2 Dreams - Can Anyone Help?

Hi! I recently had two very powerful dreams, I was wondering if there was anyone around here (especially Jungians) who could take a stab at an interpretation or analysis? Both dreams have me vexed! Thanks

Dream #1 (3 weeks ago)

I was in a fantastical city, kind of 1930's futuristic crossed with something out of remote history, like Babylon or ancient Rome. I was walking with a beautiful young woman straight out of a Grimm's fairy-tale, wearing those German peasants clothes, with the long blond hair etc. We were making our way to the tallest building, a huge skyscraper at the center of the city, which was like a labyrinth. The city was filled with things from different time periods, from mythology etc. Just a jumble of vivid people and things. I asked where we were and the girl said, "Brooklyn." I said, "I don't remember it like this." She said, "Memory's can be misleading." We reached the skyscraper and climbed up stairs that wound around the exterior of the building, like a fire-escape, and reached the roof. The roof was guarded by a terrifying werewolf - absolutely monstrous. Huge, black, with shining eyes of gold and huge, dripping fangs. The werewolf let the girl pass but stopped me from following her. It started to intimidate me; even though I was frightened in the dream I started yelling at it that I wasn't afraid and that it couldn't stop me from passing. As I stood yelling at it, the werewolf gradually became more human looking, until it was almost entirely human, but with strange, patchy, dark skin and a wolf's eyes and ears. It let me pass. I looked for the girl but she wasn't there. I turned and saw the werewolf turning into a dark-skinned prince (Persian or Indian), beautifully dressed; he told me, "She was only the bridge to carry you here to me."

Dream #2 (Earlier this week)

I’m living on a tropical island, one in an archipelago of identical gumdrop-shaped islands. The isles are green, lush, verdant etc. real tropical paradises. There is no crime, no pollution, no high technology, no noise etc. But it gradually dawns on me that I am a slave in a slave society. We are all put to work every day picking mango-like fruits from trees for the upper classes to consume; they live in crystal palaces at the top of the island and we workers never see them. Our work is overseen by ape-like guards in red uniforms carrying whips. They are strange looking creatures with hairless, Bonobo-like heads. There is a “University” where we are brainwashed to never eat the fruit and not to drink moving water even though there are waterfalls everywhere on the island. We also learn about a distant continent where these rules are not obeyed and are told that they are constantly at war, all the children are conceived through violent rape and put into slave factories making weapons until they are old enough to be conscripted into the military etc. So we all live in fear of breaking the rules. Now and then we see flying islands sailing overhead among the clouds – the so-called “Rebel Islands” – and the Ape Men shoot at them although they never threaten us in any way.

Somehow (the pieces are either forgotten or the dream skipped over them) I start receiving messages in dreams and realize that the Water is talking to me. The Water calls to me, guides me to a hidden waterfall in the forest. The Water begins my education, it teaches me that it is host to millions of micro-organisms that form a single, higher consciousness and that drinking it makes minds free. The ruling class treats the water with chemicals, killing the micro-organisms. When the Water is combined with microbes that live in the fruit, it gives long life, perfect health, infinite knowledge etc. The ruling class doles out a very small extract in our food so that we remain healthy enough to go on perpetually farming the fruit for them. The Water tells me that they are completely evil, fascists, and that they are planning to take over the world. I am told of a secret grove, at the bottom of the island, at the foot of a perilous cliff, where I can eat the fruit and drink the Water freely. When my body is saturated with the microbes, I will be part of a telepathic network and will be able to free the minds of all the slaves on my island.

But first I must be taught how to use the power of the Water. I return every day in secret and the Water teaches me how to control it, to use “water magic”. By inserting my hand in different ways into the waterfall I can change the shape and color of the water. I get better at it every day. I am also taught how to send my mind out on “vision journeys” (or something like that, I can’t remember the exact words) and in this way I discover that the distant continent is actually beset by a plague and that the Water and fruit of the islands could save the population but the elite class are keeping it from them; and that the Rebel Islands are actually home to gurus and sage masters who have reached a higher state of consciousness; they fly over the slave islands, putting themselves in danger, attempting to free our minds with their chants, mantras and meditations.

Somehow, I become close to a girl on the island. I think we are in love. I take her with me on my dangerous journey down the sheer cliff, climbing down vines to a rock sheltered alcove where the waves beat against the island. We find the waterfall and fruit there. She eats and her eyes are opened. I begin to teach her water-magic. But we are disturbed by two Ape-Man guards. Using water-magic, I kill them both, simply by putting my hand under the falls and sending out an arc of shining, blue water, which is “pure life essence” and destroys them since they are the result of genetic manipulation.

I look at the girl and she looks at me and we realize that the “revolution” has begun and we must both be warriors now. At the same moment we think, “The Rebel Islands!” and look up, searching for the flying islands among the clouds . . . .

(Dream ends here.)

Hi, thanks for sharing your dream. You did not give any info about you and your life so thinking about what the dreams might represent for you is difficult?

The first dream made me wonder what TV shows or movies you had been watching or thinking about recently, or books you had been reading.

The second dream, the water reminded me of emotions and the unconscious and the ape guards and harsh living, etc. the life of the body (body is not quite the word I want but the third would be intellectual which I did not see present other than in perhaps some of the teaching). I wondered, reading the second dream if you were in therapy.

Ah, sorry. I am 40. I'm a writer, published but not really successful. I've been in a slump for several years financially and am living in a pretty remote area that I want to get out of! I'm single, not lonely but miss the hubub of urban life. I'm not in therapy. I am very interested in folklore & mythology and am always reading/studying myths, folk tales, fairy tales etc. so the fairy tale dream isn't that surprising, although it felt 'important'.

Thanks, Jodo for telling me a bit about yourself.

Rereading the dreams, the first one caught my eye with the obvious-folklore/mythology of "Grimm's" fairy tale reference but then you specified German and blonde hair and I thought of the German struggles of the first half of the twentieth century and their beliefs in the "ideal" (for example, I think "Scandinavian" when someone says long, blonde hair) and I wondered about your background growing up.

My stepmother was in Germany just after the War, her husband was in the Army Corps of Engineers and in charge of making the scaffolding to hang the War criminals at Nuemberg, she was at the Trials, so my whole take and understanding of Germany and Germans, the War, their culture, etc. is different from others (I was 5 when my stepmother married my father; I use to look at pictures of she, her first husband (who died) and my stepsister when they were in Germany and wonder where I was, why I was not in the pictures :-)

Looking at the seeming "randomness" of symbols, going from obvious fairy tale to modern New York and having a labyrinth in there :-) I still don't know that I can hazard a guess to how you are "travelling" in your un/subconscious? I don't know if the puzzling, kaleidoscopic nature of the dream could be how living your life at the moment appears to you or if there's a more Jodo-friendly way of thinking that makes sense to you and is just not to me and that's because you want it that way, a safe space no one else can get to?

I know, for me, Women Who Run With The Wolves was an important book and reading this first dream of yours sort of reminds me of how I felt reading that book.

I'll wager the "Memories can be misleading" was what especially felt important to you? I had an "important" dream where I borrowed a pair of glasses from Elton John, a big/thick white pair because it went with my cow suit (don't ask :-) Later in the dream he showed up and took down a six foot tall wood fence with a machine gun he had. On the other side was a very tall townhouse, new, with too inadequate landscaping and I was told by someone, very urgently "Don't you know? There are no fences in San Francisco!" My stepmother died of a brain tumor when I was 3, my father, brothers and I moved from San Francisco to Maryland and my mother was flown straight to the hospital there where she died a couple months later. So, as you can imagine, I'm still trying to figure out the significance of "there are no fences in San Francisco" The "Memories can be misleading" thing reminded me of that.

I can't comment on the werewolf, can't stand them and avoid reading stories about them when I can :-) But maybe there's something of forward motion, the "wolf" of fairy tale morphing into a more modern, adult/grown up werewolf?

It's interesting too that the ruling class in the second dream are "fascists"? There you are again with those Germans/Italians/War people? Also interesting is the "University" where the slaves are brainwashed but then you have the Water teaching you? There was a bit of native american/aborigine in there with the vision quest? Mostly I kept feeling like the South Sea/Pacific islands though but I'm a genealogist and studying Caribbean slavery so kind of mushed them all together :-)

I'm Italian (on my father's side) but there are no WW2 stories in my background that I know of! The Caribbean aspect is interesting: I am Caribbean on my mother's side and have been interested in the history of the islands for a while now, especially the Taino who were driven to extinction by slavery.

I just have time to look at the first dream right now, but it's interesting. My therapist has a Jungian orientation.

Are you male? You may know that Jung spoke of the anima, the woman within, as being the guide toward the Self, the totality of the psyche from a centered perspective. I think of that when the dream character says she was the bridge to carry you. You arrive at the center of a circular tower which has some resemblance to Jung's first dream of encountering the Self as a circular pool. The rawness of the untamed psyche can seem threatening, as the wolf is threatening, but when you insist you are unafraid and have the rights to enter, the wolf is transformed. Like you are taking your rightful place in the center. My own therapist likes the metaphor of "The Return Of The King" in Tolkien--when the psyche has been dominated by destructive complexes, there is eventually, hopefully, a return of control to the rightful center.

Mike