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August, 2009

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I'm in a huge, extremely posh building of 3-4 stories, plush carpeting (deep red or burgundy), much gold decoration, high, wide, and many inches thick mahogany (brown) double-doors, multiple wide carpeted stairways, fountains, courtyards. There is very soon to be an elaborate, expensive wedding. (I don't know whose, maybe mine.)

There are here many others too (men and women, in their finery), but they are sensed rather than seen. I vaguely recall talking briefly with some of them. It seems one of the attendants advised me it was almost time and that I had best get ready. Then I became lost in all the elaborate ways to go, one set of double-doors looking like another and, once through a pair of them, there were yet other double-door options in a myriad of entrances/exits, rooms, hallways, courtyards with their fountains, etc.

[There is a sense of frustration, anger, and depression at the conclusion of this dream, and a feeling of being trapped with no real escape. Also of no genuine connection with others. Do not know what to make of all the elaborate and conspicuous wealth everywhere on display in these surroundings.

As I am here to attend or be part of a wedding, it seems there may be pending integration. But I see no bride and do not know who she is or even if I am the groom. The many sets of double-doors suggest dawning awareness, but of what I do not know. As it is about a wedding, though, there likely is soon to be another death, probably an ego death. There are here several stories to be told and multiple options or choices in which I am lost.

There are hallways, or transitions, and most of them (not all) are relatively short. The courtyards suggest places of judgment. The fountains (perhaps meditation and/or dream work), though, offer access to the left (emotions, intuition, and the unconscious). There is a feeling of being lost or overwhelmed in choices.

There are many animas and shadows in elaborate personas.

In the hours before my nap, I was unusually aware of anxiety and then of anger. A sense of my needs (nurturance?) not being met. And of being stuck in a universe of experience created by others. There is an order to things here that I must either go along with or defy. I had no part in making it. I either play my part or rebel. It seems, instead, I follow a third course, and get hopelessly lost.

The 3 and 4 suggest transformation and/or manifestation in reality.

I recently began a no caffeine diet, to help with an acid reflux related throat and larynx condition (self-expression?). Even though I had not been drinking that much coffee or tea, maybe one cup of each daily, am feeling more on edge or emotionally vulnerable, that something is missing, like my drug!]

8/3/09 - Title: "It Was the Dame What Done It"

I was lying, as on a sleeping bag, at the edge of a vast runway at night in the dark, and a woman (not remembered who, or else I did not know her) was racing toward me in some vehicle. I knew even in the dream this was not real, but suddenly her vehicle, a big one, like an SUV, was rolling over me. I felt the sensation of being run over and woke up.

[Perhaps not coincidentally, I have today been feeling suicidal depression, not that I would really do it, but with much fantasy of killing myself to stop the pain.

It appears that the anima has it in for the ego and is homicidal. Lately there have been a lot of death related themes in my dreaming. I am feeling particularly unable to cope or to get genuine joy from life recently, and it feels as if most of my decisions are wrong and lead me in directions I would just as soon not have gone. Thus, for instance, I greatly regret having committed to help out the dream group by co-leading it. Most of these people are smarter than I am, and I have no defense against their anger, nor any effective way to deal with it. I have just opened myself to a whole lot of extra pain and with little chance things will get significantly better. Others are optimistic for me in that role, but unrealistic about what I can and cannot do. Sonya, for instance, expects me to facilitate the group by myself, but I have explained I lack the relevant experience to do so. My confrontations in the other dream group prove I am not ready for this. Meanwhile, I feel defeated in several other areas of my life as well.

With some help from Janet, I have an interpretation of this dream: I had never really understood why it was a big deal when in dream group about a year ago I accidentally called Fran my "husband." But even before that, the dream group had been acting as though I were less the man of the house than they felt I should be, and that assessment even without having met Fran. However, it was not till I saw a few days ago that I'd been omitting "tomboyish" from the appropriate adjectives about Frances (used to describe characters in my dreams to the dream group) that I saw and "got it" that people were correct to have seen me as less husband than wife in this relationship, at least in some ways. And SUV is VUS or views (for in dreams words can have the backwards spelling meaning, so dog, for instance, can mean god), the emotion-laden views which were rolling over me that showed me in no uncertain terms that I had been more the female than the male spouse for now going on 25 years, views, however, that I found intolerable, yet I could no longer avoid them, hence my extreme depression lately.

It is not that I am gay or necessarily effeminate but rather that in going along with, instead of resisting, Fran's tendency to be "butch" and to take the dominant position, I have, at least by default, been inclined toward the more compliant, submissive role in our relationship.]

8/5/09 - Title: "A Spiritual Reunion"

(A long, involved dream in which) I am with my (deceased) brother, Ralph. We are at a meeting in someone's house (maybe Ralph's). It is a meeting of the spiritual Lifestream Way meditation group (in which Ralph for a longtime was a much loved secretary (the local representative, in this case in Houston). A spiritual Master and one of His representatives for the U.S. is there, but they are very humble, not intruding on the meeting, just by their Presence sort of blessing it.

I see and hear the meeting happening, but it is as though I was not actually there. An Indian (from India) woman is there as well, and she also is a very spiritual person related to (the spouse, daughter, or another representative of) the Master.

I see the meeting taking place moment to moment, as if I am there though I really am not, after I ask that the minutes of the meeting be read. Mary (Ralph's wife) objects that this would take too long, but Ralph says no, it will be fine, and they should be read, and so they are.

The meeting is one of great spirituality and humility in which the presence of advanced souls in the small group is not only apparent but the dominating factor, pervasive throughout. From the reading, it becomes just like I was there. (The feeling was of being at the most inspiring spiritual meetings I have ever attended. I was in joy, awe, and great inspiration to be among such humble yet advanced spiritual people. It was also great to see and be with Ralph again. He was not only an integral part of the meeting, participating in some of the readings of uplifting literature related to meditation practice, but also around afterward - when I was definitely there as well - and so he could assure the minutes were read, though Mary had disagreed with this.)

(There was also a brief scene in which) I was at a great body of water (perhaps the Gulf of Mexico) at night. There was a sense of its immense power and depth.

[Esther Dupchek, an older lady friend of mine when I lived on the East Coast in the 1970s and a pioneer American member of the same Lifestream Way movement as I was in, was somewhat psychic. She occasionally had amazing intuitive accuracy, as when she predicted an older, much loved representative would soon be marrying a much younger woman, whom she described. This soon after his wife of about 30 years had just died of a long cancer illness. He was still grieving, and certainly there was no hint of any romantic relationships. Yet, just a few months later he married a prominant member of the Lifestream Way "family" who was brilliant, beautiful, about 25 years his junior, and who fit Esther's description. When I knew her in VA in the mid- to late-1970s, more than once Esther told me I was to be a spiritual leader one day, but that it would be after she was no longer living. Esther was also a woman of mostly great joy, spirituality, and humor, though a bit senile and somewhat intrusive, complaining at times if I did not spend more time with her than I normally felt comfortable with. Concerning her saying I would be a spiritual leader, I was flattered at first, but then dismissed it as coming from either her senility or her tendency to relate to me as to a son (and I figured that, as a doting "mother," she of course wanted good things for her "son" and so maybe was projecting or exaggerating something she might have seen in her visions), particularly after I had dropped out of the Lifestream Way movement and in fact no longer believed in any conscious afterlife.

Ralph and I tended at times to be very competitive around each other. (To me, it seemed he was the one who was competitive and that I just reacted to this.) But otherwise we were friends and understood one another better than it has been with my other five brothers or with my sister. He was highly intelligent, well organized, masculine, disciplined, creative, often amusing, an excellent father, very musical, spiritual, and a natural leader. He and Mary were tending to not get along as well just before his cancer was diagnosed, and it seemed they would need counseling and that their marriage might not last. In a morbid way of putting it, he ended the relationship by cutting out early.

Mary is an excellent organizer of social events and highly intelligent, but she tends to be controlling.

The Master and/or his representatives and the Indian woman all remind me of what I know of the Dalai Lama, all very humble people but who are spiritual from the great depth of their meditation experiences, all terribly inspiring and joy-bringing to those around them.

I have met several of the former Master's representatives and the then spiritual Master of Lifestream Way himself.

I met him while on a month-long vacation to India. He was as I described the representatives and the Indian woman except, in addition, he conveyed great authority. He was the unquestioned father-like figure and leader of his millions of disciples. He was also a "changeling," seen differently by different people and manifesting to even the same person in quite different ways at different times. A smile from him could bestow immense joy. A frown or an impatient moment from him (for instance if a person had asked too many times for special attention, even after having already been in a private meeting and though many others were waiting) could bring desolation.

The Master in the dream, though, was not so imposing a figure in this way, more like a humble but deeply spiritual grandfather whom everyone loved and felt comfortable with, whether children or adults, men or women.

I have for many years not been active in Lifestream Way and have instead questioned whether it or any spiritual path is legitimate, in the sense of genuinely leading to any experience beyond this one life. Yet for awhile I was quite involved and even briefly was a local secretary (traveling for our home meetings in North and South Carolina), one whom several found an inspiring leader at the time.

I think the second scene, about the dark presence of the deep and powerful sea, is about the unconscious, intuition, and feelings.]

8/6/09 - Title: "An Unfinished Business Transaction"

I'm at a big office park or shopping center, but kind of behind it, not in the area where customers or clients go. A large (maybe 5 feet, 10 inches or 6 feet tall and with maybe 50 pounds of extra weight) swarthy complexion Middle Eastern looking man (Turkish, Arabian, Egyptian, Iraqi, Iranian?) has lost his American contact for getting his car filled up with gas and serviced (oil, water, etc.) and tries to hand me $3 to do it for him. I gather he's not here legally or has no I.D. and so must use legitimate citizens to do stuff for him (but who knows why he can't just pay cash at a gas station or how I'm going to get his car or return it to him?). I tell him that's not much money for what he wants, and that you get what you pay for. (In other words, he sure won't get much gasoline for $3 worth of my time and trouble.)

So, realizing I'll go through with it (be honorable), he gives me a bunch of crumpled U.S. paper money, maybe $25-50.

But I realize I do not know where to meet him, to give him what he's bought (his car filled up with gas, etc.), I ask him where he'll be. He walks over with me to a disused corner of the office park/shopping center where there is a utility junction on the ground. He must be an engineer, because he knows how to adjust some controls on a panel, invisible to me, so that an only partially lit display (as though it has not been used for a long time and so does not work completely) shows up on surfaces of the paving stones. It is a map of the offices and shops there. He shows where on it I should me (meet) him. I do not understand the map, where we are in relation to the real shopping center or where he is indicating, in the real place, we are to meet. So, I feel disoriented and confused plus anxious and frustrated that I do not "get it." I'm also amazed, though, by this display thing. It is about 3x4 feet in size there on the ground and surrounded by a concrete curb that is maybe 6-8 inches high. I had thought it was all just empty parking lot here, plus little sections with dry, brown, high (not mowed) grass or weeds, but now I see there are fancy gadgets built into the seeming emptyness. "How'd you do that?" I ask, meaning make it light up into a map like that.

[So, it is about some unfinished shadowy business with a somewhat exotic shadow whose characteristics, some of which I do not acknowledge in myself, include being overweight, an engineer, smart, cautious, practical, and willing to operate illegally. From the different numbers, there is dawning awareness, transformation, manifestation in reality, waiting, creativity, flexibility, diversity (and whatever 8 and 10 represent). There may be some issues that are parked instead of being resolved. There is an exchange of energy (U.S. currency) from the shadow to me (the ego). I'm confused or disoriented, frustrated, anxious as well as amazed in this dream. The shadow needs me to provide his means of going through life (car) with enough new fuel, but the transaction is not completed. There is a map showing where to meet, if I could just figure it out. Something is very down-to-earth (concrete). There may be some interest in getting high (slang meanings of high, grass, light up, and weed). Maybe I am seeking a way of getting high (perhaps through meditation or dream work) instead of simply dealing with reality as it is. There is confirmation that I have a legitimate I.D., but for my shadow there are still missing or illegitimate I.D. issues. Perhaps too there is something about dis- (as in "dissing" or disparaging) "play." The map may be referring to ways to interpret dreams, but if so I am not comfortable that I understand yet well enough how to do that.]

Janet assisted me with my "A Spiritual Reunion" dream yesterday (of a meditation group meeting, my brother, Ralph, a scene by the sea, etc.). Highlights of the analysis are as follows:

• I am with my shadow. He represents unacknowledged aspects of myself. We were competitive around each other, yet were mostly friends and understood one another better than has been the case with my other five brothers or with my sister. Ralph could be very sarcastic, cutting people right down with a few well placed words, but generally he was also highly intelligent, well organized, masculine, disciplined, creative, often amusing, an excellent father, very musical, spiritual, and a natural leader. Whereas I am an F (feeling) on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator profile, he was a T (thinking). In all other respects, our profiles were the same. So, as a shadow, he represents the more masculine version of myself, as normally accepted in our culture, in which men are more into their thinking and women more into their feeling sides.

• We were meeting in the part of myself that is my shadow.

• It is a meeting on the practices and principles of the Lifestream Way, which include efforts and attitudes toward "going within" or "dying while living," having humility, devotion to one's higher power (in the form of a living Maharaji), and putting the vows of this Path (chastity outside marriage, being a strict vegetarian, no alcohol or other drugs, and meditating for a minimum of 2.5 hours daily in the Lifestream Way style) above all other concerns.

• The example of Ralph and his relationship with Mary may be a cautionary one. Ralph and she were struggling in their marriage in the latter years, shortly before he got and was diagnosed with cancer. In a morbid sense, he took the "cancer cure" exit from a difficult relationship.

• There is also the shadow part of me that is a Master or Maharaji, having great joy, humility, and spirituality, yet also being highly intuitive, simply knowing things without having been told, and conveying great authority. He was the unquestioned father-like figure and leader, though he was seen differently by different people. A smile from him could bestow immense joy. A frown or an impatient moment from him could cause desolation.

• My ego was present, but in a sense there was very little ego in the meeting.

• The Indian woman was an anima there to show right feeling, very similar to the Master (joy, humility, depth, insight, and spirituality), yet without the sense of great authority or his father-figure qualities.

• Mary again is my anima as well, there to show right feeling or attitude (excellent organizer of social events, highly intelligent, but tending to be controlling). She says it's not important to recount events, but my shadow says to go ahead and do that.

• In this meeting of shadow, anima, and Master parts of myself, the part of me that is advanced resides, and this is the factor that dominates or stands out.

• From getting a reading - a reading can be a recounting of events, or it can be an understanding, like to read the situation, and Janet tends to go with the latter - I recognize the presence of the humble, spiritually advanced side of myself, and I get to be with the shadow with whom I really connect, with all the qualities indicated for Ralph.

• While I was asleep, I got in contact too with an emotional part of myself that is in the great unconscious (the scene with the Gulf of Mexico), representing as well intuition and feelings. Seeing that, connecting with that, gives me immense power and depth. It also suggests I am becoming more comfortable with and appreciative of what the left side stuff is all about.

• Janet feels it is a really powerful dream. She does not think this dream was there to show just something fleeting. She reminds me that she had said there was a part of me, that I was not connecting with, which was creating the recent depression. She feels the part represented in this dream certainly could be that part. And, in contrast to the misery of not making that connection, when I do connect with that part of myself, I experience great joy. Very cool.

8/9/09 - Title: "Near Miss Anima"

It is daytime. I'm in a car with a woman (and even in the dream I know she's my Janet anima) and going to her house. (I think I'm driving, but not sure.) Her place is just above a really high cliff. The road goes right into (directly into) her house, but turns abruptly left inside. I am surprised to suddenly be in her house. We are driving fast. It seems we'll crash through her house and plummet down the cliff, but, since we suddenly go left inside, the crash is barely avoided. We stop just in time.

Title: "Intruder Alert"

I'm in my house. I have gotten up. I think I was awakened by a noise (annoys?), perhaps an intruder. There is light only from the porch light through a small window over the front door. Down a short hallway to my left is a room we use mostly for storage and working on the computer. Since it's night, the computer is shut down and the light is off in that room. Then I sense more than see something circular that seems to leap out of the room into the hall. It's as if a tiny flying saucer (sorcerer?) had come out of there. But then I do briefly see something. It looks like a floating frisby (Frisbee) but with a pale white internal light. Suddenly it is not floating but on the floor in the hallway and looks like a puffy red cartoon shoe (like from the movie "Toon Town"), or maybe two of them, moving without visible foot (feet) in it (or them). I've no protection against this kind of intruder. I'm frightened and wake up.

[The left-side stuff is significant in both dreams. In the first one, it is also about my anima and even going into her house, so it is all about the normally unconscious material and intuition plus emotions. In the first dream, I am going quickly into her house - the self of the anima - and quickly turn left in there, so it is about my anima's unconscious, intuitional, and emotional stuff. We are going too fast, but we stop abruptly before going too far. This might have a sexual connotation, but mainly seems to mean avoiding too much impact or encounter either with Janet's conscious (straight ahead or right) but private self or her unconscious (left) material. Since it is my dream, though, rather than about the real Janet, it seems there is some danger from too rapid an encounter with my own anima's unconscious material or from integration with the anima (represented by Janet). For me, Janet is a great and kind facilitator, genuine, and she has a great sense of humor. I do not yet understand the metaphor of the high cliff or the danger of having fallen off the cliff if we had not turned left suddenly and stopped just in time.]

In the second dream, it is about nighttime or sleeping and dreaming related stuff within myself and fear of too rapid or uncontrollable intrusion into now awakened consciousness of material from the unconscious, intuition, and feelings. Partly, this intrusion may take the form of a mandala-like symbol (a lit from within flying saucer or sorcerer). Partly it could be anger or passion related (red) material that is intruding and from which I feel I have insufficient protection. There is not enough protection either from my own and others' strong, negative emotions or from strong attractions (passion).]

This afternoon I discussed the above dreams with my dream group. Highlights:

• "Two lefts make a right," as Sonya said. Both in the sense of the two dreams having essentially the same theme, about turning to the left or dealing with left-related issues, and of at once turning to the left and being in my Janet anima (emotions, etc.) house or self, there is dawning awareness of the importance of material from the unconscious, intuition, and emotions.

• I am reacting to this left-side emphasis, material, information, potential integration, energy, power, depth, spirituality, wholeness, and passion (anger, sex, etc.) as if it were a terrible threat with which I must deal and yet for which I lack appropriate defensive moves.

• In fact, in the views of all the other dream group members present, the "intrusion" of left-side stuff is a good thing, and the shift to the left keeps me from going off a personal cliff.

• As such, it need not be defended against but welcomed and even waded into.

• The left-side stuff is the source of life's richness, strength, and creativity.

• Call it "God," "higher power," "Mu," the "Ground of Being," "That Which Is," the "universe," or whatever, will-nilly it is flying (like a saucer, sorcerer, or spinning mandala) and walking (like a pair of puffy, funny, cartoonish red shoes) into my existence, and I may as well get used to it.

• After a short transition period (a short hallway), it may be turning my life upside-down, but in a good way!

• I can go into that new circumstance kicking and screaming, dragging my feet the whole way, or I can embrace the adventure.

• If things get really difficult, I can call a friend, ask the "audience" (other parts of myself), get in touch with dream group members, go do something with others, etc.

• Through practice, meditation, dream work, etc., I can learn to switch out of a limited, fearful, obsessing-on-the-negative ego (that may even go to extremes and think it has to "control" things by committing suicide) and into my Janet anima (my more animated side) which has a great sense of humor, is genuine, and is an excellent facilitator.

Perhaps related to today's dreaming too, I got a little angry when someone tried to correct me in how I had responded (insensitively changing the subject, in this person's view, to something less emotional) to someone who had teared up while exploring his dream. When I explained (after the person who had gotten more emotional had needed to leave early) that I had not had my distance glasses on, he was across the room, and I was just not aware he had been tearing up, she persisted in her criticism, saying I should then have heard it in his voice. I got rather pissed off but simply said I'd like others' feedback to see if they read the situation the same way. Two others said they had not noticed that I was being insensitive or even that the gentleman had been tearing up. The person seeking to correct me indicated she had not seen it that way, her tone of voice implying that were I not so defensive I would have accepted that I just did not like to see people dealing with their emotional stuff and so had tried to change the atmosphere. I did not and do not believe this is the case. It certainly was not today, though it may be more generally without my being aware of it before. So, I shall need to watch for this. I have noticed that the person seeking to correct me has occasionally in the past been intent on providing others with her insights even after seeing that they are causing them pain. For me the bottom line is partly that nobody is perfect, partly that I may be too thin-skinned, and that, as in the dreams, I am concerned about the intrusion of negative emotional material, in myself or directed toward me, and do not at present have a way of effectively dealing with it, defending against it, or processing it without anger, anxiety, and/or depression.

So, compared with the difficult emotional reaction I had to even one instance of (what I regarded as) unjustified criticism, which has left me feeling badly the rest of the day, the general guidance from the dream group about my dreams' lessons, or what to do when feeling really down, seems largely insufficient.

A crucial question arising from such situations as above, posed by today's dreaming, or suggested in the recent dream of my being on the beach in Bermuda, enjoying the "heat" but almost completely unprotected from the "hot" rays, is how when these dark clouds of anger, etc. are looming or already overhead do I then swiftly switch to my Janet anima's resources and turn that anger (in me or in others) into humor and good, genuine facilitating despite the rising negativity. At the end of the dream group meeting, I'm as much in a fog about that as ever.

8/11/09 - Title: "A Pair of Lucky Latch Bearers"

Maurice and one other man from dream group (Harry?) have a variety of adventures on their long quest, the success of which seems now assured since Maurice and the other man have found a latch. Like a key it helps one open an important door, giving access to the realm beyond ordinary time and space. They are both in high spirits as their journey nears its end, though it seems clear that the way here has not always been easy or its happy outcome assured. Maurice is bright, excited to be near journey's end, so in touch with his emotions that, moment by moment, he cries with either happiness or sadness, his heart utterly full to overflowing. The other man is calm, yet with great inner depth and strength, and is often and easily amused, his good humor infectious and full of wisdom.

Title: "Mommy, There's a Mummy in My Room!"

A confusing set of images, most of the dream forgotten, that includes at night in a room distress to find myself next to what seems a cloth-wrapped body.

Title: "Learning the Right Route"

Also, I am out alone driving or flying at night on a large highway, like an interstate with a grassy median. For some reason, I decide it is best to cross the median to the left side lanes and head up those on the other side. This won't be a problem since by then I should be flying above the oncoming traffic, and, in any case, this stretch of highway at night has few other vehicles out on it.

[2 shadows = dawning awareness. One shadow is more emotional and into heart stuff and his feminine. The other is more into his masculine.

Going to the left is going into the unconscious, emotions, and intuition.

"Bear" and "Mummy" refer to mother stuff.

Going to the other side suggests death.]

8/14/09 - Title: "An Awkward Gathering"

I'm in a very nicely decorated place, a home but so well and expensively fixed up it may be a millionaire mansion. It appears to be just one-story. I really only see the one long, narrow room we are all in, part kitchen and part front room or entranceway. A door to the outside is partly open and opens into the more front room area, letting in bright light. There is no entranceway or hall. The door just immediately opens into the front or living room area. There are lots of people here, mostly women, besides me and one other man, and I see about 10-12 in this lengthy kitchen-front room.

I spill something where I am standing in the sort of kitchen area, bread crumbs, I think, and am glad they just miss getting onto someone's new, mint condition open book.

Two younger people are standing and arguing at the other end of the long room, more at the front room or living room end. They are a man and a woman, and I assume they are lovers and/or married and have been together till now for a long time. The fight appears heated and about to come to blows or slaps. The man is keeping the woman from looking at something he is holding in his right hand, which I assume is an x-ray or CT scan or some such result of medical diagnostics. She is equally determined to see it.

I understand that he is, besides her lover, also her doctor and does not want her to see what the x-ray or CT scan shows. Because the fight is getting out of hand, I look him in the eyes and ask "What's going on?"

He doesn't answer or only mumbles something I cannot understand and continues the struggle with the woman over the x-ray or CT scan.

My sister-in-law, Mary, is there, and I hear someone say, maybe her, in answer to my question: "They waited too long before doing anything. Now it's too late. They're going to rot alone."

From this I understand that they both are riddled with terminal cancer, and he's been trying to keep her from seeing the proof of it in her diagnostics. Because of the fight and a breakup that will surely follow, now they'll suffer their illnesses and deaths alone.

One or two others in the gathering are also, though much more stoically and quietly, dealing with a terminal illness.

Some, like my sister-in-law, Caroline, who is there too, are still acting bubbly and happy, self-involved, eating a lot, not concerned about the ones who are sick to death.

Mostly, though, we are very somber now as we wait for time to go or we begin to leave and head back to our own homes.

[Before going to sleep I concentrated at some length, partly because it was very hard for me to get to sleep, on this question for which I sought a dream answer: "Should I be a volunteer counselor?"

Apart from anything else, I did feel at the end of the dream like I would just be quiet in the dream circumstances at the end, feeling overwhelmed and sad, not knowing how to react to finding out about at least 3 people having a terminal illness. This suggests an unease with dealing with negative emotions that certainly gives me pause as I contemplate whether or not to be a counselor.

The fact that at least 3 people have a terminal illness suggests transformation is occurring. The two younger people who are arguing suggests also dawning awareness.

Mary is very intelligent, creative, great at organizing and facilitating big social events, quite into esoteric groups and workshops, a good teacher, highly responsible, efficient, excellent at quickly establishing rapport with others and drawing them out, but also can be intrusive and controlling. Mary looked after her husband, my brother, Ralph, when he was dying of brain cancer. It was a painful, really hard time for both of them, not only because of the cancer but also because it exposed a lot of difficulties in their relationship that had been sort of festering for years.

Caroline is an INFP in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, whereas I am an INFJ. She is not that bright, rather irresponsible, religiously and politically conservative, self-indulgent, immature, creative, and more a playmate or enabler (of obesity in one and sex plus drugs in the other) for her two children.

I am attracted to other of the anima figures in this dream. I do not know them in real life, and they do not seem like family members, just interesting, good looking, intelligent, sensitive women.

The references to cancer in the man and woman, or in one of my shadows and one anima, may mean a tendency to respond in a "Can do, sir!" fashion to dictates from on high, up the family chain of command, and could have to do with father-son issues.

The lack of a hallway or other entranceway suggests no period of transition from the present. The conditions represented by the dream may then be current rather than pending.

For various reasons, I'm fairly sure this dream has to do not just with volunteer counseling but also with the pros and cons of thoughts and feelings about helping to facilitate dream group meetings.

Other issues tangled up in both considerations include my feminine vs. masculine identity. Though I would rather be more masculine, I see both dream group facilitating and counseling as requiring more feminine traits or skills. In addition, when learning to be a facilitator or counselor, one may at times need to acquiesce in or be submissive to the control of the group or center leader, which further may reinforce a feminine rather than masculine role.

If, on the other hand, one goes with one's more masculine inclinations for controlling the situation or going one's own way, it can be disruptive, distracting, or otherwise detract from what needs to be done to best serve the needs of the group or client, especially if done without the same insight that might be brought to bear using feminine skills or traits. There is danger of "going off half-cocked," so to speak.

There may also be mother-son issues between me and the dream group leader that make things interesting at times.

So, things seem more complicated than merely a question of whether to be contracted or expanded, as I had thought about this volunteer work possibility yesterday.

I am reminded now of advice from a dream group member about a year ago, that I had best not do volunteer work because I thought I ought to. He advised instead doing it only if I found the activity in question particularly interesting and fun, so I could do it with a sense of humor or play, involving my creative inner child.]

8/15/09 - In the past couple or three days, I have discussed in person or via e-mail my recent dreams, "A Pair of Lucky Latch Bearers," "Mommy, There's a Mummy in My Room!", "Leaving the Right Route," and "An Awkward Gathering," with Janet and/or Sonya. Highlights:

• Re the latch one, Janet feels this is a great dream with wonderful shadows, given their qualities. The latch probably represents a way in. Their success is assured.

• They achieve a great thing. To her, this is a dream for all three of us and signifies this very optimistic phase of our journeying.

• Re the mummy dream, she believes it is about mother-son issues and that the mother had to go. The mother is now dead, and in the dream there is acknowledgement of that. Cool.

• Re the leaving the right route dream, my ego is driving at night, which can be about dark and mysterious inner material. It is also about my high-way, like an inner-state, where there is spirituality but neither too much nor too little, a "median" amount.

• I go to the unconscious side of my inner state and head that way.

• I am above the problems, and there is nothing to stop me. In any case, the high-way does not have many problems to begin with.

• Janet believes the dreams are showing there is much to celebrate. I did the work I needed to do and overcame the old stuff, specifically about my mother. Success is assured. Now there are no oncoming problems, just a nice flight ahead. So cool.

• Much as I would love to believe Janet's optimistic interpretation of those dreams, she tends to be sanguine when interpreting others' dreams, and I've seen folks who are still full of fecal material, so to speak, whom she has applauded as having achieved great successes through their dream work, folks who still need to do MUCH more work to simply be nice to be around. It does not feel like most of my problems are behind me, with smooth sailing ahead. If her assessment is accurate, it must be a predictive dream rather than showing what has already occurred.

• Re my more recent "An Awkward Gathering" dream, Sonya says a main theme here is my learned and then habituated tendency to put myself down. This puts me at a disadvantage relative to others and also gives not so benevolent individuals opportunities to use various dominance or bullying tactics at my expense.

• It does not mean there is anything "wrong" with me or with those who tend to give me abuse. Rather, it is just a natural development that a seemingly weaker one will draw a stronger one and vice versa, as automatic as opposite poles of magnets attracting each other. Yet here the attraction is not a positive kind. It is more as though this is the easiest channel in which the energy can flow, but it is charged, negative energy, not doing the aggressor or her or his victim any real good. It is like a short-circuit instead of a productive flow of positive, rewarding energy between individuals. But to the extent I am less a Casper milk-toast, there will be less occasion for my feeling dominated or bullied by others. They will be the same people, and I will be the same individual, but the "chemistry" of the transactions, the type of energy flow, will definitely change if my own attitude or stance is no longer one of vulnerability and weakness.

• The dream is there to show that it is time for a new way of being. The process of learning and acquiring this new way is more important than the specific method, like counseling work or something else, used to accomplish this.

• It might, for instance, indeed be via applying for a challenging volunteer counseling job and going through that, or it might be from getting and learning to ride a motorcycle and then tooling around town or out in the country with it. Or it might happen via getting tattoos, having an affair (though Sonya is not advising this), going to Canada for a year, working out till in as good physical condition as after army basic training, being an official course auditor and attending while doing the reading for several classes of interest, becoming an artist and painting things as nobody else sees them, writing a (great or mediocre) novel or set of short stories, going back to school for a financial planner credential or a teaching certificate and then following through with work in the appropriate field, becoming a movie going or workshop attending fool, becoming a multi-millionaire, going through an Al-Anon 12-step program and then making that a regular part of my life, taking a Bhakti yoga 30-day course, conducting free eye-gazing one-on-one therapy sessions, making island gardens in people's yards, being a foster care provider for dogs, teaching insight meditation, or merely doing a different thing I love each day, independent of Frances, something that regularly gets me out of the house and into a fruitful, fun, and/or productive activity or involvement.

• She believes there is nothing awful about Fran, that she is a fine woman, and we have a promising marriage, certainly not such a relationship that we ought to separate and get a divorce. However, it is Sonya's view that we are not living up to our mutual potentials individually or as a couple because of dysfunctional patterns that we now maintain. So, for both of us, there are aspects of our present life that need to die.

• The dream opens in a very special place, one that represents the self and has marvelous applications (appliances, etc.) to my life.

• It is important that this place is lit by a bright light from the right (not wrong illumination, perhaps also spiritual light, though it may too be the light of reason (from right-side, logical, rational stuff).

• It is about one story of my being, which has to do with man's-ion stuff or masculinity issues, at least potentially the house of my masculine self.

• 10 in the I Ching means progress, growth, new beginnings, and success despite hazards.

• 12 in the I Ching means decay, stagnation, and the end of progress. In the current situation, then, I am balanced between those two, and things might go either way.

• The spillage of bread crumbs (for toast) suggests, as in the fairy tale, the idea of leaving bread crumbs, when going into a new or scary place, for later finding the way out.

• The toast use of the bread (that came to mind when thinking why I would have bread out) suggests there are aspects of my life that are coming to an end, that need to go, and so are "toast." Their dying will have major implications for my comfort level as well as for the established status quo in Fran's and my relationship.

• The open book, clear way Fran and I have been operating together for awhile needs to go. And to some degree this means I ought to be less an open book to others. There is a virtue and courage in letting it all hang out. But disclosing everything, like my feeling suicidal a few days ago and other aspects of my current or past psychic states, may be overdoing it and unnecessarily, even self-destructively open. There are those who cannot help but feel superior to us if we reveal ourselves too much. Everyone has certain things they would just as soon not be public knowledge, with good reason. There are folks who will take advantage of us if they can, just as a bird will peck at another one that has a fresh wound or sign of weakness. It is just in our animal nature that we shall shove aside or dismiss or otherwise seek to gain at another's expense if given a good opportunity. Some do this more habitually than others, but there is a little of this in all of us. So, choose carefully those to whom you reveal everything. It may not be necessary, for instance, to share all with one's spouse or lover. There is a certain idealistic notion that by baring all we are more intimate with this other person with whom we are traveling through life. But, in most cases, if we do not show ourselves enough respect to keep certain things in the background, then others will respect us less as well, and that can have unintended consequences that need not be there is we simply allow ourselves to seem a bit more mysterious.

• Things must now come to an end, and that includes the open book, clear way I have been revealing myself to others, including Fran. I need to be more obscure. Hence the need for bread crumbs for helping find a way out later, once the too clear path has come to an end.

• It is, no question, a very vulnerable, upsetting phase for me of positive, healthy, growth-filled change. As such, it is a good time to be pampering, indulging, or treating myself (in the way that Caroline does herself, and she apparently is in the dream to show this by example).

• Among others, the old, dysfunctional anima, that is negative, sniping, and tending to take me for granted or to put me down, in order to feel like she is staying dominant, has to die.

• Similarly, the shadow self that is full of "Can (do), sir!" obedience to the dominance expectations of the spouse and is putting himself down a lot has got to go.

• And there is or are at least one or two other animas that have got to go.

• So, it is a scary, painful time, and grieving is an appropriate response, as is giving myself special nurturing during this period, letting myself eat maybe a little more and not so wonderfully healthy foods, doing more things I really enjoy, letting a few rules slide some or being more flexible about them.

• Mary is there to show a mostly beneficial anima who is needed as the big transformation is occurring. She is an anima who shows by example being more controlling (masculine) as well as esoteric, intelligent, and great at organizing and facilitating big social events (like reordering my entire cast of inner characters!).

• There are feminine traits important to dream group facilitating, certainly, like my Janet anima's sense of humor or like using intuition, being more into feelings, or expressing empathy, but it also demands some more masculine skills, such as setting limits, enforcing rules, stopping bickering, and providing order.

• Sonya does not feel we have mother-son issues, at least she does not recognize being part of such, and so says if they are going on they are aspects of our relationship that I am projecting onto it. She herself feels instead we have a friendship. She says she appreciates and respects me and feels I have a stabilizing, positive effect, by example, on the dream group and that I consistently go for the deeper or more profound meanings in my own or other folks' dreams. (Sometimes, in fact, I might feel happier if I lightened up a bit and went a bit more for the superficial.)

• She is not sure I am accurate in saying most or all the others in the dream group have a higher IQ (and that she believes I am intelligent), but that, even if I were, IQ is not everything, and there are things that a person with good intuition, which I certainly have, can offer to even someone with much higher intelligence quotient, for instance Janet, since the ego often gets in the way of our seeing clearly our own issues. She also feels I have compassion to a greater than average degree, which is valuable in dreams interpretation.

• She added a few thoughts based on her own intuitional resources. For example, she said there may well come a time, for who knows what reason or by what means, when I shall start my own dream group, perhaps meeting in my home, and that it could be uncomfortable for maybe the first six months, but that then I shall find it a rewarding pursuit, one that is valued and appreciated by others who will regularly come to the meetings and be very glad that I am leading and facilitating the dreams interpretations.

• Sonya said as well that she does not think the volunteer counseling position with the city will work out, but that this does not matter, for there will be many other ways I can complete the process of transformation which has begun, ways to radically change and destabilize the current, stagnant domestic arrangement for the better.

• After initial resistance, "tomboy" Frances may come to see the "new deal" with favor, to have more respect for me, even to like me better than is now the case. As a result, we may come to be more compatible, more like a real couple one day, instead of like competing roommates struggling for dominance or even, to exaggerate to make her point, like Fran's being the animated "husband" who goes off and does interesting things and me being the relatively dull, "stay at home wife," who just adjusts and caters to "him" and whatever "he" decides.

• I said I was not so much concerned with what Frances wanted or would like better as with what would bring me greater self-respect and contentment. She agreed with that view in general, but said the dreams are still suggesting it is partly a relationship matter, with both me and Fran locked in negative gender identity issue clashes. Sonya believes that has to go. Hence this particular dream and others over the years.

• It is not necessary, she reemphasized, to share all one's thoughts, plans, insights, and so on with another. Mystery is sometimes better. Along with keeping one's own counsel more of the time and being of relatively few words, doing less coordinating, being less predictable, yet demonstrating more control, an independent approach, doing one's own thing, and having more mystery can imbue a man with an attractive masculinity.

• My friend, Janet, added further thoughts on the "An Awkward Gathering" dream. She said to her it is more about the question I asked the dream, whether or not to get the volunteer counselor job with the city. I have a lot to offer and that I want to offer, but have not quite figured out the right venue. She, like Sonya, guesses it is not the volunteer counselor job. She feels instead that the work is to find out what is the right venue by looking for things I truly enjoy and then to do them, regardless of what anyone else thinks or feels about it. What those things may turn out to be, or what a specific rewarding job or consuming hobby, etc. might be, may not be immediately obvious and could take six months or so to find, or it could become apparent in just the next day or two. I should definitely give myself permission to see what the right thing is. When I do find it, I won't have to ask for a dream to know if it is right for me. It will be obvious. It will be something that adds internal energy and joy to my life. As a result, I could not help but reflect that back into the world. People enjoy being with others who are joyful. They are just nice to be around. They do not have to be changing the world. Simply by being who they are and doing what they like, they are an inspiration and making things better.

• She also added more particular comments on that dream. For instance, she said she thought if I took the volunteer counseling job I might find myself in a continual state of needing to say "Can (do), sir!" there, though I really did not feel that attitude.

• She said while I am in a place of transformation I spill some nurturance, but not much. The part of me that is an open book, willing to listen, and in mint condition almost got the crumbs, but it didn't happen.

• The shadow and feelings have been together a long time. They go together.

• The feeling part of me wants to understand where the problem is. My shadow doesn't. But the feeling part really wants to get it. X-ray and CT scan feel like puns... X is a variable... or an X-ray shows me the framework. She is not sure what a CT scan means.

• This shadow does know what these tests show and doesn't want the part of me that is there to show me right feeling to see the framework or the skeleton of the issue. So these parts of me struggle. (That part of the dream might even reflect that, though I usually do, this time I am not showing this part of my dream site write-up to Fran, not interested in sharing them with the emotions side.)

• The Mary anima part of me, that shows me right feeling and is like my sister in the laws that she follows, may have said they are going to rot. Rot implies just sitting and not doing anything about something.

• Cancer is about having to say "Can (do), sir!" to things I do not agree with. And it is terminal. It just ends things, and then the shadow and anima do not get to be together. They do not unite.

• One or two (dawning awareness) more have a terminal illness. But maybe its time that they die as well.

• My shadow already knows what I need to know. My feelings want to know but do not yet, or at least do not have right side (logic, reason) confirmation, because there is a part of me that I not owning that does not want the feelings side to really know with right-side confirmation. What is it that I would not want to see, because I might not like the way it feels? I suspect it is the way I have been so accommodative in my marriage with Frances that in some ways she is more like the "husband" to my being more like the "wife." I understand this to some degree but it has not truly sunk in as yet, and I am afraid of the feeling that engenders, so negative that I think about suicide when I dwell on it much. Clearly the shadow is trying to protect me from those feelings.

• Then there is the riddle with cancer. Somehow there is a riddle involved about understanding why I have to say "Can (do), sir!" What is the riddle? In any case, that riddle is going to end.

• Usually in a dream when there is a death, its a good thing. If the part of me that is sick is going to die, that seems positive. So, overall, even if as a result of the current inner and outer situations I feel quite uncomfortable, the dream reflects an upbeat forecast for the outcome.

8/19/09 - Title: "Reluctant Wife"

It is dark and night. My spouse and I - and the spouse may have been Fran, may have been someone else, I just do not recall - live near a large body of water, a big lake, I think. Our big house fronts on the lake-like water. I encourage her to go swimming or wading and off to the left into the water with me, but my wife resists. She is afraid. She thinks - she believes she knows - there is something malevolent, really scary and evil, out there and does not trust me or think I'll to be able to deal with it. She is so resistant she is close to violence. I am sad she will not go with me and that she even suspects me of bad motives in trying to get her to go there. She returns to the house and wants nothing else to do with the water and going deeper into the dark to the left. She feels rebellious. I must go alone or not at all.

Title: "Suspicious Wife"

(A complicated dream, many scenes, and all I remember is...) I am visiting the community and home of another man. He and his kids (a young boy and girl, I believe) as well as a few others met here seem to like me and are not suspicious of me, but she (his young wife) thinks I am up to no good. I tell them various things are going to happen, and we need to get ready. (This place is like the Pennsylvania Dutch country or being among the Amish or some such community. It is rural and charmingly rustic.) I want to show the man and his wife something. It involves water as well as places where there are lots of small animals (geckos, etc.) in the grass and in other shallow growth, very fertile areas, adequately watered but not really wet here, just good growing conditions, as for farming, etc., and near the water. The woman "knows" I am up to no good and will have nothing to do with me, trying to get her husband to see I have bad intentions. Nobody else sees it that way.

(Same dream, different scene...) I know a big storm is coming. I run back from one of the big rustic houses to where I had left a couple umbrellas. On the way, I tell people it's about to rain. They listen to me, but it's no big deal, just another storm. The kids are kind of excited, but the woman is again very suspicious.

The rain begins. It is quite a deluge. I manage to get my umbrellas just as the big storm starts and others are seeking shelter in their rustic houses. The woman seems to think my having known the storm was coming proves her suspicions true and that I intend bad things. She keeps badmouthing me to her husband, trying to get him to see it her way.

Title: "Responsible for a Nightmare in Trouble"

(Most forgotten of this one too, but...) It is night. I am responsible for a mare. I brought her here. While I am in a house or a big building near the bay (where I had left the horse), I see through a large window, or else off from where I am on a big bridge, that down below where the horse is (at first in shallow water, like only a few inches deep and near the shore), now it is in trouble (and to the left of my view) because the tide is coming in. Soon it will be in several feet of water, and already it is very frightened. If it understood, it could just walk or swim back out of the bay. It's still only about 30 feet or so from shore. But it is too frightened and it is a horse, so it can't figure this out. I do not know how to get down there and save it in time.

The odd thing is that the tide is rising from the direction where I am, so the shore the horse needs to get to is across the water from me, as though I'm in a building build (built) into the bay or on a bridge over the bay, and the vast ocean is behind me as I view the horse's predicament. I must try to save her, but do not know how.

[3 different settings (transformation?) having in common that I am in some type predicament in relation to a female who does not trust me or understand and either figures I am bad or else, in the case of the horse, does depend on me to look after it as things are getting serious but, evidently consistent with the women's worst fears in the other dreams, I do not seem able to deal with the forces that arise from the left, and the result apparently will be terrible.

It seems these dreams are all about one form or another of unconscious material, intuitional stuff, and/or emotions. My animas do not trust me (the ego) and the horse, also a symbol of the unconscious and emotions, I believe, may suffer the kind of fate the women might have warned of as a result of her association with me.

I do not know if Fran was the wife in the first dream, but in case she was, I describe her as exceptionally competent in many areas, something of a tomboy in that she seems more masculine in her approaches to things than is typical for women in our culture, easily amused and amusing, and a good teacher and friend in subjects of interest to her and particularly in situations in which she is the acknowledged expert.]

8/25/09 - Title: "Blundering into Agony"

I am younger and with someone else, another man, apparently a brother (but not recognized in reality) and my mother (much younger than in reality). There is much confusion involving boxing training rings or boxing matches, new clothes (formal wear, suits, and such) and rooms and locations in a city unfamiliar to me.

Mother had been with us at first and assisting with the clothes selections and the arrangements about the rooms. Now she is not here, and neither is my brother. Except some of the time it seems he is there.

The challenge now, and it seems overwhelming, is to find where I am supposed to be and on time, since I am in a room but have only the vaguest idea how to get where I need to be in the suit, etc. or just where or how to get from here to there. It (where I need to be) is someplace close, in walking distance, no more than a mile or two, but this urban setting is very unfamiliar. There are hundreds, thousands of residential and commercial rooms in all directions. I know I must leave to find where I need to be on time, and so I do.

The first place I think it might be turns out to be a boxing training room, except the boxing going on in 2-3 rings here is apparently to the death. All the contestants are male and oriental. There is no head gear. There are no gloves. The men are wearing only small shorts. I see also, close up, one opponent bloody and apparently dying. He is only about 3-4 feet from me in a ring adjacent to the back of the top of a stairwell I ascend and its opening at the floor level, as I go up to this room to see if it's the right place. He is not just on the ropes but against them in a heap on the mat in one corner, his bloody face (facing in my direction as I have turned around on my way up the stairs), torso, and limbs barely showing life, but his eyes, though registering extreme pain, are open. He is aware and somehow avoiding screaming, as though he is still too stoic and manly to scream or as though he is too close to death to scream, but in such pain it is as though he has been tortured for hours.

As I briefly watch, I see one of his hands move a little. I know that, any moment, more blows will reign (rain) down on him. I also see another man, farther away, in much the same condition. I do not see the victors, but they must be nearby and bloody too, though victorious in the current bouts. I hear other, a little more distant bouts here. There is no sound except the hammering of blows, skin tearing, flesh-destroying blows. Neither those being destroyed nor their assailants utter a sound as the process persists, reducing men to sacks of pain-filled dying flesh. The victors this round may be the victims in the next.

[Emotionally, in this dream I am not really "there" so the horror of some of what is seen does not get to me as much as if I were into my feelings. Yet, there is an overall mood of fear, sadness, a sense of uncertainty, and that things could go well if more or less by accident I find my way to the correct place or of tragedy if I do not.

There are enough numbers here for unity, dawning awareness, transformation, and manifestation in reality. It appears to be initially about mother issues, then more about shadow stuff. Unfortunately, the manliness (another issue) of some oriental shadows is depicted mainly in terms of life and death struggles vs. defeats without screaming. A dehumanizing process, yet one in which the suffering of the combatants perhaps itself is raised a bit above the norm by their refusal to express either a victor's triumphant shout or a victim's scream of agony.]

Janet looked at this dream today. Highlights of our discussion:

• Initially, I am with a shadow part and a part of me that is nourishing of me.

• Then, there is some confusion about, perhaps, either putting a box around training rings, or training in how to fight box (categorizing matches or again fighting back); new persona; new places; and things with which I am not familiar (which could also mean things with which I have no family relationship, i.e. not about dysfunctional family and related issues).

• It used to be that my mother chose my persona, but not any more. From time to time, maybe my shadow shows up, but not all the time.

• Now that there is no one directing me, the issue is how to get to where I need to go.

• The place I need to be is close but not familiar. If I look in all directions, there are all sorts of places to live and business type places.

• If I fight, some part of me dies, but there is dawning awareness and transformation.

• The parts of me that fight are shadow and orient me. There is nothing here about thinking.

• My shadow is only a little bit short.

• There is some shadow part of me that is dying, and there is something about a transformation or manifestation in reality that involves a transformation in stance (3-4 ft).

• Blood is about passion, and the way that shadow faces me is with passion. Though he is still alive, he is in great pain.

• Even though he has been tortured in the recent hours, he keeps from screaming, perhaps because he is manly and stoic, or else he is now too exhausted and near death to scream.

• The victors are nearby.

• The victors now may be victims later.

• Usually death in a dream is a good thing. So this shadow probably needs to go. It is uncertain what this shadow represents, but if I have had an internal struggle lately, maybe it is about that. Or I may have been trying to categorize (put in boxes) something, so I could lay it to rest. That seems likely what the dream is about. There is something about giving up persona prescribed by my mother anima, and that allows a part of me to die, a part that needed to go. I did not or do not have far to go. It might not be familiar territory, but I am close. Janet thinks I recognize that an aspect of growth is that when I grow in one place, where parts of me "win," the next step in growth may mean that the part of me that "wins" also has to go, partly because it is not about winning and losing but about integrating all aspects into a balanced whole. She therefore thinks this is a positive dream.

8/27/09 - Title: "Missing My Mother Pet"

Many people, mostly kids, are visiting a large property next to a river, lake, or other body of water. There are lots of grassy places, but also abundant big rocks, some fallen tree trunks, and various other things one might find on an old farm or at a neat park.

With a few others, I am responsible for and own this property. I am concerned that, for the first time, I cannot find our pet. (She is a blend of a small seal and a penguin.) She is black, sleek, loves the water, and is due to give birth.

With others' help, we look seemingly everywhere for her, without success. I am worried she may be lost or have been injured or killed.

The visitors go on with their play and enjoyment of the farm-park, oblivious of my deep fears for my soon-to-be mother pet.

But it is my (brilliant dancer, musician) nephew, Jim, who points out that, since my pet naturally would want a protected place when giving birth, she must have found somewhere private, away from all these invading children and other visitors, to have her new baby.

I take heart from this, realizing he must be right and hoping that soon mother and child will safely appear. But now I am anxious to have the visitors leave, so she will have more security and will reappear.

[There have been several recent indications of concerns with mother related issues: a dream about a ferocious bear; exaggerated reactions to Janet's mild comments about Fran's recent specialty, learning about moths, being pretty funny, and I was already sensitive about the matter of belittling Fran for the study of "bugs" because of Sonya's frequently harping on this theme for more than a year now (and it turns out Sonya is a mother figure like friend to both Janet and me); a dream lately of my mother picking out suit clothes for me but then being gone; etc.

There must be a way I am parked with regard to some issues, given that this is partly a park-like place.

Yet there is lots of water here, and my missing (about to be) mother pet is a water loving creature, suggesting access to unconscious, intuitional, or emotional material.

Other qualities of my nephew, Jim, include that he is more a thinker than a feeler (Myers-Briggs), is funny as well as easily amused, is still, though, somewhat dealing with the illness and loss when he was young (7-8) of his dad whom he had loved very much, is confident, masculine, very popular, and is becoming a successful dancer, dance number composer and choreographer, and dance teacher.

The presence of many visitors, mostly children, suggests a lot of young energy for growth.]

Highlights from Janet's interpretation of the dream this evening:

• The younger parts of myself are visiting a property (and, in science, a property of something is one of its characteristics) near emotion. There are lots of spiritual (grassy) places and big challenges (rocks). Trees are about genealogy and the tree of life. So this is the kind of place someone would want to be parked at.

• This neat place is one I own (acknowledge as mine, part of me), but I cannot find my pet. Penguins go through a lot of trouble to give birth, and this pet of mine is going to give birth and loves the water (unconscious, intuitional, emotional content or material).

• Penguins are also about being bogged down in negative emotions, but the issue really is not that serious.

• She was not sure about seals, except that her association is to seals of approval or someone stamping a seal on something. Seals are animals that are at home on land and in water.

• I cannot find this aspect of myself and I am worried about where it is.

• There is something about when this aspect gives birth it will be, Janet thinks, a nurtured and favorite aspect of mine (as in the idea of a teacher's pet or a mothers pet).

• My shadow, with masculine or doing energy, the one who knows how to dance through and think in life, knows that to give birth this part of me needs some privacy and to be protected.

• I feel better about things after this insight, but I do not want other parts of myself around that are just visiting, because I want to give myself that needed privacy, security, or protection, to let this aspect of me give birth.

• Janet thinks I am, symbolically through this pet aspect, giving birth to something that allows me to not get bogged down in negative emotions and that deals with things via both thinking and feeling.

• She does not believe I have big mother issues involved in this dream. She thinks the part of me that works hard and can be nurturing is giving birth to something that allows some perspective on things, so I do not have to get bogged down in negative feelings.

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