Hi Forum,

It's been a long while since I've been here, but today I had a very clear dream while napping and could use some perspective.

Meanwhile, I've read some of the spider posts and looked up color symbology....the dream:

I walk up to what appears a bassinett and there is a white spider web fashioned like a hood you would see on a baby buggy although on one side (it's left side actually) it is open or not covered with the web mesh.

There is a "second level" above the main part of the bassinett like a cubby hole where a large orange and black furry spider is. When the spider sees me, it backs up into the hole (feels like for protection).

I think to get a vaccumm hose and suck it out, then I am sitting down with the spider in a red envelope with a pair of scissors. I try to cut through the envelope to cut the spider in half, but the main body of the spider is too thick. At this point I only see one furry leg peeking out.

Then the spider seems to transform into a fly (I believe)and flies away. I think to get a towel and chase the fly. My intention was to kill it as it had been when cutting with the scissors.

I should add that I've been doing some inner work on issues having to do with feeling like I've hit a wall with creative writing due to some unpleasant memories with a relationship from over a year ago. Writing is tied into that experience and I just can't seem to get beyond not wanting to face that unpleasant life passage even though in the past I'd written much about it. It's been a mixture lately of anger, crying and self esteem issues all rolled into one. I'd planned my career goals (which I've met for the most part)and scheduled my time to have this opportunity to write, and now I'm avoiding it. It feels like self sabotage and I'm wanting very much to heal.

Also I should add that in discovering the spider there was the feeling of "I found it!" and called to my mother to come take a look (I know Mother symbology is often times tied into spider symbology and my relationship with my Mom is fine). I wonder though why I was so intent on destroying the spider though when creativity is what I'm hoping to get enthusiastic about again. Maybe I am trying to force it or perhaps judging myself too harshly for not being in that space right now. Writing has always helped me to unblock, but I'm just not wanting to do it.

Any imput will be appreciated.

Thank you, Shelly

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 46

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

Hi Shelly,

Although it would be best to have the thoughts and memories that come to your mind about each dream image, here are a few ideas about your dream.

Perhaps the following excerpt from the journal of H.G. Baynes, an early prominent Jungian analyst who died in 1943, helps to synthesize the many possible meanings of the spider image. He writes how he was reading from Genesis and how a spider intervened:

“As I began to read the story of Creation, a spider came and lay half concealed in the middle of the book’s binding in between the opposites. Then he came to life and ran across the page of creation and back again. The spider symbolizes the irrational activity of the psyche that will not be contained in any purely rational form. He is the primaeval associative industry of the psyche which weaves everything which comes within the psychical realm into an integrated structure. Therefore, in actuality the psyche-spider is the creator of our world”

In Psychology and Alchemy, Carl Jung mentions that the spider in the centre of its web (perhaps the cubby hole in your dream) represents the centre of the personality, “especially when the conscious attitude is still dominated by fear of unconscious processes”.

The “eureka” response in your dream may reflect this coming upon of a sticky problem best “eliminated”, that is, that the psyche will often take its own long circuitous route to things. Therefore, you may be right in thinking that you were forcing things a little too much regarding your writing project.

The bassinet of course would contain a baby, perhaps this new project that you want to have flourish. The protective hood is open to the left, that is, to the unconscious side. The image might include a “wait and see” approach similar to the spider building its web and then patiently waiting, but in this case apparently a wait for growth and transformation instead of a good meal.

It might have been an inner masculine figure who had you “think to get a vacuum hose and suck it out”, the “rational” thing to do in order to “get things moving” by eliminating the “irrational”.

The underlying cruel death of the spider has to be “enveloped” perhaps in a certain cloud of emotional distress (red envelope). It’s interesting to note that this doesn’t work because of a “transformation” of the spider into a fly: nothing can really stand in the way of the psyche doing what it wants because something suppressed merely comes out in another way inside or it appears from the outside as fate.

You might be interested in the book “Animus Aeturnus: Exploring the Inner Masculine” by Deldon Anne McNeely who uses women’s poetry to explore this inner (potentially) creative figure.

I hope some of these ideas may help in unravelling the true meaning of your dream.

Thank you for your response CBS...

Yes, my feeling had been as well that the part of me wanting to "suck the spider out" was more male sided as I acknoweledged that the rational mind seemed more dominating in wanting to access or at least understand "the irrational" as you put it.

Would you please clarify though on this...

"Jung mentions that the spider in the centre of its web (perhaps the cubby hole in your dream) represents the centre of the personality, “especially when the conscious attitude is still dominated by fear of unconscious processes"

Was Jung referring in this instance to the spider symbolozing the personality only, rather than the deeper levels we normally attribute the spider to? I ask because usually "the center of oneself" would be the Soul perhaps with it many facets of personalities that it is aware of rather than just personality/ego. If he's referring to the spider in the center as personality then he must be meaning it along the lines of protecting itself, territory etc. Just want to be sure I understand this in the right context.

Thank you for your previous reply and resource references.

Shelly

As an aside, I attached the frog to my note because last night I dreamt I had a Frog and dipped it in "hot water" twice, in a tub to warm it up. It nearly died and was spasaming. Then I put the frog in a sink with cold water to revive it. The Frog was getting rigamortus and it's little spiny claws clasped my small finger on my right hand. I did not want to feel the Frog die on my finger and I was frightened because it was going to be a long process of feeling this death...

I see duality in this dream (hot and cold water, "dipping twice", near death then revival). I feel that transformationally it's a postive dream, but the process of "death" is obviously frightening as I go through these inner changes. Just wanted to share what feels like an addendum to my previous dream post.

Shelly

Hi again Shelly,

When Jung speaks of the centre of the personality, he is referring to his concept of the “Self”. The following definition comes from a book by analyst Jane Wheelwright:

“…archetype of wholeness and order, at once the centre and the container of the totality of the psyche. The Self is a function, uniting all pairs of opposites, of a source of energy which is the instigator and director of the individuation process. It is manifested by way of projection, by means of symbols (notably geometric forms, especially the square and the circle, savior and hero figures, the child, various animals, insects and plants, precious stones, and images of a fourfold nature), and by the conflict of opposites, a conscious confrontation which is an essential precondition to an experience of this archetype. Jung has referred to the Self as “the God within us”.

Without more of your personal thoughts and memories about its images, it’s just a guess that your frog dream may be touching on a similar theme to the spider dream. Perhaps by dipping the frog in hot water and then cold, you are trying to overly “regulate” his body temperature without really having a deep instinctive understanding of this delicate process in a cold blooded animal.

Number symbolism is difficult but “twice” perhaps lacks the magic of “three times”, therefore suggesting that a transformation may not occur in this scenario. “Two” has also been viewed as a negative number in that it is the number that “spoils” the unity of one, leading to consciousness of the opposites and all that this leads to (e.g. expulsion from the Garden of Eden).

You may have remembered the Frog Prince folk tale in connection with your dream. One approach to the tale is that it relates to a woman’s having to accept through a kiss her “disgusting” masculine side in order to round out her wholeness. Perhaps there’s some inner tendency to have this part of reality “expunged” as well. Some aspects of this side might already be conscious (clinging to the right or “conscious-side” finger), but suppressing them again might tend to be a long difficult process (lingering death).

Anyway, these are just some general ideas that may or may not relate to your personal situation.

Thanks again for your reply CBS.

The manner in which you described the "center of the psyche" (as the God within one) is how I have understood it. I had suspected I might have been interpreting the statement from your previous post in another context that what was intended. Good to clear that up.

You're right about there being no "3rd" element of transformation in the frog dream, unlike the previous one where the spider turned into a fly. And yes, it appears I was seeking to regulate the opposites in some way with dipping the frog into two different temperatures. Thanks for the insights.

Sincerely, Shelly