Month: September 2020

The time has finally come. After years of sleeping and dreaming (not all at once, of course), we are going to analyze a dream!

This week we are focusing on one of my own dreams. I will describe the dream in detail, to the best of my recollection. Then, I will analyze the dream using Jungian tools of analysis. Onto the dream!

Role Reversal 

I wake underwater. Droplets of water cling to my eyelashes as if I have just emerged from being underwater, but I am underwater.  Blue and white angelfish that look like Lumineon from Pokemon swim past me. I am in the lotus position. Something is beneath me. I bring my hand down through the cool water and feel the shadowy object that I am perched upon. It is smooth and slightly curved. I do not look at it. I feel around, registering its form. I come to what I realize is the top. It has formations jutting out from an ovular shape— a face. I open my eyes finally and look at the object.

It is a marble statue of Joan of Arc covered in dark algae. She is holding a longsword and her eyes are blazing. I take away her sword. My body suddenly goes rigid. I try to move my feet but they are paralyzed, unable to move even an inch. I try to cry out but I am mute. Hysteria wells deep inside of me, but I have no way to expel it. The statue twitches. Its fingers stretch out and its feet dig into the sand on the seafloor. The statue rolls over and stands up, facing me. I feel my body changing, turning to stone. I watch as the statue’s body turns to flesh. I try to slash her with her sword but I cannot move.

The statue looks at me. “Wrong one,” it says.

It swims, then, up to the surface of the sea, many miles above me. Then the dream morphs into a different dream.

The Analysis

This dream, on a literal level, is about a statue magically switching roles with me when I take its sword. On a symbolic level, the dream is about the Shadow masquerading as the Hero and taking over to render me (my Persona) helpless.

In Jungian psychology, the Shadow is one of the archetypes. The Shadow is the side hidden from the self and the world. It is marked by habits we may not want to face. The ultimate test of courage, according to Jung, is the realization of the Shadow.

The Hero is another one of the archetypes. It is known for saving others and doing good. St. Joan of Arc as a historical figure fits into the hero archetype.

However, her statue fits into the Shadow archetype. In the dream, it says, “I bring my hand down through the cool water and feel the shadowy object that I am perched upon.” The statue proceeds to do morally objectionable things, like trapping me inside of my own body and leaving me for dead. This is not the Hero we know and love. This is something masquerading as the Hero.

The act of reversing our roles— of having the statue become the active life-liver and me become the petrified statue— shows that the Shadow has overtaken the Persona. The Persona is the side of a personality that is projected out to the world and it reflects our role as dictated by society. In this dream, the statue, which represents the Shadow, has forced me, the Persona, into its former role.

This represents not only anarchy of the Shadow self but also a seizure of autonomy. The statue is preventing me from unveiling my Shadow self on my own terms. I cannot pass the test of courage (remember: Jung said that the ultimate test of courage is the realization of the Shadow) because my Shadow self is unveiling itself for me. We can tell by the end of the dream (“It swims, then, to the surface of the sea, many miles above me.”) that the Shadow is headed toward the light and I have no say in that.

If I were to extrapolate the meaning of this dream into my daily life I would take it to mean that the side of me that I hide from the world is forcing itself out and will come to light without my permission.

 

Feel free to post your own interpretations of this dream in the comments. Stay loose and dream lucid!

Vocab for this post: Shadow, Hero, Persona 

Hello there! I see you have stumbled upon my little corner of the internet. This introduction would go much more smoothly if we were both sleeping and I could jump into your dreams and explain everything there, but alas, the modern world has not yet invented technology for that kind of thing. For now, I will introduce myself in the waking world. My name is Alyssa. I am a student at Penn State University majoring in Psychology and English and I am fascinated by dreams. Disturbing dreams, nonsensical dreams, transcendent dreams: you name it, I want to hear about it. I have created this blog with the purpose of analyzing dreams—my own dreams, the dreams of my peers and loved ones, and dream sequences from literature, television, and movies. My hope is that in analyzing these snippets from the subconscious, you (my readers) and I will gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and the internal motivations that rule us.

Dreams have found their way into our cultural consciousness and often pervade our waking life because of their popularity as an artistic device in the art we love. From movies like Inception (2010), a film about a man who can enter people’s dreams and steal their secrets from their subconscious, to Paprika (2006), an animated Japanese film about a device that allows psychiatrists to visit the dreams of their patients, dreams are everywhere. This prevalence makes it that much more important to analyze dreams so we can begin to understand their effect on our lives.

For analytical purposes, I will be drawing from both Jungian psychology and the literary tradition. Jung divided the psyche into the conscious and the unconscious. I will classify daily waking stimuli under the “conscious” category and dreams under the “unconscious” category. Jung also theorized that the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious were all part of the psyche. The ego is the conscious aspect of the self. The personal unconscious is all thoughts, feelings, and urges that are not in one’s conscious awareness. The collective unconscious is everything in the psyche that has been inherited from the human collective, such as innate tendencies to react a certain way. These three aspects of the psyche will likely come up in future analyses.

As for the literary tradition, I will often analyze symbolism in dreams as I would if I were analyzing symbolism in literature. This means classic motifs will be treated as they would usually be treated in a literary analysis unless there is some personal association that I am aware of that changes the analysis. For example, a rose is a classic symbol that stands for beauty and danger. I will use those interpretations unless I know that the person whose dream I am analyzing was mauled by a prize-winning rose farmer.

In the coming weeks, I plan on doing personal dream analyses (of my own dreams), featuring analyses of the dreams of my loved ones and peers (potentially with short interviews), and showcasing dream analyses of film, television, and literature. I’m looking forward to digging into the depths of everyone’s unconscious. Stay loose and dream lucid!