Dream Analysis To Help With Anger and Stress Management

After a great deal of doubt and uncertainty about choosing the right woman to marry, Damien finally married his fiancé. He felt peaceful and solid. The pendulum that swung between his attachment towards his mother and that toward Leila kept still. Working on the dream images about the day of his execution and that of the alligator had soothed his conflicted soul and allowed him to make the choice that had been so stressful.

The first few weeks of marriage were good. The couple settled into a routine as he went back to work and Leila became a home maker. He enjoyed being welcomed home with a nice meal. Talking to his mate about his challenges at the lab where he worked was relieving. Having company watching TV and a warm receptive body next to him at night was comforting.

But three months into the marriage, Damien found himself wanting to do his own thing after the evening meal.

He went back to doing the solitary things he used to do before he got married. Leila read books about married life and fed him information about what couples should do at certain points in their marriage – such as have sex three to four times a week in their first six months together. They were supposed go out with other couples twice a week, and visit in-laws at least once a month.

Damien and Leila operated on rules rather than on what they spontaneously felt and wanted. He became restless and started looking outside the relationship for stimulation and fulfillment. He wanted to learn more about money, cosmology and geophysics. The joy he first felt on going home after work dissipated, and he was hungry for something else.

Until he had this dream and we worked on it in his therapy.

“I was on a scooter following two policemen up a mountain. My scooter was semi motorized and half the foot type one.  At the top of the mountain was this big building. It was like a business building, rectangular with several floors. It was black. When I got there I was in a black suit. I went in for an interview. I thought there would be just a few others but the hall was full of people and they were looking at me. I was given an assignment. I had a syringe in a black bag. It had medicine in it but I didn’t know that. I was told to go out into the forest around the building and find the medication that needed to go in the syringe. I was out there for 4 hours and couldn’t find anything, Then I thought I found it and went back inside the building. The interview was over. I was told I had failed, because the medication was already in the syringe and I should have known that.”

Damien was shocked as he told me his dream.

He couldn’t get over the fact that he had lost an important opportunity because he didn’t realize that he “already had the answer.” We likened this to his experience of the marriage – that he saw it as a job that needed doing, without realizing that it was already done and all he had to do was recognize it and use it to feed his soul, but, that he didn’t trust himself.

Similarly he and his wife sought rules about how they should conduct their marriage so that they were within the bounds of normality as if they had no sense of it in their bones. No wonder it wasn’t working! There was no juice in the books his wife read or in the cosmos he was chasing for answers to personal contentment. The dream demonstrated that he already possessed the things that were potentially fulfilling – all he had to do was recognize it, develop the emotional desire to see it, trust it and use it.

The color black is a prominent feature in the dream – his black suit, and the black building, showing how everything on the outside is black. He is unable to see his authentic self through his black suit. Nor can he see through to the real workings of the building (a representation of him that is rule bound with the rectangular hard angled exterior) because it is black. The dream illuminates his insides – showing  him that he has a reliable core, despite past bad experiences – it’s okay to trust his instincts and his desires, his intuition and his beliefs.

He didn’t need to climb a hill follow two policemen to motivate him into being whatever his fate had in store. That suggests that he is now ready to give up depending on parental figures (the policeman). He didn’t need to be his own judge and jury like the people interviewing and judging him. He had already made it.

The scooter he drove was part manual and part motorized indicating that Damien was partially on the way to automating his way of operating in the world, making it less burdensome – trusting that the machine would work.  TRUST in his core self was the issue at stake and he came face to face with it in this dream.

Damien is learning to trust his gut in his waking life, but he is struggling with being an emotional intimacy with his wife. The next dream will bring that drama on stage..

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

AUTHOR OF:' Now You Want Me, Now You Don't! Fear of Intimacy: Ten ways to recognize it and ten ways to manage it in your relationship.

You might also like:

How a Dream Can Help You Overcome Your Fear Of Making Your Own Choices    (part 1 of Damien's story)

How a Dream About and Aligator Helpd Damien Chose Between His Mother and His Fiance  (part 2 of Damien's story)

How Your Dream Can Free You From Trying to Win Your Parents Approval

Disclaimer: this article is for educational and informational purposes only. There is no liability on the part of Dr. Raymond for any reactions you may have when reading the material or following the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Raymond.

Returning from a trip abroad, thirty-seven-year-old Natalie was full of enthusiasm and energy to kick start her career in the creative arts. She had jotted down a ton of ideas including doing a workshop online about writing comedy scripts; doing improvisation, teaching acting at night school and finishing a script that she started 2 years ago. But within four days she wanted to do anything but tackle her list. She wanted to talk to friends, go to a spa, do yoga and cook, but not move forward with her career steps.

Tired of this up and down pattern of excitement followed by a crash, Natalie was acutely aware of her shame and disappointment, despite working on herself for some years. No matter what steps she took and how determined she was, she went from feeling full of desire and motivation to feeling listless when it came to her scripts, workshops, etc.

It all felt too much to manage.

Then a dream came along that helped her understand what was holding her back.

She dreamt that she got a job in a hair salon. She was new and had little experience. A member of the band ‘Kiss’ came into the salon. He had long black wavy hair and wanted it straightened. He was in a hurry and Natalie wasn’t sure she could get it done in time. She used a flat iron that she knew wasn’t the most appropriate for this job but persisted anyway. As her client got impatient and was about to leave the manager of the salon came over and told her to get on with the job and she then complained about not having the right tool. The manager got angry with her and told her that she could have asked for it, before directing her to the front desk where the correct flat iron was located.

Natalie explored her dream with me and noticed that she was feeling as if she were new at the game of working for money, just like she had been in the dream. She also felt as if she was starting from scratch, lost and unable to do what she needed to execute her goals, just as her dream portrayed.

But Natalie learned something important about herself from her dream.

She discovered that she ‘knew’ what the right tool was but refused to ask for it or get it without someone else pushing her.  As we talked further it became apparent that Natalie discarded the parts of her that ‘knew’ what to do and how to do it in real life, so that each time she started a fresh it felt as if she was at square one, without a road map or hiking gear. Feeling overwhelmed and scared she would just give up and her career aspirations would die off.

I helped Natalie appreciate that she had a great many resources including knowledge and skill that she hid from herself because it involved her using her energy and motivation to activate them to serve her purpose. It wasn’t that she was lazy, it was that she just didn’t want to do the work for herself. She wanted someone else to step in and do it so she felt cared for and not alone in taking care of herself.

The images in the dream proved really central in helping Natalie gain insight into those parts of her that sabotaged her success.

We discussed the image of the flat iron, and found a rich seam of material that Natalie used to help paint a more in depth picture of why she kept getting stuck in the same place.

First we played with the word ‘flat.’ We talked about ‘flat as in a linear line,’ ‘flat-lining’ as on a medical monitor, and a tire having a flat! All these ways of new images of ‘flat’ gave Natalie a sense of how she wanted a lifeless learning experience, with no bumps or grooves along the way. I also noted that she wanted to drive herself forward with no air in her tires, despite having a great body and engine in terms of her intelligence and talents. Natalie recalled how things had come so easily to her in school that she never had to put any work into it, and wanted that same experience in her adult life. She didn’t want to use her resources in the fullest way possible, and so her tires would deflate, stopping her from progressing.

Then we moved on to the word ‘iron.’ Natalie associated it with a steel grip, a rigid determination to do something irrespective of its effects or repercussions. She mentioned how fearful she was of doing things that would be outside her chosen field, making her rigidly stick to a narrow path, excluding experiences that could enhance and enrich her career in the creative arts.

I added that a lack of iron was a sign of anemia, a cause of weakness and lethargy. Without the right kind of iron (like the right tool in the dream) she would be lifeless and unable to manage her jobs. That she couldn’t actually ‘grip’ the parts of her that could coalesce and make her goals a reality.

We shifted to talking about ‘ironing’ and the first thin that Natalie thought of was that of ‘ironing out wrinkles.’

She immediately connected to the part of her that had to iron out wrinkles that sabotaged her career success. She had to iron out the problems that stood in her way, that of disavowing her talents, skills and knowledge when her motivation was present, AND losing touch with her motivation when she owned her talents.

The dream continued to give us food for Natalie to chew on in her therapy. She began to see how she separated her motivation from her talents and scuppered her chances of a good future. She is now in the process of integrating those two parts of her and take real steps towards earning a living at what she was good at.

You might also like:

Your dreams can show you how you censor yourself and spoil your happiness

How to use dreams to benefit your waking life

How your dreams can help you overcome bad memories that keep you stuck

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Disclaimer: this article is for informational and educative purposes only. Dr. Raymond is not responsible for any reactions you may have when reading the content or using the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D

Using dreams to help you manage your personal challenges by Dr. Raymond, Ph.D.

photograph copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Remember Donna who was conflicted about whether to focus on her looks or her career? She had a harsh censor inside her head that said she had to make impossible choices and virtually paralyzed her. Until   the security guard in her dream helped her to see that she could be both smart and good looking.

The dream again

 Donna dreamed that she lived in a beautiful stylish apartment building that had excellent security. She saw a young blond good looking woman approach the security desk claiming to be Donna. But Donna was already in her own apartment! She watched the security guard allow the impostor in without checking the records. Donna showed her anger to the security guard who didn't know what she was doing wrong. Donna was furious that this bone headed security guard would be so lax. She was even more furious that the security guard had no concern about not doing a good job.

Three days later the dream came true

Donna was asked to do an acting part for a commercial. Normally she would have felt ugly, heavy, unattractive and not fit for the role. But after her dream she allowed her fellow actor to put his arm around her without thinking that she was disgusting to him. She didn't go through her usual checklist of all the reasons why she shouldn't be hired, and that she was only being used to make a point about fat people.

photograph copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Donna is comfortable with herself and shines

Behaving as a balanced security guard she was able to feel good in her own skin. Donna was in the moment and enjoying the job. She was relaxed, had fun and saw that no one was making fun or her, no one was making her out to be stupid, or putting her in any category. Donna saw herself as the others saw her – smart and sexy, funny and serious, hard working and willing to take risks.

Donna learns to be natural and it works!

Donna's dream about the security guard made her ready for this experience. It showed her that she can trust people's view of her and be the wonderful talented person that she was. Without having the dream and working on it with me, Donna might well have blown the whole thing.

Using dreams to help you manage your personal challenges by Dr. Raymond, Ph.D.

photograph copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

No Money, No Job, No Future in Sight

After years of thankless work as a furniture restorer, forty year old Maggie took the plunge and became an entrepreneur. Her investment capital consisted of experience and hope. Business was so bad that she didn't have enough gas money to provide clients with estimates.

The Dream Comes To Show The Way

Then she remembered a dream she had a year ago in which she was at a countryside railway station, living on the platform with one suitcase. The suitcase fell onto the tracks and an approaching train smashed everything inside- clothes, shoes and personal stuff. She felt naked and embarrassed. Later she was expected at a celebrity party taking place in a large house. She was dressed in a poorly matched loaned outfit. Everyone admired her as a well known artist.

Using The Dream Key To Success

The dream portrayed her future with vivid accuracy. Maggie's leap into penniless self-employment was symbolized by the train smashing her belongings and leaving her naked. As Maggie recalled the dream, she did something she had never done before. She put aside the shame that prevented her from asking for help, and accepted rides, ate with neighbors and borrowed tools.

The dream voice said "If you want to be a successful artist, let people 'clothe' you with the support you need."

Maggie's dream gave her the key to a treasure chest that was buried under layers of pride. At the time of greatest need Maggie used the key. She threw away her stubborn independence and let the dream empower, reassure and guide her along her chosen path.

photograph copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Building A Bright Future

Maggie forged friendships that sustained her during the early days of setting up her business. She found that people were full of ideas for marketing in the community. They included her in their womens groups, where she was able to show samples of her work and get word of mouth referrals. She was introduced to interior decorators and designers who gave her projects to work on. A whole new world of opportunity opened up to her. She had setbacks too. At these times she was able to ask for and get support from her network of contacts. It sustained her and kept her hope afloat.

Maggie is very grateful to her dream for showing her the blind spot that was preventing her from having a successful life. She continues to record her dreams and pay attention to their messages. When She gets in her own way, her dreams get her back on the right track.

Using dreams to help you manage your personal challenges by Dr. Raymond, Ph.D.

photograph copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Family Rifts Get Shaken Up By A Dream

Andrea hadn't spoken to her mother for the past twenty years. She adored her father and found him supportive when she left for Australia with her new husband . The rift with her mother remained unreconciled despite Andrea's divorce. One morning she awoke remembering a dream that gave her a deep sense of peace.

The Dream Of Life and Death

Andrea dreamt that she was looking into the yard of a two story house where a dead Oak tree had fallen. Fairies were going in and out of its hollow interior. She turned around to look inside the house and then back at the yard. This time the dead Oak was replaced by a fresh Willow tree. She was happy to see life blooming again.

The Dream Comforted as it Foretold of Loss

The next day Andrea heard that her father had died the same day she had her peaceful dream. The parent that nourished Andrea during her emotional storms had now died, just as the old Oak in the dream. Andrea's dream came to foretell her loss, comfort her and help her grieve.

photograph copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Healing Old Wounds Through Regeneration

Even though her solid rock of a father had passed, Andrea still needed to repair the breach with her mother, the source of her life. Trees are symbols of life sustained by deep roots. Her dream showed her that as one dies another flourishes, just as the Willow took the place of the dead Oak in the dream.

Forging New Bonds That Can Withstand Storms

Andrea's created a new connection with her mother. Just like the Willow their relationship was strong, but flexible. Just like the Willow it could bend and sway in a storm, not snap and break as before. The old brittle mother-daughter relationship became a pliable cord, that was strong and able to handle pressure.

photograph copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

The Dream That Kept On Giving

Andrea healed two deep wounds by attending to her dream- the death of her father and the broken connection with her mother. Honoring her dream allowed her unconscious to act as a healer, a mediator, a strengthener and a comforter. Andrea could have been orphaned if she didn't welcome this dream and use its messages. She had already 'lost' a mother, and then her father died. By interacting with her dream she was able to grieve without falling apart, and reclaim the lost relationship with her mother, keeping her connected to her family roots.

Using dreams to help you manage your personal challenges by Dr. Raymond, Ph.D.

Donna weight feels like a repulsive birthmark!

Donna's struggle with her weight never ends. She always thinks of herself as fat and ugly. Whatever she does to control it never lasts and she is left feeling worse than ever before. When things are going badly for her she feels even fatter and uglier and just wants to walk away from her disgusting body. At rough times when nothing seems to be going right she feels that this is some punishment that she has to suffer just for being who she is. In fact she thinks it's like a repulsive birthmark that is stamped on her and can never be hidden or got rid of.

Donna's painful memories seemed never ending!

Donna began remembering awful things that happened to her as a child and how she couldn't tell anyone. She had to "stuff it" if she wanted to keep the peace and be allowed to stay with her mother and stepfather. The memories were painful and made her feel dirty and unacceptable.

A long hair dream disturbs Donna

It was during one of these bad times that Donna had a dream where she was pulling out hair from her mouth. The hair strands just went on and on and on. There was no end to it. It felt awful when she woke up.

Dead hair shows Donna her weighty emotional gunk

What does the long long hair coming out of her insides mean? Hair is a dead product. Coming out of her mouth it was Donna's waste. Like the memories of her unhappy childhood, the hair just went on and on. Donna was being given an image of how much gunk she had stored inside her, that was making her fatter than she needed to be. By recalling her childhood and understanding it with me, she was able to get a vision of what her emotional stomach was storing. She got a dream picture of it all coming out, and a jolt as to just how much there was to discover, process and let go of.

Slimness and beauty push out the hair and give Donna hope

Immediately after the hair dream, Donna dreamed that she was in Sweden with a friend, and was putting on weight. She stopped putting on weight when she felt she was just right. Her friend showed Donna pictures of her from a previous time when she was much thinner. Donna was astounded that she could ever have been slim and beautiful.

The second dream gives Donna hope that her wish to be thinner has a basis in reality. The photograph is how she once was before she had to store her wretched childhood experiences as fat. Donna's unconscious healer is giving her an image that she can believe in, showing her the real inner beauty she had lost touch with. She is being told that she can eat and control herself, just as she did in the dream – that she isn't doomed to be fat and ugly. Stopping the eating in the dream when she got to a comfortable size tells her that she can find her ideal weight and stay there.

Choice Replaces the Sense of Being Doomed

Donna is beginning to identify with the part of her that can choose her weight. As she worked on her dreams with me, she gained more confidence in herself as a beautiful person inside and outside. She is having more good moments in her life when she can feel worthwhile and lovable.

Using dreams to help you manage your personal challenges by Dr. Raymond, Ph.D.

photograph copyright Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Thoughts of holidays and family made Donna's heart sink

As 2009 came to an end, Donna was struggling with the lack of motivation she felt at the thought of the same old Christmas and New Year rituals with family members. She didn't want to go through these meaningless experiences just to feel part of a family.

Donna wanted to shake things up and have more choice in how the holiday time was spent. She also wanted to get away from pretending to feel grateful for whatever her parents had planned. Her desire to make some choices of her own and do things her way made her antsy. How was she going to organize it without upsetting the apple cart?

Donna is caught between keeping the old and wanting something new

There was also the complicating factor of an upcoming loss of her family home. Her parents were selling it and moving to a smaller place with no room for visitors. Donna was caught between wanting to enjoy the family home before it was gone forever, and her wish to celebrate the holidays in a wildly different manner.

A dream gives Donna her wish – something old and something new

Then came the dream that helped her with her conflict. Donna dreamed that she was walking into her family home and into her old bedroom. There was a huge box in there. When she opened it she found some old clothes, jewelry, candy, books, scarves and pizza pieces. She began to sift through the items and pick out what she wanted to keep. She found pieces of pizza and candy that looked edible. She discovered some retro jewelry that she had loved and some clothes that she had bought to go with her unusual and precious jewelry pieces. The rest of the stuff seemed stale, and not part of her any longer. She felt a sense of peace and comfort at finding these things that she had forgotten about.

Donna gets to select from her past and make new relationships out of them

Donna's dream gave her the opportunity to go back into her childhood and retrieve things that were important and meaningful, like the pizza and candy she had never been allowed to eat. Now she could give herself permission to eat it without worrying about being judged and ridiculed about her weight. Now she could dress as she pleased rather than please her mother. Now she didn't have to put her choices and desires on hold.

The wounds of the past are fashioned into fresh connections of equality

Just as she went back to her childhood room in her dream, the message to Donna was to do so in real life before the family home was sold. Donna was being encouraged to go back, take the memories she wanted, bury the ones she no longer needed to hold onto, and create new ones over the holidays. She was being shown that she had a choice in how to remember her past by digging through the box of painful childhood and adolescence and closing the wounds that still had the power to sting.

photograph copyright Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Fear of loss is transformed into more meaningful family life

Donna used her dream to great advantage. She took the lead and invited each family member to do something with her that was unique and special. That old ways were being buried in the box of the past. Donna was going to create new connections, having the courage and entitlement to eat what she wanted, wear what she liked and be what she felt was true to herself. She also returned to her old room and collected things that she wanted to keep including family photographs and her art work that she was now ready to reacquaint herself with again.

Donna was energized by the message of her dream. Instead of feeling sad about the loss of the family house, she let it go with her bad and sad memories. She decided to build new memories with her parents as they transitioned to their new home. Donna realized she could establish new and more equal connections with her folks as she was no longer bound and trapped by the rigid roles of the past that the house represented.

Donna's dream sets her free and puts her in charge of her emotional life

In 2010 Donna emerged with new convictions about her right and freedom to have the type of relationships she wanted to have with her family. She makes the suggestions about where they will meet and what activities they will share. She wears the bits of the past that are meaningful and creates new webs of interaction that make her feel good about herself. She remains surprised as to how readily her family have responded to her taking charge!

Using dreams to help you manage your personal challenges by Dr. Raymond, Ph.D.

Getting Her Father's Attention Back Was All Celia Wanted

Celia basked in her father's attention. She had ever since she was a tiny girl. It was all she lived for. One day her father changed. He became self-absorbed, oblivious to the distress he caused his family. Celia spent the rest of her childhood trying to bring him back to life. She attended to all his needs when her mother was sick. Later she followed family traditions about girls getting married and being homemakers. But nothing penetrated his fortress of solitariness. She had lost the privilege to be the apple of her father's eye.

Maybe A Career Would Impress Her Dad

Celia was getting on with her life after her divorce. Her kids were grown up and she grabbed the opportunity to go back to school and study to be a nurse. It's what she had always wanted to do and hoped it would impress her father. She was desperate for him to show pride in her ambitions and achievements. It didn't make it past his well guarded fortress. Her accomplishments felt like failures because they weren't acknowledged by father.

A Dream Nudges Celia To Face Reality

One night she had a dream that confused and disturbed her. In the dream she was in a room sitting at a small square table with a King and Queen. The King was writing. There was a door across from Celia behind the Queen. There was a lot of traffic noise coming from outside the door. Celia shut the door. The King looked up in relief. Celia enjoyed knowing she had pleased him. The queen invited her to visit them more often, but the King did not. She was heartbroken.

The Dream De-stabilizes Celia

The dream haunted her. She found herself crying a lot. She looked up dream dictionaries and websites that devoted themselves to dream interpretation. All the while a pit in the bottom of her stomach nagged at her. She couldn't concentrate on her school work. She lost interest in the lives of her children. She was inside her own lonely fortress, keeping the world out, unable to feel secure in her daily routine. Eventually Celia came to consult with me. She told of the dream and drew the images.

What Is The Reality Celia Has Been Avoiding?

Celia had given her father ultimate authority to approve of her and make her happy. His were the only blessings that counted, his the only approval that mattered. She gave him all the power to dictate how she would experience life. She n her own hands and give herself permission to be a woman in her own right, to be proud of herself and relish her accomplishments.

Celia Gives The King All The Power

The King in Celia's dream represented the ultimate in authority and power. Celia didn't exist for him unless she did something to make him feel good like eliminating noisy disturbances. She had spent her whole life trying to make him notice her by taking care of his comforts, and in so doing had abandoned herself. By shutting the door in the dream, she was shutting out reality – that there was a big, noisy, world, full of life out there. A world that would be responsive, that would welcome her, where she could find acknowledgment and self-worth. Shutting the door made time stand still. She was forever the little girl trying to get Daddy's attention, and failing.

The Message of Unity and Wholeness

The square shaped table in the dream has a special significance. A square has four equal sides, representing equality. The message for Celia is that as a grown woman she is an equal to her father. She has the entitlement and the power to control her life and create her happiness. The dream nudges Celia to take strength from becoming a whole person in her own right. A square table has four legs that enable it to balance, and keep it stable. It is a powerful image of stability and balance. Despite the King (father) being busy, the world isn't shaking. She can survive without his approval.

Celia Is Guided To Become The Apple Of Her Own Eye

Celia is encouraged to tune into the loving invitation of the Queen, depicting Celia's nurturing maternal self that she has ignored up to now. The dream tells her that by responding to the Queen she can feel worthwhile. Celia was shown the futility of trying to be daddy's special girl again. She was given an alternative, that was so much more fruitful. That was to abandon her wish to go back in time and recapture some magic that was no longer available. She was guided to switch from taking care of her unresponsive father to taking care of herself. Rather than trying to impress dad, Celia was better off being the apple of her own eye.

Celia is now a senior nurse in the cardiac unit of her local hospital. She is well respected. She enjoys her work and has a wonderful relationship with a fellow nurse. They cheer lead for one another and offer shoulders to cry on when needed. At last Celia sits around her square table where everyone she invites to dinner is her equal. She is the King and Queen of her own life, ruling with a rod of compassion.

Using dreams to help you manage your personal challenges by Dr. Raymond, Ph.D.

Freda's Dream Of Being Chased by Bloodthirsty Men

The men with beards were after her again. Those men were chasing her, brandishing long knives. They were running after Freda and her children. Freda was desperate to protect her children from this bloodthirsty group. She is scared that she is not going to be able to safeguard her children. Powerless against these violent men Freda feels like a bad and inadequate parent.

Shame and Fear Keep The Dream A Secret

Freda had this dream repeatedly for a long period of time. She always woke up scared. She never told anyone about it. It was kind of shameful that she was having nightmares about being a bad parent.

Sharing the Dream Unburdens Freda

Then Freda came to one of my dream workshops. She told me the dream and drew the scary images on a whiteboard. The sketches showed huge sword like knives with large wide sharp blades used to behead people in mythology and ancient history. The mens beards gave them an aura of wisdom but the fierce righteousness of the religious mullahs of Iran, where Freda had lived as a child.

Freda the Daughter is Slashed by her Mother's Sharp Tongue

For as long as she could remember her mother never had anything good to say about her. Her mother never praised her for her looks, her academic achievements or her marriage. She continued to criticize Freda's way of bringing up her children, making Freda feel bad. Her mother's words always cut her with their sharpness, like the knives in her dream. Freda began to speak of herself in equally harsh and critical ways. She saw little to love in herself. She married a man she didn't love just to feel secure in a relationship, and have children whom she could shower her love on and get love back. The purity of the love between Freda and her children was what kept her going. Freda the woman had all but disappeared. Freda the mother who wanted to be a kind and generous spirit so her kids could grow up with healthy self-images was alive and well.

The Dream Shows Freda Her Dilemma

Threats of attack in the dream represented the assault that Freda felt from her mother's tongue, trashing her self-esteem and making her feel inadequate. But now Freda has children of her of her own, and she doesn't want them to have the same experience. She wants to get them away from the cruel demeaning voice of her mother, symbolized by the elderly vicious men in the dream.

The men appeared in her dream to show her that she had taken in her mother's mean tone and made it her own, by always putting herself down.

Standing Up To The Ogre

In her dream Freda never actually got attacked and nor did her children. The message here is that no matter how powerful the men appear to be, she is safe and can stand up to them. By protecting her children in the dream, she was also protecting the part of her that now needed to stand up to the ogre of a mother in real life and the one that lived inside Freda.

photograph copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Turning the Power Into a Positive Force

Freda had allowed all her power to be invested in her critical voice, that she adopted from her mother, making her feel no good. Her dream came to tell her that she could use that power differently, to make herself feel good, as a human being, a woman, a wife and a daughter.

The Outcome

A year later I bumped into Freda at a coffee shop. She came over to hug me and thanked me profusely for helping her figure out what her dream meant. She said she never had that dream again, and had taken steps to build firmer boundaries with her mother. She felt good about herself and was more in charge of her life. Her inner voice was so much more loving. She dared to think she was attractive enough to seek relationships outside her immediate family. She started saying yes to invitations to explore her artistic talents and to have fun. She began to enjoy who she was. Her dream scared her into accessing her true self which was a good, kind, gentle and loving person, rather than the demon her mother painted.

Using dreams to help you manage your personal challenges by Dr. Raymond, Ph.D.

Family Hurts!

Young beautiful and exuberant Julie was a happy and contented child until her parents sent her abroad to live with better off relatives in America. Contact with her parents was limited. She made sense of it by believing that she wasn't wanted, that she was a burden and an unwelcome intruder into her family.

Growing up with a Thin Skin

Julie did everything she could to prove she was loveable, useful and a worthy child for her aunt and uncle to rear. But she lived with the constant fear that any day, they too would tire of her and dump her somewhere else. She was an excellent student and used her teachers's praise as a source of worthniess. She didn't have many close friends. She was terrified that if they got to know her well, they would consider her second class goods, and find better friends.

Marriage and Children Don't Do The Trick

Julie hoped that marriage and parenthood would give her someone to love, and that she would be loved in return. She thought that this would be her salvation. A husband and child of her very own could finally prove that she was desirable and lovable. But it didn't work out. Her husband left, and Julie's relationship with her own daughter was strained.

The longed for wish fades away

After years of bitter sadness that she couldn't relate to her daughter, Julie realised that she was going to die a bitter and lonely woman. After she retired, the fear became stronger.

Then came this dream

She was in the kitchen preparing soup from a package of dried soup mix. Flames leapt out from the burners of her stove as she stirred the pot. She put her hands in the fire to rescue the soup and got burned. Later she discovered the knob and turned off the gas.

photograph copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Julie is Given Hope and Encouragement

In her dream Julie was preparing a nourishing meal from a packet of dried soup mix. Her life was 'dried' up, without love, without connections, without meaning. Mixing the dried powder with water the dream says, can reconstitute her desire for genuine kinship. The dream showed her that her usual way of reaching out for love was by sticking her hands in the fire and getting burned – betrayed, let down, abandoned, disowned. Flames also indicate the intensity of her anger that she was dumped, mistreated and denied a home with her own parents. Her dream then showed her that she had a knob inside her that can turn the heat on and off. She can control the heat of the flames. She doesn't have to get burned and spoil the 'relationship soup', depriving herself of a good meal. Nor does she have to eat uncooked soup – raw and unsatisfying loneliness, by refusing to turn on the gas!

The Gifts In Julie's Dream

Julie had been repeatedly 'burned' by the betrayal of loved ones. Her dream indicated she could reach for the knob whenever she felt defenseless. She could have balanced relationships, OR she could hang onto the anger in the flames, be a victim, and keep getting burned. As she worked on this dream with me in a workshop, tears flowed as we put words and meaning to an otherwise terrifying dream. That was her first gift. The second is more permanent. Julie can use the insignia of the knob as a symbol of her ability to manage future vulnerable situations. She gets to have a life before it is too late.