Analyzing the complexities of our egos/personalities has fascinated probing minds for centuries. Carl Jung was one of those seminal figures that plunged into the depths of the psyche, attempting to peel back and identify those layers that make us “tick.” He discovered that we each possess positive and negative sides of the “shadow” (those instinctual parts of self that have been suppressed/ hidden in our socialization process) that also reflect masculine (animus) and feminine (anima) aspects. They can rear their heads in nightmares or “Big Dreams” and are often objects or situations we fear.
A woman who wants a new career in writing submitted the following dream that illustrates an encounter with shadow:
I awoke around 5:30 to do affirmations and fell back to sleep and had an awful dream.
I am in an old house with doors and walls asunder. An old mangy cat is trying to get in and I am trying to keep it away from Max [her pet cat]. I look for something to throw at it and find a glass jar but the cat gets up in my face; its eyes are different and it bares its teeth.
I woke up panting with fear. I’ve been having beautiful meditative thoughts/ visualizations when lying awake and then go to sleep to have ugly dreams. B.F.~Portland, OR
I worked through the dream with the dreamer in the following way:
I am in an old house with doors and walls asunder.
“The house where one lives frequently suggests the set of attitudes one holds at the time” and the house, as a symbol of self, in this case, is breaking down. The dreamer was in the process of reinventing herself vis-à-vis a new career path as a writer so it is not surprising the old “self” is deteriorating.
An old mangy cat is trying to get in and I am trying to keep it away from Max [her pet cat].
Cats, usually symbolic of the intuitive aspects of the self, represent the feminine (anima)—either positive or negative— depending on how the dreamer views it. This cat may be the part of the dreamer that is dangerous or wild; her anima/shadow trying to literally “get in her face” to command attention. By ignoring the shadow part of self, the beauty on the journey keeps getting interrupted by fear; if welcomed, it frees one to see clearly and move forward without encumbrance.
I look for something to throw at it and find a glass jar.
I asked her about the glass jar. I was reminded of the novel by Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, that recounted the story of a Boston student “ ...who won a guest editorship and finds a bewildering new world at her feet. Her New York life is crowded with possibilities... but she can no longer retreat into the safety of her past. Deciding she wants to be a writer above all else, she struggles with problems of “morality, behavior, identity and her disappointments, anger, depression....” and I asked how this situation was like that of the dreamer’s?
...its eyes are different and it bares its teeth. I woke up panting with fear.
This cat (shadow) really wants the dreamer to pay attention to it and “face it” before it’s harmed or chased away! Teeth displays an aggressive quality; what does it mean that the eyes are “different?” I suggest it would be a great opportunity to re-enter the dream and confront the cat and see what it has to say. If, when or until we confront/integrate the shadow parts of ourselves in our humanness, it will “rear its ugly head” to reconcile and integrate.
Response: I did work a little with the cat. One thing that was really obvious was the cat’s eyes. One was misshaped, maybe even a different color which was a mirror image for the imperfection of my eyes. I didn’t get any message specifically, but it later transformed into my grandmother’s beautiful white Persian cat, Tasha, which had a green and blue eye!
The “eyes” are also a dream pun for “I’s” within the self. This dreamer is on the right track to integrate and cuddle up with shadow that is ready to be recognized so that the fear of that instinctual part of self can be absorbed and put to rest.
