Thoughts on a dream: Political prisoner

[Kevin Beal]

I wanted to share a short dream I had and my analysis of it. I would like to get any input you might have on it, and hopefully encourage others to do dream analysis, since it's something I'm finding increasingly important in my own self therapy.

 

The dream I'm titling: Political Prisoner

 

 

I'm meeting a woman who's just getting out of prison. I'm with someone else when I meet her and bring her back to her personal library. The library is dingy, dark and full of cobwebs with very tall ceilings, almost like a warehouse.

 

A man is there sitting at a computer who is very happy to see her. He is her fiancè, a large hairy manly man w/ dark hair and blue eyes, and I identify with him. (At this point I like this couple very much).

 

She explains to me that she has been researching something very important here in the library with her partner (the manly man) who was an anonymous celebrity hacker years ago. This research somehow led to her incarceration in a way she doesn't explain and I get the sense that she was a political prisoner.

 

They both look very dedicated as she continues to explain that they are nearly finished with their research, at which point they are going to get married, reveal his true identity and share their research with the world.

 

I'm filled with optimism and wake up.

 

 

I think that this is an interesting dream because I can already see at least two very different interpretations.

 

The library seems to be a sort of ancient unconscious part of myself, and research in that area would seem to me to be self work, therapy, etc.

 

I am myself a large hairy guy who works as a programmer so it's no wonder I'd identify with the fiancè. And the hacker revealing his real name is (I think) me using my actual name on the internet now, on the boards, on YouTube, wherever, which was something I felt very ambivalent about. But the role of the political prisoner woman I'm less sure about.

 

What is a political prisoner except someone who is punished / attacked for telling the truth? And to be a prisoner in my own unconscious smacks verily of suppression / repression.

 

But why a woman? What is this repressed feminine part in my own life that would be coming up now? And why is the symbolism for my unconscious a library? Why is the purpose of the research never revealed?

 

Why is the purpose of the research never revealed?

 

I have a little bit of an amorphous goal in my own self therapy (and psychoanalysis). I ultimately want to be happy, less susceptible to anxieties / depression and have a stronger sense of self, my goals and how to achieve them. It can be difficult often to follow thru on goals (if I can feel confident I want to do them in the first place).

 

I grew up not caring about what I would be when I got older. My older sister said I should be a firefighter so I just said to myself "ok, whatever, I'll be a firefighter". I rarely did my homework (unless I could finish it in class). For a lot of my youth I was very cynical, nihilistic and aimless. I had no real goals.

 

A big goal I have is to have good goals.

 

What is this repressed feminine part in my own life that would be coming up now?

 

The one thing I could get myself interested in spending lots of time learning about was web development (and programming/scripting in particular). I worked my ass off to learn it well and a couple years ago I landed a great job with those skills. The other reason I got the job is that I was just really honest about how I am and what my limitations are (that is, after listening to Stef's podcasts on doing job interviews well).

 

This trend toward being more genuine, connected, me, is something that happens more and more. And recently I had a little episode I'm not going to go into here where I was tempted to withdraw, to hide myself and wait it out. I had prepared for this sort of thing in therapy so instead I decided not to hide or compromise on my values even a tiny bit.

 

I was taught in many ways not to reach out, be myself, to challenge others. I was myself a kind of political prisoner at home and at school, rejected for not conforming to the culture.

 

But why a woman?

 

What the feminine represents for me here is (I think) Jung's anima, a completeness of a yin and yang. That's why the couple is getting married and why there is a lot of optimism I feel. Also the feminine symbolizes (at least for me) compassion for myself, self care, and (as Jung says) it animates me.

 

I do psychoanalysis with a Jungian psychoanalyst. A woman in fact who I greatly appreciate working with.

 

And why is the symbolism for my unconscious a library?

 

I think that the reason I imagined a library is that it's a collection of knowledge and stories. It has things I can take with me (i.e. books) back to my everyday life and place back at a later point. It's collected a lot of cobwebs in there because I really don't like reading in real life, but also because it's something that's been long neglected.

 

And so for me accessing this library involves dreaming more and reflecting on my dreams, taking things with me and coming back to them later. And toward that goal I've recently been going back through old dreams I had and coming to new understandings about the symbols within and of my life in general.

 

Something that I like that my therapist suggested was to ritualize my dreams in some way so that the symbolism sinks in more, and so toward that end, here's a picture I drew of a previous dream that I like.

 

[MysterionMuffles]

Interesting take. Gotta start off by saying props to your openness to share this dream and what you personally thought it may mean. Even more props for sticking it through with therapy.

 

Here's what I interpreted from it, and if you have a girlfriend or fiancee/wife already then this may not be valid. I will agree that the woman in your dream may represent your feminine side, but I kind of looked at it differently as if she symbolized a woman you have yet to meet in real life.

 

The hairy hacker guy may be yourself and you're just happening to see him as a seperate entity for either a personal reason or for the sake of the dream wanting to be all cryptic. Perhaps he represents your online presence here on FDR and you're not really hacking anything in particular...perhaps life and reality with philosophy? 

 

And the reason why the research subject is never revealed is because of an impending passion you may come across in your life that you just don't know is even a possibility as of yet. I don't know how to put this, but 3 things may be pre-requisites to eachother:

 

1. Finding a woman who is a prisoner in some form or another who is on the same self journey as your are.

2. Your online and real life presence have yet to merge so that you pretty much are conrguent with your interactions online and in real life.

3. Discovering a passion you probably don't think of consciously, but may possibly sneak up on you that you just might fall in love with.

 

But that's just my interpretation of course. I like to romanticize everythign lol.

[Kevin Beal]

Yea, thanks!

 

You know, it's funny. I actually like your interpretation a lot more than I do my own, haha.

 

I am single actually and have been thinking a lot recently about what I would like in a love relationship and so your feedback there really resonated with me.

 

I would love to incorporate philosophy more into my personal life, and I would like to do more with philosophy on the internet as well. I've thought about doing a Youtube channel where I talk about cool and important stuff, but I keep going back and forth on that one.

 

So yea, great feedback

[meeri]

Thank you for sharing this dream and your interpretation. I am increasingly valuing dreams for self knowledge work and they always give me some surprising insight into my psyche. The symbolism particularly is fascinating. I like the picture, it's a great idea drawing the dreams, something I might explore myself..

 

I like your interpretation. Here are my thoughts of it, let me know if this makes sense at all. 

 

I think the dream is about your self integrating, coming together (masculine and feminine). You've done a lot of research into your history and psyche (the guy at the computer) but there is a part of you that you haven't really explored yet (the library). So the woman being released and returned to the library means it can get more attention in the future. With her being back you can really finish your self knowledge work and have the happiness you seek for. I get a very positive feeling reading this dream, a real sense of the optimism. 

[Wesley]

I am finding myself questioning the research/imprisonment art of it.

 

To me it seems that there a few possibilities.

 

Either you are researching yourself, in which case it would not be a political crime, but a crime against your false self or against parents or something and you have freed a part of you and are working to reveal your true self to the world. I think you have been doing a lot of research on what masculinity means in reading other threads, so you may have felt that a woman part of your true self was let go, who then went to the masculine self who once he researches he can reveal himself and then the two parts can marry and become one. I think this one synergies with what Meeri was saying.

 

Else, it is political in nature and thus has more around the idolization of these people who stand up for ideals regardless of the personal cost. It is admiring intransigence for standing up for what is right.

 

Now that I am thinking about it, I do not think it has to be an either/or and likely has elements of both.

 

Obviously, all the caveats of me having no idea what I'm talking about and you can feel free to tell me I'm wrong.

[Kevin Beal]

Thanks meeri and Wesley!

 

I'm glad I brought it up because you're guys's interpretations also make a lot of sense to me, and ring true. I'm making connections I probably never would have made if I hadn't posted it here and asked for feedback

[MysterionMuffles]

Oh wow Wesley good call on the masculinity research. I forgot about that board topic.

[Kevin Beal]

Oh wow Wesley good call on the masculinity research. I forgot about that board topic.

 

I had the dream the night I created that other thread on masculinity so there's gotta be something to that