Hi!

My Husband & I are given knowledge that the UN Field Office's (where I had a Diplomatic Mission once in Africa)external entrance is to remain unlocked & thus unsecured.

My Husband wants to take this as an opportunity to go hang out there!

As soon as entering my Office, which looks exactly like our comfy living room, he strips completely naked. We hang out.

I am now looking out the window directly over an inner courtyard door, & see he has been arrested! (For Breach of Security). They dressed him, in an all Black Uniform, more fiting of security forces of a higher order rather than a prisoner. . . . so he is no longer naked.

I know he is captive! I will never see him again! He is a prisoner!

End of Dream.

I feel so sorry for my Husband/Animus in this dream, I think he represents the state of my animus; arrested (development), blocked. Help please! Plus, I am trying to figure out the United Nations symbology.

May

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 35/ EGYPT

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It does sounds similiar to what you say, May, that after attempting natural, organic expression and harmony and 'marriage' with your feminine side, something is 'arrested' and you 'lose' your animus " never see him again".

You need to gently ask yourself why your animus figure is being taken away and what you fear in 'abandonment'?

It's worth the work - when anima/animus are integrated, the animus (or anima!) moves past the 'natural, animal' state shown by the naked husband figure in your dream, becomes more than mere 'human' husband/wife relationship and supports dually, spiritually, creatively and reassuringly, a deep peace and the knowledge of survival within yourself is found.

Good luck with future work, springing from this dream,

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 37

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Hi May,

I wanted to share some thoughts about your dream. Btw I read somewhere that to become familiar with the nature of the animus, a woman must constantly question her ideas and opinions, and I think you excel at questioning yourself. And I'm sure you know this too, though others might not.

In the dream, you and your other self are returning to a place where you used to live, and the office where you used to work resembles your living room. Is that your current living room? Maybe your dream suggests that something in the past is hindering your development? The dream may not necessarily be suggesting that you are living in the past; in fact, it may be that you need to return to the past to resolve some issue, and I admit my inclination is toward the latter possibility. I wonder if anything painful or otherwise significant happened when you were in Africa...

It's interesting that your animus exposes his body, because Jung (in Man and His Symbols) talks about four stages in animus development, and the first stage is the man who is obviously masculine in a physical way; I think Tarzan is the example he uses. I wonder if your dream is making the physical aspect of your inner man plain as a way to suggest a specific level. (?)

(I'm sure you know this too):
Stage 2: The animus is characterized by intitiative and capacity for action. Of course this is exactly what is being taken away by your husband's capture in the dream!
Stage 3: Man of words; I think Jung uses Goethe as an example.
Stage 4: Spiritual Man (Ghandi?) - I really must get back to you on this May. I found a passage in Jung's writing I wanted to share with you a while back (in re another dream) and I don't have it with me now.

The UN may represent the vastness of your soul to the extent that it reflects all the "people" who live "inside" you, but it may also represent this forum, or perhaps, most importantly, your past. (?)

It's also interesting that the charge is "breach of security", which makes me want to ask whether you feel insecure in some way about the emergence of your animus. As soon as your animus exposes himself, you move to a higher vantage point and that's very interesting to me. Maybe you're trying to intellectualize the process of wholeness that you're undergoing? Could it conceivably help to let go and let the process of emergence move for a while without doing a lot of analysis? Thomas Moore says in Care of the Soul that he sometimes recommends that people
take some time off from studying the psyche.

Who arrested your husband? You, of course. Does the emergence of your animus trigger any resistance from your internal cohort? Is there a sense of propriety that's been inculcated in you that says you should be a perfect young lady? It's interesting that his outfit is black in color.

And this is an obvious remark but it seems to me that you who arrested him are also the force that confines him. I make this last point only b/c of Jung's belief that any irruption from the unconcsious contains the seeds of the solution that is required for wholness. And you are "given" the knowledge that a door to/from your past is available. So I'd meditate on this image of the old room that is also the new room, and see where your imagination takes you.

Good luck with this fascinating dream; it seems like its emotional intensity was very high.

Take care!
Pryzm

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 47, Nashville

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Hi Prizm,

I welcome your thoughts on my dream and I do agree. Because there is so much to this dream I will respond to each point in seperate posts, otherwise it maybe too much.

In terms of did anything significant happen in Africa, I can share my experience briefly here.

Part of my assignment was two-fold. One, to apply international human rights law to individual refugee cases to advocate for foreign embassies to give them residency. Two, to assess their life experience in their host country, also to determine if they meet criteria for foreign residency.

I interviewed Northern Sudanese, Somali, Eritrean, Syrian, Coptic Sudanese, Ethiopian, and various tribes of Sudanese refugees predominately. The work was very intense, in that the two main criteria in addition to severe physical disability and hardship (though not really covered by international law) are rape and severe torture. I spent long days, daily for many months, interviewing these refugees on the details of their pre exodus life and in host country. Our field office in Africa was a 'safe' location for the refugees. Essentially, in order to help refugees I had to extract details about rape and torture that they underwent in order to write a strong statement of advocacy as a UN official to foreign embassies, with citations of the International Law to secure residency for them. Essentially, many refugees were reticent about disclosing this information without prompting, especially as they had already undergone traumatic interviews to claim refugee status.

I daily listened to stories of rapes and tortures that stun my comprehension of how human beings can do this to one another. Our mission was essentially 'complete' when one of the major wars in the region ceased, although this is only on paper and not in fact.

Though this was not my first Diplomatic mission, it was the first 'non-peaceful' one. I am forever changed by the experience of hearing mass and widescale accounts of war victims of details of their rape and torture experiences. Many of the victims are severely traumatized and are suffering in humanely in the host countries of asylum. The reality of the brutality of war cannot even be conveyed in words. My team and I were essentially on the front line- in psychological terms.

We had no debriefing and I serious question many UN decisions and ways of handling situations that were made on that mission.

Perhaps as a result of this experience, I am not only more compassionate, though I was very much so before, but I am also no longer naive about war, and my committment to peace in general and all its ways and means is even more important.

I am much more sensitive to noticing aspects of thought or behavior that lead to such brutal situations. I saw the end result of racism, of dehumanizing, of projection, of discrimination, of the US vs. Them mentality, of black vs. white thinking, of my religion is better than yours, my ethnic group is better than yours, my tribe has more rights to oil where your tribe lives and so I have the right to extinguish them so that I get the goods (essentially the situation in the Darfur region of the Sudan and the cause of the annhilation and torture and rape of dinka, fur and other pagan, christian, southern and western, eastern tribes by the northern Islamic tribe that wants to control the oil resources there...does that sound familiar globally anywhere else.)

I am sure that the compassion I offered to the refugees made a difference in their life, I did every thing in my power to stretch the law in their behalf. I had colleagues who were less compassionate and they saw refugees as economic freeloaders. I disagreed with this incompetent and mass stereotype and this made me unpopular. Also I saw racism and discrimination in my colleagues, even though some were other Africans, they saw themselves as better, whiter, more western, whatever. It was a very complex situation.

I am sure though that I was traumatized by this experience and my hatred for war and for inhumane and cruelty and abuses of power knows no end. I know young men who were blinded by beatings, men who were raped, crippled, taken from their wives and children, women who were raped and rejected by their families and having to raise the offspring as their own child, one man who became totally paranoid and was terrified to share his story; totally lost his ability to trust other human beings, a young doctor who wrote subversive poetry and was tortured so severely he cannot practice medicine and speaks with a stutter.....the stories are endless and war is hell, so yes, something significant happened. I had never encountered in real life such mass and widescale cruelty and torture applied systmatically to large groups of human beings for political ends, and with such devestating consequences. Any evil ever done to me in my short life does not compare to the collective stories. I had to face the horrors of what human beings are capable of doing to others, things you cannot believe.

So, perhaps this is something part of what my dream was trying to heal. And perhaps other dreams as well.

During the mission everything I ate made me sick...constantly stomach bloated or diarreha...perhaps that indigestion was about me being unable to accept nourishment in the face of the starvation, both bodily and of soul...all around me.

Additionally, as UN officials, we were always in danger and our intense security briefing really was enough to make us paranoid. Other colleagues would sometimes rile up the refugees whose cases could not move forward. I just presented the decision and if the refugee was unable to cope, I made every effort to not provoke them and escort them out of my office personally under the pretext that perhaps they were going to meet someone else. Of course they know the process and it ended with our Office, but this protected them from acting out their anger and getting arrested. My colleagues just had them arrested or put them into confrontation with security, which was so unfair to them. I let them slowly process the situation, but out of harm to themselves or to our staff. The woman I shared an office with called security on someone almost once every day and it was clear she enjoyed them getting angry and self-sabotaging. It was genuinely cruel to have to watch and put us both in danger. When you have gone through hell and are suffering in a host country...I can tell you more stories about the nightmares they cope with as refugees in unaccepting African host countries...being told you are not getting residency there or anywhere is a death sentence...and my colleagues couldn't cope with their anger except by provoking them and threatening them. I traded a white lie for a lot of peace and wisdom.


Just writing about all this, several years later is still painful. Some part of me that still held on to the world as being safe (even after my own personal traumas) was shattered.

Part of our training as well as UN advocacy for refugees is the tell people look at the one on your left, now on your right, both could be refugees and it could end up happening to you. It can happen anytime any where, but now I know the reality of war and I'm forever changed, and it is painful.

Many soldiers have ptsd. We were soldiers of peace, on the front line, tending to the psychological casualties of war...perhaps ptsd also affected us, and part of the meaning of this dream is to work through that.

I'll respond to the other points soon.
thanks Prizm,
May

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 35/ EGYPT

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Hi Claire,

Thank you so much, I agree with your thoughts and I will respond soon.

May

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 35/ EGYPT

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How Did You Find the Dream Forum? YES