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mistaken identity

hi all,

i have a colleague who i feel uncomfortable with. Here is a dream about her.

she walks into a classroom late, after we had all been complaining about her to a female teacher, and i was so satisfied that others didn't like her either. i complained that she rejected the fact that i was a national minority, and denied that i am a religious minority.

she sat far on the left side and her chair was floating in the air. she was wearing pink and brown and i was remembering how ugly that is.

then i looked at my arms and hands and they changed into hers, the color changed to be like hers and i was shocked.

this is the same person i dreamt of before as being the pres. daughter and subordinate. the teacher changed into a male and put his notes on my desk.

then suddenly there was a huge mosque and the the left of it was the 'west' and the right was the 'east' i was on the right, but it was facing east, and north was left, 'west' and south was right, 'the east', as in oriental vs occidental as if the world were divided into two.

i know i don't like her in real life and am projecting but she really gets under my skin and my friends told me am a little obsessed. I always ask myself why she bothers me so, i was thinking about it last night before sleeping.

she hurt me alot in the past.

thanks

may

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 36/Europe

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

Re: mistaken identity

May,
Interesting dream. I do want to comment on it but will have to do so later in the day. The symbols of 'right and left' and 'East and West' is interesting. I will have to focus my attention to those symbolic values. They often tend to have more meaning than we sometimes realize.

Gerard

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 56 Murfreesboro, Tn.

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Male

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

Re: mistaken identity

May,
There seems to be two aspects to this dream. One stimulated by the woman you feel uncomfortable with, another that may involve the spiritual self. I'll address them both separately, and after doing so try to understand what relationship they may have to each other, if any.

There are a lot of opposites in this dream. I sense inner conflicts. Does this person, woman in your class possess many of the same qualities that you possess? You may not need to project anything on her, she may possess that projection already. Perhaps this is what makes you feel so uncomfortable.
The dream points to unrealized unconscious contents {she walks into a classroom late}

What makes me believe this person may be much like yourself, and something you may not wish to acknowledge or have yet to realize, is the dream statement
then i looked at my arms and hands and they changed into hers, the color changed to be like hers and i was shocked.

There is also two cases of submission, or perceived submission or inferior position.
being the pres. daughter and subordinate and the teacher {female}changed into a male.



One possibility to the above interpretation is this person could be an opposite of yourself {instead of being like you} and something about that in her threatens you. If the above doesn't fit then consider this possibility. But I believe my original impressions may best fit.


There seems to be conflicts, or confusion in the spiritual aspect {as if the world were divided into two}. Here your national minority may be applicable. Is there any relationships here to your 'minority'. Do you recognize any connections of this aspect to the first?

Are you a minority? What nationality, or minority if applicable, is the colleague you feel uncomfortable with? Could there be an issue related to some aspect of that?



One benefit to interpreting dreams in the morning hours, as I prefer to do, is I tend to have a better intuitive feel for a dream, and go with that. If the thinking process gets too involved in the interpretation there can be a loss of clarity. Fortunately I can usually go back to breaking symbols down and get a relatively correct impression of the dream. I started out with a good intuitive impression but I know I've let my thinking self get involve with this dream {its 8PM}. But I believe you will recognize any connections that are relevant in the interpretation to your life.

Gerard

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 56 Murfreesboro, Tn.

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Male

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

Re: mistaken identity

Hi Gerard,

Thank you for your interpretation. I am sure it is correct. I will share my thoughts about this colleague. When I first knew we would be in the same program together I was very friendly with her and offered my support. After that she refused to answer my phone calls so I gave up on her. In the program she was angry I didn't call her to tell her good morning. (A bit of a strange expectation esp when she wasn't answering my calls.)

Several months after that she made a personal comment which hurt me. I am a dual national and in both cases, ironically, a national minority. I am proud of my cultural identities. She told me I am one and not the other as if she has the right to dictate. In one of my cultural identities, my ethnic group is oppressed by hers. She is also a minority in a sense, but doesn't identify with her nation or her minority status, but is confused. I told her I accept both my identities and I accept her and that we have a lot in common.

I am already aware that she and I are alike and I tried to be her friend but she is the one who rejected me, so I think that the dream is also showing me that she was throwing projections on to me.

She has made a lot of judgements about me yet, she says I judged her when I am the one who has been accepting. She has made incorrect statements in the past regarding academic issues and I have had the courage to provide facts, I mean facts, not opinion to the contrary. In my program opinions are only opinions and when I argue a point, I bring in facts, and this was not to her liking.

I do agree that she could represent shadow aspects of me that I haven't integrated. I see very negative traits in her, like immaturity, weak ego, judgementalness, and i feel very threatened by her, because of her comments denying my ethnicity. My ethnicity for God's sake! what right does she have to say I am not a member of a certain group just because its her opinion. That really hurt me. So, with all these negative traits I see in her, maybe I have them too to a degree, but I have been working so hard on myself and my shadow I am not sure. I think maybe it might be the opposite, that her projections on to me are getting to me..... I am not sure, but she really has hurt me. It was only after I had this dream and realized that maybe she was projecting on to me I felt better.

Also, the pain of being a member of an ethnic group that her group has historically and brutally oppressed and this can be documented, and then having her deny my ethnicity, isn't that cruel? Isn't that like a double whammy? Also her English is not developed yet she got higher grades on an assignment and most of our colleagues say she cheated and copied it. In class, she has answered to professors using statements that I made in previous classes, things she copies in her notes and repeates back. She also has radical political ideas and says things that are shocking, like some people think that terrorists are using dialouge. I am a pacifist and I believe that what we put out in the universe comes back and that Ghandi knew alot more about non-violent resistence than this person. This person is a member of an ethnic group that is guilty of a lot of oppression and has also been victimized and so her lack of awareness and insensitivity has really hurt me, as well as the fact that she is cheating rather than earning her success.


So, I know my dream is helping me cope with all this. I feel like no one around me really understands how much she hurt me and how annoying she is, for her lack of sensitivity and dishonesty.

I also feel intimidated by her.

And I'm usually not worried what people think of me or my ideas, to the point of fear, I mean even on this board I have been courageous and put forth from my heart what i have been moved to think or feel, so its not like me to be intimidated.

I think this dream helped me feel better, and I do realize that I am very similar to her, but I am the one who told her that, and she rejected that and tried to emphasize the differences between us, as well as the ethnic issue. I am the one who saw us as one. I could be more specific about the counties and groups involved but i think i got the point across.

So, I'm not sure if I'm the one projecting, maybe it hurt this time cause she is the one projecting unfairly on me?

So, the cultural aspect has everythign to do with this, as I stuggle to find my place in the world, she comes along and says basically, I do not exist. That really hurt. I prefer to see myself as a member of several different groups, and my ethnic origins are only one, and no one has the right to deny what ethnictiy I am. She said its because i lived in an other place and had an accent, but so what, would that ever negate a persons ancestry or ethnic origins?

That is my birthright,a nd my cultural heritage.

So, it still really bothers me, and i know its partly because i feel unsure of my cultural identity because i am caught in the middle of several cultures who are at times in the outer world in conflict but who i try to embrace equally and cherish equally.

So, what do think of my dream now with all this background? and I'm sure your interpretation is right on, I just have some raw feelings and am not yet able to apply the dream analysis to how i feel about this person and my own cultural identity

thanks Gerard,
May

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 36 Europe

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? yes

Re: mistaken identity

Also,

yesterday in class i gave an example of a famous case that happened in 'her' country and she denied it, though it is documented all over news and papers, just to invalidate anything i say about 'her' country. She is also a member of an oppressed social group in that country, she has darker skin and there is a lot of racial discrimination. In the dream I looked down and my forearms were hers....am I being put in some sort of one day subordinante, one day oppressive role, vis a vis her


then of course is the beauty of the black madonna, i looked at my arms in the dream and I was starting to look like her....am i contacting an archetypal force that can further ground me deeper into life and my self?

thanks
May

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 36 Europe

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? yes

Re: mistaken identity

May,
From your post there seems to be an identification with this woman as she is, and as you may have once been in your past {She is also a minority in a sense, but doesn't identify with her nation or her minority status, but is confused}. The two of you are a lot alike but she also represents what you were and what she can not accept. The intimidation may stem from not having completely addressed these conflicts within yourself. Or perhaps better yet the ongoing negative conflicts of being yourself in a world that judges people for the color of their skin or their belief system. Being a minority exposes you to continuing discrimination, no matter how well you have accepted who you are.

So, it still really bothers me, and i know its partly because i feel unsure of my cultural identity because i am caught in the middle of several cultures who are at times in the outer world in conflict but who i try to embrace equally and cherish equally.

Therein may be the real conflict. She reminds you of those insecurities about yourself. And since she is also a minority and has not accepted that fact about herself, she represents the worst of the worst and only complicates your desire to express your true identity, and heritage.

I was in McDonalds yesterday for my morning coffee when I overheard a Native American man speaking with another man about his {Native American} heritage and how proud he was to be who he is. He had two young daughters with him {neither of which looked as if they were of Native American heritage}. I couldn't resist in speaking with him about his heritage {invoking Joseph Campbell's great interest in Native American mythology}. But when he spoke of his heritage specifically the oldest daughter {about 9-10} acted as if she didn't know what he was talking about. There was this disconnect and I know he wished for his daughters to embrace their heritage but society today offers up so many temporal substitutes to a young mind. I can only image your own conflicts of heritage but I see what this Native American must confront in his own children as being relative to what minorities must confront every day of their lives. In a perfect world there are no divisions. In an imperfect world there are just too many.

The only true Americans are Native Americans. The rest of us are immigrants. Yet we make believe we are more important. It seems that when the white man pushes his belief system {especially religious beliefs} on the native population, that whole system starts to fall apart. This is why it is so important for those who do identify with their true ancestry to stay the course, be that person you truly are. Anything less will cause your own system of beliefs to fall apart. That would be giving way to a personality just like the woman in your dream, and the real life woman you have conflicts with. You can't go back on a lie when the truth is so evident.

Gerard

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 56 Murfreesboro, Tn.

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Male

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

Re: mistaken identity

Thank you so much Gerarld,

You are right on the money!

Also, I thought of something else, when she walked into class in my dream, her chair was floating in the air somehow, ungrounded. In real life, I always sit on the left side......

so there is something ungrounded about me...its true what you wrote...i have a lot of work to do yet, even though i have come a long way

thank you!

May

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 36 Europe

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? yes


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