A Frustrating Dream

This morning I dreamt that I was at some event at work (or in class) where the qualifying condition included writing one's name on a slip of paper.  A memo pad and a number of writing tools were provided, and the other people (there were many, and they were all my friends) easily finished this task and began to leave.  Try as I might though, I just could not accomplish this simple feat.  Either the pens and markers provided were out of ink, or I kept screwing up the "S", the very first letter of my name.  Soon I was the only one who hadn't finished, and even though the others were all kind and encouraging, I was frustrated beyond tolerance -- and that was the state I woke up in.  Not quite a nightmare, but part of the way there.

It was disturbing, to say the least.  Clearly the writing the name bit had to do with my sense of identity and self-worth.  That I kept failing to write my own name is worrisome.  One possibility is that unconsciously I feel I am not living up to my own expectations of myself.  And not really so "unconsciously", either;  I am the first to admit that lately I have become lazy and... less than what I feel I could be, should be, even in my own eyes.  It's been causing a certain level of anxiety that I am well aware of.  That the other people present were all friendly and nice to me to the end, however, seems to indicate that there is nothing in my environment that's keeping me from realizing my potential, that in fact outside conditions are optimal.

Clearly something needs to change, something I need to make happen to stimulate myself back to my former level of alertness and activity.  I will have to work on this.

Dreaming Overtime

My Dreaming Mind certainly was busy yesterday morning.  For once, a bunch of recurring characters made their appearance in a single dream;  the light and dark female figures were in it, and my cat Blood was there, as well as a cast of threatening, unfamiliar male figures.

In the dream, Blood was being kept in a closet or locker, and I went to feed him, only to realize that I was out of cat food (this actually is the case almost every time Blood shows up in my dreams;  typically, he simply appears at some point and I suddenly realize that I had not fed him in a very long time;  this most likely indicates that an aspect of myself is going hungry -- that is, being neglected/unheeded;  I have a fair candidate as to what this aspect is, but I cannot be certain).  He broke out of the closet/locker and disappeared, and I went through the neighborhood searching for him, as well as for a store that sold cat food.

While I was crossing what may have been a school playground, a woman ran up and collided into me.  It turned out to be Lana, a former colleague from the days when I was working for the County of Los Angeles;  we fell, she laughed brightly and said something flattering/encouraging to me (this actually is a good fit with the real-life Lana's personality;  she often reads my Facebook posts and leaves positive comments;  I wish I could remember specifically what it was she said -- oh, well).

I continued on with the search, now accompanied by Andrea, another colleague and my girlfriend before I moved to Korea;  I don't know what L.A. County's policy is on intra-departmental dating, but in any case I don't think anyone knew we were dating anyway.  In waking life Andrea always had been a shy, introverted girl to begin with, but in the dream this trait was exaggerated to the point where she was quite dark (not literally, this time -- I'm talking about her demeanor) and uncommunicative.  Then we were stopped by a bunch of thuggish-seeming dudes challenging us.  Andrea said something defiant to them and so did I, even as I felt inwardly that this was not the best way to handle it, and the leader of the gang said angrily that they had already had to do it twice (what it was they had been obliged to do, I don't remember -- but it may have been something to do with the search for Blood).  Trying somewhat belatedly to defuse the situation, I said soothingly to Andrea that they had done it twice already, and that was plenty.  That's where either the dream faded, or I began to wake up.  I never did manage to find Blood or cat food.

The light and dark female figures have been discussed already in previous dream posts.  As for the threatening, angry men, they may have been a representation of some unsatisfied/frustrated desires or unexpressed tendencies given a generic, undifferentiated form, hence the anonymous grouping.  The fact that within the dream I inwardly felt that I was not handling it wisely even as I spoke rashly to them is significant.  Perhaps it's related to the reason Blood was both hungry and missing.

Related post:  More Dreams

More Dreams

This morning I had two short dreams.  One was about my mother, who passed away nearly a decade ago (funny, in my dreams I'm never aware that Mom is no longer living -- not explicitly, anyway;  the one exception, remarkable for the vividness of the dream, happened several years ago;  in that dream, I was at work or school when I was summoned by the principal/boss;  I was to be interviewed by a psychologist to help with some research project;  the psychologist asked me a series of questions, then directed me to go to a certain spot outside, because Mom had been brought back for the occasion;  I eagerly went to the place, rounded a corner -- and there was Mom, welcoming me with a big smile, gloriously radiant as if lit by a light stronger than daylight, full of health and vim, and looking just like she did in life before she became sick.  I was ever so glad to see her again, was grateful for the opportunity, and then the dream closed like an old iris shot in silent movies;  I like to think that this was in part a veridical dream, that Mom is in a place where she's happy and at peace, and that she really had come back for a visit to console me).

In the first dream of the morning Mom had to go away on a a trip.  She packed her suitcase and left (on a train I think) -- and never came back.  She was incommunicado and we were worried, not knowing where she was or what could have happened to her.  Then someone informed us that Mom was in "Alama" or some place that sounded like it.  I looked up that name and similar sounding variations later when awake -- just in case -- but nothing meaningful came up.  But it's interesting that Mom's death was metaphorically addressed as a case of a person who has gone away.

Actually, this sort of indirect reference in dream to Mom's death has been made before, when several years ago I dreamt I saw Mom lying asleep and inert in a dark room.  But what I think now is that my memory of Mom's death has somehow become adopted in my unconscious as a symbol of the "feminine" part of my soul, the anima, whose dark half has manifested itself from time to time over the years in forms that are literally dark, such as a black-haired woman wearing a black vinyl coat (a poetess from New York, at that), an Asian girl with long black tresses, literal black women on a few occasions, and once even as a black kitten.  I have named this persona simply The Dark Woman.

Then, in the second dream the opposite happened.  I was sitting next to the Dark Woman's counter-persona, the other half of my feminine soul, which I have named The Sunny Blonde, for that is just what it looks like -- as a literal light woman with bright blonde hair (although it also once appeared as a white kitten).  Interestingly, on this occasion it had taken on the likeness of an actual friend of mine, an alumna from USC and UCLA.  In the dream I was trying to engage her in sex, planting light little kisses on her face and lips, and she was responding in a playful, coy sort of way.  Whether I succeeded in seducing her or not, I cannot say, because I woke up with a full bladder before the conclusion of the seduction.

In retrospect the two dreams together seem to be a staging of some vaguely positive development in my unconscious.  My mother's image was cast in a dual role;  as a missing person, one who is "gone dark" because she is deceased in waking life, and also as a symbol of the negative aspects of my unconscious, the parts that are dark, untamed and unaddressed.  The "shadow", if you will.  Then I was embracing the Sunny Blonde and endeavoring to become intimate with her, just like those male and female deities embracing in carnal union in the Vajrayana Buddhist thangkas.  Acknowledgment of the dark, followed by working toward the light -- would you not say this is a wholesome, healthy sign, regardless of the specific message?

*Again, with apologies to C. G. Jung