Re: The Cabin in the Forest
I am at a lodge out in the deep green forest with one of my best friends and his christian family.
This could potentially be an area of repose where you feel connected to all that is natural and in communion with yourself. The forest is a symbol of the subconscious and all that is instinctual.
I notice your choice of the word “lodge†which may have other connotations to a cabin or being in a place temporarily, such a meeting room and the body of members that meet there. This makes sense if you see all your dream characters as aspects of you interacting.
The are fundamentalists and very traditional in their christian beliefs.
There is a side of you that is in someway a strict and uncompromising adherent.
I sleep in a room next to the dining room, and my friends younger sister comes in.
You’re recently awakened to a possibility but, while close to dining on it, you are not yet ready to feast your mind.
She does not exist in real life. She is a lovely girl.
But she does exist as anima
She is only wearing underwear. I have nothing but underwear on either. We talk and connect mentally and emotionally.
Wearing underwear could mean more than one thing. It can be your private aspects (emotions, thoughts, impulses, desires, plans). It can represent vulnerability but, in this case, it’s on equal terms - it's not the girl who is a threat but the father. It strikes me as a very simple, honest and innocent image within your dream.
His father comes in, sees us, and interprets it as the worst possible scenario for him, being a christian. He thinks we’ve had sex, although this is not the case, and he erupts. I get really angry with him as well.
So this is about being misunderstood or misunderstanding yourself due to programming and such misunderstanding interferes with the peaceful union/integration between your male and female aspects. The father represents your conventional side. He lays down the law. Some aspects of the father must be overthrown if one is to emerge as a fully individuated person.
Interestingly, the daughter is the partial offspring of the father. She is new - the next generation.
Here there are mixed feelings. I want to make my own choices and he has no right to impose on them. He does not own his daughter. His rules and regulations are made up and they constrict me although I have not even associated with her in that way.
You are feeling constricted by some form of conditioning that inhibits deeper self-exploration.
I tell it straight to his face, he seems to stagger a bit, but his love for the religious doctrines gets the better of him.
This is an internal conflict where you confront your own belief system. As it is hard to defy parents for whom we have respect, it is also difficult to relinquish aspects of old belief systems that have served well enough until the present.
He chases me out the house. I run past my dear friend. He’s heard it all, the argument, but he just sit there eating his food and pretends not to notice. I don’t know if we’ll be alright at this stage, but I am hurt because he’s not taking my stance here. I feel abandoned. I know that I cannot care about what he thinks, but I do.
This is the part of yourself that can go on being in denial about other needs because it can sate itself.
I run out into the forest. The man stops outside the cabin, and yells to me that I should continue running. I get the feeling he’s about the let loose the dogs on me. I sense danger, but I am not afraid. And I wake up.
You understand that to further explore this aspect in yourself may unleash chaos but you’re willing to face that.
"A dream is a question, not an answer."
(Therapist and dreamworker Strephon Kaplan
Williams)
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