Hiding

Session 2.

Dream: I am in a hallway and I am naked. I dart from one room across the hallway to another so that nobody can see me. I go into the bathroom to take a shower. I pull a white shade down over the window so that nobody can look in.

Rodger asks me a question that goes something like this: “Do you have a habit of hiding?”

Wow. I feel exposed. After the initial shock of what he is asking me, I think about it and admit that yes, I do hide things. For example, I am hiding this dream work from my husband Mark. I also hide certain books that I read from him if I think he might not approve.

Rodger’s book describes this part of the dream work. This beginning work is where the dreams point out your ‘pathology’. The dreams tell the honest, uncomfortable truth. The truth is that I do hide things. As Rodger points out, “hiding is a form of deception”. Ouch. He goes on to say that “hiding is driven out of fear” and “it is the pathology’s way of keeping you from feeling or accessing your true self”. My homework is to think of the ways in which I hide. Also feel what it would be like not to hide, to face the fear.

He then asks me “So what’s up with being naked?”. That one is easy to answer. I tell him that I am uncomfortable with it. I don’t like it. He then makes an interesting remark that ends up sticking with me. “If someone sees you naked, it’s their problem”. Hmmm. I had never thought about it like that before. A little shift in thinking here. He gives me homework that relates to being naked: I am paraphrasing him here… I think he says something like, “Feel what it feels like to be naked” What? The hiding homework I could do but I am not comfortable with this. What does he mean by that? How am I going to do that? Maybe I will just skip this homework.

Dream: There is a baby that is given to me to take care of since I have milk in my breasts to feed it. I feel responsible for it. I gather up some formula as well in case I run out of milk.

Rodger explains that babies often represent your soul self in dreams. In the dream, I don’t think I have enough nourishment for my soul self. I must gather up some formula since I don’t have enough milk. My baby or soul self will be getting some formula instead. Rodger suggests that perhaps part of my formula is hiding and deceptive behavior.

Following the session, I sit for about an hour just feeling into what we had talked about. I feel extremely drained. The phone rings a few times and I ignore it. I just wanted to sit there. I feel sad. I am not sure why I feel sad but somehow it is OK. I don’t resist it.

The next day, I cry on and off all day. I am not really sure what I am crying about but I just let it be. I don’t normally feel too deeply so the crying almost feels good. I think about hiding behaviors. I am not sure what to do with the “being naked” homework. I keep thinking about the statement regarding nakedness ie, “If someone sees me naked, its their problem not mine”. That puts a whole new spin on it for me. I eventually come to realize that this does not just apply to physical nakedness. It is about the metaphorical nakedness of allowing my true self to be exposed.

As I think about hiding it brings up lots of ideas and thoughts. In a way, I think I have spent a good part of my life hiding. I have never liked conflict and so I always give in and say the right thing to calm people down or placate them rather than speaking what I am really thinking. This is one way that I hide myself from others. I remember as a girl, standing next to my mom in the kitchen, wanting so much to tell her something but feeling unable to get the words out of my mouth. It was like they were stuck in there in my throat. There was a paralyzing fear of some sort that made it hard to me to speak. As I matured I have found ways of speaking to people that allow me to get along with them. Sometimes, I can let out some of what I am really thinking, sometimes not. It depends on how safe I feel. Recently, my daughter asked me if she should yell at a friend of hers that she was angry with. I told her, “No, it is never good to do that.” She didn’t take my advice and she told the person exactly what she was feeling. She came back and told me that it felt so good that she was able to express to this person how she felt. I was quite interested in her reaction. I told her that it was great that she acted on her own intuition instead of doing what I suggested. Of course, my suggestion had come directly from my “hiding” point of view.