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Birth Data: December 1st 1959, 1:01
pm, Manzatas, Cuba
Sex: Female
Occupation: Corporate Executive
Current Issues: Relocation, taking on a new job; recent divorce.
Title/Date of Dream: Dogs and Knives/May 9th 2000
Title/Date of Dream: Wolf/Aug 3rd 2000
What is reproduced here are two dreams
as they were written down, in their unedited form, by the dreamer.
The first dream, 'Dogs and Knives' is in its entirety; while the second
dream, 'Wolf' however, is an excerpt. They were dreamed about three
months apart. I want to demonstrate the movement or progression of
two dream images: the dog/wolf, and the environments in which the two
dreams take place. The repetition of images often reflect the
dreamer's psychological development in terms of the issues in the dream
as those are understood by the dreamer.
'Dogs and Knives'
"I knock on the door of a large, European-style home, about early
19th
century I think. This is an old European neighborhood with
cobblestone streets. This house has a big wooden door and a stone
façade. An unknown woman answers the door. Inside, marble
floors,
very sparse pieces of baroque style furniture, chandeliers. There
is
lots of light inside, the floors are very shiny, like mirrors. She
invites me in, but I hesitate. I don't know why I'm there, but I
go
in. We sit down in two chairs. She's to my left at some
distance.
These are the only two pieces of furniture in a big room. I
suddenly
notice the woman's holding a big knife, and I realize that she has
killed people before, although she's not threatening. She's just
sitting there. I now understand the danger that I perceived at
first,
when I hesitated at the entrance (Oh, that's why I didn't want to come
in!) There is a dog anxiously walking around her legs. I want to
run,
but I know that if I run, she'll attack and possibly kill me.
She's
an expert at this. I know the dog won't attack, I see him as a
protective entity. As long as I don't attempt to leave, she won't
attack me. I have this knowledge through the dog. If I run,
he won't
be able to help me. Only by sitting still, can he continue to move
around her legs and keep her from hurting me."
An excerpt from the later 'Wolf'
dream...
'Wolf'
"I'm walking down a poorly lit corridor in some house, and turn
right
into a bathroom. The same wolf of the other dream is there. The
bathroom is also dark. I think I found him! I provoke him
into
coming after me, and I run away but backwards, facing the wolf,
tracing my steps back through the same short corridor. I step into
a
living room, with lots of natural light and a wall mirror. This is
my
Mom's living room. I run into my grandmother who's walking from
the
living room into the corridor and I 'merge' into her, still running
backwards. I 'plunge' backwards into her and she 'absorbs' me.
At
the same time, the white wolf jumps up at "me/us/new version of me.
As I wake up, I'm asking the questions again of the wolf's intent.
I
wake up before I know whether he was attacking or whether he was also
'merging' into me/us.'
Commentary and Analysis
It seems as if the dog in the first dream has become the wolf in
the
dream of the same name. It's not uncommon for an animal to
'develop'
or change shape in successive dreams, as shown here. The important
thing
is that the dreamer identifies the animal as carrying similar meaning;
she simply
recognizes the same animal, as giving her a similar feeling, once again.
Notice the parallel's in the
environments themselves: both places have
abundant natural light. In the first dream the floors are shiny
like
mirrors and in the subsequent dream a mirror is on the wall.
Noticing
the similarity, I asked about what her own mother's living room was
like. She said that it was a place that you really didn't feel
very
comfortable being in. Living rooms, ironically, are not places
that
feel lived in; most people gather in the heart of the home: the
kitchen. Her experience was no exception. Then I asked what
mirrors
do. She replied. 'they reflect your image back to you so that you
can see yourself.' From here it didn't take long for the dreamer
to
realize that the home in which she had been invited in 'Dogs and
Knives' was an out picturing of her own inner living room: not very
cozy or 'broken in.' You certainly get the feeling that it's a
very
cold and forbidding environment in which she was held captive.
In psychic life, transformation and
growth occurs when the center is both
defined and protected. Something cannot grow unless the
environment protects the life in question. This is much like the life of
cells. Strong and resilient cell walls allow for the proper
functioning of the cell. Similarly, if a psychic content is
to be transformed a ‘circumambulatio’ is necessary; the ground--or
what which is to be transformed--must be defined. We see this in
‘Dogs and Knives’ where the dog defines that which is to be changed
or transformed: the unknown woman who is holding the knife. A
Greek word, ‘temenos’ defines what is hopefully to be transformed.
Here, the dreamer was both exposing herself to the 'animal impulses' of
her own personal unconscious, without identifying with them and second,
without running away; for flight from the unconscious (or that
which will often ‘bite’ us) would defeat the purpose of the entire
dream. The dream ego is in a stalemate position; she cannot leave
as she risks being attacked by the unknown woman with the knife.
In her own words, sitting still is her only option; she didn’t know
the way out. The dream showed us her own inner situation 'as it
is.'
The 'Wolf' dream picks up the same
environment and animal we saw in ‘Dogs and Knives' but with an
encouraging progression: the dreamer then 'runs into' her grandmother
who is walking from the living room and into the corridor (the famous
passageway which often is seen to connect one 'room' to another, or one
psychic content into another). It is here that the wolf jumps and
'merges' into her, after her
grandmother (whom she described as a woman full of the wisdom of her
years) does so. The wolf, (which she described as her own
instinctive, natural nature) is no longer controlled by the unknown
woman. The dreamer absorbs the wolf only after she is in the
corridor, or out of her mother's living room. Reflecting back on
the 'Dogs and Knives' dream it didn't take long for the dreamer to
realize who the unknown woman symbolized in her waking life. Given the
severity of that image it was something that the dreamer had to realize
for herself.
For those interested in an astrological
perspective, this dream sheds a great deal of light on the meaning of
the approach of transit Pluto to her Tenth House Sagittarius Moon.
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