Dream series: The price to pay is too high

8th of April, 2024

Man hiding something inside a chest.

Dream Series

Here you can see how the unconscious repeats the same dream theme even a year later, when the problem behind the dream image is not addressed. Here I attempt to connect the dreams and find the overarching meaning.

Context

The dreamer is a male of 29. At the moment of the dreams he was in a relationship. He would experience frequent feelings of emptiness and depression. The relationship was all over the place, where she would want stability, but he would fluctuate, occasionally declaring they are not together. The dreamer would read about the Puer archetype feeling that it describes him well.

20.04.2022

I was in Japan in an elegant store and wanted to buy cigarettes.There was a square in the center and 4 seats at the corners. By pressing a button we can lower the seat (like the villain in Pokémon 2). An asian man came down from the seat and handed me a pack of cigarettes. I gave him 10€ but he told me it wasn't enough. So I tried with 1000 czk but still no. I then told him that I wasn't going to buy the package but he absolutely wanted me to pay for it. We had a falling out and then I left. So a chase started with my 3 friends, we were chased by a kind of secret police. Two of my friends were quickly caught and I managed to escape with the last one. We then found ourselves in my house. To get out, we slid against the walls but they were 10 meters high. We were still being chased.

First dream

Dreamer Associations

  • Japan — exciting and a different world
  • cigarettes — they make me feel full when I am empty, but they are also unhealthy and cause cancer

Locale

The dream setting is in Japan, in a store, and the only other dream character outside the ego is the asian man. A store in a dream represents a place where a transaction between the conscious mind and the unconscious takes place. The square shape of the room, further amplified by the four chairs, point to the symbolism of wholeness, of totality, representative of the Self. However, the connection with a villain character suggests to us that we are confronted with a dark side of the Self. The Self turns negative when the ego attitude is too contrary to that of the unconscious. The initial setting of the dream points to the current psychic attitude, which here shows an attitude that seeks excitement and novelty.

Exposition

The purpose is to buy cigarettes, a means to fill up emptiness that is unhealthy. This exchange between the ego and the unconscious happens through the asian man, a shadow aspect of the dreamer itself. We can see here that the Self is playing tricks on the ego. Do you wish to fill up your emptiness in a way that is meaningless and unhealthy? Sure, you can do this, but the price to pay is never enough. The libido of the dreamer gets drained more and more, which in real life looks like emptiness and depression.

Peripateia

A conflict ensues, and the ego runs away and is chased by secret police. When we are being chased in dreams, our task is to turn our face to that which chases us and to ask it: what do you want from me? The chase here results from the dreamer not wanting to pay the price for the cigarettes.

Lysis

Two friends get caught while the ego and another friend escape. Then, as it frequently happens in dreams, a second dream starts which continues on the theme of the first one. Here we see that the chase continues and there is no resolution to the problem.

11.04.2023

Me and my girlfriend were going to meet midway on a street,for a drink. When we met, she asked me if I had my wallet. I said yes. We entered a bar but it turned out to be my grandparent's house. The house was dark and the italian man and overall atmosphere reminds me of the italian mafia. Inside, I asked the bartender for two beers. He said it will be 30€ with an Italian accent. I found it weird but didn't really understand at first (my mind was lost: did he mean 3 or 30?). I gave him a bill of 1000 czk (green like the ones of 2000). He went to the other room to find the change, the room in which my grandmother keeps her money. After some time, I was so puzzled and realized the price. So I told my girlfriend: « I won't pay 30€ for 2 beers ». I climbed the stairs of the house, and the guy was closing a box on the wardrobe. He was so surprised to see me here that he made a move to jump through the window. I screamed to my girlfriend: « Open the door! » so that it could be possible to catch him from outside but managed to catch him before he jumped. I woke up and my interpretation was that he had a gun in the box.

Second dream

Dreamer Associations

  • grandparents house — very positive associations. When he was a boy, he would meet his grandmother after school and she would buy him pokemon cards. In the present day he would often nostalgically return to those memories.
  • drinks — intimacy, because when you drink you open up and share a lot

Locale

In this dream, the characters are the dreamer, his girlfriend and the bartender. The theme of the dream, which is having a drink with the girlfriend in the bar suggests that the psychic situation refers to the dreamer's relationship. The bar turns out to be the grandparents house, but rather than being a cheerful place, the unconscious depicts it as a dark, dangerous place.

Exposition

That the goal of the meeting is intimacy and sharing, reminds us of the first dream. Drinking in a bar is what you usually do in the first stages of a mature relationship, rather than the later ones. The later stages presuppose commitment and building something together, rather than mere enjoyment of feelings and emotions together. In the first dream the goal was to purchase cigarettes and the location of the dream merely alluded to the childhood fantasies through the pokemon villain's chair. In this dream, as it often happens, there is more than an allusion, and the setting itself becomes the grandparents house itself. The unconscious's opinion about the dreamer's tendency to remain stuck in those times of bliss and simple enjoyment are made very clear by the unconscious's painting of the house as dark and dangerous. What follows is an exact repetition of the first dream. The bartender asks for a very high price, the dreamer does not want to pay and the exchange does not happen.

Peripateia

The bartender tries to run away with the money. How can we interpret this? We can interpret this as a form of depression. The dreamer tries to have a relationship that is casual, pleasant, lacking any responsibility and idyllic like the childhood times. But since this is a form of regression, and since the unconscious strives for growth, the punishment is this loss of energy.

Lysis

In this particular dream the ego catches the bartender before he escapes. The lysis can indicate what we do or what we should do. It is up for us to determine which one it is. I would say that here we are shown what the dreamer is supposed to do and we later see, he does not. To catch the bartender would mean to understand and integrate this shadow figure. Our unconscious turns a negative face only because we fail to understand its motives.

22.04.2023

I was with my girlfriend at my place in the bedroom. We heard a noise. A big man has opened the room's door. I asked him who he was and he said that he was living here from today. He was saying that my girlfriend shouldn't live here, that it was illegal. I told him that she didn't live here (because she didn't). He went to the other room that had completely changed. There was big furniture now in the room (a wardrobe, a table, he even put a clock on the wall). I asked him who he was. He said that he was coming from North-East Italy, I thought that it must be close to Slovenia. It seems that he wanted to live here so I was looking for my contract and I was trying to call my landlord in order to make him understand that it wasn't possible (and I didn't want to live with him).

Third dream

Locale

The problem presented here happens in the bedroom, with the girlfriend, in their sphere of intimacy and privacy.

Exposition

The private sphere gets intruded upon, something comes in between the dreamer and his partner. That something is the unconscious factor that had to be understood and integrated in the first and second dreams, but was not. To catch the bartender before he gets out of the window is to interrogate him in order to understand what he wants. We know that in dreams, one action comes as a consequence of another. First, the unconscious asks for a high price to be paid for cigarettes - the dreamer then runs away and is being persecuted by secret police. Second, the unconscious asks for a high price for drinks - the dreamer does not want to pay - the unconscious persecutes the dreamer.

Peripateia

In this dream, we see that this shadow factor takes over the psyche of the dreamer against his will. The shadow refurnishes the house, which is to say, it's changing the dreamer's thoughts and values and perhaps even his perception of time as symbolized by the clock. This reflected precisely in the dreamer's own attitude towards his relationship with his girlfriend, where he would be hot and cold, rejecting his partner and at times even proclaiming that they are not together. The dreamer attempts to take back his psyche by appealing to a higher power, the landlord, but there is no lysis, the dream ends up in a cliffhanger.

Synthesis

Here we can see a very good illustration of how the unconscious repeats the same message, even years later, when the problem addressed remains unsolved.

The problem here is that the dreamer wishes to live life in the same inconsequential manner in which he did as a child. We can deduce this from the type of exchange that occurs between the ego and the unconscious, and the location in which it takes place.

In the first dream, the location with the pokemon villain's chair shows to us that in his psyche, the dreamer still lives in those childhood images. The action of asking for cigarettes (something to make me feel full when I am empty) happens in that psychic state connected to childhood fantasies.

The second dream further emphasizes the location and paints it as dark. Here we also see how the dreamer's attitude spills into the relationship aspect as well. The relationship is brought into the grandparent home, where the goal sought by the dreamer is not a mature relationship but a fantasy fulfillment.

The punishment of the Self for the ego's attempt to remain infantile, is loss of libido, states of emptiness and depression, and a loss of control over one's own thoughts and behaviours. For example, trying to create a romantic relationship that is based strictly on romantic exchange such as drinking in a bar and sharing, is synonymous with the life of a child that merely enjoys the realm of fantasy in Pokemon cards with no consequence to real life. That the dreamer would begin to feel repulsed, is no different than how a parent would try to deter a child from chewing her nails by putting a bitter substance on the fingers. The unconscious attitude is compensatory, trying to stir the dreamer towards the life that would lead to the fulfillment of the personality and push it out of stagnation. But until the dreamer is prepared to leave behind the mother's womb, and to face reality with all its responsibilities, consequences and pains, the unconscious will continue to apply corrective measures.