Parallel Couple? Miscarriage, Rejected Proposal...

Hello.

First off, thanks in advance to any help anyone here can provide. I'm a bit troubled by this dream, and any help understanding it would be greatly appreciated. I'm going to do my best to provide you with as much information as I can...

A bit of background: I'm a 21 year old male, grew up in Minneapolis, currently living in Chicago. I am currently in the process of planning a camping trip to the BWCA with my girlfriend. For those unfamiliar, the BWCA is a 1.4 million acre wilderness in northern Minnesota, which abuts the Canadian border. The BWCA is arguably the most remote wilderness area in the contiguous US-- no roads, no motors, no ATVS, no snowmobiles, no cell service, no rangers except at border crossings. Only canoes, kayaks, and feet. The area has a long history of fur trading and logging dating back to the 1700s but has been protected since the mid 20th century. I used to go on trips up there with my dad and uncles when I was younger, until after my uncle died when I was 14 and we stopped going. This will be my first trip since then, and also my first time leading a trip myself. My girlfriend has never been. Our trip is a short one-- 4 days by canoe, staying on the US side of the border. Also possibly relevant is that my girlfriend and I have been together on and off for the last 5 years, most recently together for a bit over a year. Also possibly relevant is that her mom has had 4 miscarriages.

Background on my dream habits: I remember my dreams after I wake up fairly often, typically once or twice a week. However, my dreams are usually very different than this one in that they are usually completely nonsensical-- full of logical fallices, impossibilities, and seemingly just a mish-mash of a whole bunch of crap. I also normally don't react to things in dreams the way I would in real life and have very little, if any, emotion. My dreams also don't normally have a conclusion. I will wake up suddenly in the middle of something. This dream was very different-- it made a lot of sense, followed a storyline, came to a conclusion, and I was full of emotion the whole time.

I guess I feel like that's a good amount of background. If more would help, please ask.

The dream:

In the beginning it was just like our trip is planned-- we set off from Moose Lake heading up through a chain of lakes to the northeast. It seemed like a sunny day, all conditions normal. At some point we came to a portage we were supposed to take, but right next to the portage landing there was a narrow stream, just barely wider than a canoe and with the water standing completely still, not flowing, like a lake. It went off at a very slight angle from the portage through a marsh and it looked like it might make for a much shorter crossing to the other lake. Since we were feeling good and adventurous, we decided to go down it. As we started going down it we realized that it wasn't really any sort of stream at all. It was an old canal made for canoes. Sediment had settled in spots, meaning we had to lift the canoe over a few places, but for the most part it was deep enough to paddle right up. It was almost completely straight, with a few turns that would thread it between lakes. We got to a few spots where the canal passed over actual streams on earthen aqueducts. We knew we were going way out of our planned route, and I wasn't sure exactly where we were on the maps, but for some reason this didn't really bother me, because I was so interested in the canal. Eventually we reached a large red building on the edge of a marsh, where 3-4 of these canals came together.

The building was long and narrow, maybe 60 feet wide and 400 feet long. It had a large front porch facing the marsh where the canals came together. Inside, there were maybe 8 or so canals running the length of the building, with a lot of machinery, old and rusted, at the far end. We were just about to go inside when another group came up to us, coming down a different canal. It was a middle aged guy, with two teenage kids, a boy and a girl, maybe 14-16. The guy was very energetic and to the point, friendly, and clearly an intelligent person who had a handle on things. We greeted eachother and both asked the other where we were. We got out our maps and the three of us (myself, my girlfriend, and the middle-aged man) worked together to try and figure out where we were. At this point I realized that I had accidentally grabbed the wrong maps when we left home (We have two sets of maps, one from the late 90s and one from the early 80s). On my older map one of the canals actually was marked, which wasn't on the man's much newer map, though it wasn't the one we came in on and we agreed it wasn't the fastest way back. We told him where our canal started, and he agreed it was the way out. I think it is important to note that I felt really comfortable with the middle-aged man, like he was immediately a good friend and someone I trusted. The teenage kids didn't really say much-- they were mostly in the background and I don't remember anything about them other than that the boy was wearing a red sweatshirt.

Just as the other group was about to leave, trying to go back the way my girlfriend and I came in, a man and a woman came around the side of the building. I think they were probably about 24-26. They said they had gotten lost following the canals and had been here for a couple days, unsure of how to get back to an entry point. About this time, it started to rain. It wasn't really storming per se-- no lightning, but it was raining pretty hard. The man told us that they had figured out that the big red building was an old lumber mill and that they had used the canals to float lumber to the mill, as well as to travel around without having to deal with portages. He took us inside the mill and showed us some of the machinery, as well as the small residence that was built into it. Long empty, but very fancy with victorian-era wallpaper, a 4-post bed, clawfoot tub, ect.

We came back around to the front porch, and the 5 of us (not including the man and woman that had been here for a couple days) debated whether or not we would leave in the rain. The middle aged man said that he was going to leave regardless of what the weather was like-- that he would rather camp in the woods in the rain than be here. My girlfriend and I decided to wait the rain out. The man and his kids left, while we stayed on the porch. I thought it was stupid to go out when it was raining so hard... No way are they going to get very far with the wind, and they're just going to be miserable trying to paddle while cold and wet. The younger man invited us into the residence part of the mill, but I felt uncomfortable about that, so my girlfriend and I stayed out on the porch.

We must have fallen asleep sitting there, because the next thing was the younger man waking us up. It was night, and it was still raining. Now it was a big storm-- high wind, thunder and all. He asked us to "come see the prince". I'm not sure why but we followed him around the side of the mill and into the residence. The woman had had a miscarriage in the bathtub. Well, not quite a miscarriage, but a very premature birth. The woman was crying and the baby was crying, trying to breathe, but it couldn't. The woman started sort of sing-talking to the baby, about how she was the heir to some sort of old industrial kingdom, the people who had built the canals. While she was singing, she held the baby underwater until it died. This whole time I was really sad. Not scared, just sad. Pretty much on par with the utter despair complete sadness that one might feel in such a situation in person. After the baby died (or some part of my mind decided it was dead... I'm not sure it actually was), there was like title screen, like from a movie. I've never, ever remembered a dream with anything like that before. The title said "a proposal".

My girlfriend and I were climbing a mountain. It was a great day and I was so happy and was feeling so in love. It was late afternoon-- with that long sideways sun that is so soft and pretty. We were clambering up reddish-brown boulders, nearing the top. For some reason in my head it was Pike's Peak, but I know it wasn't actually, because Pike's Peak isn't a lonely barren mountain in a desert, and this was. When we got to the top we realized there was a road that went up the other side, which we didn't know about. We felt kind of dumb for having climbed it, but we didn't really care, because we had enjoyed it. There were a few families up there running around. We sat on some rocks facing the sun-- the side we had just climbed up. Soon a couple came from the road and sat down on the rocks facing the same way, perhaps 40 feet away from us. I realized right away that it was the same couple we had met at the mill, though they looked a couple years older, which I thought was odd because it seemed like it was the same summer to me. I asked my girlfriend if she thought it was them and she said she didn't know what I was talking about. The girl was wearing a thick black knit bonnet. The four of us sat, watching the sunset. The man got up, and proposed to the girl. She started crying and rejected him. The two of them sat, crying and whispering to eachother while the sun made its final run into the desert. I was filled with the same sadness as when the baby died, though my girlfriend didn't seem sad, she just seemed to be feeling awkward at having just witnessed the rejection and the couple bawling.

Then the sun set, and that was it.


Thanks again in advance. This dream feels really important to me and is unlike any dream that I can remember. It would really mean a lot to me to get some feedback.

I wonder whether this dream is about your relationship with your girlfriend. You are heading off on an adventure together. You don't know where you are going, into unchartered territory. You feel like you don't have the right map or plan to show you where to go in your relationship, in your trip through life together. Are you considering proposing to your girlfriend? If so, you fear she will reject you. I think the miscarriage gives a clue to the rejection: it is premature. Do you think it is premature to propose at this stage in your life's journey?

Usually, the dreams you can remember way past the point of waking, in my personal experience, have been the ones I've learned the most from. Usually, there is an emotional attachment to the dream which is why you're remembering it, and it's an issue, conscious or subconscious, you can't solve in your waking life, so you dream about it. Anyway...

The setting is this trip you two have been planning. Do you, or have you considered, proposing to your GF at this location? 5 years is awhile to be together so it would make sense. The canals spiting into 4 represents different life paths you may have ended up in if you married her. Option 1: happy marriage (old man with kids) were children are produced and ideas are rewarding (are you a 90's kid by any chance?). Option 2: you and her a little older where you never proposed. This represents your anxieties about the relationship - she says 'no' to you, you don't have children, and a general sense of sadness (failure). Option 3: not having her in your life - thus the lack of a third couple. This represents a new path and new beginning. Option 4 was pretty much your current affairs. Will you continue down your chosen path?

Ending up at the red mill may represent your career passion, as red is the color of passion and the mill represents your desired career. A large building with lots of potential... are you going to college by any chance? The 26 year old man knowing what the mill was represents the age you feel you should have a career; perhaps one of your anxieties is trading love for career. The older man didn't want to stay in this building, but I'll to that in a sec. As red is the color of passion, the boy with the red shirt means you may have a desire to reproduce. The children were a mystery to you because you don't know what they'll look like. The rain represents two things: a decision or the unknown. You had to decide what to do inside the building. However, it could also represent the unknown because you didn't know how to overcome the storm. I'm leaning towards decision. The older man left because he didn't want to stay in the building. This means if you choose family over career, you may face financial troubles or have trouble with the elements. But your attitude will allow you to over-come the obstacles set before you.

You stayed with he 26 YO man, the means you may be considering career more, or perhaps feel your current relationship is difficult. Sleeping is a transition. Next, the woman miscarried, and you saw the prince. Could be a dream logic way of saying "crowning" as when babies are born, they are crowning when their head pops out. The crying of the woman and baby means that you may feel sad that things are not working out with your lover - if that is true. (My judgement is based on the fact you said an off-again on-again relationship.) The end credits means that you dread that if you break up with the GF it'll be the end of the world. "The proposal" means that this is your fear if you propose to your GF as you may intend to.

Climbing the mountain means you over come an obstacle in your life, and being happy means this is how you would feel if you made it with your GF. Feeling slightly silly about doing this means you may be considering if this is all worth it. The return of the 26 year old couple, but older, means that you may feel the need for more maturity before you propose to her. The black bonnet is a sign of morning... Maybe you miss an old aspect of your relationship, like silly things you two used to do with her. By rejecting the proposal, this means that despite how you two end up you must prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. Do you feel mature enough to propose to her? Are you mature enough for rejection?

I know what this is like. There is a special person in my life that years ago, I was too immature to be with her, so she rejected the idea of going out with me. After 5 years of not seeing her (after I endured a break up another whom I thought was the one) I was finally able to see her. Despite my feelings for her, I accepted that she currently has a BF, but know these things take time. I think we are better friends for this (not the friend zone!) and if I get another chance with her, then I'll know. If not, then shell be happy. In the mean time I'm open to other options. Maybe it's the same for you. Whatever decision you're considering you may need to slow down and reconsider all options. I hope this helps.

This is a big dream and you should keep it because you might want to return to it in the future; it’s both very personal but there are also collective images as well, so called archetypal images. Personally I don’t get any particular feeling what it is about, what it “means”, but I will share some thoughts.

The setting is real life like and you note that it is “a sunny day, all conditions normal”; the starting point is in other words at an inner room you are conscious of and that the story that follows is relevant to your everyday life. That is one of the reasons the dream is powerful, because often we dream either about everyday life – work, spouse, home – or the dream is a plunge into the unintelligible world of the unconscious, and you have difficulty relating to it at all. But this dream goes from your everyday life, down into areas of your psychology which is partly personal and partly archetypal, and so the experience feels very important.

So we start in everyday life and walk into the unknown with an peculiar awareness that allows us to describe the adventure in detail afterward. This is probably the reason why the dream chose your coming trip as the setting, because that trip is a journey into the wild untouched by civilization – a good image for the unconscious, our inner world which we by definition are not aware of and we cannot control. So, the journey is not necessarily a symbol for your relationship with your girlfriend, even though it might be that too. Dream images are often several things at the same time, which makes dream interpretation difficult because our rational consciousness is not very comfortable with paradoxes and want to sort things out, and in the process loses the content of the symbol. A dream is often about this and that, not either-or. It makes dream interpretation time consuming and exhausting, unfortunately.

Anyways, you feel adventurous and go into the unknown. From this dream I get the feeling that you are a fairly uncomplicated guy if you don’t mind me saying so, and your relationship with your girlfriend is quite sound. No issues here, so to speak, at least not in this dream, and at least not of the kind you are unaware of (with a little saving close at the end of this text). The canal is a stream of water that leads to a central point where several canals are coming together. This is a important place in your inner self, it is a center. The canals is a symbol for unconscious streams leading to the center. This place can be interpreted as the self, as Jung described it:

“The self is not only the center, but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the center of this totality, just as the ego is the center of consciousness.”
[Collected Works 12, par. 44.]

Note that you first says 3-4 canals, and then 8. Those are all numbers of wholeness, and seen from above the place may very well take the form of a mandala, a universal symbol of the totality, of the self. You have no map for this place, naturally, but you are not bothered with it either. I guess you are quite comfortable with your self, you are not a person who is afraid to be alone, be with yourself. An inner journey of this kind is not frightening to you. At this point in time though, the center is a unwelcoming place, a marsh, where one does not thread easily, but you don’t have to do that either so no bother.

As you are about the walk into the building there comes a father figure with two children, just above the age you were in when you stopped taking these trips with your father figures in real life. It is significant that they arrive just as you are about to enter the building; if this character wouldn’t have arrived at this point in time, you would have walked into the building; but because he came right now, you didn’t enter the building. Therefore, one would like to speculate, he came because you were about to enter the building. This is in my experience how dreams often work: A and C seem unrelated, but often you see that C happened because of A. We don’t recognize the B, the bridge between the A and C, and this is one of the reason we find dreams fragmented. So the hero, the father figure, saves you from entering the building.

He carries the energy of youth, the good energy which follows a presumably good father complex. (He is a father, and he comes with children, the future which springs from the past.) The new maps are useless here, because they are depicting the life as seen now, but the now that you see is not the reality. The psychological reality of now is much more than that, it is based on the past, for instance. So the old map, from the time of your birth or even before that, depicts the canals which are inner psychological streams of energy and everything it carries with it. We are born with these canals, we are not born tabula rasa. In this dream we are down in our collective unconscious, and the maps of these regions are not drawn today, they were drawn a long time ago, before we were born even.

Then the contents in this inner room changes; the good father is about to leave, and when that energy is leaving it makes room for another, more troubled energy or complex: The couple who is lost, and they come with rain, bad whether, and they follow you into the building which the hero stopped you from entering. (I think, it is not clear which one is “the man”, but my interpretation of the text would follow a logic.) So the inside of the building belongs to the couple’s energy, to that part of your inner self.

The house is a place where raw material is transformed to something useful, something you can use for building. It is not used for that right now, because the energies here are unconscious, but one day in the future it might be a lot of activity here. The young man shows you this, perhaps because he is your shadow, and if you make him conscious, the building can begin.

Then you are discussing whether you should stay or leave, and the father/hero decides to leave. I think that it is because his presence is incompatible with the couple’s. “He would rather camp in the woods than be here” with the couple and “their” house. Those are two parts of you, two energies which you cannot integrate right now. The hero will be fine, but he cannot be in the same room as the couple, and if I read the text properly, they are actually never in the same scene, which would emphasize this condition. This is the crux of the dream – the couple is the crux or the key. But what do they represent? I don’t know.

I do not think that they represent you and your girlfriend, because, why would it be so? If the dream is a reflection of your relationship, why wouldn’t it be you two – why another couple? I’m certainly no expert on dreams, but in my experience, at least how I interpret it so far, is that when my dreams are commenting on my factual relationships, it is me and the other in the dream – never another couple. Figures in dreams are never me (as such), but rather – for lack of better words – parts of me. My longing, my complex, my background, my wishes, my anger, my instincts, and so forth – but not me. If it is me who is depicted, this person that I am, then it is me in the dream too.

Another thing which raises my concern with this interpretation of the couple is that then you would in principle not dream about something you are not conscious of. Miscarriage is a real, conscious fear you would have rational reasons to have, if you and your girlfriend would expecting (which might be in a few years, as the couple in the dream is a few years older than you.) Why all the drama in the dream, the very powerful archetypal imagery, the thunder, the drowning of the “prince”, and so forth, regarding a natural and conscious concern that a woman may have miscarriages like her mother did? I can’t get that into my understanding of dreams, and my experience. This is my thoughts only, I wouldn’t confuse it with some objective truth.

I think the dream is using the miscarriage as a symbol, that is, it is representing something the dreamer is unconscious about. When the dream is creating symbols (which by definition is content we are unconscious about) it mostly uses images we know, like canoe, house, and so forth, but we need to interpret them to find out their true meaning because the dream is speaking the language of the unconscious, not of the conscious: This is a trip into the wild, it represents a journey into the unconscious; this is a canal, it represents inner streams of energy; this is a father, it represents the father complex; this is a miscarriage, it represents – a miscarriage? Of course it can be so, but considering the highly symbolical setting, I don’t think so in this case. It represents something else.

The dreamer avoids the house, the residence, as if he has an intuition regarding what’s going on there and he doesn’t want to know. He stays out on the porch with his girlfriend even when the young man has invited him inside; that is irrational behaviour which indicate something is not quite right. But the dreamer gets to choose. So far the dreamer has been on top of things, but now he falls asleep and then he is not anymore. Sleeping is a difficult symbol for me which I have been pondering some, but let’s just say that when you are asleep you are unconscious; so the dreamer gives in for the weight of the unconsciousness which dominates the place when the hero is gone, and the man invites him again – and now he goes.

There is thunder and lightning, that which is taken place now is of cosmic dimensions; the inner cosmos is in an uproar. And why not – what could be more upsetting than the death of a child, and it is not just any child either, but the future king. So there is a highly symbolical meaning in this and the setting is mythological. It doesn’t seem to be a miscarriage, rather a killing, and that is very important. A miscarriage of course is involuntary, a “natural” event which might happen; a murder on the other hand, is by choice and “unnatural”, and therefore the powers are in anger. Then there is a sign: “A proposal”. And at the end of the other part of the dream, there is a factual proposal. A proposal and a child could be seen as different aspects of the same symbol.

A proposal is about a particular future. The marriage is a important symbol, “it points to the union of opposites and the birth of new possibilities” (Sharp). So the child and the proposal are of the same image: Both are promises of the future – and both are “killed” by the woman. In the first part she rejects the child, in the second, the man. But who is she, and what future is killed? I have no idea, but perhaps the dreamer can relate to this fact. Perhaps even something happened in the dreamers life the day before the dream, or days before the dream, that triggered the complexes that built this dream? If that is so, it might be a key to unlock the couple. I have no access to the keys needed.

Another thing you could do as the dreamer, is close in on the sadness. The sadness you experience in the dream, I think, does not belong to this dream only. I believe that you carry that sadness within you and I think that you can realize what that sadness is, where it comes from. The sadness is coupled to the rejection, perhaps. I think, if you want to understand this dream, that the sadness is an emotional gateway into its meaning. When you carefully climb down into this sadness, what do you see?

I would like to point out one more thing which can be important, namely that your girlfriend does not know what you are talking about at the end (and I think that she is not present when the child dies, so she has no relation to the central point of the dream). That might be a reflection of your real relationship, that these inner matters of yours are not accessible to her. It might be good or bad, dreams are not judging, but it might be a consideration. But it can also strengthen my theory, that the dream is subjective, it does not talk about objective, outer reality, where your girlfriend lives, so to speak. This is your inner life (which is tightly coupled to you outer life, naturally), rather, and it is difficult for other people to understand. At least, this is one way of looking at it. There are others too.

warriorof and Wakinyan, thank you so much for you in-depth responses. Thanks also to JoannaB. It is clear that you all put a lot of thought into your comments, and it shows. I have only just now read through them for the first time, and I am learning/realizing so much. I think I need to make a couple more reads through and take a few hours (at least) to mull things over, but I intend to make a detailed response.

Thanks again for your very thoughtful comments.