Dear Jerry,

Thank you so much for your extensive reply.Yes you are right, your analysis already has made my issues much more clear than therapy has done until now but this is also because we have been focusing the therapy more to removing trauma and big stresses out of memories by using an intervention method called ‘EMDR-therapy’. It basically is an intervention for post traumatic stress disorder. It works very well but it leaves less time to really zoom in into these issues you and me have been talking about. Of course the relationship with my parents has been discussed a lot, also because the EMDR wouldn’t work if we didn’t try to specify and contextualize the abusive situations that were traumatic for me as much as we can. Also we have been talking a lot about my future and about my former drug abuse in relation to the therapy as well as the uncommom, physical manner the trauma has been imprinted in my psyche. The little time we have been focusing on the emotional damage that has been done and how it affects my actions and thoughts, we did notice the fact that I have some major tendencies/motivators that are rooted in the expectations I had as a child and how these weren’t met. Your Jungian point of view really has widened my understanding of them (like where these expectations come from), as well put emphasis on the importance of these matters to be explored and discussed much more in further therapy. I thank you for that.

I think you were right also about me putting too much attention to the exact interpretation of all of the symbols rather than seeing the dream ‘as a part of my unbalanced psyche’. Still, I am glad that you took the time to talk more about it because it did made things much more clear and made pieces fall more in place. I think a huge part of my problems (with self-esteem for example) are rooted in a dualistic dynamic of negative and positive. I am very dualistic person. I can have extreme positive and extreme negative thoughts about myself (which affect my self esteem). You asked me also if the melodrama still was a part of my conscious adult behavior. I guess it is, but in a different way. I think it now has found a way in how I look at things and how I address them in my mind. For example, my vocabulary includes a lot of superlatives and exaggerations. Things are always ‘the best’, ‘the worst’, ‘totally’, ‘completely’ and ‘everything’. The acting out really doesn’t occur anymore since I realized that I wasn’t normal behavior. But in my mind and inner dialogue it still exists.

I am also glad that you were able to explain more on the emotional conflictual state my mind is in and how the dream relates to that. As I said I have been struggling with dualism a lot. I am a kind of guy that always wants to be the best, probably because I wasn’t wanted as a child. But this also means that I have a hard time dealing with what Jung called ‘the shadow’ (haha I also picked up a thing or two). I find it very hard to deal with the bad, ugly and even evil parts in me. Obviously I too posses them, maybe even more than others because of the damage that has been done, but I still don’t really know how to deal with them or how to healthy cultivate them without me feeling like ‘I’m not doing/being the best good person I can be’. It’s all pretty entangled. You really don’t have to try to help me with this, since I think it’s not wise to be involved in two concurrent therapies (my doctor and therapist really emphasized on this, especially because I’m a kind of guy that would try to be in three therapies at the same time just to make sure he was trying the hardest). I am telling you this though for the sake of the knowledge and for your further work. Of course, I am very impressed about that and want to help you become even better in it!

What I take with me from this contact is a very valuable revaluation of the things that are important for me to address in therapy. The mother/child expectations dynamic, the melodramatic tendencies and the way this inhibits my performance in life and in dancing. There probably is much more. I can now write many more tendencies I have that I find “weird”. Now I know even more that I have to deal with all of them in therapy. Obviously, I also learned a lot about dreams and their power. I will definitely call on their power again and let you analyze my dreams again whenever I have a dream I think is important to share. I might even consider letting this be the next therapy I want to have. In addition, this contact has made much clearer the inter-connectness of all the different “scars” in me and how these might stem all from this one specific dynamic/trauma/experience. I am really grateful for this. For now, good luck with your cat. I wish you strength.

Greetings,

Fabian

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 24/male/The Netherlands, Europe

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Fabian,
Thank you for the response and willingness to open up about your life. I am delighted to know I was able to clarify those aspects of my analysis/interpretation you had questions of since one goal in my interpretations is to be as clear and simple in my wording as possible. Your understanding of my analysis is as important as the analysis.

Being clear and simple is important. Just as Joseph Campbell articulated in simpler terms the often very difficult language of Carl Jung, my intent is to make even more clear/understandable Jungian concepts in my analysis of dreams. Although I have no formal education in psychology, let alone Jungian psyche, I do possess an 'intuitive' understanding of his rational. Through many years of working with dreams {my Dream Forum is a catalog of my dream work} I have learned to 'read' dreams to the extent most all my interpretations have great merit/are correct. I know this because of responses like yours confirm my analysis/interpretations. Although I do not know who reads the posted dreams, interpretations, responses and follow up posts I do know there are those who do and learn a lot from them {as I have done, all the posts providing insights to how dreams function}. I have often stated the Dream Forum is a learning place for understanding dreams.

Perhaps even more important than the success I have with working with dreams is I have discovered {at least in my mind} aspects about dreams where I have yet to see anyone else state as being usual or fixed. For example, when a dream opens with a statement about a child of a certain age, a time frame that involves childhood years, or similar references to childhood or childhood environment, the focus of those dreams are 'universally' about or related to the dreamer's childhood. In the past year or so I have made it a point to state this in my analysis of these type dreams and in each case the analysis has been correct {in every one}. This was true with your dream, the opening sentence using the words "I was being forced to play in an opera together with other kids/adolescents". I know most Jungian dream analysts would confirm such dream statements would often allude to childhood emotions but being universally true is not something any would confirm. It seems that dreams not only have archetypal associations but the structure of dream is more fixed than ever thought.

I see many other 'universal' themes {not to be confused with archetypal themes which are prescribed mapping of the psyche by nature} in other aspects of dreams as well. Your dream post and our conversations about it and my analysis has provided many insights to several of these themes. Besides the childhood reference/application the specific use of words that on the surface are not recognized as relevant to any person turns out to be applicable in important ways {the blond girls, you mother being blond}. Every word in a dream is important and knowing how to arrange the terminology in a context that accurately describes the dreamer's emotional condition is the task in analysis. This is where I seem to have very good skills in doing. But again it is responses like the ones you provided that have helped my understand how dreams and dream images function. I would have never seen these things if not for the responses from the dreamers.

I do hope you are able to find closure to the conflicts in your life. I think it important that you have taken the time so early on in life to work these things through instead of letting them incubate to the point more destructive harm comes from theme. Let me convey an interesting fact about many of Jung's patients that may be relevant to you and your therapy. A great many became Jungian analysts or related fields. From their own therapy they realized not only there is hope for a resolution to the emotional conflicts, but also saw how interesting and intriguing dreams are. It is like a giant puzzle fe are able to put together, being able to put all the pieces together is rewarding. But I see such endeavors as part of the creative spirit and when one discovers their creative self they have discovered their true self and the soul has a path to contentment. No wonder mythology {the universal dream} resonates with so many.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 65 Cocoa, Fl

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