I am at work. My hair is darker. Longer. I am wearing these medium sized burgundy butterfly clips in my hair. Very late 90’s. Anyways, on my left, the one side keeps falling. It’s driving me bonkers. I keep trying to fix it but I don’t feel as if I can trust the mirror I have. I keep checking my small mirror at work and I keep adjusting my hair.

At one point I look out of my office and see a co-worker, Kim sitting at the desk in the cubicle across from my office. Not her normal spot. She had emailed me gossip about another co-worker, Jill, telling me that she is on drugs since her divorce. In reality, Jill has lupus, and everyone talks about her at work which I think is wrong. In my dream instead of replying to her email, I walk over and tell Kim that she is not addicted to drugs. She is thin and looks a little worn out (the past couple of days in waking I have thought this). Kim, I should add, is very friendly in waking, so this seems out of the ordinary for her to do, action-wise.

So I go back into my office. I then hear Brenda who is wearing all purple, go on about a ring that is very sparkly. She is holding it up and laughing about the sparkles. I come outside of my office once more and find myself laughing at Brenda’s enthusiasm, enjoying it. She is showing the ring to the person within the office next to me (which in waking is empty, so I don’t know who that would be), Kim, across from me, and also myself. This is funny because in waking, Brenda is pretty much self-contained.

I am then, for some reason, standing next to Karen. Karen has in waking, short hair, like a boy cut. In my dream, her hair is shoulder length. I remember thinking it was pretty. I was asking her about my butterfly hair clips and she was telling me they were cute/looked fine – whatever, but the way she was looking at me made me think she wasn’t being entirely forthright, so I felt uneasy and knew I had to fix them again.

So then next thing I know, I am on the OTHER SIDE of the office in a different office. For some reason, this is ALSO my office but reversed. I am fixing my hair – that left side, still not working. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to make a big deal about my hair. I just want to fix it and move on. I take both left and right clips out flip my head forward and back and then see my hair looks “big” I remember thinking and concerning myself with: that people will look at me and know I changed my hair. Before I am able to get the clips back in, I get a knock on my door, my boss is standing there, casually dressed asking if I was coming to lunch. In my dream I know this is a lunch we have once a month and that the food is really good and that you don’t want to miss it. I am excited and hurry out as I am (finally forgetting the hair!) there are about 4-5 of us walking together, stragglers, I guess. Everyone else has been there eating for at least an hour.

When we get there I again hear the concerns about there not being enough food but I am not worried. I know there is plenty of food there, that there always is plenty of food. I look for a plate and only find small stacked places. Almost the size of a saucer. I take one and walk around. I think I put chicken or cheese or broccoli…for some reason, these come to mind, on my plate. I then find myself wondering where the rest of the food is because it is laid out differently. I ask someone, or maybe I am talking aloud to myself, I don’t know, but I am wondering where the fruit is. There are many windows in the place where the food is, by the way, and it is not our office. It actually reminds me of a restaurant I had eaten at in Disney. Anyways, a skinny old lady dressed in all of these colors hears me and tells me that “the fruit is where all of the young people are” and points to the long table across the way. I remember her skinny arm and her bracelet and ring. Silver with diamonds.

As I head towards the fruit I see someone I know, someone named Jackie. She is wearing all white. A white suit, actually. She is sitting at a table where everyone is dressed in all white, and the table cloth is white. She doesn’t work with me, so I do not know why she is there (she works at what I call our “arch rival” office in waking, she is in the same field as me, too. However, she is my friend and we used to work together. She is also a very “dark” person and freely admits she is a pessimist by nature). I see there is a spot to her left that is available and mentally I tell myself I will sit there. There are full sized dishes in front of the seat on the table, all stacked. Napkins and flatwear are on top, too. I keep going towards the fruit and see this girl Kim I used to work with (actually this is interesting, I’m just now noticing: two Kims, two Jackies…hmmm) and I mentally tell myself to not have her see me, and I scootch by her. I don’t want to speak to her or to have her see me, and she doesn’t, so this pleases me. I hated her. We just didn’t get along. She was wearing this bright red shirt with small blue markings on it and I think blue shorts. I walk by her with my back to her (and her back to mine, because she is facing the fruit table). As I scootch by her, there is a table facing me, making the path small. I want to be sure I do not even touch her. I then turn towards the fruit table once I make it towards the start of the table.

I am able to fill my plate with fruit and then walk further forward into another area and see where the coffee is. There are these white cups there getting filled and I know that I have to go upstairs to get a cup before I can come back down to fill it.

I should add that even though I know I filled my plate, there was never any food on it. I know I picked it up and made the motion to fill it, but there was never anything on my actual plate. I am thinking that means something, as well as the size of the plate and the contrast of the white and the colors.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 34, WNY

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

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? A long, long time ago.

Jackie,
Such a long dream needs a lot of attention. I will give it a cursory interpretation now and then a provide a deeper inspection Sunday morning when I have plenty of time.

In the last paragraph there is the filling of your plate {your plate is full in your waking life} but you do not or are not getting the emotional nourishment you need {never any food on your plate}. That may be the center of the conflict in your life {black and white}. And the reference to the two kims and two Jackies, this is most likely a reference to the two sides of yourself, your personality. There is that you in the white, the positive self, and then that dark person, the other side of you {OTHER SIDE in capital letters}.

Note: other people in your dream would either be references to different aspects of yourself or traits or aspects those real people possess that you identify with or disassociate from.

Two aspects that are possible from the opposites. It could be your home life is so different from your work life the emotional stress is becoming a difficult thing. And/or there are those different sides to your personality. The positive and the dark side.

Something is missing. There is plenty of 'food' but you are not getting what you need. There is no 'fruit' in your life. This could be a lack of emotional nourishment but also a feeling you are not getting all the material resources in life you wish for or expect for your efforts.

The Jackie in your dream, someone you do not want to touch, is some aspect of yourself you do not wish to associate or get in touch with. Often such dissociations are from earlier life experiences. This is another area of your life, those influences that make up who you are, your personality {all of us are products of early life experiences and influences}. You are going or should be going in a direction that will lead to those experiences and influences. That will answer why is there these two distinct parts of who you are? Although your plate is full in your waking life, underneath the inner self is lacking the nourishment you need. You may feel there is a void, something is lacking. That would be something that goes to the deepest inner aspects of who you are.

Let me know your response thus far to what I have provided. Your dream is using metaphors from your work life to describe your inner life {and possibly the experiences in that office environment that are in conflict}. There are a lot of opposites in the dream signifying a lot of emotional conflict. The outer conflicts, the stresses you can easily recognize are there. But the inner conflicts, the underlying reasons for the 'dark' side of yourself may not yet be recognized. Whne you are able to reconcile those inner conflicts you will be able to have ' fruit', personal growth.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 61 Murfreesboro, Tn.

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

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

Thank you so much for your response. Some parts of your response are confusing to me, but other parts do make sense.

I should add that in my dream, I am wearing colors, so the other "dark" Jackie is the one wearing white.

I do not associate any qualities other than negative ones with the mean Kim (who is also in colors) but I do know that Kim is someone who always "gets what she wants" in waking. She is one of those people who always "ends up on top" even when she goes through bad things. It always surprises me because she is a cruel and vindictive person and still comes out a "winner".

I feel as if I am a decent person who has not fully met my own potential. I hate my job and I am graduating from college in May. I am hoping to leave a career of 15 years to start new, and so far, I have been having a hard time finding anything.

I moved back home to live with my parents during this transition and I've been there longer than I would like. I do not feel that I have a "home" - or a "place of comfort" because I live with people who are negative and judgmental and I really only live in a room. I am totally looking for something more and something to fill a void which I do feel is there.

I do associate with those parts of your interpretation. I know making new beginnings can be a slow process sometimes. I am trying to remain hopeful.

Jackie

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 34, WNY

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

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? A long, long time ago.

Jackie,
It may take some deep thought to thoroughly understand my words and interpretation. Your waking life is full, perhaps too much on the plate which causes a lot of stress and clouds the thinking process. Kim is the other you, the opposites in conflict {the outer self that has to cope with the stresses and the inner self that wishes for that 'bliss' in life}. You wish for your life to be able to 'get where you want' even with the bad you have to cope with in life. Getting to that place in life you seek for yourself. In short, the life you are living is opposite, in conflict, with the life you wish to live. These are the two Kims in your dream. I could break the symbols down for better clarity but in the end we end up with the same conclusions.

Life is a journey and there will be those bad days and there will be those good days. What determines which is most prevalent is dependent on your own actions. Controlling as much about your life as possible will insure better days are plentiful and bad days are few. But there will always be outside forces that you have no control over {the lack of success you have had in 'finding anything'}. That could be, and likely to be due to economic conditions. But it could have to do with choices you make. What you must not do is worry about what others feel or do. The concern needs to be on improving your own personality and status. I live my certain principles in nature. '{do all you can do and don't worry about the rest'. But YOU must do what needs to be done, make the right choices {possessing and using the spiritual aspect, a 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' attitude}. Nature has a mechanism that rewards good and one that produces the bad {I don't need religion to explain this to me}. In the end most of what happens to you is what you cause it to be.

The 'feelings' of not having a home or a place of comfort is both an outer waking experiences as well as an inner unconscious experience. Fulfilling both depends on choices in life. My path, and the one that I try to convey to anyone who is interested, is to 'follow your bliss'. Find that thing in life you love doing the most and make that your life. And your job. What new career have you chosen? Is it one that will let you make a lot of money, seemingly one that will fill the void of the material things in life? But does it fulfill the inner void? If it does not then you will remain lost even if you should find a job that provides that material worth. You are at the beginning stages of the mid-life thing and by your mid-forties life will be entirely different psychologically. If you are still searching to fulfill that inner void {this is also a process of reconciling your whole life, the experiences/influences from early life that make up who you are as an adult} then those material things will be worthless. Believe me when I say that day will come.
So it will benefit you to find that thing in life that fulfills the inner void, including a beginning of researching your past experiences/influences. The formula that Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung promote is when you fill that inner void the outer void will be fulfilled also. It worked in my life and I am confident it is a formula that works for anyone who can stay the path {the hero journey of mythology}.

I go back to my original statement that you may need to give more thought to my words. The process of individuation is all about 'thinking about' these inner aspects. Life is a psychological journey and until you reconcile that 'inner' world the outer world will remain in conflict since that world is built upon and around the inner self. A simple equation 'when you think about it'.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 61 Murfreesboro, Tn.

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

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes