Dream: I am sitting in math class. I am 15 or 16 years old. I feel a strong affection for the teacher. He really cares about us and wants us to learn the material. There is a test coming up soon so we are doing a lot of practice problems. I feel motivated to do the work and learn the material but I am distracted because I keep trying to button up my shirt. It is like the shirt has a mind of its own and it wants to be unbuttoned. He calls on me to answer a question but I am too busy worrying about my shirt to respond. The girl sitting behind me is listening to her iPod and is singing loudly to it. He playfully bops her on the head with a book to get her to pay attention.
The teenager archetype is coming up again in this dream. As Rodger points out, this age (15-16 years old) is an age of peak sensuality and primal feelings. As in the “Creek Girl” dream there are two girls. One is the girl who I have been living as…and the other is the girl who I have lost – actually who I really am. The one who, in this work, I am trying to become again.
The animus is here in this dream as the teacher. I want to unbutton my shirt because I am attracted to him but I don’t. I freeze up. I get distracted and don’t allow myself to connect with him. I am unable to be fully engaged. The feelings of passion scare me and I become blocked, afraid, paralyzed. This pattern relates closely to that of the “Excitement Turns to Fear” dream from the last blog entry.
Rodger asks me what I think of the girl sitting behind me listening to her iPod, singing loudly. I like her! She doesn’t give a damn. She is having fun, enjoying herself, not holding back…. living in her passion.
We talk about what separates me from “iPod girl”.
It is my inability to connect with sensuality, passion, that place that doesn’t hold back.
My fear of connecting to these places separates me from her.
Rodger says that I need to face that fear and reclaim these missing parts of me.
Homework: Become the girl listening to the iPod singing loudly.
Some other things for me to think about…..
Notice if there are times when I freeze up in my life now and then become “iPod girl” ….see if I can get past it by becoming her.
Notice if there are times that I talk myself out of feeling excitement, passion? Or even deny that I am feeing it? That is the pathology. If I can notice it and understand how it is trying to keep me from myself, I can begin to lessen its effect on me.
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