My wife and I are riding in a vehicle driven by Rachel my sister in law, (she's older than me and intelligent and christian). She takes a shortcut through some mountain road and as we arrive in a valley I realize we are suprisingly at our destination. Then we go straight up a steep hill and park. She parks upside down and I have trouble figuring out how to get out of the vehicle. We go into a house where there is a pool. This place I know is part of a bigger house that may belong to Paul, a multi-millionaire friend of theirs. I express this to Rachel and she tells me to be quiet, so as not to attract his attention.

My sister-in-law jumps in, as she does she says "what time is it...." and makes a complaining sound. She does this as if it were something I would say and shows to me that she dislikes that part of my behavior.

I'm in my underwear and notice there is a younger teenage female there.

There is a karoke going on and people are coaxing a hillbilly kind of guy to get up and sing.

A young woman is on the stage trying to find her pitch to sing a song. After some moments I notice it is a song from Roger Waters' album amused to death. I am in a small audience and start to sing the pithy cynical lyrics, she begins to sing also.

Now in the kitchen of the house or living room looking at a framed picture that has a caption saying "good memories". It is a picture of me sitting on a porch smiling, I look and see that my head becomes a bunch of grapes.

My dad's voice comes in and says what a mess those grapes become when they go bad, and I see the grapes whither and peel off of an outside fireplace that in real life my brother makes, and he decorates them with cutout steel fish. The grapes in the dream are like steel cutouts before they peel off.

I have a guitar and am playing it. Paul comes into the room and I say hi boss.

...Paul may be a prefigure of the self that is a mixture of ego and unconscoius, male and female, yet he still retains a certain amount of male bias in that Rachel was trying to keep the pool free from his discriminating presence. My dad seems to represent my more ego dominated, habitually consciousness dominated version of Paul.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 33

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Sam,
Just as with your previous dream post {Weird Dream} this dream is full of feminine characters. It is a 'related' feminine aspect that is driving the car {you}. The destination is through a mountain {often symbolizes barriers that must be crossed or overcome}. You are taking a shortcut to the 'valley' {greater promises-the christian seeking the 'valley' of promise}. But there is the up-side down aspect to taking this route {short cut}. This may suggest inner conflicts}. Going inside may represent going 'inward'. There you find a rich masculine aspect. But the feminine side of you does not want to draw attention to this fact.

"She does this as if it were something I would say" would suggest she is you. What qualities does she possess that are attractive to you? What behavior in your waking life does she not like?

Being in your underwear may represent exposing something about your 'private' self. The younger teenage girl may be what this aspect is wishing to expose. Inner feelings that have been hidden?

You feel awkward, perhaps out of place, in certain masculine situations.

You are singing the same song as the young female. Perhaps the teenager and this young women are focusing on 'developing' feminine aspects. Or developing feelings toward younger females.

Is there some aspect of your life that has left it in a mess? The head becoming grapes may be addressing aspects that have gone 'bad'. The good memories may be 'good' to the senses but were bad to your life.

Paul may be your 'inner' boss'. Playing a guitar may represent passions or emotions. Perhaps some emotional aspect is now the 'boss' that is in control of your life at the moment.

Read over what I have stated and see where it may fit in with your waking life. Remember there is a strong 'attraction' to the feminine aspects. Exposing those 'private' feelings may be a part of what the dream is focusing on. What is it about Rachael that may play an important role?

Going back to your previous dream post, there seems to be some type of childhood wounds that are in need of healing. That too has to do with 'feminine' aspects. Perhaps those experiences are a stimulus for your actions in the present. In this dream your car is being driven by 'Rachel'. Is she in control of some aspect of your life? Or some aspects she possesses you relate to that could be in control? My sense is your dreams are addressing inner issues having to do with the past but also outer experiences that are more recent that are related to that past. Can you tie it all together?

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 60 Murfreesboro, Tn

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Thanks you Jerry, that's a tough one I will try, I'm not used to such comprehensive re-appraisals. There is much work to be done. I'm going need to read what you said a third time. My sister in law is mature in a vital kind of way, balanced and impressive, despite my non-envy of her christian conservative world-view. In the pool, she seems comfortable with the emotions, emotionally mature, rational with her feelings. She may be criticizing my obsession with time and my busy work schedule that sometimes tests my control and limits, and aptitude, adaptation. In this case, it might mean that a mature feeling function would find little to fear in a busy delivery day.

This then leads to the bigger picture of myself seeking a vital expression or relationship to the people and world around me. There is my hillbilly past that plays a shadow role that from time to time becomes more active in my life even today. I used to chew tobacco regularly, and could take refuge from certain worldly functions by playing the role of the abrasive country laborer rebel. This is largely what my brother is, who is 11 years older, yet he is more extroved in general.

Part of my life is still this kind of person, which seemingly runs counter to my work life which is more professional, customer service oriented. I cannot seem to stay completely away from chew tobacco, as my brother and a couple coworker friends chew it. I get a chew from someone after a month or a couple weeks of not chewing. This tends to revitalize a conflict of interests, and I feel guilty. What this shadow wants I don't know, I doubt it wants just chew and younger females.

I've had several dreams about younger females singing before people. This speaks something of my recent interest in being more involved with the group or community, yet I have a certain terror of it too. Perhaps, the cynical Roger Waters song may express that I should not be afraid to express my true feelings in certain situations where I want to be known and understood, instead of resorting to convention and simplistic attitude. Or perhaps it is a dark feeling complex seeking attention from my inferior repressed area. Both could be understood together possibly...

With my guitar, here I attempt to identify with the expressive creative vital energy, and seek guidance or intuition in Paul, who is perhaps a synthesis or an as yet unrealized aspect of my future development.

Here may be my certain lack of understanding,

The "good memories" picture is usually a concept seeking attention or solidification. In it I see myself, sitting in a state of solidarity or asthetic appreciation. Possibly it is drunkenness, but with an alloyed mixture with reflection or emotion. The grapes I thought initially as something healthy and organic, as psychic growth. Yet you interpreted them as being only in the head region and turning bad as intoxication would turn to a hangover. Which corresponds to my relationship with Paul and Rachel and my brother and their group of ten or twenty friends: a relationship largely supported by alcohol and a middle to upper class(to wealthy in Paul and his wife's case) attitude which is by most appearances functional and healthy.

It being the last scene in the dream, perhaps I'm not understanding it because it is pointing to something in the future. It presents itself perhaps superficially as a moral battle, and mixed with feeling and expression issues. My dad is privately critical of my brothers somewhat profligate behavior, and I play out a moral conflict inside me, where I feel a slight obligation to both of them, and yet feel weak like Neitsche's "pale criminal," who cannot accept his instincts and impulses, and repents his own nature. jung says, he's like a dog who repents what he eats, he can't even be a decent dog. And yet I hear the words that go like, all opposites are of god, and when we bend to this burden, we become a vessel filled with divine conflict.

What "memory" this picture is addressing I need to consider more carefully. It does seem to want to make a lasting point, in that it is framed on the wall. Perhaps a more durable moral basis for a later assimilation of the darker nature is being suggested. Oh boy.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 33

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Sam,
Thanks for the feed back about your personal life. It does shed light on the dream and your personality, which is often the focus of the dream when there is conflict about who you really are. It could be the conflict of your professional life and that true inner self which is colliding in your dreams {which would be usual since dreams reflect our emotional conflicts and try and help resolve them}. As I stated in both your dream posts there are strong feminine images in both which suggests a feminine aspect {your anima may be the true focus of the dreams. Being who you really are {the true inner self} would be a feminine quality seeking its rightful place. In your second dream there is this statement, 'She parks upside down and I have trouble figuring out how to get out of the vehicle'. That could that true self trying to escape the trappings of the social world {your professional job}. In fact the whole of the images of female characters may be addressing that sole issue of 'being who you really are'. The desire to involved with younger people may be symbolic a developing the traits to be able to do so. That would be a developing feminine quality, symbolic of a younger females. It is addressing an inner aspect and not a literal younger female {although younger females would be part of that group you wish to be involved with}. Developing feminine qualities would be the message behind the symbols.

Being understood is a very strong human desire. Few of us feel completely understood and with that there is always a doubt without the self as to its wholeness and whether we are accepted by ourselves as well as others. Getting past the acceptance of oneself is often the great barrier to being accepted by others. And when we have trouble being who we really are {the tobacco chewer vs the professional}, learning to accept oneself can be nearly impossible. Your problem may be both internal and external with the internal aspect being the true barrier.

On a personal note
As a youth and young teen I lived an introverted life because of my economic status {being poor and feeling less than others my age} when in fact I am a true extrovert. It was only after I was brought out of that trance {an African American school teacher was my savior} that was able to become the positive person I am today. Finding the true self and living from that.

This is common among most of us and usually begins with childhood experiences due to a lack of proper love and acceptance by one or both parents. Even those who grow up in well to do families have such problems since proper nurturing is not only an economic issue but an emotional one as well. As we age those internal conflicts remain within the psyche and often influence who we become and our actions later in life. Dreams reveal these internal conflicts with a desire {a regulatory function of nature much like the immune system of the body} to help resolve the emotional conflicts. Jung's identification of the different aspects which are a part of all human psyches helps us to understand the internal controls that are at play within the unconscious {the combination of these inherent qualities in all individuals is what Jung called the 'collective unconscious'}. Identifying the conflicts is the first step in resolving the emotional issues that are in conflict. Only then can there be a healing of the outer conflicts, by exposing the underlying causes of the outer state of being.

Another aspect of the females in your dream could be that 'creative' self wishing to become a part of the outer life. The guitar is a creative instrument. Creativity is a feminine aspect {as is spirituality}. It could be this is an unrealized aspect that has yet to present itself in a major way in your life.

As for your summary. I will focus on the 'future' aspects you mentioned. That future in my estimation involves to a great degree being your true self. Not a prediction of what will happen but a prognosis of what needs to happen. The vessel that you seek is one of the inner self, discovering who that true person is and living within those confines. But the hero of myth comes back from his long journey of self discovery only to find that social duty is the true dragon that must be slain {in order to live an original life}. Your professional job is a part of your life but if it is not who you really are it can not and should not be the controlling entity. At least not for your future were with age the focus will be more on the inner self and less on the material world. Perhaps at 33, close to that beginning stage of the mid-life thing, you are already looking toward that future, and turning inward. If you listen to your soul and begin to resolve whatever internal emotional conflicts you have at the age of 33, when you get to my age of 60 you will have put all those negatives behind you and will be able to focus on the creative aspect. And turn more to the spiritual aspect as opposed to the ego driven world of materialism {the death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross is metaphor of what needs to happen to the individual soul....a death to the ego centered self and a resurrection to the spiritual controlled life}.

You seem to have a good sense of where you are at this stage of your life. I suggest more reading of Jungian philosophy, especially his Individuation Process, a self discovery path that led me out of my internal conflicts and to my great interest in dreams and development my website Myths-Dreams-Symbols. This is the creative aspect of which I spoke. Not everyone can benefit from this philosophy of self discovery but those who can, and you seem to be a prime candidate to do so, more often than not discover not only their true self but the creative and spiritual identity as well. Look into it and see if you feel it has merit in your search and life's journey. We all are heroes when we take that great adventure of inner self discovery since {in my way of thinking} it is the inner journey that eventually defines the outer journey. In the end it is a psychological journey and the physical journey is defined by the emotions that control the life.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 60 Murfreesboro, Tn

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'She parks upside down and I have trouble figuring out how to get out of the vehicle'.

That impressed me much like you noted it. On waking relflection, I felt that I must be experiencing the feeling center as something polarly opposed to my primary conscious functioning. The good thing is that it is actively present and has at least a minimal functional role.

I'm reading a Marie Louise Von Franz book I ran across, Psychotherapy. She outlines the personality types, something I may have overlooked in reading jung. I am assuming that I am introverted and have an inferior feeling aspect. She says that a thinking type sometimes must sit for a long time before he-she can really say how they feel. Jung mentioned that his emotions were a sort of posession, and that he even suspected witchcraft at one point. He said that beneath this posession were a person's real feelings. I've been trying to "experience" or "feel" my feelings lately. I don't know if it's a correct application of Franz and jung. It seems to get me more engaged with them, kind of like meditating on sounds you hear, but instead this is meditating on the feelings you feel. I think I have a bad habit of having a strong feeling and then trying to drown it out with any ego activity, even non-verbal meditation (sounds or silent-activity). I tend to feel not as threatened by these feelings, which can often become very uncomfortable to me. I have also sensed a slightly therapeutic feeling of contrition and creeping solidarity when I grasp these feelings and really try to experience them instead of mask them over. Thank You



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Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 33

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