Richard,
Feel free to post a couple of past dreams and any personal info you feel comfortable in sharing. I understand in one aspect related to creativity from my own experiences. Responsibilities to my rescue of cats require so much of my time I find it hard at times to concentrate on my dream work as well as maintaining my two websites on dreams {which are as much creative endeavors as informational}. Rescue and caring for my furry felines was something pretty much cast upon me and I because of issues with commitments in my life {married three times} there is no way I could/would ever abandon those responsibilities {and I do luv cats}. Joe Campbell said that the hero deed {we are all heroes when we following the call} is either something you volunteer to do because it is what the soul requires or it is cast upon you. The dream work and web site design {self taught} was my calling, the cat rescue cast upon me. Either way to have to stay the path of the call or life will never be blissful.


Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 Altoona, Fl

Richard,
Here is my analysis of your first dream. It is focused on what you do not want related to your profession and does not comment on your creative aspects {but with those likely the underlying reasons}. Your old routine no longer provides satisfaction in life. There are likely issues related to developed personal attitudes but those are secondary. I do think your 'natural' creative spirit is a part of those attitude traits and I see those as a background message. Because the dream is so strongly focused on not having to work in the old routine of journalism would suggest it is a major issue in your life. The creative aspects are in the background but you are in need of resolving the issues related to having to work in the field you no longer have an interest.

A note about dreams. They are not controlled by ego but are your true feelings, your true self. Dreams are addressing emotional issues that are plaguing you at the time of the dream as well as addressing underlying reasons for the emotional energies. This dream fits with your desire not to be in the old position of regular routine.

Here is my interpretation of the images, actions and symbols in your dream.
-Returned as a reporter-once again having to make choices from a neutral position {centering yourself}
-to a daily paper I worked for in Florida-anxieties with a regular routine in the past
-I don't really want to work as hard at it as I did in waking life/no longer interested in doing day to day journalism-pretty much a literal application {which is not usual but occurs in dreams}
-enter newsroom-message from the unconscious
-large machinery don’t recognize-negative attitudes of being too mechanical
-some copy editors working at them-duplicating actions while being censored/controlled
-I can't tell how-unable to make a determination
-There are no desks for reporter-feeling limited in evaluating and weighting the issues
-no typewriters or computers-inner communication related to making choices about a lack of identity
-my old executive editor is there somewhere, but he ignores me-disregarding inner restrictions not being concerned about building a career {no longer important}
-I am in an office with my old managing editor-being managed by restrictions of the usual routine
-and he also pretty much ignores me-rejecting the old routine

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 Altoona, Fl

Thank you Jerry. I'm going to work with this and get back to you. On first read it resonates strongly, and gives me information I wasn't aware of.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 71 male North Carolina

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Richard,
I have completed my analysis of your second dream and it is in line with your first dream. I'll post that and provide a summary later {probably Sunday} since I work Saturdays for family construction business}. I want to compare your most recent info that includes childhood experiences with the dreams and see if there are commentary related to childhood influence to personality and attitudes. Often the negatives experience in early life unconsciously influence actions and attitudes in later life {as I noted I see all dreams as addressing both current emotional energies as well as foundational energies to personality and attitudes}. In the meanwhile you may find time to give deeper attention to my analysis as provided thus far.

-I am a freelance writer-liberated to compose
-I am in the offices of one of the alternative weeklies I wrote for in waking life-alternative to current position in life
-The office is full of young people who ignore me-expanded self taking new growth being neglected
-There is no place here for me to work either-current life not working
-No desk, typewrite, etc-unconscious communicating this is not your true position
- I leave and find myself walking around the city-exploring your inner self seeking to satisfy your true emotions
- trying to plan how I can make a living freelancing-a need to be more organized/disciplined to free yourself {also a literal application}
-But I face the same problem I faced in waking life-coordination between conscious and unconscious self
-I am an introvert who can't stand marketing myself, so in the dream I am trying to pump myself up for what I do not want to do
---I am an introvert who can't stand marketing myself-not projecting your true self
---so in the dream I am trying to pump myself up for what I do not want to do-stimulating the part of you that rejects the norm

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 Altoona, Fl

The material you are sending me is extremely helpful. Thank you.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 71 male North Carolina

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Hi Jerry,
Here are some biograhical information and two dreams. I had intended submitted some new versions of pother recurring dreams, which have changed considerably, but I have the sense these two are more significant.
Biographical Information
I’m 71 and retired. I was forced to retire early because I was going blind in my left eye and 16 (16!) eye doctors told me it was from stress.
I’m an empath, highly sensitive, an INFJ – all personality traits I was encouraged to hide and did for many years. As an adult, it took a long time to find my calling and soon after I did it was taken from me by an unexpected change in state law.

Family Background.
Youngest of three sons, no sisters. Mother narcissistic personality disorder, father passive dependent. Oldest brother (10 years my senior) family hero. Emotional incest with mother. Middle son scapegoat. I’m the lost child and family hero substitute and mother’s counselor. My job was to be my oldest brother’s clone. Tried hard, failed, shamed.
I have benefited from all too brief Jungian therapy. His stuff resonates with me. I’m wondering if the dreams indicate I don’t believe I can give myself what I need to be more me.
Before I was 6 I was literally kept in a cage made of an up turned playpen in the back yard.
Messages from mother (literal quotes): “You’re too sensitive,” “You shouldn’t feel that way” and “Why can’t you be like ( my brother, another family’s child, etc)?” Everything in the family, including money we earned, belonged to her. She sold my possessions without asking me. She opened my mail like it was hers. In adulthood.
She told me “I see everything you do” and snuck around the neighborhood hiding and spying to prove it. I was raised Catholic, attended catechism school, associated nuns with mother and dreamed of a four-eyed nun watching me. In my adulthood Mother stalked me.
From father’ (again, literal quote): “You can’t do it.” He loved football. I made a game winning touchdown. His reaction: “You run like a cow.” I dreamed in childhood my father took our family kitten to a field I played in, tried to cut off its head, but left it alive, with the head away from the body but attached by some nerves and blood vessels.
Oldest brother: I’m only interested in you when you are doing what I like. Tried to punch me when I disagreed with him about a political issue.
I was told by a friend in high school, “You’re the most unlucky person I know.” I was also told, repeatedly, “You’re a nice guy. And nice guys finish last.,” which was also my brother’s attitude.
My family values consisted of lie, cheat, steal, get over on people weaker than you, bully, keep toxic secrets, deny all this and medicate. I was not like that and suffered in my efforts to change. Lots of verbal and some physical abuse. I used alcohol and nicotine to survive and be like my brother.
I was physically/sexually assaulted by a group of boys in a crowd with no way to defend myself or escape. No one in the crowd helped. I knew I could not risk telling my family. The change in me is obvious in photographs.
As an introvert traumatized in a group I am especially prone to anxiety in groups, even in AA meetings.

Professional Background.
I have felt an impulse to write since childhood. I wrote my first story when I was about six. I made myself a desk out of books and wrote a fiction story. In sixth grade I wrote a parody of the old TV show The Untouchables. I gave it to my teacher to read. She had me read it to the class. Soon other kids were writing parodies, we had a sort of club, the teacher gave us time to write in the library and we read our stories to other classes. I kept doing this sort of thing. Wherever I’ve lived I automatically set up a desk with a typewrite or computer. I eventually became newspaper reporter and, later, a freelance writer.
I have also been a bureaucrat, chef, freelance writer, mental health/addictions counselor, massage therapist and personal trainer.
I was a counselor for 12 years, with two years in an intense program focusing on rapidly resolving early childhood trauma. That was my place. My most rewarding work. Abilities I didn't know I had using my empath, highly sensitive person and INFJ traits. I intuitively knew what to do. Someone said “You have a lot of feminine in you.”
I spent four months in a monastery discerning if I was called to that, But orders are not meant for introverts. Most jobs I left because of either boredom or being required to do immoral, unethical or illegal things. I became legally blind in my left eye. Eye docs blamed stress, so I had to retire.

Personal Therapy and Recovery Background

Alcoholic, sober 39 years through AA and counseling. Diagnosed with depression, anxiety and PTSD. Survivor of various trauma in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Had many counselors, a few great, some OK, a few awful. Jungian Analysis most helpful. Can’t afford.
Spent 10 days in an inpatient program similar to the one I worked in. My psychiatrist told me, “You did great work on your mother. And you’ve just scratched the surface.”
In one weird period, my group counselor sat on the state board regulating counseling, was the social worker of the year for her professional association and, I believe, had a hand in the surprise legal change that ended my counseling career. State law gave me two years to get a masters and get licensed. Meanwhile private practice without such credentials was legal, and a psychiatrist/clinical psychologist team invited me into their practice. I entered a masters program. Then the legislature, with no warning, changed one digit in the law and I only had 5 months instead of 2 years. A great trauma for me. My counselor could have warned me and didn’t. She mocked the program I worked in. I couldn't process this loss with her. I fled.


I’ve always loved and seem unable to get back to. Backpacking, being in the woods, where I feel happiest, connected to nature. Retirement and moving into a cabin bordering on national forest seemed to promise I would have what I want. Hasn’t happened. Many things have appeared to stop me, no matter how much I have planned, and worked, and tried. Been going on 4 years now. Strangely, I never dream of backpacking.

After retiring my wife and I moved here. the NC mountains to heal and backpack. Immediately my wife was diagnosed with cancer and heart failure. We fought the cancer for a year and won. Her heart has improved. Our first backpacking trip blew out my knees. They’d been fine in many trips before. Got physical therapist, chiropractor, joined gym – Covid canceled those. Deep fatigue. Very slowly rehabbing myself. Many blocks. We can’t work. We live at the federal poverty line. It’s been four years.

I have done some work on changing my negative thinking, and have had some success. The serenity prayer, gratitude practice, challenging my thoughts, thought stopping, affirmations, stuff like that. But it has not seemed to get deep enough to heal me. I remember one Jungian therapist I saw just once – she was leaving for China and didn’t charge me for the session – who said, “You’re a counselor. You know how to manage anxiety.” I said, “I don’t want to manage it. I want it gone.” I finally found a Jungian Analyst I worked with for a year. Dream work ended my life-long phobia of dogs. It was an amazing process. My Self presented me with dog dreams, I wrote them down, discussed the dreams with my analyst, came to understand and accept what the dream dogs represented and the phobia ended.

Dream Date: 011021
I'm working in the office of a new publication about to publish its first issue. There are two young women working there with me. They are sort of combined editors-secretaries-office managers. I'm the only writer. We are working for a man who in waking life I worked with until I got it that he was a cheap hustler, unreliable, untrustworthy.
I have stories I need to get into the computer system. I'm so exhausted I can hardly function. The women try to help. They try to set me up with a screen, keyboard and a computer that uses micro-tapes instead of modern media like hard drives. I can't manage to get the system to work for me.
I'm smoking cigarettes and wonder that the women don't object.
They or I suggest I take my work home and use my own computer.
I go home to my apartment. I share it with my ex-wife, who is not present and who I have the sense is very removed from me emotionally as well as physically.
I want to take a bath. I approach the bathroom door and see that the bathroom wall, where it meets the floor of the living room, is sort of rotten. I open the door and see water flowing from the broken ceiling (I can see lathe work and broken plaster) throughaI giant hole in the floor, where the bathtub used to be, into a huge cavern beneath the apartment. The cavern has a glowing golden/amber light emanating from its walls, ceiling and floor. It goes down deep and then extends to my right out of sight.
I see a workman in the cavern. It looks like he is working on telephone, electric or water lines. He looks at me and says something about how long it will take to get the work done.
I worry my ex-wife will want we to do something about repairing all this.
(In waking life my ex left me when I got into recovery from my alcoholism.)

Dream Date 011221
I am working at some sort of job that requires gathering information. It is not journalism. Something about finding a place possibly called “Rabbit Run” or “_____ Run”. It is a place for holding events such as weddings.
I go to an office where a man I know is working. I don't know what was his business. I ask him for directions to “____ Run.” Doesn't know. He reminds me of a man who in waking life was untrustworthy. Who held himself out to be spiritual but was not.
He tells me something that leads me to a woman. She is white, working at a counter like a waitress. I don't get what she said. Then a Black woman appears, from behind the white woman I think, and tells me she knows the way to “_____ run” and will go with me there with another Black woman.
The first Black woman is slim and middle aged. I feel an instant bond with her, and it is obvious somehow that she feels a bond with me, like we've known each other forever. It also seems given that we will sleep together.
We go looking for the place. There is an area with a number of intersecting and intertwining roads and we are unsure which to take. There is someone else around this who gives us confusing directions.
The scene changes and in the far distance I see a causeway going through a body of water. I do not see the causeway's beginning or end. I am with a woman who reminds me of a former supervisor, a therapist, who wanted a romantic relationship with me that I did not want. There is a car crash on the causeway. We start running to it to help. I seem to be barefoot and wearing only shorts.
Then a man, a woman, and possibly some children emerge from the accident scene and are running toward my right. It seems the man is angry at the woman and is chasing her. I run toward them to intervene, but it changes so that the man is not angry at the woman, is apparently a nice guy, the woman seems okay with him and he and I do or are going to do something together.

I know that's a lot. I'm in no hurry.
Thank you.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 71 male north carolina

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Richard,
I will look at your dreams on Sunday.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 Altoona, Fl

Richard,
I appreciate the detailed personal info. I am working on your dreams today and will try to have at least some of my analysis later today.

Question. You mentioned your Jungian analyst helped you discover what dogs represented in your dreams. Can you provide that analysis? And how it related to your life-long phobia of dogs? My sense of your difficulties with continuing psychological issues is related to not having yet resolved childhood trauma. Add all the negatives life has thrown at you {which in itself could impede positive personal growth} I can understand how difficult it would be to find balance and harmony. You are survivor if nothing else, psychologically and otherwise.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 Altoona, Fl

Richard,
Here is my analysis of the first dream.

Your statement, “I have done some work on changing my negative thinking, and have had some success” seems to be what this dream is addressing. The emotional issues run deep and resolving them is what you are attempting to do {current applications of the dream image}. It is difficult path and still requires great effort to resolve. The positive from the dream is you are working on the issues. You possess the skills and experience to achieve this but more work is needed. You must not let conscious fears get in the way. Looking inward is the right path and continuing this path will lead to resolution.

Note: My philosophy on dreams is there are always at least two applications {Jung’s also}. There is a symbolic/metaphorical {with possibly/probably more than one} and often a literal application. The literal is not always present in a dream, or not visible.

Interpretation of images, actions and symbols
I'm working in the office of a new publication about to publish its first issue
-I'm working in the office of a new publication-a new approach in measuring yourself against other's standards
-about to publish its first issue-visualizing and confronting original issus from childhood

There are two young women working there with me
-your own female aspects, and those with your mother {visualizing new approaches to mother issues}

They are sort of combined editors-secretaries-office managers.
-the two issues you are working with to resolve, the ‘managers’ of your emotions

I'm the only writer
-the only way to communicate with your unconscious

We are working for a man who in waking life I worked with until I got it that he was a cheap hustler, unreliable, untrustworthy
-literally the real person, metaphorically your father{?}

I have stories I need to get into the computer system
-bringing your personal history {unconscious} to conscious life

I'm so exhausted I can hardly function
-a literal depiction of your emotional life {and physical}

The women try to help
-benefits from resolving anima issues

I have stories I need to get into the computer system
-issues within your unconscious

I'm so exhausted I can hardly function
literal, magnified exhaustion

The women try to help
-magnified need to resolve anima issues

They try to set me up with a screen, keyboard and a computer that uses micro-tapes instead of modern media like hard drives
-being cautiously optimistic about getting to the unconscious message revealing your true self that drives your conscious life
{this points to your conscious effort in working with your dreams and seeking to resolve issues}

I can't manage to get the system to work for me
-difficulties in resolving issues as well as challenges life throws at you

I'm smoking cigarettes and wonder that the women don't object
-positive approach to your dependency on addictive attitudes

They or I suggest I take my work home and use my own computer
-using your inherent skills to resolve issues

I go home to my apartment
-consulting the layer of your unconscious related to your ego life

I share it with my ex-wife, who is not present and who I have the sense is very removed from me emotionally as well as physically
-resolving experiences past and present related to emotional/physical aspects

I want to take a bath
-emotional/physical cleansing

I approach the bathroom door and see that the bathroom wall, where it meets the floor of the living room, is sort of rotten
-needed cleansing has barriers. Related to aspects to negative support foundations

I open the door and see water flowing from the broken ceiling (I can see lathe work and broken plaster) throughaI giant hole in the floor, where the bathtub used to be, into a huge cavern beneath the apartment
-seeing within yourself you find broken parts with the mother {cavern/womb} being an aspect controlling your waking lif

The cavern has a glowing golden/amber light emanating from its walls, ceiling and floor
-positive illumination radiating from removing the barriers

It goes down deep and then extends to my right out of sight
-the deep unconscious which is out of sight of conscious reality

I see a workman in the cavern
-working on the unconscious issues

It looks like he is working on telephone, electric or water lines
-working on the communication between conscious and unconscious aspects that goes to emotional energies

He looks at me and says something about how long it will take to get the work done
-the time needed to resolve the issues

I worry my ex-wife will want we to do something about repairing all this
-conscious fears related to past emotional experiences

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 Altoona, Fl

Thank you Jerry. You put a lot into these interpretations and I appreciate it. I agree that my continuing issues are related to unresolved childhood trauma, trauma that I think was deepened by events in adolescence and adulthood. I'm glad I came back to doing dream work and that I found your help. I feel very positive and encouraged by how this is going.

I remember two dog dreams from analysis that seemed to make the difference for me. I do not recall any childhood trauma involving dogs. It is my understanding that sometimes a phobia is about transferring anxiety created by one thing or event onto something else, as if the something else is a kind of representation or metaphor for the original. As I write this I suddenly remembered a bear's head that my grand parents had that fascinated and frightened me and how it looked to me like the head of a big dog. I had some trauma at my my grandparents' place also. I would be sent there alone for a week or two in the summer and I never felt safe there.

In the first dream I am in a basement under a house. In front of me is a beautiful wood working shop, small, low ceiling, paneled in gorgeous blond wood with small drawers made of the same wood set into the walls. There are only hand tools and they are very old and very well maintained. But there are no projects in sight. It has the feel of a place that had been unused a long time.

Behind me is a wide, narrow, horizontal opening through concrete that looks down into another cellar. The ceiling of this cellar is at about my head height from were I am standing and the floor is about three or floor feet below. In this cellar is a very large poodle, with its hair cut in that French style. It is a male poodle and he is barking loudly, insistently and angrily. I do not feel afraid of him.

In the analysis of this dream my therapist and I concluded that the workshop represents a part of me that was working on developing my personality, that the workshop still exists but that it has not been used in a long time. The poodle represents a part of me I buried in that other cellar. Poodles, with those French cuts, appear feminine, and I have a lot of feminine characteristics like intuition, compassion, empathy and passion. Yet I also had, when I was a child, some male characteristics like assertiveness, defending those who needed it, and a powerful urge to attack lies, unfairness and injustice. Early in childhood those particular male characteristics were denigrated. The male characteristics that were encouraged were things like bullying, getting over on others, over-powering those who are weaker, cheating and lying and getting away with it.

Poodles appear feminine, since that's the way we cut their hair and that's the way we treat them. But they were originally bred for hunting lions. Our conclusion was the dog in the cellar represents strong, masculine, power of mine I locked up down there and it is trying to get my attention and get out.

The second dream involved two German shepherds, a breed that I was particularly afraid of. In the dream there are two areas of lawn enclosed in chain link fencing. The fencing creates two squares, one inside the other. I am lying on a lawn chaise lounge, outside the fencing. I am watching as the two shepherds are leaping in and out of the squares. They are playing, having a great time jumping out of the inner square into the outer square. In the dream I am calmly watching this.

We concluded the dogs represented wolves, a primal, powerful part of me I had fenced away – doubly fenced away so that they were not only fenced in from the outside word, but also fenced in from my awareness. Although the dogs easily jumped the fence, they were no threat to me and could remain in my consciousness but would not jump into the outside world on their own. I had the sense they were demonstrating I controlled them and they were happy with that.

I have not had any fear of dogs, including shepherds, since we worked with those dreams.

My oldest brother, ten years older than me, was my nemesis. I was supposed to be his clone and I could not be, which brought me a lot of shaming from my family. In therapy I was asked to draw some scene from childhood and I spontaneously drew a scene in which my oldest brother is verbally tormenting my middle brother while my mother watched with approval. While that was actually happening I was just a little kid. I was running from my room to the room this was happening in and throwing my toys at my oldest brother. In the dream I drew my oldest brother as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. About as primal and powerful as you can get. So it seemed that my natural assertiveness was shamed by my family and I saw my aggressiveness as tyrannical like my older brother's and I buried both.

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Richard,
I will look at the other dreams you have posted in the next couple of days. Undoubtedly they are focusing on the same issues but there may be something more we can gain from their message that could be helpful.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 Altoona, Fl

Please note new email.

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Richard,
Will need more time to analyze your dreams. A missing cat {who returned 3 days later} and a sick male feline has required my attention since last Saturday. Add the normal requirements taking care of 16 of the fuzzy felines leaves too little time to focus on my dream work. Have noted your new e-mail and will contact you via that method.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 70 Altoona, Fl

Thanks Jerry. I am in no rush so please don't be concerned about it. I have never done it but I understand herding cats can be near impossible.

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