Dreams: More thoughts on the missing woman
There are a number of images which are all connected to the theme of a missing woman.
These came very rapidly, and I forgot some of the connecting material. Rather than re-reading my journal, I’m just going to remember them as I come.
I remember a fishing shanty (a place to buy bait). I always like shopping for bait, so this was a happy place. It was very rustic, and there was a dock with very romanticized boards on it, leading out into the water. It was there that one hint came to me, “She fishes without bait!” I could see clearly the hooks, but no fish. It was very significant that she fishes without bait.
In another flash, I was entering a shopping mall. Or maybe a supermarket. Some rough looking people passed us on the way out. A darker man…and I realize this may have been the dark figure from the supermarket (the one I refused to think about in my previous journal entry)….laughed in a cruel way, and said, “you will never find her.” He was accompanied by two or three other people, but they did not speak and I did not see them clearly.
We moved quickly to a restaurant, where we all sat in a booth. My focus was then on a young woman, who was part of our team (but I felt distant towards her, so I am not sure about assuming that she was “part of me,” as I had thought in the previous dream). She was talking very loudly and excitedly. She was a pleasant person, and bright and happy: a good person. (but not romantic, or related to me) She was trying to figure out the riddle. I think there was a really big reward for finding the missing person. She kept going around in circles, saying various theories and the like. It was kind of all a jumble: like when you hear “the most amazing thing ever” in a dream, and try to hold on to it while waking, only to discover it is sounds and syllables that mean nothing to your waking mind.
She said something about seeing her hair while she answered the door: but it was not clear what she meant.
I asked her, “Like, you saw hair answering the door? (I imagined a comical image of fifty or so hairs walking on end to answer the door), or you saw her hair when she opened the door?”
The woman could not give me a coherent response.
I pressed her, “Well, was it nice hair? (the hair in my imagination turned black, sleek, and beautiful) or witch’s hair? (the hair in my imagination turned white, clumpy, and ugly, like a cartoon image of a witch)”
The woman thought it was a very stupid question and told everyone at the table she thought so. But I held my ground. “What was her hair like?” I demanded, “Like a nice woman, or like a witch?” It seemed at the moment like the most important question in the world.
****
reflections
This part of the dream was tied to my earlier, darker dream. I am not sure whether I want to go there right now.
It was also tied, clearly, to the session that I had had with my wife before going to bed. Significantly, my subconscious had said to me in the shower, “How can we be OK, if we don’t have a mother anymore?”
This all began because I had symptoms of feeling dizzy: as we dealt more with it, I felt physically sick to my stomach: but it wasn’t quite nausea, it was a tightness just a bit higher that made me feel ill.
As we talked and I cried, I had said to her, “She is such a witch!” I was referring to the amount of pain she had caused me, how much evil she had caused me to walk though, and how much covert malice she was capable of. Also, there was something spiritual I had meant, but that was less defined.
I think that my mother was the missing person. So was the missing person was a wanted criminal (bad person)? Or a good person? in our session, I had tried to cut off any ties to my mother, and to convince my inner child/subconsciou to “cleave” to my wife.
It was a very good moment when I realized, “She fishes with hooks and no bait.” That was a happy thought, in a happy place. It was not a dangerous realization: the hooks were not meant for myself. Or, at least, not that aspect of myself.
The dark man did not think that I would be able to find the missing person. He was evil, and so it seems that this missing person was good for me in some way.
It seems to me that the simplest interpretation of this dream may just be the truest. That my subconscious was awakened, and troubled by my removal of my mother. (Here is a happy thought!) She had become “a missing person” in the depths of my mind, because she was not there anymore!
My mind was trying to process: what was she? Was she an evil person, or a good person? That is still what my mind is trying to grapple with. Was she a nice woman, or a witch? My conscious mind doesn’t know either.
What I promised my inner child was that my wife would replace my mom, as a comforter. My inner mind had a hard time trusting that.
As we cuddled, my wife held me tightly around the stomach. In my mind, her hand was like a black tentacle, from a previous dream. (From a hidden, consuming monster that leaves “beneath”). I tried to convince my mind that she was safe, but it would not listen. And so I asked her to loosen her grip, and my mind relaxed. Something about being held too tight really triggered something. (Being rubbed caringly on the back, especially around the spine, however…as well as generally cutting and touching all felt very comforting, welcome, and releasing tension)
I feel as though the removal of my mom is (this may be true) suddenly, and very effectively completed. I have cut her out of my heart. But the process of replacing that void with my wife may not yet be complete. My inner child is scared, and still trying to figure out whether it can trust. It has been hurt before (very deeply, and in ways it has a hard time understanding). And so there is this battle/quest underway.
“Can you find the missing person? And is she a nice woman, or a witch?”
***
It just occurred to me that it was on the way to the shopping mall (and then the restaurant stall) that I turned to a woman walking with us. She was blond, and a nice woman, but not romantic. As I mentioned before, she may have been a mother-in-law (but too young for that) or some other close relation. I had her ring on my left ring-finger. But I did not need it anymore. I asked if she would like it back, and she said, “I would be very honoured to have my ring back.” It was an ancestral ring, passed through the generations. I don’t know why I had it. But I had the feeling that we had been close (not romantic, but maybe just very very good friends…the sort of friends that would make a spouse jealous, but are more OK when single) and now we would not need to be as close. Perhaps I needed that finger for something else, too. A wedding band, perhaps?
In interpreting this dream later, it occurred to me that for most of my teen/young adult life, I found “motherly” figures, usually women 2-5 years older than myself, to whom I was not romantically attracted, to become friends. I would share emotionally, and they sometimes with me, and they would encourage me. The feelings towards these sorts of people were consistent with how I felt towards this woman. My conscious mind thought of how I have had a hunger for these women because of a lack of any sort of genuine comfort, or meaningful direction from my own mother. And so I sought surrogates. However, these relationships always felt a little “off” to me, and once married I backed away from them. But is part of me still reaching out for them? If so, is that part of my mind taking off the “friendship ring” and passing it back? Is that more of me, that I can now give to my wife?
If so, this is another really good, and healthy, development.
These came very rapidly, and I forgot some of the connecting material. Rather than re-reading my journal, I’m just going to remember them as I come.
I remember a fishing shanty (a place to buy bait). I always like shopping for bait, so this was a happy place. It was very rustic, and there was a dock with very romanticized boards on it, leading out into the water. It was there that one hint came to me, “She fishes without bait!” I could see clearly the hooks, but no fish. It was very significant that she fishes without bait.
In another flash, I was entering a shopping mall. Or maybe a supermarket. Some rough looking people passed us on the way out. A darker man…and I realize this may have been the dark figure from the supermarket (the one I refused to think about in my previous journal entry)….laughed in a cruel way, and said, “you will never find her.” He was accompanied by two or three other people, but they did not speak and I did not see them clearly.
We moved quickly to a restaurant, where we all sat in a booth. My focus was then on a young woman, who was part of our team (but I felt distant towards her, so I am not sure about assuming that she was “part of me,” as I had thought in the previous dream). She was talking very loudly and excitedly. She was a pleasant person, and bright and happy: a good person. (but not romantic, or related to me) She was trying to figure out the riddle. I think there was a really big reward for finding the missing person. She kept going around in circles, saying various theories and the like. It was kind of all a jumble: like when you hear “the most amazing thing ever” in a dream, and try to hold on to it while waking, only to discover it is sounds and syllables that mean nothing to your waking mind.
She said something about seeing her hair while she answered the door: but it was not clear what she meant.
I asked her, “Like, you saw hair answering the door? (I imagined a comical image of fifty or so hairs walking on end to answer the door), or you saw her hair when she opened the door?”
The woman could not give me a coherent response.
I pressed her, “Well, was it nice hair? (the hair in my imagination turned black, sleek, and beautiful) or witch’s hair? (the hair in my imagination turned white, clumpy, and ugly, like a cartoon image of a witch)”
The woman thought it was a very stupid question and told everyone at the table she thought so. But I held my ground. “What was her hair like?” I demanded, “Like a nice woman, or like a witch?” It seemed at the moment like the most important question in the world.
****
reflections
This part of the dream was tied to my earlier, darker dream. I am not sure whether I want to go there right now.
It was also tied, clearly, to the session that I had had with my wife before going to bed. Significantly, my subconscious had said to me in the shower, “How can we be OK, if we don’t have a mother anymore?”
This all began because I had symptoms of feeling dizzy: as we dealt more with it, I felt physically sick to my stomach: but it wasn’t quite nausea, it was a tightness just a bit higher that made me feel ill.
As we talked and I cried, I had said to her, “She is such a witch!” I was referring to the amount of pain she had caused me, how much evil she had caused me to walk though, and how much covert malice she was capable of. Also, there was something spiritual I had meant, but that was less defined.
I think that my mother was the missing person. So was the missing person was a wanted criminal (bad person)? Or a good person? in our session, I had tried to cut off any ties to my mother, and to convince my inner child/subconsciou to “cleave” to my wife.
It was a very good moment when I realized, “She fishes with hooks and no bait.” That was a happy thought, in a happy place. It was not a dangerous realization: the hooks were not meant for myself. Or, at least, not that aspect of myself.
The dark man did not think that I would be able to find the missing person. He was evil, and so it seems that this missing person was good for me in some way.
It seems to me that the simplest interpretation of this dream may just be the truest. That my subconscious was awakened, and troubled by my removal of my mother. (Here is a happy thought!) She had become “a missing person” in the depths of my mind, because she was not there anymore!
My mind was trying to process: what was she? Was she an evil person, or a good person? That is still what my mind is trying to grapple with. Was she a nice woman, or a witch? My conscious mind doesn’t know either.
What I promised my inner child was that my wife would replace my mom, as a comforter. My inner mind had a hard time trusting that.
As we cuddled, my wife held me tightly around the stomach. In my mind, her hand was like a black tentacle, from a previous dream. (From a hidden, consuming monster that leaves “beneath”). I tried to convince my mind that she was safe, but it would not listen. And so I asked her to loosen her grip, and my mind relaxed. Something about being held too tight really triggered something. (Being rubbed caringly on the back, especially around the spine, however…as well as generally cutting and touching all felt very comforting, welcome, and releasing tension)
I feel as though the removal of my mom is (this may be true) suddenly, and very effectively completed. I have cut her out of my heart. But the process of replacing that void with my wife may not yet be complete. My inner child is scared, and still trying to figure out whether it can trust. It has been hurt before (very deeply, and in ways it has a hard time understanding). And so there is this battle/quest underway.
“Can you find the missing person? And is she a nice woman, or a witch?”
***
It just occurred to me that it was on the way to the shopping mall (and then the restaurant stall) that I turned to a woman walking with us. She was blond, and a nice woman, but not romantic. As I mentioned before, she may have been a mother-in-law (but too young for that) or some other close relation. I had her ring on my left ring-finger. But I did not need it anymore. I asked if she would like it back, and she said, “I would be very honoured to have my ring back.” It was an ancestral ring, passed through the generations. I don’t know why I had it. But I had the feeling that we had been close (not romantic, but maybe just very very good friends…the sort of friends that would make a spouse jealous, but are more OK when single) and now we would not need to be as close. Perhaps I needed that finger for something else, too. A wedding band, perhaps?
In interpreting this dream later, it occurred to me that for most of my teen/young adult life, I found “motherly” figures, usually women 2-5 years older than myself, to whom I was not romantically attracted, to become friends. I would share emotionally, and they sometimes with me, and they would encourage me. The feelings towards these sorts of people were consistent with how I felt towards this woman. My conscious mind thought of how I have had a hunger for these women because of a lack of any sort of genuine comfort, or meaningful direction from my own mother. And so I sought surrogates. However, these relationships always felt a little “off” to me, and once married I backed away from them. But is part of me still reaching out for them? If so, is that part of my mind taking off the “friendship ring” and passing it back? Is that more of me, that I can now give to my wife?
If so, this is another really good, and healthy, development.
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