New dream this night...

I'm in a bar, my boyfriend and his friend is with me, we're going to a concert and have stopped by this place to have a beer. It's the first time me and bf are out together in a long long time.

We have just entered the bar, and I lose sight of my boyfriend and his friend, and there are only men in the room, it's very crowded and some of them are standing on the tables in the middle of the room. They are shouting at me, grabbing me, circling me and push me around. One of them is particulary creepy, and his voice stands out as he says something to me in french. I can't undertsand what, but I can see by the look on his face that it's not something nice.

The strangest thing is that all these men are dressed like it's some time long ago, like maybe a hundred years ago. It seems like a place for workers, and it feels like London or some other big city.

When they let go of me, I discover that they have stolen everything out of my purse while pushing me around. My bf and friend has bought beer and are standing at a table, waiting for me, but I am deasperate to get my wallet back (I don't actually have one in real life) and I just know that it's the creepy french guy who has taken it. I get into a fight with him, I'm very angry, and we're chasing eachother under some empty tables. At one point I'm winning the fight, but suddenly he gets even more creepy, and I get really scared and he wins the wallet back.

In the end I've given up to get it back, I get up and I'm really angry because I can't go to the concert with no money, so I give the guy a few punches on my way out. I also find his bag and search it, but can't find my wallet. I take his pencilcase and empy it on the floor like some kind of revenge. His face has no expression at all at this point, he is like carved in stone. And I scream in his face with sarcasm and dispice: Yeah, mug ME you old man!! (in english) And I punch him again.

Then I see that the clock on the wall is 19.40 and the concert starts at 20.00. I hurry outside, the bar is on a corner and I have to cross the street to go to the building where the concert is.(actually my old workplace, wich has a small live scene)I know my boyfriend is there and he can pay the cover for me.

A car is coming and I stop to let it pass, but the car stops too, to let me cross. I hesitate, and I don't feel like I can cross, and finally the driver smiles at me and just shred his shoulders and passes me by. The driver is one of the riches buissinessmen in norway, very famous here bacause of his wealth and his bacground as a "simple worker". His passenger is a beautiful blond woman. They both seem so happy and carefree.. I cross the street and wake up...

So what do you think?? I really appreciate your response..

Inanna

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 29 Norway

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Inanna,

An interesting dream which is for me a like a detective trying to determine what guy is at fault in a crime. The answer to the puzzle can be answered easily by you but the mystery of the dream makes me want to try and solve the case without that answer. I'll explain.

The dream states 'you have lost sight of your bf. That may be the theme we need to direct our attention to understand the dream. And we need to determine if this is about your real bf or a symbolic note to your own masculine identity {perhaps both}. The question may be in what way have you lost sight of this masculine aspect.

The pushing, the crowding, the grabbing, the shouting, is this something that occurs often in your relationship with your bf? The impression of the dream being from another time, in the past, may be addressing something that occurred then and may have an association with the present {for instance: have you been in other abusive type relationships that remind you of present experiences with your bf?}. If the dream is addressing your own animus qualities, perhaps past experiences of a negative nature are now being realized and need addressing { to determine if the dream is about your bf or your own masculine attitudes}.

Let me state here your age, 29 years old, gives me cause to ponder which 'masculine' aspect the dream is addressing. Often dreams of younger adults are more directed at ego and current relationships while an older person's dreams would be addressing inner aspects, such as the animus. I often tend to read a dream like I would a book, reading the dream as it happens and not wanting to read the end so to miss the true central theme of the story. I am still trying to determine which aspect the dream is more focused on, your real bf or your own masculine qualities {giving special attention to your age}.

The Friend in Your Dream
The unknown friend most likely represents an aspect of yourself {friends are most likely a positive quality}. This may be an indication the dream is about your won masculine qualities but does not eliminate the possibilities about your real bf.

Are there fights or disagreements between you and your bf? Or are you fighting yourself? It may be over a specific subject and not actually knock down, dragged out fights. It would be something your losing.

Wallets can be symbolic of financial security. Or values/principles you live by. In the dream this has been stolen and you want to retrieve it. The old man? Perhaps a reference to past experiences. The numbers may indicate the past also with the difference between the two times {with difference being 20 minutes, perhaps to do with age?}.

The last paragraph may be telling. The rich man, simple as he is, has a gf who is a 'beautiful' blond {blonds have more fun}. Together they may a happy pair. Perhaps by overcoming {crossing the street} certain conflicts in your relationship with this masculine side you will become that blond.

So the question remains, is the masculine in your dream your boyfriend or aspects of the animus? I believe it is both, with an emphasis on your relationship with your bf. The animus aspects would be about past experiences that may lead you to associate current conflicts with him to past negative experiences. It would also be a statement about your personality, someone who 'values' experience when making decisions {I tend to look for personality traits in dreams since there does seem to be a correlation to such traits in many dreams}.

What do you think?

Gerard

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 58 Murfreesboro, Tn

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I think you're right about this dream adressing both inner and outer aspects. I have a real fear of losing my boyfriend, or maybe losing my dream of him. I have been through an abusive relationship in the past, and me and my boyfriend have had our conflicts lately (not physically though) When we go through these negative experiences, it triggers memories from the past, and I can get really paranoid and start to see my boyfriend as cynical, manipulative and with no sense of empathy. I become afraid that he is really just playing a game with me, and that he is interested in younger more attractive girls.
Of course there has been some real life incidents which has triggered these fears too, but it's been pretty harmless things. I know that my reaction is connected to what happened in the past, but it is really hard to know the difference sometimes. My boyfriend is really kind and warm, and he really loves me.. It's not easy when you don't trust your own ability to jugde, and there's always this inner voice saying the oposite.. " He doesn't love you, he's just like HIM, he's just wearing a mask "

I'd really like to hear some more of your thoughts on the animus-aspect of this dream. I often feel like I'm in this great battle, and have no idea if it's myself, my boyfriend or the bad guy from my past I'm up against.. I've had a lot of dreams of my boyfriend betraying me, and myself actually becoming voilent towards him when finding out. In one dream he transformed into our daughter when I was hitting him, but I didn't realize it and kept on hitting.

I have a lack of positive male figures in my past, and I've seen the negative side of the masculine a few too many times.. Maybe this has resulted in a loss of contact or belief in the positive aspects of the masculine, in my boyfriend, but also in myself?

Any further thougthts from you?

Inanna

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 29 Norway

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Inanna,
As I stated in my interpretation, the personality often shows through in dreams with the underlying cause to that personality being part of what the dream is trying to sort through. A weak masculine aspect may lead to wrong decisions in relationships with the lack of proper strong males in your life being a part of the cause of that. The abusive relationship of the past is definitely something you gage in the present and it may be you are being too abusive on yourself {due to the lack of proper masculine aspects}. Overcoming those deficiencies may hold the key to changing how you make your decisions. Paste experiences can leave deep unconscious marks and along with an undeveloped masculine self the personality is flawed and weak {as you state}. Working on those deficiencies may be what you need to do to help make for a stronger masculine self as well as making better decisions in choosing masculine relationships in the future.

Does this fit with who you are and present circumstances?

Gerard

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 58 Murfreesboro, Tn

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You're absolutely right about me being too abusuve of myself. I'm very demanding towards myself, everything should be perfect, and never is. I'm also an expert in finding ways to blame myself for everything that goes wrong, and it sometimes feels like I've taken over the part of the abuser, constantly putting myself down saying I'm stupid, ugly and worthless.

It's not like this all the time, I'm working hard to get rid of these ideas, but I sometimes feel like I lack the right "power" to fight them with.

How can I learn to recognize the positive masculine aspects of my personality and develop them? I feel it's hard for me to really know what they are since the negative of the masculine has been so present in my past.. I also had another dream this night, that seem to be related to this, I'll make a new post later today.

Once again thank you for your thoughts..

Inanna

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 29 Norway

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Ianna,
The task is to develop your masculine aspects by recognizing what is deficient and working on those. And discovering if possible the underlying causes for those deficient masculine qualities. Why are you so hard on yourself? Was there experiences as a child that first prompted this behavior? Often that is the case, childhood experiences that leaves an imprinting which affects behavior later in life. Did one or both of your parents possess similar behavior patterns? If you can track down the source{s} of your behavior you will ultimately be able to recognize the reasons for them and start to change what needs improvement.
A long road to travel but necessary if you truly seek to grow personally.

A possible path to follow is Jung's 'Individuation Process. It is a self analysis process of discovery. But it does take time and effort. Another remedy is to consult a psychologist {we all could use such help sometime in our lives} if you can afford the cost. Either way it is a psychological endeavor to discover the inner workings of the individual soul. A background article that may help is my page Jungian Psychology.

Gerard

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 58 Murfreesboro, Tn

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I've been seeing a therapist for a while, she is a beautiful wise woman, nearly 70 years old, and she is a specialist in child psychology. She has helped me to reveal some of the patterns that go back to my childhood. One of the patterns seem to go way back on my mother's side; " whatever you do you're never good enough" is the mantra passed on here, and this message seems to be especially strong from mother to daughter.

My father had it even worse when he was a child. His parents were nazi sympathisers and he grew up with a voilent uncle and aunt as his parents were imprisoned after WW2. He was later forced by his parents to become a carpenter although his real dream was to become an actor. He later became an alcoholic.

My parents divorced when I was three, and my father has been a taboo since then, we didn't talk about him and he was no longer a part of our lives. This makes it difficult to get access to the roots of my problems, since I don't remember much about him.

Always when I dream of the house we lived in then, it is something horrible in the basement. And lately, I've had several dreams about different buildings where there is some nazi activity in the basement. E.g a crayzy nazi doctor experimenting on women, or a storage for clothes owned by people killed in concentretin camps.

I'm sorry if I'm going a bit crazy here, writing about all these things, but my dreams have always been so important to me, and I've always felt they are this secret language which I'm meant to learn..

Inanna

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 29 Norway

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Ianna,
I always try to approach the subject of counseling in a delicate manner since some believe it to be 'a curse'. We all have issues that could use counseling at some time in our lives.

The patterns of behavior are one aspect that dreams often address. Jung used dreams prominently in his practice and it proved very successful. I for one believe the language of dreams is no longer a mystery due to Jung's pioneering work. There is a lot of evidence of that being true within the many posted dreams and interpretations at this Dream Forum. An intuitive mind along with a good education in Jungian psyche goes a long way to explaining dreams.

I also believe that much of who we are and the imbalance in most lives can be traced to childhood. If you find the underling cause you can better understand how to address the inner conflicts that bring about turmoil in adulthood. Looking at my own life's experience helped me understand that, and help solve many of those aspects that were out of balance. What is required of the patient is the discipline to confront the source{s} of their maladies and stay the course when things {psychologically} get rough. It is a process of understanding and not a cure always remedied by medication that brings about the best results {medications are important though for many}. You are wise to choose a child psychologist. She surely has a better understanding of the process of development and how childhood experiences affects who we become. Does she ever use dreams in her therapy? You may want to discuss the possibilities if she has any experience in Jungian psyche.

Best of luck. You are doing what you need to do. You are always welcomed to post your dreams to help you better understand them, and yourself.

Gerard

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 58 Murfreesboro, Tn

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Hi Inanna,

I hope it's okay if I offer a couple of insights too -- I thought your dream was really interesting...

I wonder if your stolen wallet might represent some kind of (masculine) power that is stolen from you? You mention that your boyfriend can pay the cover for you. Yet you wanted to pay for yourself (and him and his friend?)...

In fact, you even brought up "power" in one of your comments:

"It's not like this all the time, I'm working hard to get rid of these ideas, but I sometimes feel like I lack the right "power" to fight them with."

So it appears that you are well aware of the negative masculine influences in you... the fighting could be a reflection of (you) fighting some aspect of your negative animus that keeps stealing your power (thereby blocking your positive animus?). Also, a lot of times in relationships, we expect our partners to carry our anima/animus for us. Yet, in order to be healthy, fully integrated human beings, we need to realize we have those same feminine or masculine aspects inside of us -- and we need to use them.

You asked:

"How can I learn to recognize the positive masculine aspects of my personality and develop them? I feel it's hard for me to really know what they are since the negative of the masculine has been so present in my past.. I also had another dream this night, that seem to be related to this, I'll make a new post later today."

It might be helpful to break out some examples of both negative and positive masculine aspects to help you better differentiate between the two:

Negative animus: hot, out of control, rage, aggression, fighting, physical confrontation, short-fused.

Positive animus: cool, calm, collected, assertive, independent, taking initiative, courageous, firm, decisive, self-confident, goal-oriented, solution-oriented, action-oriented.

Sometimes it helps just to study the contrasts and identify when they are at work inside you... I know it's difficult to get past those natural reactions of rage, fighting, etc.

Another thought is to try some active imagination with male figures in your dream... in other words, go back consciously into your dream and have a conversation with the guy who stole your wallet. Instead of physically fighting him though, maybe you could work on accessing/using your positive animus aspects during the conversation... Many times, a raging character in dreams has some desire to express himself in some way...

Anyway, hopefully some of that helps... good luck!

Steve

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 46

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Steve,
Thank you for your comment, it was really helpful.
I recognize the negative aspects of the animus in my behavior; this short-fused, out-of control anger that leads me to say and do things I regret. I don't get physically voilent, thank god, but in dreams it happens alot.

I also recognize the positive aspects you mentioned as traits I long to posess, and I feel they are the tools I need to achieve my goals. I have such a desire to become a professional singer, but I think the negative animus has been blocking my progress for a while. It has also manifested in real life, with me attracting the wrong people. I ended up in a band with some guys who were talking very negative about women and one of them used to brag about how he took advantage of girls. Of course they wanted to play very masculine rock, and after a while stopped listening to my ideas of trying to balance it out with more melodic feminine parts. My whole idea of the process of making music is this contrast beeing the key. In the end I just had to quit.

I'm looking for new people to work with, and I've decided that I need to take control and take on the leader role so I can provide myself the right creative environnement. To do that I need to reunite with my positive animus on all levels of my life, and I know it can be done, because when I'm allowed to express myself freely through singing I feel connected with it.

It was also an interesting idea to try to have a conversation with my agressive dream figures. I've experienced to feel furious anger myself when I'm feeling that I'm not beeing heard. So I'll try that!

And thank you both Steven and Gerard for giving me this positive experience of the masculine by giving me attention and advice. That's a manifestation that tells me I'm going somewhere too

Inanna

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 29 Norway

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