Dream Interpretation: Your Ego or Your Soul

Dreamer is a 46-year-old woman.

“I am carrying a baby close to my heart. She is clinging to me. It is the most sublime feeling, the most blissful, transcendent feeling I have ever had. I never want to let her go or be parted from her or this bliss of holding her on my heart. But I’m told I gave her up. We seem to be in a hospital. Her new pretentious parents take her from my arms. They don’t care for her, feed her, or love her, and she is getting sick. My heart is breaking. I ask her new parents for food for her, and they give me some kibble, dog food. She is ill. I call a doctor for her. The doctor says her thumb is infected and she could lose it if it isn’t treated. I must get her back and care for her. A man is watching all this. He sees my situation and asks me how I feel. I tell him she is part of me that I have given away to pretentious people and I don’t know why I did it. How could I? I wake up.”

Feeling in the dream:

“Bliss, sublime love, unity while with the baby. Then shock and desperation, shock that I did this, disbelief at how I could have done this, then determination to save her and get her back from the pretentious new parents.”

Feeling upon awakening:

“All day my heart is breaking from this dream. I can’t think of anything but this baby and this sublime feeling that I have cast away and how reckless I have been.”

Dream Setting:

A hospital – place for diagnosis and treatment and hopefully healing, a place where lives can be saved. Dream is set in a place where there may be hope of healing.

Characters in the Dream:

Baby- new hope, new beginning, new life, innocence, Soul

Pretentious couple –  ego, pretentiousness, part of the dreamer that neglects her soul, her inner being, part of her that treats her Soul like a dog, starves it

Doctor – an aspect of the dreamer that knows something is wrong, the part that diagnoses the thumb infection, tells the dreamer there is an infection, a sickness in her ability to grasp what’s going on.

Man – the witness, the dreamer’s inner masculine, an aspect of her inner observer, part of her animus, which doesn’t act or interfere except to ask her how she feels about what she has done, a kind of conscience. He represents the part of the dreamer that sees what she’s doing, neglecting her inner being, allowing it to starve and sicken.

Symbols in the dream

Baby – new hope, new beginning, Soul, innocence, inner being, aspect which connects the dreamer to bliss

Kibble – food for a dog, not food for the Soul

Thumb – strength, courage, creativity. Humans have an opposable thumb which affords dexterity and allows us to grasp things and perform delicate movements. Dreamer hasn’t grasped what she’s done. It comes as surprise to her that she’s given away the baby.

Infection in thumb – illness, injury to baby’s strength, courage and creativity, threat of losing the thumb, castration of part of baby/the Soul. Ultimately, if neglected, the infection could be lethal. The part that allows dreamer to grasp things and understand what is happening is under threat from the ego. Dreamer’s ability to grasp the situation is impaired, infected with ego.

Interpretation:

Sometimes the feeling and symbols in a dream are so clear the meaning of the dream is unmistakable. It hits you over the head.

The baby represents innocence, bliss, the dreamer’s inner being, the most sublime part of any being, their eternal aspect. The Dreamer has neglected her, starved her, put her in the hands of the part of her that is pretentious, uncaring and selfish, the ego, which treats her like a dog. Left in the hands of the ego, the Soul gets sick. The dreamer is committing soul murder. The dream is a warning to wake up and nurture the inner being instead of feeding her ego. Wake up and grasp the situation before it’s too late.

Work to be done:

Self-inquiry and self-observation, commitment to be continuously aware of the ego and watch what it is trying to do. Feed the inner being with reflection and meditation, not kibble. Heal the ability to see, to grasp who you are serving, your ego or your Eternal Inner being, your Soul. The dream is a gift from the dreamer’s unconscious to get her back on track caring for her whole Self, not just her ego.