man's parents and
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: the original builders and owners of this house. I feel
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: apologetic for intruding into their house, but also deeply respectful
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: and appreciative of the remarkable place they've built and taken
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: care of. Despite the beauty and deeply lived-in feel of
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: this house, there was a sense that life had moved
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: on from here. There were the parents and this man,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: but no children. Later, toward what feels like the center
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: of the house, The man showed us a living room
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: with a large window looking out across the deep valley.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: The view was breathtaking, but my eye was caught by
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: another room off to the right with glass doors through
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: which I saw a library. Interested, I asked the man
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: if I could enter and he said yes. When I
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: went through the glass doors, I was mildly disappointed to
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: see that there was just a single bookshelf. I consoled
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: myself by remembering that I wouldn't be able to read
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: the books anyway as I didn't read German. Just then,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: I noticed that this room extended to the right into
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: what looked like a large lab or kitchen. It was
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: full of well-made wooden benches or countertops with three rows
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: of open shelves built above them. The shelves were full
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: of unique and ornate artifacts, bowls and jars, and various
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: cooking vessels. I thought this must be an ancient kitchen
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: or laboratory and marveled at the artifacts. Then we thanked
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: our host and went back out into the sunny hillside
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: with a sense of reverence for the place we had
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: just visited. And for context, she said, I had this
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: dream when I was about a year into delving into
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Jungian ideas, which began thanks in most part to your podcast.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: That's lovely to hear. And she said the main feelings
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: in the dream were a deep sense of enjoyment of
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: the landscape and reverence and appreciation for the house, its artifacts,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: and its inhabitants. a feeling of deeper appreciation once we
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: went back out upon the path. And for associations to houses,
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: she says, I sometimes fantasize about living in a cozy
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: cottage in the countryside instead of the urban landscape I
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: find myself living in. I feel much more at home
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: in places which are embedded in the landscape rather than concrete.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: I was surprised to find such refined cultural artifacts in
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: this house, which was situated in such a rustic environment.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: So, The first thing that I'm responding to is that
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: this is not their house, but they're touring a house.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: So often when we're dreaming about our house, there's a
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: different relationship to it and a responsibility, actually. Here, this
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: is something more universal, something that's somewhat distant. or perhaps
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: even archetypal because it's a tour of the home.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, one of the main things that stands out, right,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: is just the overall feeling of this kind of beautiful
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: place that's full of culture and wisdom. And we could
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: talk more about that because I love the sequence of
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: what she discovers inside. But I do want to say
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: that the fact that it's Swiss could definitely be a
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: kind of a nod to Jung. Joseph, have you ever
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: had a dream with Jung in it?
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: I have not.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Me neither. Me neither. A lot of people do have
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: young dreams, but I've never had one. My mom used
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: to have dreams with young. Anyway, but I do occasionally
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: have a dream set in Switzerland. And I had one
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: of those approaching my graduation from analytic training. And I
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: can't remember it now, but it was great. Anyway, so yes.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: So I would assume that the fact that this is
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: a Swiss house may refer to these new rich ideas
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: that she has been exploring. And what I kind of
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: notice is that she's appreciating everything, but then she kind
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: of says, but it's dead. There are no children. Like
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: it's kind of moved on. And I don't know, like
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: I think some people think that about Jungian psychoanalysis, like
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: that was really nice, but that's like literally from another century.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: And what are you going to do about it? But
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: then one of the next things that happens is when
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: she's in the center of the house, she has this
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: beautiful view, which is super interesting, right? I mean, we
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: could even just talk about the symbolism of windows. Because
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: what is a view? A view gives you, especially if
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: it's a wide view, it gives you a sense of
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: like psychologically to have an expansive view like that is
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: to be able to get up out of your own problems.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: And maybe see things from a higher perspective. And then
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: she notices this room off to the right, which is
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: a library. So like there's something more that she didn't
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: see before. And it's a library. But then it's a
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: little disappointing because it's just a few books. But then
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: she discovers, I love that she says, maybe it's a kitchen,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: maybe it's a laboratory. And what's very clear to me,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: and maybe I'm, I think this is pretty clear, is
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: that it's obviously in use. It's an active use. There
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: are bowls and jars and cooking vessels. To me, it
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: seems anyway, like it's not like a museum, right? The
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: rest of the house is like a museum. But this place,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: it seems, is actively in use. And something's being cooked
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: or changed. I mean, the laboratory obviously brings up the
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: possibility of it being a, you know, kind of a
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: reference to alchemy. So if I were going to sort
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: of make a statement about what this dream might be
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: trying to say, it's like, Yes, Jung's ideas are beautiful,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: and to a certain extent they may be kind of
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: museum pieces, something nice and pretty to look at. But
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: they also do give you a deeper, wider perspective, and
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: there is something going on in that kitchen.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: Yes. That even though she says that the elderly couple
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: that she encounters don't seem to have children, and then
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: therefore there isn't a dynamic and emergent life, That's obvious
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: to her in the beginning. But then as we come
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: into the alchemy of the kitchen, it looks like there
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: could be or there is evidence of kind of dynamic
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: creativity there, which is a very different way of creating
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: versus giving birth to a child. I also want to
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: just point out something that happens in terms of the
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: agency of the dream ego. It starts A stranger comes
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: and asks if she, whoever she's with, would like a
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: tour of this building. She accedes to that, and she
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: is guided by the guide. Could be a figure of Hermes,
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: but he is functioning very much like an anonymous figure
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: in as much as he is taking the ego by
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: one hand, and introducing the ego to another layer of
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: psychic reality, and in a sense helps her orient. Look
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: at this, let's now move here, take a glance at that.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: As the dream proceeds, then the ego asks a question
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: and asks, can I enter the library? And so a
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: certain curiosity has emboldened her and empowered her, and then
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: her curiosity begins to lead her through the house. As
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: subtle a shift as that is, it's a wonderful shift,
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: because going from that passive state into a curious active
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: state leads her past the library, which she feels is disappointing,
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: and beyond that notices the kitchen or the laboratory. Had
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: she not asked to enter the laboratory, she may not
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: have discovered these next two places filled with marvelous artifacts.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. So it's kind of her own journey
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: at that point.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: I'm also wondering if this is connected to an idea
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: that Jung talked about, which is the progression of the ego,
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: that she's being shown a beautiful house that's been tended,
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: it's connected to antiquity. She doesn't identify it as her
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: own psyche or her own object. But everything that's symbolized
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: in the dream is connected to us whether or not
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: we identify with it. So to me, I'm wondering if
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: this is a tour of an emerging change in her
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: psychic environment. And because Well, it's a little ambivalent, right?
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: There's things she likes about it more or less, but
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: it does represent a future growth.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Yes. And I think like she says at the end,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: like she leaves and she has this really strong appreciation.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: And that, you know, if you look at sort of
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: how the dream begins, there's this curiosity. There's, let me
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: see if I can just pull up the opening sentence here.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: You know, my family and I were walking on a
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: rough trail through the Swiss Alps and came into a
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: small mountain village. A middle-aged man standing outside one of
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: the ancient rustic stone houses approached and asked if we'd
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: like a tour. So there's curiosity. There's openness. At the end,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: it says, we thanked our host and went back out
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: into the sunny hillside with a sense of reverence for
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: the place we had just visited. So even though there's
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: some kind of question when she's in the house and like, oh,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: maybe this is just sort of like a museum. at
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: the end, the ego has been changed by the reverence.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: That absolutely nails it right there. Is that whatever this
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: new house represents inside of her, it sounds like she's
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: discovered what I would think of as a really good
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: attitude towards it, of both gratitude and reverence.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: So when we talk about dreams coming, house dreams in particular,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: tracking psychological development. I have a personal story about that
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: because for decades now, I have been dreaming of my
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: office and it never looks exactly like my office used
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: to in real life. And it's usually in like some
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: state of like terrible disrepair. And I mean, it changes
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: every dream. It's a little different, but sometimes, you know,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: sometimes uh that there are there aren't walls they're just
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: like um it's just been framed out and there's there's
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: no actual wall and i've just like hung up curtains
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: which i think says something maybe about you know that
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: that there's there's insufficient boundaries between my personal and my
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: professional life and and like sometimes it's in the it's
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: being um uh worked on and it's it's like beautiful
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: and there's like this incredibly magical fireplace in it and
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's just a total mess. But what I remember
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: is that, you know, I graduated from analytic training on
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: April 16, 2011. And on April 26, I had this dream.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: I was in my dream office. Everything was being cleared out.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: All the junk. It was an almost empty basement. We
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: were going to get rid of the curtain partitions and
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: put in drywall. It was going to be nice.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: So renovating.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: Changing.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Making it more sturdy. And I just finished analytic training,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: so that was happening.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: And creating a blank canvas is what strikes me too.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Everything is going to be fresh, fresh painted, and now
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: you get to make all the creative decisions that we
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: can and that we enjoy.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's very positive. So should we do another one?
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: Our dreamer is a 46-year-old female, and here is her dream.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: I have a recurring dream series that's been happening for
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: several years now featuring the same basic elements every time,
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: although there are slight shifts as well that feel significant
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: as I track the dreams. The basic phenomenon of the
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: dream is this. I have a house, and the house's
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: floor is collapsing. But the roof is also a roof
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: in the basement. It's usually damaged from water as well
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: as structural damage from poor construction as the main reasons
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: why the floor slash roof of the house is collapsing.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: During the dozens of dreams of this kind I've had,
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: the plot is mostly the same. I become aware that
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: I'm in a house with a bad foundation and it's
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: going to collapse, and as I'm moving through the house
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: with the one room with a particularly bad floor over
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: the chasm into the basement, I'm terrified that everything is
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: going to fall in. Sometimes it does, and different things
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: are destroyed, like guinea pigs or my car. Other times
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: it just feels like it's going to, and I'm not
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: sure when it's going to happen, only that I'm really
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: anxious about the day when it does. For context, she
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: tells us, I have a lot of theories about what
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: this dream means, and with every new dream, it shifts.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: It doesn't feel like a dream that's about a specific
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: life moment, but a bigger phenomenon, like a complex. It
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: feels like it has to do with my ego development.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: The dream registers as a kind of nightmare, and when
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: I wake up, it feels so real every single time.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: Even though it's a recurring dream, it's not always clear
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: in the dream that I've had this dream before. Every time,
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: it feels like the worst thing has possibly happened. Sometimes
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: the details are such that the floor does collapse, other
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: times there's just imminent terror that it's going to. The
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: main feelings are terror and horror, intense fear and anxiety.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: She provides some associations. My mother's family, her, her father, mother,
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: and siblings, are all into purchasing old homes and restoring them.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: Although I myself have no abilities in this area, I
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: was surrounded by this my entire life. I grew up
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: in an old house. Currently, I am a homeowner as
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: a single woman. This series started after I purchased my
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: own home. The house has lots of funky little problems.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: I had to hire someone to put a new roof
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: in and a new roof on the house when I
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: bought it five years ago. There's lots of structural issues
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: with the doorways in the house currently, mostly water damage
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: over time. I do associate the water damage in the
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: dream with something connected to my emotions. When I quit
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: my job as a full-time high school English teacher, a
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: job that I had grown to dread after 16 years,
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: three years ago in the midst of the most intense
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: part of this series, I did have a significant dream
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: of the house with very strong, thick wooden beams. with
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: a bed at the top, made of a raft where
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: several people were sleeping and dreaming. Around that time, I
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: had hoped to transition my livelihood to become a dream worker,
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: and had made moves to do so. The dream with
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: the strong wooden beams and the bed on the raft
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: at the top struck me as very interesting because even
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: though I was financially less solid in that time, I
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: was taking steps to move toward my dream life and
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: away from the career path that in some ways gave
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: me security but mostly had come to make me miserable.
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: And her occupation is a teaching artist.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: So, you know, this in some ways is akin to
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: my office dreams where it's kind of an ongoing series
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: and things are always a little bit in a different state. And,
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a little bit of the psyche, the
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: dream maker reporting out, you know, what things look like
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: in the psyche at that time. You know, dreams, Dreams
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: are fundamentally a way that we develop a relationship with
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: the inner other. And this is like you're getting a
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: nightly report. And we call that inner other in our book, Dreamwise,
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: we call that inner other the dream maker. So here
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: the dream maker is letting you know that something's in progress.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: I'd be so curious to know, just like the arc,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: if it was Was a floor tending to fall in
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: more or whatever? I mean, I can tell you that
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: my own office dreams, they, you know, some, sometimes the
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: office is really solid. And then I month later, it's like, nope,
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: it's all a mess again. So it's kind of, it's
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: an ongoing thing.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: It's a living relationship.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: It is a living relationship. Yeah.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: So, um, It's difficult sometimes just to get a summary
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: of a sequence because often it is in the specifics
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: that change over time that we get a little bit
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: of a feeling for how the complex is being chipped away,
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: how it's being improved or changed, or how the archetype
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: is evolving inside of the psyche. But I just have
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: to say that something tickled me because I wasn't expecting it.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: Different things are destroyed, like guinea pigs. Or my car.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: I was so not expecting guinea pigs to show up
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: as one of the destroyed features. It's interesting in how
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: dreams are so amazing that way.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: And also, we'd want to know, like, what about guinea pigs?
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Do you have guinea pigs? Was it a specific guinea pig?
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: One of the things that struck me about this dream is,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: first of all, I think she's probably right on about
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: the water damage being related. The water seeping in maybe
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: where it shouldn't be, and it's damaging things. But the
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: other thing is, so it's a collapsing floor. And what
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: she says is the floor is also, she says the roof,
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: but I think she means the ceiling of the basement.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: So everything is potentially collapsing into the basement, which, by
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: the way, would not be good if you had a house.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: But it's not on the level of catastrophe that, I mean,
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: you could imagine worse catastrophes, right? That is probably sort
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: of survivable. But it also puts you in the basement.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: And as we talked about before, you know, that can
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: be an image like we talked about with Jung's dream
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: of kind of going down into the unconscious. So I
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: think it's interesting. She, you know, she wanted to move
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: towards doing dream work. But the dream that she mentioned
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: about the people sleeping up, they were they were up.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: So I wonder if some, in some sense, if the
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: dream maker is telling you, you need to get down
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: into the basement, which can also be an image of
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: kind of getting down into the body more. You know,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: and if you don't do it, if you don't get down,
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: if you don't take the stairs and go down in
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: the stairs, you know, psyche is going to engineer something
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: where the floor collapses. I mean, it's just a speculation.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: But it's something that I wonder about.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: It seems very reasonable. that if the trend of the
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: dream is to get you into the basement one way
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: or another, and your guinea pigs have been claimed by
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: the basement, and the car has been claimed by the basement,
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: you may very well be claimed by the basement. And
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: then what will happen is that a descent into Hades,
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: which is not necessarily bad, but one is going to
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: get a tour of the underbelly of the psyche, could
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: be scary. Maybe it'll be euphoric. But there is a
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: lot of concern. And I think the idea that the
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: key word here is collapse. We keep hearing the word
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: collapse and fall, destruction. And there's a lot of energy
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: and fretting about that. What I don't hear in the
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: way this is discussed is that the dream ego wants
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: to do something about it. that she's surveying the problem
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: over and over again, maybe for years, surveying a problem.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: Does she ever pick up a hammer? Does she pull
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: off a floorboard? Does she climb on the roof and
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: try to fix something? Because if nothing is going to
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: be done, then nature will claim the building. And it
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: is a natural process for water to dissolve things. It's
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: a solvay. So water is going to rot things down
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: back into the soil. They then return to a natural state.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: Maybe the house needs to collapse if it represents a
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: dominant attitude that is no longer serving you, but you're
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: still shy about letting it go. So it's possible that
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: the career as a high school English teacher is in
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: some ways represented by the collapsing house. And that even
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: though the waking personality has decided, I'm no longer the
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: English teacher, I'm now going to move in this other direction,
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: it doesn't mean that the structures that you've integrated from
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: that role are just gone. They're still in there. It
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: could very well be that the psyche is helping you
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: break down some of the structures that you have integrated
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: from that time, and it sounds like it maybe was
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: a frustrating or even traumatic experience. So sometimes something rotting down,
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: the putrefactios, the alchemists talk about, it's putrefying. And if
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: you ever have walked through a house that has severe
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: water damage, it is putrefying.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Wow. So I think that's all great. And I just
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: want to, maybe I'm just kind of repeating myself a
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: little bit, but I'm so struck, I'm so curious about
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: the basement. Yeah, yeah. Because it just seems like that's
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: where everything wants to go. But I don't hear, kind
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: of to your point, Joseph, I don't hear a lot
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: of curiosity about the basement. I hear like, I want
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: to keep this from happening. But what would happen if
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: you let yourself go down in the basement? And one
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: thing this dreamer might want to do, if it feels right,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: is engage in an active imagination. Now, there's a whole
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: chapter in Dreamwise, our book, on active imagination. I think
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: we do a really good job of sort of explaining
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: what it is, and giving you different techniques that you
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: could try. But what would happen if the dreamer let
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: herself go into the basement voluntarily in an act of imagination,
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: look around, notice what's there. Like, what is the psyche
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: trying to get you? Why does the psyche want to
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: get you into the basement? I mean, yes, it's happening
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: because something's falling apart. But if we think about it
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: in terms of telos, what is the telos of the
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: collapsing floor? You know, Telos is this idea that there
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: is a direction, there is an intention, there is a
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: final goal. And that is definitely part of dreams. So
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: what is the telos of the collapsing floor? Is it
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: to get you in the basement? Why? I'm really curious
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: about that.
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: I like that. And I think that if we've been
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: avoiding knowing things about our own unconscious material, you know,
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: the dream maker will build up the stakes to kind
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: of drag us down to show us things. This isn't
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: in this particular dream, but using the real life lens,
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: let's just say you came into ownership of a somewhat
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: abandoned building and you did a tour of it. You
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: do have to make a decision. Is this something to
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: restore or is it something to raise down to an
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: empty lot and build something else from it? And it
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: sounds like she may be trapped in that place of
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: haunting the old house, but not ready to actually facilitate
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: demolishing it. if it's that bad. And there are houses
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: that are not worth renovating. I mean, they are really
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: like one step away from returning to the soil. So
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: it may require some decisiveness on her part regarding some
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: attitude or agenda, some part of her personality. that she
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: keeps visiting and refusing to make a decision about.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. I like you're invoking that kind of,
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: you know, the real life scenario, you know, which is
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: a great tool sometimes to see what opens up if
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: you try that.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: Let's jump into the dryer prints.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: So this dream comes from a man who is 37
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: years old. I'm walking through a house that is an
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: in-progress remodel that I also live in. Wow, there's a
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: whole lot right in that sentence, right? At first, I
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: only notice the nice parts of the house and I'm
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: admiring the good work. But later, I notice, as if
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: for the first time, old, decrepit parts of the house
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: that hadn't been remodeled yet, as well as damage and
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: untidiness from the children. I'm aware that the older children
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: were the biggest cause of destruction and mess but I
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: am at fault for the work that has not yet begun.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: I feel frustration towards the children and shame for my
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: inability to accomplish the work. I notice that the baby's
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: room is in excellent condition and I'm proud of that work.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: There are some problems with the clothes dryer and I
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: take it in and out of the house for repairs.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: Some other people, including my father, are helping with the
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: house and are outside with me. I think my wife
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: is unhappy with something. probably related to not having a
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: functioning laundry appliance. Someone tells me that there is another
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: dryer in the backyard and I am surprised. Then I
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: remember that the dryer repair company called Dryer Prince had
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: delivered it there. I feel dumb for having forgotten it.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: I go inside to look for something and come across
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: a book about work-life balance. The book explains that parents
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: shouldn't work super long hours and puts it in these terms.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: You should spend no more than 80 hours each week
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: outside of the fantasy world. I love this.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Very direct advice.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, God. I'm confused by this choice of words and
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: wonder why the author implies that work life is the
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: real life. My wife enters the house and I remember
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: that I'm supposed to be getting the dryer. I'm embarrassed
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: and feel stupid and irresponsible. The day before this dream,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: this is context. He says, the day before this dream,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: my oldest child, age eight, was diagnosed with ADHD and autism.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: The meeting with the psychologist made me realize that I
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: probably also have autism. And I spent the rest of
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: the day feeling a little shocked and disturbed. The main
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: feelings in the dream were embarrassed, stupid, and irresponsible. And
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: he notes about how he says, I'm currently living in
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: an older house that we are remodeling while living in it.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: The remodel is not going as quickly as originally planned.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, when does it ever? I know, I know.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: And this has been a major source of stress for
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: the family. Ugh, that's not so hard. The only part
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: of the dream that corresponds to my real house was
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: the baby's room.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: And his occupation is he's a soldier.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: Right. So I just want to say, I just feel
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: so much empathy for this dreamer.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: And I just am noticing the way he's kind of
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: beating him beating himself up in the, in the dream. I, Oh,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: I should have noticed this. I feel stupid for not
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: remembering this. I'm, you know, this is my fault. And,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: and I, uh, I sort of want to rush into
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: your defense. And, uh, I'm curious if that's a cognitive
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: style in waking life as well, where you often berate
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: yourself or, uh, blame yourself for everything going wrong. And,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: and also, I just want to say, I mean, if
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: your oldest child is eight and you have a baby,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how many kids you have,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: but remodeling a house and having kids, oh, that's so,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: so stressful. So I just have a lot of compassion
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: for this dreamer.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: So if we start with, I am walking through a
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: house that is an in-progress remodel that I also live in.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: So the first question that I would ask is, do
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: you own the house? Or are you renting it and
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: somebody else is remodeling it? But I'm going to just
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: make an assumption that it's your house. So it's your
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: house and it's being remodeled. That sounds like somebody that's
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: in Jungian analysis.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: You are living in your psyche and it's being remodeled
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: by you to some measure, by the archetypes, by the self.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: You're in a change process. And there's parts of your
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: personality that are a bit decrepit that really need to
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: be released and new stuff put in. There's stuff that
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: looks great and shiny and you've done a great job
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: at improving something in the psyche. There is this tension
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: about whether or not the children are frustrating it, making
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: it harder to get this done or not. And that
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: question is in the dream. How much energy do I
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: put into the kids and the family? How much energy
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: do I put into my self-development? All parents who are
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: raising kids are asking similar questions about self-actualization and the
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: amount of energy that takes versus our other obligations in
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: our lives. And it is an absolute juggling to be
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: able to sort that stuff out. Sometimes it does happen
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: that Later in life, when our children become more independent,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: that we discover we have enough libidinal resources to take
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: some deep dives and start getting our hands on the
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: levers in our personality. So it's not uncommon that sometimes
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: our personal growth is put to the side a bit
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: because the outer world just requires a lot from us
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: for a couple of years.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Well, and of course, sometimes when we're struggling with something
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: in the outer world, that can be an opportunity. Like
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: that there is a way that that changes us too.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: So sometimes when they're in the throes of, you know,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: trying to raise kids, you know, there can be a
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: lot of psychological development that goes on because we're in
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: that struggle. But I like what you said, Joseph, about
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: this person's in a change process. I mean, it's right
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: there in the first sentence. And I'm noticing that, you know,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: this guy has got three kids and he's remodeling the house.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: And I think he's trying to please everybody, which is admirable,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: but difficult. But he took the time to write down
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: his dream and send it to us.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: So he's clearly attending to the inner world.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: Now, there is help that happens in the dream. So
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: I want to really highlight that. that in fairy tales,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: there's a helpful chipmunk or a helpful horse or some
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: old woman in the forest that goes, I wouldn't turn
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: left if I were you. Like, you know, interesting advice
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: come our way. So the wife is unhappy. He's frustrated
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: and ashamed as he's struggling to get everything done. And
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: then someone tells me that there is a resource right
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: there in my own backyard. So just just right next
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: to consciousness. It's in the personal unconscious. There's something that
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: you knew and then you lost track of, but you
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: can know again. And that's called shadow. And we can
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: have golden shadow. So someone points you into the backyard
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: and you're surprised to remember that there's a resource there.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: And it's as simple as carting that resource into the house.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, very quickly, the dryer
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: issue is solved. And it's interesting that it's a dryer,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: because one of the ways we could look at the
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: dream is, is the dream a little oversaturated with feeling?
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: And sometimes we need to wring out some of the
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: particularly the feeling that's interfering with our effectiveness. So to
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: dry out from that feeling of shame or frustration, to
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: dry out the low self-esteem, to get things a little
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: bit more focused, action-oriented, maybe a little more mental for
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: that matter, a little more willful.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: Right. I was thinking about the dryer, and I love
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: what you did with it, Joseph. And the fact that
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: it's really a transaction between him and his wife, this
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: thing about the dryer. And so it did make me
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: wonder if there's some tension in the marriage, because that's
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: where this comes up. You know, the alchemical operation of
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: calcinedio has to do with applying heat and drying things out.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: I like it.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: And I think that that's where this kind of dryer
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: comes in, just like you said, Joseph. I like how
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: you put it. But yeah, is there an emotionality maybe
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: in the couple relationship or somewhere in there that needs
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: a good spin in the dryer? We all could at
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: some point.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: So there's a little snapshot that I think the dream
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: maker is very gently offering. It's not screaming at you,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: but it's saying there's a problem in the psyche. someone
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: says look in the backyard i remember that a new
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: dryer has been delivered but he doesn't go and look
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: and he doesn't move it into the house instead he
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: goes inside to look for something and then comes across
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: a book about work-life balance, and then starts talking to
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: himself about work-life balance and taking advice. So there is
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: a challenge around setting up priorities. So my question would be,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: why doesn't he move the dryer into the house? Why
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: doesn't he take the resource and get one thing solved?
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: But there's a Kind of like an ADD quality. I
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: don't know this person, but it reminds me of that.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: It's like, ooh, look, a dryer. I'm inside the house
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: looking up a book. What is the origin of penguins? Like,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: that is a real issue for some people.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: It's great. It's a great observation. And where it takes
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: me to is, you know, there's something about claiming the
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: positive masculine, which, you know, this person's a soldier, which
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: is really, that's kind of an archetype of the positive masculine.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: But but but he seems a little wilted in his
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: in his life, you know, if we're just judging by
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: the dream. And, you know, it's not just a dryer.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: It's been delivered by dryer prints, you know.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: So it's it's the Cadillac of all dryers, perhaps.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: Right. And it's and like you said, Joseph, I think
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: it's great that you identified it as shadow because it's
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: kind of a masculine dryer. Right. It's a it's not
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: a dryer princess. It's a dryer prince.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: And his father is there too, and I wonder about
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: the father complex, but could he, like you're saying, kind
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: of find some agency, step into that kind of masculine
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: place and say, let me take care of the dryer.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: One thing that I have is, and again, I just
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: feel such empathy with this dreamer, but I think men
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: get shamed a fair bit in our culture. You think?
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: And I can just I can sort of imagine this
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: guy's life like he's working. I don't know what his
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: work life is like. He's trying to he's trying to
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: help with the kids and he's trying to rehab the house.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: And it's not all going very well. And men can
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: have a tendency, I think. I mean, any of us can,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: but there's a specific way where it happens with men
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: sometimes to feel like I'm supposed to be able to
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: do it all. And because I can't, I'm a worthless nothing.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: So he's he's shamed. He feels bad. He feels stupid.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: He feels stupid. you know, worthless, but it might be
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: okay to say, you know what, I'm not going to
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: get to all of this this week, but I'm doing this, this,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: and this, and that's good. And that's a little bit like,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take the dryer and put it in
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: the house. I'm going to claim my princely dryer self.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: One of the things that you were speaking, I was
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: thinking about, because I work in Virginia Beach, which has
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: a very, very large military community, and I've had the
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: privilege of working with active duty and veterans, depending on
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: where one is in a military career, and he calls
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: himself a soldier, which is a very specific reference.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: When we're new or at a lower rank in the military,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: there's a strong ethos that you don't think for yourself,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: you follow orders. And there's an enormous amount of training
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: so that if you find yourself under duress or in combat,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: you just have automatic patterns of obedience and sequencing to
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: put in. There isn't a lot of fostering of creative
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: problem solving. There's just a lot of regulations, expectations, and
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: direction from someone else. So I am also wondering, relative
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: to the dream, is the dream ego waiting for someone
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: to give him orders. And in this realm, it looks
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: like there's an opportunity to make his own decisions regarding
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: his own domain, and he's got help. There's some other people,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: including my father, are helping with the house, and they
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: are outside with me. But he's not recording that they're
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: saying anything, or he's inquiring of them. So like the
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: Prince of Dryers, he does have an inner father and
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: maybe other resources. But again, he's not thinking of engaging
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: or is waiting for them to become the activating element,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: the sparking element. But the Dream Makers is right now
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: just taking a snapshot, saying, buddy, this is, from my perspective,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: how I'm looking at what's going on. And it's really
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: up to him to decide if or how he would
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: do one thing or another. The advice about spending 80 hours,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: you should spend no more than 80 hours each week
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: outside of the fantasy world. Fantasy world is a tricky
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: phrase because we don't know what the word fantasy exactly
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: means to him. But if it means spend more time
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: engaging your imagination, 80 hours a week to raise kids,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: do all your soldiering, be a husband, pound on the house,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: pound those nails in, then that outside of that, you
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: need time to be with your interiority. and to be
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: attending to the fantasies that you have, thinking of them
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: as information coming to you from the unconscious, because fantasies,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: like dreams, tell us something. And as well, working with
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: the dreams, and as you've said before, Lisa, going in
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: an active imagination, which is like a fantasy. If you
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: fantasize the whole dream, and at the end you feel embarrassed, etc.,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: And then what happens? Do you have any impulse in
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: that dream fantasy to do anything different? And if so,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: what might that be? So to stimulate possibilities. The other
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: thing that I want to say is he had just
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: discovered that his eight-year-old child was diagnosed with ADHD and autism.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: And he's trying to metabolize what that means. So the
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: dream may not be a general statement about struggling to
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: do things, but it could be about how stunning it
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: is to integrate that information and how that can sidetrack
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: our agency, that he's just trying to find his footing
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: with this new information. So taking care of these external
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: tasks and the honey-do list and the repair list, all
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: of the all of the beckoning and pulling to get
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: his work done. And he may need time to just
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: sit down and think about what it means to have
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: a child with special needs and to change his fantasy
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: of the future. Because if you discover you have a
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: kid with special needs, the trajectory of the family is
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: going to need to adapt. And it's only been 24 hours,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: so he doesn't even have a blueprint yet what adapting
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: to this reality is even going to mean. So there's
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: a little flummoxed feeling in the dream, but I kind
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: of get it. The embarrassment, feeling stupid and irresponsible. I
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: have to say that every time a parent gets surprising
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: news about their child, particularly if the child's become vulnerable
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: or ill or is struggling, it's natural for parents to
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: feel guilt. even if it's not their fault, it just
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: tumbles up in us. If only I had known or
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: done something different or known this earlier, why did it
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: take till eight to the list of incriminations rise up
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: in parents? And they have to really look at that
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: inner accuser and decide perhaps some of those, one or
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: two of those things might be valid, but often many
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: of those things simply aren't valid. and they need to
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: be swatted away after they're thought about. So it isn't
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: your fault that your child has special needs. These things
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: are predetermined. We don't know why such things happen, but
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: we have to take it in as part of a
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: larger cosmic drama that you are situated in and have
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: been asked or tasked to tend to this precious soul.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: who is going to need more from you than you
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: might have thought.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: We certainly wish this dreamer all the best. And if
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: you'd like to contribute your dream to our next dreamography
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: project on pregnancies and babies, you can do so at
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: the link below. And if you would like to submit
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: just any old dream to the podcast, you can do
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: that by heading over to this Jungian life dot com.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: And there's a big green button right at the top.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: Let us let us interpret your dream. You can also
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: include you can also send us topic suggestions for future episodes.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: We'd love to hear those. And you can do that
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: on our website as well. Thanks very much for listening.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: Just right now, as you're looking at the podcast, just
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: scroll down the show notes and there are just little
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: links there.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: You just tap it to submit the dream, the topic,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: other things.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: Take care. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening. To submit a dream,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: suggest an episode topic, or join our mailing list, visit
• 1:19:25
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• 1:19:30
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