Thread: Long, detailed dream: Travel, Accumulating Feces, Late for Uni

Anyone?...

I’m sorry that you’re going through such a very difficult time right now and perhaps someone looking at this dream from the outside, as it were, can pick out a few clues about what it’s trying to suggest as to the most important aspects of your situation to look at which could be helpful.

For example, the image of your parents buying a new place to live which turns out to be a ruin might be showing the understandable response that most of us make in stressful times, that is, we tend to fall back on old ways of handling things which perhaps are not the best ones in the current circumstances.

Your previous dream about the nice house which turned out to be haunted was probably touching on the same theme, namely, that certain ways of solving various problems might look very good at first (pleasant well-built house) but they could be sabotaged by an unconscious part of your personality (the ghost) which has other ideas.

It looks like your understanding of this previous dream didn’t go deep enough and so the current dream became more distressing in its details in order to make you sit up and take notice (dirt floor, rotten planks etc.).

Since you are a quiet, shy person, it could be that the “old way” of acting which might not work too well partly involves going along too easily with what the general Zeitgeist says is best to do in difficult times.

For instance, although married, you’ve gone along with apparently your husband’s suggestion that both of you should date others but this has caused you some confusion and guilt, maybe reflected in this dream by the poo that’s to be found everywhere in the house.

But the poo appears to contain a clue about one partial way out of some current problems, namely, the shape of the tip of the penis.

Unlike Freud’s generally outworn views, a penis is much more often better thought of being a “phallus”, that is, a vivifying creative, light-giving “male” force that is also found in women.

Perhaps the “former male owner” of the house was so bitter and resentful because this part of you wasn’t developed enough in terms of such things as “mind”, independent critical thinking (instead of going along with generally accepted opinions about “what’s right” in any given situation), being assertive and focused etc.

As a result, the “angry male within” has probably been slinging poo around in the form of self-hurtful thoughts and judgements about yourself such as “You’re too dumb to think on your own so just let others decide what’s best for you” etc. etc.

This scene is quite long and detailed, showing its general importance, and it ends with your thought that “it would take lots of work to clean all of that”, likely spotlighting one important task for you to concentrate on at this time so that you don’t become too weighed down by things.

This comes up later in your fear of being late for class, a variant on the “missed exam” dream for example.

Assignments, tests and exams in dreams tend to represent, on analogy, certain expected collective roles and attitudes that an individual in a given society is expected to meet as part of fitting in with the group.

For instance, schools and colleges are mostly funded by public taxes and/or “established” alumni groups which have certain views and standards about what constitutes a “good education” etc.

Later, outside of school, corporations and businesses etc. have equivalent “mission statements” and so on which are expected to be met.

Riding on buses and other public transit as in your dream can also suggest “riding along” mostly on “what everybody else says is the right thing to do” but apparently, doing this “leads nowhere” for you.

So right now, while it’s painful and embarrassing to have a variety of difficult issues going on in your life, the dream is perhaps encouraging you to set aside any mostly unconscious fears that “others are judging you and finding you wanting” and to find out what’s really best for you as an individual.

Doing this and making other changes is probably going to be hard because old habits are indeed hard to change.

An additional very understandable problem that most of us face in such overall circumstances is that we’d much prefer not to become very aware of what’s happening (can’t keep the window open and so the room remains dark).

“Back to basics” is probably the order of the day regarding this situation as opposed to any “cosmetic fixes” because they apparently won’t work (shampoo bottles can’t take the strain of holding open the window, probably representing some outworn “surface” strategies that are “tired”, e.g. “Your father and I are getting too old”; you also wear an odd outfit but it “keeps you warm”).

Similarly, maybe a certain natural over-indulgence in “fantasy solutions” won’t help much either (flying around with the male close to fascinating buildings).

“Permission to express your feelings” is best given by yourself to yourself and not by others (won’t vape in front of parents), so perhaps some honing of your assertiveness skills would be helpful. The Sydney library system could have some helpful books such as “Asserting Yourself” by Bower and Bower, and “Your Perfect Right” by Alberti and Emmons.

You might also like “The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World” by Marti Olsen Laney, Psy.D.

And although you aren’t actually depressed, the book “The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Depression” by William J. Knaus Ed.D. might be good for you to read because it contains many useful exercises to help reduce any negative thinking and self-hurtful judgements that might sometimes be appearing and which could tend to wear you down too much over time.

Anyway, I hope that these ideas can be helpful in exploring further these dreams which are trying to help orientate you at this challenging time in your life.

Please feel free to make any comments or to ask any questions that you may wish to about this particular way of looking at your dreams.