Dreams, drawings and psychoanalytic fun

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Monthly Archives: February 2017

Three separate but closely-blended university-related dreams in one night:

1.  Arriving at the student flat that had been provided for me.  It was lovely, big and light, at one corner of the third or fourth floor overlooking the big city which as night came on became lit up with neon and car headlights. 

The flat seemed to only have single beds, but four of them.  My mum had driven me to the city, and stayed overnight.  She was comandeering the music we played in the flat, which I only grudgingly accepted because she was the guest.  I felt I couldn’t start making the place my own til I’d heard some of my choice of tunes there.  Mum chose the bed by one window, so I went for the furthest away.  I was looking to see if any of them were doubles; one of them looked like it might be.  I would investigate further the next day. 

The bathroom walls were made of one-way glass, so when I sat on the toilet it looked as though I was right in the middle of the apartment with nothing between me and my mum, who was sitting on the end of her bed.  I was astonished when she assured me that she really couldn’t see through the wall – and she was equally astonished that I could. 

2.  Unpacking my shoes onto a low shelf in the apartment, I saw to my surprise that I had a dark red pair of suede boots, some knee-high disco platforms in glittery red, and some black patent Dr Martens.  I hoped my mum, nearby, wouldn’t pay attention to what I was doing and criticise my shoe-spending.  My pink DMs (which I do have in real life) were now made of suede rather than patent leather, and the disco boots had got wet, bleeding some of their colour into one pink boot, staining it a different colour to its partner.  I tried to dry them off, hoping the red colour would fade, which it did slightly.  But I couldn’t get rid of the water; droplets kept appearing around the disco shoe.  I couldn’t take the boot into the bathroom to sort it out properly because then my mum would see and be angry that I’d thrown money away by spoiling the shoes that I shouldn’t have bought in the first place. 

3.  Despite having not given out my address, I had a stack of post at the new place (which now looked very different, dark and narrow).  There was an A4 envelope with my dad’s handwriting on, saying “open 31.12.2003” (my 21st birthday) and with a post-mark dated to 2007.  I wondered why my dad had sent me a birthday present separately from my mum, apparently in secret, apparently long before the date, and why it had taken so many years to arrive.  And now, turned up at this address. 

When I opened it though, it wasn’t from my dad at all.  The letter demanded repayment of my undergraduate loan, claiming I owed over £10k (significantly more than I actually borrowed, even with interest).  The company had tracked me to this address, forging my dad’s handwriting and giving the date of my 21st to trick me into opening the letter.  I spoke to him on the phone and we agreed it was a scam which I didn’t need to respond to.  All other questions remained unanswered. 

Induction day for my MSc course, although the building it was in was a cross between the sixth form block at my school, and an NHS outpatients’ centre I once worked at as a secretary.  My Dad drove me there although it was only a few miles down the road.  It was in an uninspiring suburb of the city, surrounded by a large car park.  The main road there was congested.  I was the last to arrive and the other students were already settled at long trestle tables and were eating from a buffet. 

Surrounded by 18-20 year olds who first assumed I was a similar age and reacted with unflattering surprise to finding out how old I actually am, I felt embarassed that my career isn’t further along.  I felt they were looking at me thinking they would be mortified to be in my position at my age. 

We were directed to play ice-breaking / team-building games outdoors on the back lawn.  It was a sunny day, and I loitered by the outer edges, feeling out-of-place and looked down upon.  I felt I may have made the wrong decision in coming back to university, not only because I was out-youthed, but that the course was too basic and not covering my real interests.  I couldn’t show those around me my strengths, and the experiences I had – which my coursemates didn’t – were not recognised. 

wtf, subconscious? 

Well, this one doesn’t need much interpretation.  The insecurities that crop up here are real and self-explanatory, albeit not as prominent in my conscious mind as in this dream. 

My dad would drive me to university if I had to move away for it – although in the dream, the campus was only a short bus ride away, and in reality, though it will involve a bit of a commute, I’ve no intentions of moving out of my current house.  I see the being-driven as a metaphor for the help that my dad – a lecturer at another university – is helping me in getting back to academia. 

The symbol of being on a busy, congested or slow journey is a common one in people’s dreams.  Easy enough to see the analogy.  In this case, I also had a sense of guilt that my dad was putting himself out, when I could have made my own way to campus and in fact probably would have got there more easily. 

It’s only as I’m writing these dreams up that I’m seeing the links that my subconscious mind makes between different times of my life, and how they affect me now.  The locations – sixth form, and my former workplace – tell me that I’m still feeling sore about being underestimated, undermined or unrecognised in those places. 

As for the buffet, we could explore the symbolic meaning of food – nourishment and all that – but I dunno, I’m happy enough to say that I just fricking love food. 

My aformentioned ex, while we were still together, giving me a printed black t-shirt for my birthday. 

We got it from a shop that catered for goth / alternative types but was run by a small middle-aged man who didn’t really know or personally care much about an alternative scene. ( As I remember the dream, he reminds me a bit of the Engineer from Miss Saigon.)  I tried to wear the t-shirt that night when we went out clubbing, but even as I was doing my makeup to go out, it started to come apart at the seams. 

We took it straight back to the shop for a replacement but the guy, having served us just hours earlier, denied memory of us and wouldn’t refund or directly replace.  He tried to fob me off by getting me to choose from some other, much less expensive items. 

Eventually I negotiated to get a selection of small gifts to roughly compensate the value of the t-shirt.  To find anything that took my fancy, I’d had to go through obscure boxes and shelves, delving further than the average customer might.  I found a tiny book of (metaphysical?)  poetry, bound in pale cream leather.  Quite a precious find, to be fair, discarded with no sense of its value.  Otherwise, I just got some bits of tat so unmemorable they haven’t made it to awake-mind, and – wtfsubconscious? –  a massive bottle of lube. 

Dreamed that Sibling was feeling blue.  Investigations into the veracity of this inference suggest that he’s only “tired and grumpy today.”  Situation may possibly be redeemed by booking tickets to see Nick Cave.* 

So, pop-culture would have us believe that to dream of one’s lover is the surest sign of true amour.  So obsessively should the loved one occupy our thoughts, that even sleep shouldn’t interrupt our devotion, right? 

Well, maybe not.  About a hundred years ago, some dream researchers were pointing out that the more mental energy we devote to something – or someone – during our waking hours, the less likely our dreams are to reflect it. 

Yves Delage (1854-1920) was a French zoologist who turned to the study of dreams after experiencing a bereavement.  He was confused to find that, even at the height of his grief, he didn’t dream of the person he’d lost, and set out to discover whether this was typical.  Sure enough, in a study of newly-weds, he found that, “if they are very much in love, they have almost never dreamed of one another before the marriage or during the honeymoon; and if they have dreamed of love, it was to be unfaithful with someone unimportant or distasteful.” 

Wow.  Mama Cass didn’t know what she was wishing for when she implored her beau, “in your dreams whatever they be, dream a little dream of me.” 

I’d slightly moderate what Delage suggested: I have had romantic or erotic dreams about people I’m attracted to, but only if they were secret, guilty or unrealistic crushes on people who there was no likelihood of me actually getting together with.  In the context of a happy, committed relationship, I don’t recall having ever dreamt about a partner. 

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), quoting Delage in his own book, The Interpretation of Dreams, put his own slant on this phenomonom by saying that dream material mainly consists of things we are not conscious of, and that whatever is least conscious makes the strongest impression in the subconscious.  Therefore: “we either do not dream at all of what occupies us intently during the day, or we begin to dream of it only after it is overshadowed by the other interests of the day.” 

A friend of mine noticed something similar in her first few years of motherhood.  She felt almost every joule of mental energy was being transmitted into her son; and yet she didn’t recall ever dreaming about him.  Her interpretation was that by nightfall she simply had no more of that energy left, and had to psychically tune out for a few hours before she could give her attention again. 

But what are your experiences?  Sling me a comment either way: do you dream of the same things that have occupied your wakeful mind, or do your daytime fixations vanish as soon as the light goes out?  Do your dreams seem to protect you from material that is currently too raw or overwhelming – or do they rub your nose in it even more?  Can you comfortably admit to your dream lusts, or have you, like Titania, ever thought yourself “enamour’d of an ass”? * 

I’ll leave you with that thought, and another quote from the great romantic, Freud. “ The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man actually does in real life.” ( The Interpretation of Dreams, 1899)

I’m reading A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness’ down-to-earth fantasy for young adults, about a boy who’s being haunted by a recurring nightmare, and an anthropomorphic tree that visits him at night. 

Conor’s mum is dying, and every night he dreams of trying to hold on to her hand while she dangles off the edge of a precipice.  Until along comes a yew tree in the shape of a man-monster, uprooted from the nearby churchyard, to tell Conor three stories and demand just one truth in return. 

Author Siobhan Dowd created the concept for A Monster Calls when she, herself, had terminal cancer.  Knowing she wouldn’t live long enough to write the book, she passed the idea on to Patrick Ness, who completed it after Siobhan’s monster has visited for the last time. 

Ness uses Conor’s nightmares to explore the secret, unspeakable truths of how it feels to be losing the person closest to you.  Guilty, rageful feelings that Conor would rather risk his own life than admit to. 

So after reading this profoundly important tale of love and loss, imagination and rage, what does my mind come up with? 

…I dreamt that I was applying mascara, and couldn’t keep from getting black scuff marks on my upper eyelid. 

Really subconscious? 

I mean, as nightmares go, I’ve had worse. 

Thoroughly disappointed with my own apparent lack of depth or real sensitivity, I started getting ready for the new day.  And reaching for my mascara wand, I saw this: