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Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Hi Gerard,

I'm still dreaming some similar themes and that I'm with Sally again from my 'Man with No Muscles' dream and the 'River Street' one. Obviously something is trying to get through to me. I'm wondering if you might have a few thoughts?

'Moving Stones and Crumpled Father'

I'm in a very basic basement level place, where I have to survive. There are large and small stones everywhere. Pieces of foundation. There are rats and low-flying birds or bats. I see where I can move a cement slab to higher ground. I move it and think how suprised others will be, since it looks like it has never been moved. I'm working out where I can put my air mattress and sleeping bag. Sally was supposed to be staying with me in this dark and dangerous place, but she has snuck off. So, the whole night goes on like this, where I'm calculating things and moving stones. In the morning I'm to drive across country with Sally and her father. Sally has not come back yet because she has gone off to have sex with someone named Julien. I am feeling disgusted because Julien was trying, unsucessfully, to have sex with me earlier that same night.

Now we are heading off on the long trip and Susie's dad is now my father. He's decided to take a coastal route home that he knows well. I'm in an open bus and am grateful for the ride after a hard night of physical and mental labour and no sleep. We are riding tandem for a while, until I realise dad has fallen behind. I spot him crumpled on the ground, which is now like a hallway in a hospital. A chinese man is attending to him. I leap off the bus and run like the dickens to him, realising how I would have lost my ride, but knowing I didn't care. Dad had had a heat attack and the guy attending to him used a portable cardiac arrest unit on his cigarette lighter. As Dad rouses and goes off to the bathroom, the man gives me the lighter. I ask him, in a panic, how to use it. He seems a little annoyed to have to spend the time on me, but he does show me. Except it's taking forever. It's a long, complicated process with print-outs. There are pages and pages of pictures, graphs and diagrams.

Any thoughts?

Angela

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 39, Canadian living in England

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Re: Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Angela,
Basements are usually symbolic for the unconscious. The survival is most likely emotional survival. The stones, as pieces of your own foundation, may represent different parts of the whole body, those emotional parts that are in need of healing. There may be aspects related to feelings of guilt, repulsion and/or past negative experiences. You are consciously moving to understand these qualities. There may be elements related to better understanding your dreams, a prescribed method of healing you are currently using {Dream Forum}. The sex could be related to actual waking experiences. It could also represent a need to unite those aspects of your psyche that are in need of healing.
Who is Sally and Julien and how to fit in with your life?

Do Sally and you have something in common? Father issues perhaps? Is there a need for healing in your relationship with your father. He may also represent your own crippled masculine self, which may be related to earlier childhood experiences with him. That may be the long, complicated process in your dream that needs healing.

Is there negative experiences from the past involving your dad? Again, he may also represent a need to heal those affected masculine qualities within you. But the real problem may be with your relationship with him from childhood.

gerard

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Re: Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Thank you, Gerard.

Okay, let me think...

I know one Julien (the son of a close friend), who is an impressive well-rounded *15* yr. old. What has impressed me most about this boy is how he overcame a bullying incident.

The tie here could be that when I was *15*, I became good friends with Sally, who, incidentally, was being bullied at the time. She was then my best friend for two decades, but our relationship began to erode over this time as she became consumed by addictions. This could be where there is some guilt, since I had to end the friendship several years ago. Lately, with all these dreams of her, despite not wanting to, I've been wondering if I should try and connect with her again. I've heard that she's now in even worse shape. Her parents have moved in with her to help, yet she is nearly 40 years old...

I don't have any issues with my father from childhood. He was an excellent father. However, he developed delusional paranoia in later life and it has destroyed my parents marriage of 40 years just a few years ago. And therefore it also destroyed my home of origin.

So, ah...yes...

Here is the 40 years tie. (I'm nearly 40, linking this to my parents 40 year marriage, as well as my old mentor from River St. dream, who disappeared from my life when he was 40). I can see that perhaps this 'basic foundation' of my early life is now just a pile of stones and rubble that have taken great amounts of effort to rearrange in order to find some comfort so that I can rest. It is true that now there is nothing comfortable about my family of origin.

When my father takes his same old coastal route home in the dream, that makes sense because it is exactly how I would describe the way his brain works. It continues to take the same old track even when it is obvious that it is not reality he is seeing.

I have chosen to take the bus in the dream, allowing myself support after a dark and difficult time. But then there is the collapsing father and I leap off the bus...

Do you think there could be unconscious fears coming up surrounding the idea of things collapsing at 40? I will be 40 in a couple months.

Thanks so much for your time.

Angela.

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Re: Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Angela,
The dream does seem to be reinforcing problems discussed in previous dreams having to do with your animus. Julien is most likely a representation of overcoming such masculine problems, his overcoming the bulling incident. And Sally could represent that weak part of you because of a lack of strong masculine aspects. But the question becomes what exactly is those weak masculine aspects and how did they come about? Are they genetic, inherent or due to early childhood experiences? You state the your early life was 'a pile of stones and rubble that have taken great amounts of effort to rearrange in order to find some comfort so that I can rest'. Are there any particular experiences that would weaken your masculine identity? Having a weak animus doesn't happen just by circumstance, there is always a reason. Understanding the root cause is most important.

Perhaps there is an association to the number 40 related to other experiences. At 39 you are approaching that big 4 0 and unconsciously there may be a tie. But again I don't believe that would cause a weak animus.

Your father's delusional paranoia. Is there any other family members that have been stricken my mental illness? It could be your weak animus is associated to the 'loss' of your home of origins. When did this first come to be, his illness, and was it at the same time you began to have such dreams about a weak masculine self? If we keep looking I am sure we will discover the 'origins' to this masculine problem.

gerard

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Re: Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Ah, Gerard...

Holy, moly! I had a confused reaction on first reading your response. I've never thought of myself as weak, ever. It was a huge wake-up. And I've been reeling ever since.

My father: There are definitely other examples of mental illness and breakdown in his family. I believe one of his sisters is also delusionally paranoid, with the exact same result of a late break-up in her marriage. The paranoia in both cases was jealousy based, which also turned into beliefs of extravagent plots.

My father's first experience of this paranoid feeling was pin-pointed to a specific day in a specific place when he was...40 or 41! (a-HA!)

My god... I remember him telling me that he had to hold onto his desk because the pain of this 'knowledge' was so overwhelming. (He went WEAK!!!) He then quietly lived with his suspicions and created an entire imaginary life around them for the next 25 years, before he finally had a psychotic break, which ultimately ended my parent's marriage.

So, there is a genetic basis for my weak animus here, but I'm all too aware that there could be a projected one as well. Since, ironically, the town where my father can supposedly pin-point his (false) belief in the beginning of my mother's unfaithfulness has the very same name as the town where my husband lives. Only in a different country. So, I seem to have been drawn to a man who lives in a place with these strong associations to the background of my early life.

My marriage: It's unorthodox, as we have 30+ years between us. I'm wondering if, in part, this could be symbolised by the 'blacking out' in the 'Man with no Muscles' dream. Due to our huge age discrepancy we often have to make our major decisions based on my husband imagining he's 20 years younger and me imagining that I'm 20 years older. It virtually means that I lose my 40s altogether.../blacked out?

My husband is an intellect and is very successful. But he is admittedly 'weak' in many other areas. I do virtually everything for him/us/the household. Thus, the reason I was unable to grasp the word 'weak' on first reading. But of course where I am weak is not the traditional masculine role, but in the very one where he is the strongest. Although I am a writer as well, and despite having easily agented my novel; and despite have poetry and articles published, I have fallen short of really getting my work out there. I've told myself and everyone else that I don't care if my novels ever get published. I think I have believed this too, possibly until just this minute...

My mouth dropped open when I googled 'weak animus' and found this excerpt from 'Women Who Run With the Wolves':

Women with a weak animus are unable to manifest their creative work in the outer world. They may have lots of creative ideas and thoughts but always stop short of the organization or implementation of their wonderful ideas.

This seems now definitely to corroborate with the River St. dream, where I could link the children with novel and poetry writing.

Where Sally comes in now means something totally different. With her life virtually being wasted by addictions, I am challenged with: what am I wasting?

Interestingly enough, I'm very disturbed by the concept of waste. I go to great lengths not to waste food, energy, water, anything. So, clearly I'm projecting outwardly the idea that I could actually be wasting my own time by spending it on household things. !

And of course Julien (the male who was trying to have sex with both Sally and I in this dream), in reality, is a young PAGE for the government. What amazing humour dreams have! The 'page' is trying to unite with me. : )

Ahhhhh.... This is a HUGE, HUGE uncovering for me, Gerard. So, the question now is, how do I strengthen this weak animus? Do you have any reading suggestions?

I cannot thank you enough for asking just the right questions to get me to take a deeper look.

Angela.

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Re: Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Angela,
It is you who deserves the credit for being able to understanding the associations in your dreams to your waking life. The inner search requires much effort and often that is what is lacking when exploring the inner processes of dreams and self psychology {they are one and the same}. The best I can do is offer possibilities and although Jung has provided us with the tools to 'see' into dreams, it requires intuitive insight by both the dreamer and the interpreter to get to the message of the dream.

As for strengthening a weak animus. Just knowing there are aspects of those masculine traits that need attention is probably the most important step in resolving the conflicts. I firmly believe many of the personality traits in adulthood can be traced to childhood. Impressions from early life experiences are imprinted on the psyche and often have unconscious control over behavior and actions throughout life. They influence moods and outward behavior without the conscious mind knowing it.

To expand on the need to be aware of these influences and how to reign them in. I will use my own experiences as a child as an example.
My father was a self centered man who never cared for anyone but himself. That in itself can be traced to his own childhood but I won't attempt to surmise that. One the most corrupt actions in his life was to leave his family {the second time he had done so}, my mother and four children, without any financial or moral support what so ever. He want to have a good time, be free to whatever he wanted, carouse with any woman he could, and not be responsible for his actions.

The abandonment of his family {my mother had little education and had never been employed} was bad enough but the scares it left on the children would last a lifetime, for myself and my 3 sisters. It was especially hard for me because I was always seeking his approval, being the only son. Growing up impoverished was tough but with no guidance from a masculine source, I became an introverted child {my true personality is extrovert} withdrawn and subject to emotional stresses beyond the norm. But it was in my twenties and later years that the influences of childhood took their greatest toll. I was married 3 times {all were good and intelligent women} and although I could never abandon my son }only child} I found myself repeating some of the mistakes of my father. Looking for love in all the wrong places. And looking back I now know that love I was seeking but could never find was a result of not receiving the fatherly love in childhood. I used sex as a substitute {we all have something to substitute unreceived love and needed acceptance}. My childhood experiences were not the only influences that prompted me to the actions I took but they pushed me in a certain {and definable} direction. In many ways I was repeating the actions of my father.

What did I do to overcome those influences? Most of them naturally dissolved as I grew older. But that void remained, something inside was whole and I needed to know and understand what it was. That was when at the age of 42 I had my serendipitously encounter with Joseph Campbell which led to the psychology of Carl Jung. It took several years to fully understand the associations from childhood experiences to adulthood actions but I did begin to see what the void was and to understand the influences. It has taken even more years to fully free myself from those influences. And without the shackles and restraints of those unconscious motivations I have been able to discover those more important aspects of the psyche, namely my creative aspects. That has led to my passion of working with dreams, and helping others discover their own inner lives so there can be a healing within their souls. And that is a spiritual thing, my way of giving of myself, the one constant requirement for anyone to become a hero or heroine in their own life. Saving oneself, and then taking a path to serve and help others.

And there are a few heroes and a heroine in my life that helped me on my path. An African-American high school teacher who recognizes that potential within me, my mother who is a true heroine for sacrificing her life for her children, and of course Joseph Campbell who open the doors to exploring my own psyche and the world of psyche in general.

This is my path, not unlike most other paths experienced by each individual person who walks this earth {we all are different and no one person travels the exact same path*. The only real difference is in the discovery of the inner self and my chance encounter with Joseph Campbell**. And now that you have began your own discovery, perhaps the realizations of your inner life will provide nourishment to grow personally and to even discover your own creative self. It is a win/win situation.

So I guess my advice as to how to resolve those weak animus traits is to define what they are and their roots {most important}. That may take time by just by working on resolving those conflicts, as slow as it may be, will be the therapy needed to find a final resolution. You are on the right path and have the discipline to succeed. And you do possess the intelligence, that intuitive intelligence to prevail and my guess is to pass along to others what you learn in your path to discovery.
For those of us who dare to take the left hand path to adventure {self discovery}, there are those helping hands of fate that will lead us to higher aspirations. That is the ultimate goal of the hero/heroine journey.

*.In the Arthurian Romances of mythology the royal Knight of the Round-table enters the deep forest seeking adventure at a place no one has ever taken before. This is the individual path of discovery.


**.One Sunday afternoon, after returning home from a trip, I just happened to turn my TV on to PBS. The program was called the 'Power of Myth' with Joseph Campbell. It was one of six hour programs for which I had never heard of. After watching this one hour interview I was caught, I knew from that very day my life was to change. Exactly how was to play out over the next 16 years, leading to this very moment in time.
Jung called this chance encounter Synchronicity.




"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life's experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive..." Joseph Campbell

gerard

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Re: Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Gerard,
Thank you very much for sharing your own personal journey through some of this life's fog. It's so helpful and important to read examples of how others experience and face the self-destructive path we are all unconsciously compelled towards. What a painful journey you had as you broke down some of those hardened relationship barriers and found that true extrovert. How did it come about for you to discover that about yourself? And how wonderful that you had that chance encounter with Joseph Cambell. 'When the student is ready...'

I'm feeling quite fortunate for stumbling into your website, and therefore, am grateful for Joseph Campbell too! I had done some intense dream work between ages 32 and 35, when I stepped out of the working world and focussed solely on writing and the unconconscious, but then getting married, changing countries and my entire life -- put the inner work and writing work on hold. Where I had left off, I was mid-Carl Jung (readings) and I had just had a major break-through into my own relationship wall -- a discovery related to my father's expression of love. And since then my family of origin collapsed, while at the same time I became part of a new family. I made a commitment I never thought I'd make (marriage) and am living peacefully and joyfully in a relationship, which I really never thought could happen.

Just as this life anew began to settle a couple months ago, I felt almost literally as if I was being yanked by my emotions and dreams from the extrovert persona I've had to inhabit for the first years of this new life. (I am an introvert.) I was suddenly weepy and feeling feelings that didn't seem to belong to me. There was a need for purpose beyond making a happy home -- which, in itself, is an incredibly valuable commodity -- but something else was calling, I was gathering, from the persistent doorbells and knocking of males on the doors of my dreams. Yet, I didn't know a way back into this inner space because the dream forum I used to use has long since shut down. My husband suggested Jung. But of course! And, voila, your dream forum came up on the top of the google list.

So, now it feels as if there are fresh roots to dig up in order to free my creative self to be put outward, rather than just kept inward.

*Lightbulb!*

I'm now suddenly wondering, just as I'm projecting my anxieties of wasting my potential onto worrying about household waste, if perhaps I could be projecting the anxieties around getting published and 'out there' onto an extroverted personality. Gosh!!! That's a thought...

We have a large social calendar and hosting things at our house is commonplace. Though it creates a balance of positive energy, all the time I'm really wishing I could be in my study working on my second novel.

But that's just one area. You suggest looking into childhood and something that came to mind last night from my young childhood (3-7 or so) is that when I got very upset, I used to cry until I fainted. (Another collapsing image!) This was a regular occurance. I don't actually remember the crying, or the point of fainting, but I remember being carried to the sofa, usually by my father. So, I seem to have collapsed myself just at the point when whatever I was crying about would have been addressed.

Writing could be thought of as something one is 'crying' about. And this unconscious-to-the-rescue collapse inevitably happens right at the point when I need to be fully aware and focused outward. The collapse (ahhh...) is me turning inward... I say things like: 'I don't care about publishing. I don't want the spotlight.'

Well, there! This has been a most insightful time thinking this through further.

Thanks so much Gerard.
Angela.

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Re: Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Angela,
I'll give a longer response tomorrow. But here are some thoughts on the creative Self stimulated by your intelligent and enlightened response. I never tire conversing with someone who knows well Campbell and Jung. And who has experience in working with dreams. We speak the same language.

The social dragon {as Campbell termed the need to adhere to social requirements such as career, family and other responsibilities that lead us away from our true selves} is all too often the primary barrier in reaching that blissful state of creativity, that place of 'Nirvana' as a psychological achievement. I know it is the main dragon to slay in my journey. If not for my creative interests and dream work {and physical fitness routine} I would have been swallowed up and less a true soul, stuck in a world without reason or rhyme.

For non-Jungians who are unaware of what Nirvana is
nir·va·na (nîr-vän, nr-)
1} Buddhism, Hinduism-the ultimate state of spiritual enlightenment and bliss attained by extinction of all desires and individual existence

2} An ideal condition of rest, harmony, stability, or joy.


Campbell said few people have ever attained the first of the above, with exceptions being maybe Jung, and other enlightened souls such as Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha. But both Campbell and Jung did believe the second is attainable for anyone who discovers their true Self, which would be Jung's spiritual/creative aspect of the psyche. I believe that aspect is a true and important physical part of the psyche. It is something I have begun to explore more of late, exploring the deeper psyche to perhaps discover other 'mysteries/ truths'. My post on Savants addresses the creative aspect and its ability to heal the whole psyche.
Creativity and Mental Disorders

gerard

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Re: Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Hi Gerard,

It is super true that there is always more harmony in life for me if I get some writing done. It makes all the difference to a day, usually making me more efficient. And my energy rises too!

So I would agree whole-heartedly about that social dragon being the primary barrier for me now.

I thought the post and video clips on Savants was most interesting too. Thanks for sharing it.

Angela

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Re: Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Angela,
In the self examination of my psyche I often use part of physical workouts as therapy. After some cardiovascular work I will fast walk on an indoor track for about 30 minutes which let's me focus on aspects of my past. I often will take one particular memory from childhood and concentrate on that time frame to help remember other experiences that I may have forgotten. I am amazed at what I come up with. By sorting through those past experiences I have learned so much about that 'little boy'. Hidden things come up and those unconscious motivations that controlled me for so long become clear and understandable. I have learned so much from this type of therapy.

Have you ever thought about writing your own life's story? That could be an excellent way of uncovering your past. Examining every little detail may provide insights you never 'dreamed' of. It may or may not be publishable but not isn't the goal. It is about self discovery and could work wonders in your desire to grow personally. That period of time between 3 and 7 would be a great place to begin. A weak animus is either the result of biological forces or more likely a result of past childhood experiences. Discovering the roots to that aspect of your psyche seems to be an important part of who you are today.

What better subject to write about than your own unconscious life. There are probably many who will identify with those aspects that seemed so unimportant. Self therapy and writing. A concept that keeps on giving. And by writing you are sharing with others. And giving of yourself. In my book that is a spiritual thing. Creativity and spirituality, one and the same.

gerard

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Re: Moving Stones and Crumpled Father

Hi Gerard,

Well... Since recalling the fainting as a child, and after launching back into my second novel for the first time in ages, I promtly woke the next morning with a bad case of nauseous vertigo. It stopped the writing dead in its tracks as all my energy had to go to keeping myself from throwing up.

I do get vertigo from time to time and I'm aware it's likely mostly psychosomatic, since I usually get it when I cross the Atlantic. I thought I had understood the connection as one to the dizzying effects of going from one home to another. But then, the other day I got the vertigo without any travel anywhere. I hunted around the internet until I found a book called 'Emotional Vertigo'.

It explains that: "...the appearance of vertigo of psychic origin is bound up with the difficulty of integrating equally diverse psychic currents (needs, wishes, affects)." It's distilled down to the idea of separation anxiety between the ego and object, when suddenly one of the two is going at a different direction or pace. And it can come up when dealing with negative psyche components -- i.e. a weak animus!

So - wow again!!! By beginning to flex the muscles of the animus in order to enter into my creative world, I must have freaked out my ego. I had such a fascinating dream that night too.

Endless Airport Journey:

I was on multitudes of routes to the airport, following green road signs. For a while on foot, but also in cars, on a bicycle and maybe through water. I was thinking at one point how easy it had been to get on the path having no map. I'd veered off only slightly at one point, then could see where I'd gone wrong and quickly changed directions by taking a pedestrian underpass. I came up right in the airport lane. Others around me all seemed to be heading there too and I was feeling confident and comfortable in my direction.

But then I was in someone else's green pick-up truck and a male was driving, along with another male passenger. While I was asking if we were on the airport road, the driver absently drove straight off onto the gravel shoulder and down a deep ravene onto a gravelly beach. I felt so frustrated. I had got along so well to that point. Now I was stuck on a beach! The driver said it was now going to take ages to get out of this position, or there was another option. We could use brute strength and pick up the car. I thought this was not going to be possible, but then one of the males grabbed the front end and moved the car by himself a good few feet.

Ha ha! So my animus must be getting some strength back, no?

Angela.
ps. Thanks for the other writing ideas and the one to concetrate childhood memories. I've been doing that and it's working!

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