Dream: There is a small black scab on my arm.  I pick at it and it opens up to become large wound underneath. It feels so scary to have the insides of me exposed and open. I can see the muscles in there. I can’t imagine how it will heal. I show it to a man who suggests something about how to heal it. I am not sure what he means.

I pick at the small scab on the outside of my arm and the skin around it falls away, leaving this huge, gaping wound. It is deep. I can see the muscles in there.

One question with dreams is always – what am I feeling, or not feeling?

In the dream session, I go back into the dream and try to access the feeling. Although there is some fear there, I look at the wound more as an observer. I can’t believe it is so big. I wonder how it will ever heal. In a way, I am fascinated by it – looking at the muscles in there.

I show it to a man (animus) who seems to know something about healing it. But I do not really feel connected to him.

If this happened in waking life, there would be tremendous pain, fear and maybe nausea in seeing my own open wound. But I dissociate. I don’t really feel that much. Why do I dissociate? It has to do with trauma.

I’ve been carrying a wound that comes from trauma in this life or perhaps another. Trauma can result from something that caused tremendous pain or fear. Or it could be a result of getting disconnected from God. We find ways to bury our wound so deeply that we don’t even know we have one. Maybe the only indication of it is a small scab. My scab shows itself to me in the ways that I become analytical, in the ways that I withdraw and dissociate. The dream is suggesting that I go below the dissociation, and face into the feelings of the wound underneath. The dream lets me know that I am not alone in this. The animus is there as witness to this wound. Although I cannot feel the connection to him, the promise of the dream is that I don’t have to face this alone.

My homework is to feel the fear as I look at the large, deep wound on my arm with the man standing by me.