Image from Marie Louise Van Franz's Interpretation of Fairy Tales
Me, Too - The Intruder in Our Dreams
There is one that penetrates me deeply to the bones and it’s the man within my own psyche.
I feel this fear every time I have this dream. I can feel it now as I am writing about it.
Recurring Dream:
I am running from someone. A man. Him. I am trying to find a place to hide. It’s dark out. Night. I go through multiple places, sometimes an empty hotel or convention center or a house. Trying to find the best place to hide...I run through showers, spa like areas and locker rooms until I find a bathroom to hide in. (Bathroom, a place to express oneself.) I crouch down, I am silent. I sweat. I feel the cold, damp floor. I wait and listen to see if I hear him coming. My heart beats. I’m terrified.
He, is the Intruder, that prevents me...all of us...from furthering. From owning our own power, beliefs, identity.
I recognize him as my masculine shadow aspect in the self that "manifests as the spirit of courage" in all that we do including our thoughts, feelings, using your voice to express your needs and developing one's own spiritual beliefs. (Clements, Analyzing Your Dreams Dictionary).
I see him as the collective unconscious’ masculine energy energy associated with doing, creating, destroying, opposed to the female which is being, containing, nurturing. (Clements, p106).
In dreams, we may meet him and experience him through feeling fear of him. He is the dark man in the shadows. In my dreams, no light ever sheds on his face or his build. I never see him hunting me, but he is behind me, coming after me. He is the intruder in our psyche.
The intruder doesn't only show up in women's dreams - he shows up in men's too. You may be running from someone, authority, conflict or fighting with another man. This would reflect the shadow not acknowledging this unconscious aspect of yourself, there is conflict between it and the ego.
I was unconscious of him for a very long time. Night/darkness unconscious. I had many different versions of this dream over the years. My sister recently shared one of hers with me, which was similar and carried the same weight of dread upon her. It wasn’t until I was well into dreamwork, studying Marion Woodman’s theory of feminine consciousness when I spoke of one of these dreams. It was suggested to me to begin reading “Women Who Run With the Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
There it was! Chapter 1: Stalking the Intruder, the Beginning Initiation - the story of Bluebeard. For those of you who do not know this tale, Estés will indeed tell it better than I, so please do read her stories. She also has a live performance series called “Theatre of the Imagination”, which is very powerful to listen to. Her storytelling is healing and truly transformative.
Bluebeard is a tale of a frightening man with a blue beard who entices the youngest of three sisters to marry him. This young woman is lovely and innocent and naive. Unlike her sisters who had the intuition that something was not right with Bluebeard, he had some sort of power over her. The young woman was not in touch with her instincts yet. There was no mother or father to teach her these things. As the story goes on, her sisters attempt to guide her. Through her unconscious desire she does something she was told not to do, which leads to the undoing of Bluebeard’s power over her life and so many other women like her.
I finally stopped dreaming of running and hiding in the bathroom, when I began to acknowledge my strength as a spiritual being. I began embracing my power within and honoring my own beliefs, gifts and creativity. All the things I wasn’t authentically doing.
THIS is how we change consciousness. Tuning in, listening to the dreams, sensing, feeling - in order to become aware of the beliefs and belief systems handed down to us from generation to generation and making a conscious decision to believe you have the power within to change them, the power to think and act differently, the power to use your voice and discuss with each other - as I see so many sharing "Me, Too" stories on Facebook.
So how do we share this power of awareness to those that were never taught differently or our young? How do we build trust in our feelings and instincts through our sensing abilities when something doesn't feel good or right? How do we protect our innocent, vulnerable, and delicate youthful beings? This is a discussion that I would love to be having.
I believe we all have to live this way. We have to trust our inner guidance, use the power of our voice and support one another through feeling. And stop letting others make poor decisions for us, our communities and our country. The transformation begins within.
NOTE: Posts may only include part/s of the dream.
*BOLD TEXT = DREAM IMAGE
*italicized text = interpretation and/or what resonates for the dreamer