I have a recurring dream that I don't understand.

In these dreams I have a college room (college=hall of residence) that I don't/can't live in. I have to make it look as though the room is lived in so that I don't lose it.

The college changes...earlier it was a very old-fashioned wooden college, lots of long corridors and stairs. A few nights ago it was a modern college. I'm keeping the room dusted to trick the maids that I am living there (else they will report the room as empty and I'll lose it) but I somewhat resent the time this takes.

It is never clear in the dream where exactly I am living nor why I want to keep this room.

Associations and feelings: I can't live there because it is "too small", but if I lose it, I can't go back.
I associate college rooms with loneliness and coping with other people whose concerns are "small".

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elizabeth,
The simple approach to understanding your recurring dream is to look at the room as some aspect in your life that you are not utilizing but must keep the appearances that you are. It may be some part of you that you can not tolerate, something from your past {old-fashioned wooden college} yet still persists today {modern college}. College's are places of higher leaning and this may be something you need/are to learn more about {yourself}. It may be you are holding on to something, perhaps something that does make you feel lonely or depressed. Not be able to go back may be you are not wanting to address certain issues in your life that cause the loneliness.

Gerard

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Thank you Gerard, for replying so quickly, you've given me something to think about. I've been interpreting my own dreams for some years and usually I "get the message", but not for this one. I never thought about whether it might be about something I was only giving the appearance of using. Interestingly when I think back to my time living in college I feel really angry but it's all so repressed I only feel the emotion and not what it is about. If I get any further insight I'll let you know.

Usually dreaming about a room is a dream about an aspect of yourself, but I'm not sure about this one, because I don't see how you can lose a part of yourself. But maybe you can lose a talent or a facility....use it or lose it, right?

Thanks again

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elisabth,

The part that is lost is an aspect of your psyche. But it is only lost as long as you keep it repressed. Consciously you may be living your life as if this thing isn't there. That is the appearance.


Unconsciously, where the truth lives, this 'emotional thing' remains beneath the surface, incubating, until something triggers a need to finally acknowledge it. Or you use therapy to facilitate a healing. The healing process will only begin after you acknowledge the repressed emotional conflict.
Jung's Individuation Process is a great tool in that healing.

The other alternative is to keep it repressed and bet on it not rising from the depths in a frightful and perhaps disastrous consequences.

Interestingly when I think back to my time living in college I feel really angry but it's all so repressed I only feel the emotion and not what it is about. If I get any further insight I'll let you know.

From this statement we can see the dream address the time frame of the emotional event. Dreams often do that. The room being too small may be the emotional conflict squeezing the unconscious to where it finally must let go the contents so to become conscious. If you don't, and it is a serious conflict, you could go 'MAD !!!

A little levity. This is deep stuff.

The room in your dream holds whatever is being repressed. On the outside you are living one life, the appearance of normality. But on the inside, that is where the truth lies, and it must be let out at some junction. Very often that occurs at Mid-life.

If you are being your true self in your waking life you will be confused as to that self that provides true balance and harmony in life. There is where the lack of clarity comes from {It is never clear in the dream where exactly I am living".

And the need to acknowledge these repressed experiences and emotions {nor why I want to keep this room}.

This is where the dream plays its role. To inform you of these repressed issues, and to get you to acknowledge, and confront them. This is the therapeutic value of dreams.

Most anyone can learn to understand their dreams, and themselves. Jung, {and to a lesser extent Freud, Adler and a few others} have provided the brain trust and decoded the language patterns. Joseph Campbell is the master at symbol and metaphor, and a must read to better understand the very 'deep' Jung.

Add a good intuitive instinct {a feminine aspect}, well, reading dreams are not as difficult as they once were. More often than not the insights {by myself, Stephen and other Forum contributors} to the posted dreams, if not the interpretations, provide enough 'clues' for the dreamer to understand and/or realize what the dream is most likely addressing.
Following Jung's lead and his psychology, there is little more than practical experience in dream interpretation needed to understand most dreams. I first began interpreting dreams in 1998. My forum has been online since 2000.

Whether does the anger come from?

Gerard

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Thanks Gerard! I'm quite well read in Jung's ideas, they definitely work for me. I had a huge breakthrough experience several years ago and since then feel I'm slowly learning about reality (as opposed to suffering endlessly in my private movie that existed only as a mental construction in my head and that only I could see). I guess there will always be dark corners needing elucidation and resolution that bubble up when I can handle them finally.

I have tried using active imagination, imagining myself in the dream college room, which in fact is empty, and got a panic attack. Also mentally reviewed my old real-life college room. Gosh that was a difficult time; the details are not suitable for airing on a public website, but I can't point to a single area of my life then that was not fraught. Basically, I retreated into the cool clear waters of mathematics, where right and wrong is not a matter of opinion nor subject to manipulation and hypocrisy, unlike what I was observing in other subjects and the whole rest of my life.

of course, the people I was dealing with then were all in their own private movies, and there's no point blaming them particularly. I just wish I knew then what I know now and could have dealt with it all so much better, defended myself more effectively, and enjoyed myself a bit more.

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well I think I "get" this dream now. The empty college room is the little box with my name on it that I finally managed to get out of. I have a panic attack at the thought of having to live in it again. I don't know where I live because the centre, the Self, is below the level of consciousness. (I just saw that in the Joseph Campbell movie you just posted. Gosh he speaks so clearly, wow.)

Just as you said, Gerard, I'm keeping this persona around but not using it, because I still have a job to do to earn money but more and more I'm resenting it. The image of the false self updates itself as my career progresses. (No prizes for guessing my career is a college professor!!)

Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to talk this through and for your thoughts, it's greatly appreciated.

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elizabeth,
It is great to know there is resolution to your dream. Often it takes some great thought but it will come to you eventually. I and the other Forum contributors try to help with that task using what we have learned from Jung.

The best person to interpret your dreams is you. If I or anyone can help you 'think it through' then we have done our job. The remaining task is left up to you. When you begin to see aspects of the dream, and yourself, that were unclear then the dream begins to make sense. It reflects your true self, something that is often hidden, ignored or just simply isn't understood until you begin to put the pieces of the puzzle {the dream} together.

Gerard

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