Animus

[Omega]

Hi Tony, please tell me if I shouldn't post so many dreams, or if I should just wait for bigger more intense dreams, but here is one from last night.

I am being driven in an open topped sports car by a famous guy. In real life he's someone I have viewed as obnoxious and an outspoken idiot, but in the dream he is very grounded. He says its a pity it didn't work between us, as in our connection didn't quite have the ingredients to become romantic, but that I'm a very special person. He gives me very intelligent and grounded compliments, He clearly has a lot of money. He says I'm like several of his friends who he hopes will marry and reels off some more compliments.

Meanwhile I don't mention it, but I have about four miles more to go to get home and I don't know how I'll get there, I have no money or transport. I am too embarrassed to ask for further help. I feel mild despair.

I go to the toilets a man tried to come in and I point out that it's only for ladies. A girl from school is working behind the counter in the cafe but clearly doesn't want me to see her working there, so I pretend not to notice, I go outside, people are waiting for music to start, I try to get through the crowd expecting the music to be awful, but it's very sweet and beautiful when it begins.

Did my animus just break up with me? 

[Tony Crisp]

Omega – Your request asking to tell you if you post too many dreams, reminds me of my small second son Neal, who went into a local sweet shop alone, as he was not, in his mind, with me. Suddenly I walked into the shop and saw him paying for sweets, something I never encouraged my children to eat and never kept white sugar products in the house. Seeing me he froze, wondering what I would do. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling and tousled his hair and left the shop so he couldn’t finish his business with the shop keeper.

So you can write as many dreams as you like – although if it gets too much for me to deal with I will say what I wrote to Anna when she was posting great long lists of her dreams, “Anna - As I said, I cannot keep up even with normal post, certainly not yours.”

I don’t think you have broken up with your animus for good. Like any love story there are always breakups and reconciliations, and as it says later in the dream, there are four more miles to cover before you are home. Your statement that, “I have no money or transport. I am too embarrassed to ask for further help. I feel mild despair,” because it is a dream defines your problem.

“I have no money” says that you believe you have no resources. No transport suggests you do not have the equipment or drive to get what, or to, what you want. Embarrassment and despair are signs of falling over and not getting up again. Thousands of your forebears managed to stand up again despite enormous failure and threats, otherwise you wouldn’t exist. So you have it in you to succeed. And I am not quoting philosophy, but hard experience. So go the extra four miles – it’s worth it.

How? Well, one way might be to not tell the dream male to get out of your toilet. 

Also Life itself constantly puts before us opportunities it progress. It does this but putting people, scenes and messages around us all the time. If you have a question you want answered, hold it in mind, then walk out of your dwelling and really look at what is there. It helps if you look at http://www.streetwisdom.org/about/ and watch the video.

Tony

[Omega]

Thank you Tony. Ha I love the idea of it being such a 'relationship' where we may fight etc..makes it very grounded.

I would love to read about integrating the animus after abuse.  You see now I think about it, the man coming into the women's toilet reflects two real life experiences of being followed in to female toilets where I thought I would be safe, one tried to assault me, the other did and looking back, my life was probably in danger.


Perhaps a different interpretation of male figures applies to a person with my background?
In light of this history perhaps it was good I was keeping this man out...-rejecting negative male energy.
That instead I should aim to trust more the guy in the car who clearly wanted to help me? But he seemed a bit cosseted by the comfort of his own life/status (unquestioned privilege) and was a bit self-involved and not really seeing me.
In life, one repeating issue has been the inability to distinguish dangerous men, from genuine kind men, or just unconsciously gravitating towards the abusive.

However a complicating element of my own story is, men presenting themselves as kind & helpful towards me, used it as a way to get through my defenses and be abusive.

Even more common were men presenting themselves as vulnerable and in need of kindness. (eg 'I'm going to kill myself if you don't talk to me...I'm so lonely nobody cares about me..')  they get me into an isolated position, then the inevitable attack.

I've been searching for reading on this specifically related to the animus and women who have suffered a lot of abuse, but haven't found much.

(I watched the streetwise vid thanks. It reminds me of a course I attended on Native American Medecine and we 'called' for personal symbols within tight parameters to appear to us during the week. The results were so dramatic I just had to laugh! It was amazing.) though it has to be a ritual, otherwise the endless metaphors of reality are just too much and too confusing

[Tony Crisp]

Omega - I guess most of us have trodden the rough path in life, though yours in is particularly challenging in  regard to men. Mine rough path was in regard to sex - I had years of misery and was shown that it was through sexualising everyone and everything I did in a past life.

I don't exactly know the way through for you, but if you find it please share it so others find understanding.

Tony

[Omega]

Ok thankyou Tony. It seems it will continue to develop in my dreams. Re past lives, I have been told that in many previous lives I've been both very rich and very poor, but always under someone's control..   Well that fits - that  it should be my battle, to find my freedom/power and get out from under controlling influences, whether that be emotional manipulation or sexual assault.

Last night's dream: I am walking beside a very good looking macho man, my partner, he strides ahead of me through crowds, he loves the attention & goes out of his way to be the centre of it. I'm embarrassed people will see me as 'under his thumb' which I am or at least I am partnered to and accept my somewhat demeaning status in relation to a very vain person. He just sees me as a 'foil to his beauty'

Now I'm watching a black haired woman and a very unconfident blond man. (Over the past months the black haired women that stand out in my dreams included: bitter angry characters, a pregnant girl who hung herself, a girl with a scar across her throat ear to ear who clearly had tried to kill herself..)  They are lying down clothed in an embrace. She seems quite volatile and angry. He's asking her for a commitment and she is frustrated she clearly finds him weak and needy, which he is, I doubt he offers her anything but drawing off her energy. She then asks him to go swimming in a pond and drowns him!!


Emm interesting, I think this is the first time the woman has killed the man. There have been many assaults and a few murders, but always the man as the perpetrator.

[Tony Crisp]

Omega – Well, that makes a happy change, that you ended up in the dominating the male situation. I wonder what you would feel about turning the tables on the ‘look how gorgeous I am’ guy, by imagining a different scene in which you stripped off all your clothes and paraded with him? It would make you the centre of attention, but only if you stood tall and proud. It is only playing with images and it can be a way of trying out all manner of ways we can ‘stand tall and proud’.

Tony

[Omega]

Thanks Tony. I'll try that.

Meanwhile the saga continues.

This dream I am a teenager and going out with a very intelligent but 'in the background' black haired boy.
We haven't kissed and we really want to be friends and allies first and foremost.
We're in a bedroom 3-4 of my girl friends are dressed in white towelling robes, white towels on their heads and lying in a white bed. There is a nasty jealous vibe from them, suddenly I just lose it and shout 'You can be such total bitches sometimes! ' they are surprised but don't know whether to take me seriously. I walk out with the boy, he's concerned Ive burned my bridges and school life will be very difficult for me now. I tell him I'm not worried anymore that I've realised that people like that only respect anger and I will be able to brush it off.

Then I realise I'm a teacher now and think I've got to stop this connection as he's only a teenager.
Then I'm in a doorway hundreds of school children, it's pouring rain outside.. I challenge an 8yo boy to a race in the rain but he doesn't want to get wet. I want to run in the rain, it's not clear of Im an adult at this point.

Then I'm a teacher, someone gives me a ridiculously packed work schedule. Then I'm in the toilets, I am unfolding an over-coat and looking at it, it has beautiful colourful wool lining, as if woven on a loom, one pattern inside the main body another pattern inside the sleeves.

I guess this male figure is quite asexual, but also he is neither attention seeking nor needy. Again a development!

[Tony Crisp]

Omega – It seems like you are facing and passing through many things that stood in the way of a freer self-expression. The image of the girls lying on the bed in their white towelling says a lot about some girl’s way of life, and the way you dealt with it was a real step ‘beyond’. Like the experimental relationship with a teenage boy – is that another feeling that prevents you from allowing the young male in you maturing?

The relationship with the boy also expresses a feeling of experiment leading to change. A real move to a more mature and satisfying relationship.

In our dreams we can have multiple roles, so I guess you are a young and mature, playing in and hiding from the rain, as well as a teacher with a massive work load who yet has promise of some inner warmth and protection through her creative weaving.

But explore the characters for yourself by imagining being them. They have such a lot in them that I can only hint at – you are certainly many sided, creative and with talents to explore. Certainly a development.

Tony