7 days of dreaming: Symbols and Motifs

Welcome to Day 6 of our dreamwork journey!

We have acquired a solid toolbox of skills together: comparing the emotional signature of dreams to waking life situations; tracking the behavior of the dream-self for clues as to how we may be stuck in personal mythologies; titling and transcribing our dream-narrative; decoding the messages strange or unfamiliar Others may carry; and relating to friends and family as aspects of our selves.

You may have noticed that in this work, we have not veered too far from the waking life, and the commentary our dreams make upon it. My intention with this journey has been to give you tools that you can use to confidently and pragmatically work with your dreams. However, we are barely scratching the surface of the profound, mysterious healing that dreams can work on our spirits, our life narratives, and even upon our families and communities.

If this taste of dreamwork has piqued your interest, I highly recommend stepping into deeper work with a trained dream worker or counselor, or teaching yourself by reading the works of Carl Jung, Toko-pa Turner, Bob Hoss, Marion Woodman, and Robert Moss. To whet your appetite for this deeper dreamwork, I have added one of my favorite dream-stories at the end of today’s post!

Dreamwork Skill #6: Objects and Symbols

Have you found that there is a landscape you continue to return to in dreams, even if you have never set eyes on this place in waking life? Or again and again you dream of trains, even though the last time you were on a train you were 10 years old?

Marie Louise von Franz famously said “Dreams don’t waste much spit telling us what we already know.” If we combine this understanding with what we have already learned about everything in a dream being a representation of ourselves, it follows that objects and symbols in our dreams are representations of aspects of ourselves that are in need of our attention.

There are many fascinating ways of working with the potential meanings of dream objects, but one of my favorites is also one of the simplest.

Take the object that appeared in your dream and write down what its function is. For example, if I dream of an elaborate red hat, I might write:

The function of a red hat is to draw attention to the wearer.

I might then ask myself: is there a part of me that would like a little more attention? What parts of me really dislike drawing attention to myself, and how has that been getting in my way?

Obviously this is just one of many possible interpretations of the function of a hat—the important thing is that YOU, the dreamer, are the one defining the function, because it is your associations with these objects that your mind is tapping to create the messages in your dream.

Dream Practicum

The Exploding Oil Cans

i. A man is hiking with several friends and comes upon a clearing filled with men who are sacrificing a victim.

ii. The man runs away and comes upon a clearing filled with peaceful people selling colorful, silken clothes. There are oil cans all around, and the man discovers that if he looks at the oil cans hard, they will explode.

iv. The man is pulled into a fight to the death. In the center of the fight he notices there is a pile of oil cans. The man makes them explode by looking at them, but notices that the exploding oil cans are not killing anyone, and furthermore the combatants are noticing and realizing the man’s only weapon is ineffective.

Before we move forward with this dream, take a moment and “borrow” it. How would you define the function of each of the symbols in this dream? What might you imagine it would be saying to you?

---

In our work with this dream, the dreamer was particularly taken with the image of the exploding oil cans and the strong emotional reaction he had to their ineffectiveness as a weapon.

He defined the function of “oil can” as “to transport fuel for heating, or for getting people places.” He defined the function of exploding as “letting the pressure off, destroying the form of what is.”

When he combined these two functions, he had a moment of illumination. “I’ve been lashing out, wasting anger that could be a motivating force by taking it out on others instead of changing the situation I am in.”

The dreamer noticed as well that the oil cans were scattered around the clearing of peaceful people, not the clearing of violent men. He shared his understanding of this as “I tend only to lash out when I’m not actually in danger. When I’m really in danger, I freeze because I’ve spent all my energy taking my anger out on passive people that are not a threat to me.”

This was a powerful dream, with many layers of information. As he continued to work with it, the dreamer was inspired to confront the source of his problems rather than continue to lash out in ineffective anger.

---

Have you had any interesting experiences applying these skills to your own dreams? I’d love to hear from you—feel free to comment below or email me directly at innerlightasheville@gmail.com.

See you tomorrow for the final day of this dreamwork journey, when we will put it all together!

In closing, I offer you this, one of my favorite dream stories:

Back when I was taking some prerequisite psychology courses at UCLA, I lost my keys. I was on my way out to the high desert to soak in wild hot springs, so I didn't let it bother me. I knew the keys would turn up when I got back.

But as I camped and hiked and soaked I turned the problem over in my mind. I'd checked the drawer, all my bags, the table, the counter...

Then, one night, under the clear stars of the desert, I had a dream. Carl Jung was crooking his finger at me from a chair near a window.

"Pssst," he said, eyes gleaming with mischief. "I know where your keys are." He pointed to the wardrobe, which flew open, and I saw my grey corduroy pants there, folded neatly. Of course! I had been wearing those cords the day before! The keys must be tucked into the pocket!

I was so excited the next morning. A personal message from Jung himself! I babbled excitedly to my friends as we hiked about how Jung's theory of the collective unconscious and the mysterious synchrony of dreams was always taking flak from the scientific community for being impossible to empirically verify. Well here I had the means to prove it. Should I return home and find the keys in the pocket of my cords, it would PROVE that there is a collective wisdom larger than ourselves that can transmit messages in dreams!

"Or," remarked one of my friends (whom I suspected had been hoping for a slightly quieter morning) "that some part of your brain remembered where you'd put the keys and, once the constant buzz of your consciousness was out for the count, was finally able to make itself heard."

I narrowed my eyes at him. He smiled at me and nudged my arm. "You have to think of all possible ways of interpreting the evidence, or you haven't proven anything at all."

Our journey came to an end, and my friends and I parted ways. I raced eagerly into my house, hurrying to the wardrobe to feel in the pockets of my cords. I was really rooting for Jung, here.

But--strike one for mysticism. The keys were not there.

I was disconsolate all day. So much for my personal connection with Jung. So much for dreams, and the collective unconscious, and a universal wisdom that surpasses our understanding.

Finally, I dragged myself to the table to study for my finals. I opened my Theories of Personality text to review the reading. And there, marking the place for the chapter on Jung and the Collective Unconscious, were my keys.

Want to join us this September? In a sun-drenched private office in Asheville, we will slow down to the pace of our dreams and work all of these skills and more to harvest dream wisdom through imagery, artmaking, guided dream-experience, and more!