Dreams and relevant interpretation I suggest

(Dreams No. 301-to-313)


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Dream No. 301

Published as received:

Lately I came across your site that I find very interesting indeed.
I am a 25 years old girl and I have always attempted to know myself better, understand the reasons for some of my behaviours and improve my relationships with the others.
This time I decided to write you in order to understand the meaning of a dream that in some periods became a recurrent nightmare, one night after the other. The situation or environment might change but the distressing event was always the same.
I must specify that it mainly recurred while I was living as a couple with a boy that I did not love but I had no heart to leave.
I thought that this dream somehow represents my fear of facing real life but I look forward to your comments to have its meaning better clarified.
Kind regards and thank you. Here is my dream.

I am in a street, amongst a lot of people. With the eyes of my mind I envisage all that happens around me but I cannot open my eyes, they seem to be stuck and despite the efforts I make to open my eyelids these stay relentlessly sealed and I am terrified at the idea that I will never manage to unseal them.

Your interpretation is correct and there is little I can add. I would only specify the following: your fear is not due to an impossibility to FACE real life (as you guess) but by an impossibility to LOOK AT IT straight. In other words, it is the stage before action and decisions are taken.
In your mind you know how things are getting on but you cannot bear a direct contact with them.
An envisaged lion frightens less than a lion seen with the very eyes.
This defence mechanisms might play a positive role in case you use it from time to time but your dream says that, instead, you use it regularly. You are even terrified that you might be unable to do otherwise.
Which is the cause of your impossibility of looking at real life directly? This dream doesn’t say it. A single dream cannot clarify everything. Many and many more dreams are needed.

Dream No. 302

I am engaged to reassemble a mosaic made of several small square pieces. They must be placed one inside the other, therefore it is necessary to start from the bigger one to go to the smaller one.
I am compelled to start again many times as from time to time I make a wrong fixing. Contrarily to my temper in real life, I am very patient as I am aware that I am building up my personality and I am firmly decided to complete my work.
I am performing this work in a very delicate manner, in fact I take the square pieces in my hands most carefully, as if they were crystal pieces.
In my dream I have the feeling that nothing is to be thrown away, everything can be useful.

It would be difficult to find a more fitting metaphor than this one to represent the work being made during an analysis: an overall drawing that can be obtained only by fitting the various pieces together; patience; necessity to start all over again, from time to time; intention to complete the work; delicacy as required to go on; awareness that one’s own personality is being built and that everything can be useful, even what may appear negligible at first sight.
An element of this metaphor seems to be in contradiction with the idea of a mosaic: a mosaic is started from a small piece to get at the overall drawing in the end. Here, instead, the dreamer starts from the larger piece and she must gradually insert the smaller elements inside.
Maybe the dream means that it is not necessary to build the CONTAINER (the dreamer’s personality, the largest square piece) as this already exists. It is only a matter of adequately fitting the various elements in it.

Dream No. 303

I find myself hanging from the outer handle of a military jeep running at very high speed. I must hold very tight. It is driven by my girl friend B…(in real life I rebuke her excessive aggressiveness and authoritarianism) and indeed she must have gone mad.
I think that sooner or later I will smash against a tree or a street-lamp. Also a policeman and a boy are in the jeep and the boy strongly hits the policeman causing severe lacerations on his face. I am sorry for that boy, in fact after that gesture there is no hope for him. I tremble for what may happen to him even if I know that he is a criminal.
All the persons on that jeep are aggressive indeed. I feel that they know no other way of being than this one.

Since the beginning a military jeep evokes the idea of a CONFLICT, of a war. It is the fight between the AGGRESSIVE-EVIL part (the criminal boy) and the Super-Ego (the policeman). But the latter too is authoritative and violent.
The dreamer is sorry for the way the criminal was treated and trembles for him: evidently she feels that he is not a complete stranger to herself!
The dream conveys also an idea of madness and impending danger due to the readiness of happenings. We have already met this feeling-fear to lose one’s control on various occasions.
For an analyst it is easy to understand that the conflict amongst the various elements of the dreamer’s personality is involved. It will be difficult however to lead the dreamer to realize this. In fact it is much easier and more gratifying to think that indeed the dream talks of SOMEBODY ELSE (the friend B…in this case).

Dream No. 304

Published as received:

My dream is very simple but its interpretation is rather complicated.
I am confident you will give me your help.
Best regards.

I could see nothing but I knew I was in my room, I clearly and neatly heard my husband’s voice saying 96 (unfortunately my husband died 3 weeks ago).

I often receive dreams of this kind even if I have repeatedly stated that they cannot be interpreted here, on my site. I strongly doubt that even in the course of a psychotherapy it might not be possible to interpret them.
Here I can only interpret dreams having at least a few information and provided this information refers to basic problems of life, the ones that are common to all mankind.
What can I say about such a dream or about this other dream: "I dreamt of my girl friend Joan that was trying to steal my fiancé from me"?
I am no fortune-teller! At this point, I nearly regret it…  :-)))
When I decided to set up this site I was aware of my risk of being overwhelmed by messages requesting me to interpret this kind of dreams and to avoid such an occurrence I made a specific statement in this regard on the page BEFORE STARTING OFF but, apparently, only a few people read it!!!

I have also repeated my statement in many other circumstances so now I ask you not to consider me unpolite but from now on I will refrain from answering to anyone sending me this kind of dreams.

Dream No. 305

I was on a war ship…rather than fearing the enemy, we seemed to be afraid that the ship bottom would fail.
There was a sailor sleeping all the time and he could be met everywhere. When I called him, he lifted up his head answering: "Yes, captain" then he went to sleep again.

A war ship can be associated to ideas of power, aggressiveness, pluck, male sexuality. At deep level the dreamer feels that these three aspects of his personality are neither as he would like them to be nor as they might appear at a superficial glance: power addressed to the outside world (war ship) is only apparent, it is an act set up to conceal fear and uncertainty.
Fear and uncertainty as dealt with in this dream are very serious because they refer to the BOTTOM, that is the BASE, the SUPPORT. The feared failure does not refer to something of minor or no importance.
At consciousness level the dreamer was pleased of his efficiency in solving problems, both his own problems and those of the people living near him, but his dream reveals the presence of a much different real situation: a sailor sleeping all the time that not even the captain’s call manages to permanently awake.
In a word: pluck and efficiency were a mask behind which uncertainty and indolence were concealing. And the unconscious knew it.

A building can be refurbished and strengthened only starting from the foundations. To attain this target, the first thing to do is to detect any existing FAILURE.
The dream I am talking about fulfils this task in an excellent way.
On the other hand, it is taken for granted that the premise to a CURE is represented by a DIAGNOSIS.
The disappointment produced by an unpleasant diagnosis can be overcome only considering that without a diagnosis the situation is bound to become worse.

Dreams No. 306 and 307

Published as received:

I am a 30 years woman. I have two recurrent dreams that I would like you to interpret.
Thanks and regards.

306.  I often dream of going out of my house perfectly dressed and accurately made up but, when I am out, I notice that I am wearing bedroom slippers and I get panicky.

You show yourself to the others hiding under a perfect mask ("perfectly dressed and accurately made up") that you renew every time you get out of your house, but you live in terror that your mask might fall and show you as you really are, with the defects and deficiencies that in your opinion you have.

307.  I very often happen to dream of falling from a very steep ladder leading underground.

An underground place represents the unconscious and you are afraid of FALLING down there because in this case you would get in contact with your deep drives that, instead, you want to avoid.
In a certain sense, you are afraid of deeply knowing yourself, you cannot afford to be unaffected even with yourself besides the others (previous dream).

Dream No. 308

I owned a Ferrari. I sat on the driver’s seat and pushed down the accelerator. The revolutions of the engine increased and the wheels were rolling but the car did not move. I got off to check what was going on and I realized that the car was on four stands, consequently the wheels did not touch the ground and were idling.

At deep level the dreamer felt he had remarkable possibilities but he was unable to get their benefits because he had no contact with the ground, no practical sense.
And it was true, in his real life he lived like that, getting lost after an endless series of rationalization that he never tried to practically test and check in his real life.
Should I have called his attention to this feature of his personality, the only effect I would obtain was to spoil the quality of our therapeutical relationship, the relationship having such a great importance during an analysis.
Now, instead, the problem was focused by the dreamer’s unconscious so there were no reasons for him to feel judged or disapproved by another person.
Besides making him aware of his problem, the dream had another positive, beneficial effect. As a matter of fact, he had a very poor self-esteem because he was aware that he failed to "progress" in life and he ascribed the relevant responsibility to his own poor qualification.
On the contrary, his dream was saying: "No, you own the required qualifications to PROGRESS, you even have remarkable qualifications (there is a Ferrari, not any car). You only need to get in contact with the ground, with real life".

This kind of dream always brings about an increased self-esteem.

Dream No. 309

Published as received:

Hi,
My name is M… and I am …age. I hold a medical degree and am attending the homeopathy scool in Naples, during today’s lesson, our psychologist mentioned the huge amount of writings by C.G. Jung on dreams and their importance during an analysis.
While I was websurfing I came across your site. I read at least 200 of your dream interpretations and I was fascinated.
Since quite some time I have the habit of writing my dreams every morning in order to try and interpret them. Actually, I was looking for an Internet site that could provide some information on texts that an "outsider" as I am could read: I haven’t found too much except for your site (this is not meant to be a "soft soap"!!!).
I hope you don’t mind my thouing you. I would like you to interpret one of my dreams. It is a color dream that greatly excited me.
Thank you. Good night.

I am in a room and I must escape from a group of masked spitfires (they were wearing a blue balaclava cap on their head and very thin clothes) led by a man wearing Japanese warrior dresses.
At a certain point I am no longer the girl to be defended, on the contrary I belong to those that should defend her in the most dramatic moments. When the assailants seem to get the upper hand, a benign spirit appears and comes to blows with the evil ones. He is invisible therefore he cannot be touched by the enemy.
All this happens in a house that only from time to time seems to be familiar to me.
Before leaving I take a few puffs from an Indian pipe and I invite my sister to try too but she refuses even if I convince her that it had no adverse effect on me.

I find myself in a huge, comfortable grotto fitted with warm lights. In its center there is the frightened girl together by a ripe woman, maybe her mother, that tries to defend her from the evil ones but there is always the invisible man trying to defend her.
There are other persons in the grotto, it is a tribe of American Indians that holding hand in hand form an S-shaped chain, they start to sing and swing.
A man of the tribe wearing a rather colored cloak and a pendant stays at the top of the line, like on an altar. He is sitting, his legs crossed, doing nothing.
I am not frightened, on the contrary I find myself at the beginning of the row and the eldest component of the group asks me to pass my hand over a lit-up flame on my right, my left hand holding the hand of a member of the row. The eldest man (maybe a shaman) urges me to pass my hand over the fire so that the spirit might help the girl to save from her assailants.
I do so and do not get burnt: I am almost enraptured by this, so much so that I fail to listen to the words that the young man on the altar is telling me, he spurs me to look inside myself, to visit my unconscious instead of trying to help the girl. To listen to him, the flame blows off.

Summing up: your dream talks about a situation of CONFLICT which is inside you. You are the victim as well as the persecutors, at the same time.
I am unable to tell you which EVIL parts the masked spitfires represent.
On the contrary, it is clear that in this conflictual situation you ground your hopes of safety in something which is anyway outside you:

The right way to solve your inner conflict is shown only at the end of your dream (visit your unconscious, look inside yourself, psychotherapy) but you do not seem inclined to take this direction since you find the magic recipe much more exciting-thrilling (I am almost enraptured). In fact you think that a possible psychotherapy would entail the loss of the magic dimension (to listen to him, the flame blows off).

Many persons share your same behaviour with regard to their inner conflicts. This explains why so many groups and sects promising an "easy" safety proliferate and flourish!
Luckily your dream makes no mention of a choice that was already made, a decision already taken, but only a "trend", a preference. My best wishes.
_______________________

After the above dream interpretation, I received the following message:

Hi Romano,
the reading you gave to my dream arrived with the same violence as a tank.
From your writing it is evident that you love your work and do it with much humility.

I am sorry for my "violence" which is however beneficial at times since it gives us a jolt which makes us open our eyes.

Yes, I hoped to be able to overcome my own conflicts by myself but I keep bumping into them rather than understanding them. My dream fully reflects my present situation.
.... now that I have decided to look into myself, I realize that I am too vulnerable to do it with no psycotherapist leading me, and taking the "easier" way.
I am stiffly scared!

This happens to everybody but you should keep in mind that the discovery of a "golden mine" is involved!
You will certainly agree with me that it is worthy touching some earth-mud if this is the price to pay to get in possession of GOLD!

Today I am the more and more persuaded that things do not happen by chance. In fact since a few weeks I had decided to start an adequate therapy, but I would like to do so with a psychotherapist making mainly use of dreams because dreams seem to say no lies; on the contrary, I would run the risk of doing so.

Dreams say no lies, you can be sure, and this alone would be quite a lot but there is something else: they also have incredible resources that are usually lost because we do not know that we own them.

Dream No. 310

I was in command of a small tank that was firing. I was chasing my enemies and was firing as much as I could. I managed to stop them but moving the car was very hard and often my shots were ineffective, as if I fired salvoes. Much effort spent in going ahead and firing. There was a feeling that something was slowing me down.

Here again, as in the previous dream, there is a situation of conflict but the scenario is much different: there is no escape, there is an attack, an attack launched personally, without recourse to an outside help. But the dreamer feels that he does not own all the power and efficacy required to quickly neutralize the danger that enemies represent. He reaches his target but through great efforts.
The dreamer is at a more advanced growth stage versus somebody escaping and asking for help from the outside but he too has a long way to go before reaching the target consisting of conflicts where shooting is no longer required since the solution is found through non bloody methods.

Dream No. 311

I am in a large square room, with a very high ceiling, and plain white walls. A few and not too big pictures are hanging from the walls, there are only a few pieces of furniture and these too are rather small versus the size of the room.
I am under the impression that the place was despoiled, unadorned, neglected but not dirty because the walls and the ceiling are absolutely white.
I don’t like the overall feeling but I am looking at the scene passively, feeling almost squeezed, and I haven’t the strength to prevent the people that I can hear coming and going to take other things away.

A house represents the dreamer’s personality, as we know.
I have published other dreams similar to this one, dreams showing a feeling of being "emptied" by those living around us. The dreamer realizes (at unconscious level) what is going on and she regrets it, but she is unable to react therefore she keeps undergoing a "vampire" treatment from the others.

Talking to her I receive a confirmation of the above interpretation: she would like to cultivate her own personal interests, think also to herself, not be overwhelmed by the others’ requests but she can’t and this is a source of frustration. As she has strong catholic principles, she is inclined to think that devoting more attention to herself would be equal to being "egoist".

Dream No. 312

Published as received:

I would like to submit a dream that I had as a child and that luckily stopped bothering me when I was about eight of age. If you have time and will to interpret it I will be grateful!  :-)
With no hurry, of course! Mine is only a curiosity therefore, if there are other persons in need to know the meaning of their dreams more urgently, I will await with pleasure.
Ciao and thanks.

This is the "typical" situation where sooner or later I found myself in my dreams.

I was in a swimming pool.... .it was empty!
I was in the deepest part, the one destined to adults. In real life that side usually does not exceed 6-7 metre height, in my dream it was at least 15 m high.
I wanted to get out but I could not reach the ladder (of course, it was too high). To get out I should cross that sort of uneven level separating the low water area from the high water area.
The odd thing is that I never made an attempt in my dream because I always woke up earlier.
What frightened me was my staying in between those blue, high walls and I was oppressed by the thought that the pool could be filled any moment and violent jets of water would pour out of those green nozzles placed high, on the sides…. or from those hollow edges that can be seen on the sides of swimming pools….(quite frankly, I do not know what they actually do to fill a swimming pool with water, in real life).
I was not afraid of drowning (in my dream I knew that I could swim, as in real life), mine was more a feeling of oppression, almost like claustrophobia (even if I never suffered from this).
I was indeed terrifed at that idea, in fact I always woke up before attempting to get out.

A variation on this dream was that while I was swimming the pool started to empty very quickly. I failed to get out in time and was distressed at the idea of ending on the bottom of the swimming pool with no water that almost seemed to protect me, I do not know what from.
I woke up before the swimming pool was empty.
The oppressing feeling was always produced by those high blue walls, unknowing how to get out, and the idea of water that could start to pour in again!
I must say that I was so deeply impressed by that dream that even now when I see an empty swimming pool, I am attracted…….but I prefer to keep off!

In this case water represents the unconscious as well as emotions. As a SWIMMING POOL is involved, it can be added that this dream refers to ONE’S OWN unconscious not to the COLLECTIVE unconscious, a pool conveying the idea of a LIMITED quantity of water, contrarily to the sea that, instead, represents the WHOLE unconscious.
A swimming pool is also a place where water is less dangerous than at sea, not only owing to a lower quantity of water but because usually it is possible to reply on the presence and help of somebody else. In your dream nobody else but you seems to be there but this does not exclude that being in a swimming pool is a less desperate condition than being on the high seas.
WATER-EMOTION produces a double effect on you: on one side you feel that you are protected, on the other hand you are frightened at the idea that it might violently flow in again at any moment.

I would say that here is a very effective representation of the ambivalent effect that emotions produce in us. "Good" emotions make us feel protected, "evil" emotions frighten us and prime the defence mechanism called REPRESSION: emotions disappear from the consciousness level and continue to firmly stay in our psyche generating that particular kind of fear called ANXIETY, that is a fear with no visible justifying danger.
As a matter of fact there is a danger, even if we cannot see it. It consists of "evil" emotions "pushing" to emerge again at consciousness level and that might appear at any moment.

You are in the area of the swimming pool which is reserved to adults and where water is HIGH: life compelled you to experience too strong experiences for a girl, involved emotions are too DEEP.
You make no attempt to reach the area where water is low as you wake up before you can do it: the psychic shock you suffered was so strong as to refrain you from coming back to a condition of life more appropriate to a girl.
The absolute lack of somebody else is striking in your dream. It is evident that there was nobody on which you could rely and ask for help.
The emotions to which your dream refers were very strong but your experience was not a destructive one. As a matter of fact you do not drown. You are not even afraid of drowning. Above all, you stopped having this dream when you were about eight of age. It is evident that you managed to overcome that crucial point of your life.
Which emotions were involved? Your dream doesn’t say it.

Dream No. 313

I was escaping from an old building. I had almost reached the open air when somebody ordered me to come back (they were the Germans). I was struck by the fact that my impulse was to obey their order: I seemed to be accustomed to obey.
I was struck that a part of myself would do this, that it was so prone to obey the order of the others even against my own interests.
In my behaviour I could see that the power of my old habits was still very strong.

The dreamer is escaping his old personality but same is still present and exerts its pernicious power.
In the imagination of some people, the Germans represent an AUTHORITY giving pitiless orders, admitting no disobedience (it’s a second world war heritage). It might be either an outside authority and an inside authority (Super-Ego).
The dreamer is still subject to his old behaviour of passive submission but he starts to understand (he himself underscored the text), to become aware of the fact that his being prone to the orders of the others is prejudicial to his own interests.
As I have already stated on various occasions, becoming aware of an inadequate behaviour is the first step to make in order to subsequently modify that behaviour. Even if the old habits are still very strong, the first and the most important step has been made by now.

 

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