I have been having dreams about public humiliation, but they aren’t the usual “walking into school nude” ones. The first one was that I held this huge party and every one of my friends and aquaintances were there but every one was kind of ignoring me. I started hysterically crying and some people consoled me but it was very cold to me. Then I jumped into the pool with my clothes on and I felt cleansed and a little more content. I think it was some sort of suicide attempt.

The next night all I can remember is crying again and having a horrible bloody cut on the top of my head which got into my straight blond hair and tainted it. (In reality I have curly dark brown hair). I saw my mother sleeping so I went up to her asking for help I presume, and instead she made me stand in front of an audience with my shirt off, covering my bloody hair with a ponytail. I remember the place being all blue and very dark. I guess my mom told the people that I was a boy. I think it was some kind of nude underground entertainment. I felt disgusted with myself and mad at my mom. (I had a lot of experiences of being called a boy when I was younger and it was quite traumatising, I also fell off a slide once and cracked my head open.)

—Elyse, Age 18, Wayland, MD, USA

Hi Elyse—

It sounds like you are remembering, in your dreams, some painful experiences of being embarrassed or humiliated at the hands of your friends and family. First of all, let me tell you that these types of dreams are really common, especially during your high school years, when we all are over-concerned with fitting in and what others think of us, etc. In your first dream jumping into the pool is, like you said, a dream metaphor for cleansing. Water in dreams symbolizes our unconscious feelings and emotions, and in the dream you felt excluded and lonely but then you jumped into your emotions - accepted them and didn’t try to hide from them or avoid them, and you found that you felt cleansed by the experience. You also wrote that jumping into the pool felt like a suicide attempt, and I agree with your perception of the dream there as well. When you jumped into the pool and confronted your emotions, you were letting old pictures and understandings of your self go - and you were dealing with how you felt in the moment and you felt better. The ultimate goal of dream work is to create a harmonious flow of information between our conscious and subconscious minds - to use all our abilty to see, know and experience ourselves and the world around us. Death in dreams symbolizes change, growth and metamorphosis. In this case, you have arrived at a new understanding of yourself - that you do occasionally feel excluded by your friends. To that end, you are going to want to find, in your life, friends and family whom you feel comfortable around and who also care about you - who make you feel good about yourself and who listen to your feelings and who don’t belittle you or make you feel uncomfortable. Think about your friends and think about whom you like - who gives you these kinds of good feelings - and who doesn’t. Stick with the friends you like - and recognize that people who make you feel uncomfortable or embarrassed tend to be insecure themselves.

Your second dream involves deeper feelings concerning a primary relationship in your life - you and your mom. Without knowing too much about that relationship, we can talk about some of the symbols in the dream. First, your straight blond hair. Like most brunettes I am sure that at some time or another you have wondered what you would look like with blond hair, and may have wished that you were blond or maybe you thought about dyeing your hair at some point. You may think you would look better, be more attractive, would get more attention from boys. Your dream seems to reflect a desire to appear different than you are, in order that you will appear more attractive to others. But in the dream you have cut your head and the blood is spilling onto your hair, spoiling this neat appearance. You go to your Mom for help, but instead of caring for you she makes you feel cheap and acts to degrade you. She puts the pony-tail on, which reminds you of being “like a boy” when you were younger, and also has you take off your top in a bar, nightclub situation in front of an audience where she actually introduces you as a boy. In the dream you are mad at your mom and also disgusted with yourself.

How can we interpret this? Remember what I said about people who put you down really being insecure themselves. In this case, your mom may be threatened by your own emerging sexuality and femininity, and therefore is trying to put you down because she is afraid that you are going to be more attractive, successful, healthy, etc., than she is. It sounds weird, doesn’t it? A parent being threatened by a child, but it happens all the time. I don’t know what your current living situation is with your Mom and Dad. Do you get along well with them? How do you feel about your Mom in normal, everyday life? Your dream may reflect a fairly complicated relationship that doesn’t appear to be healthy or supportive for you, or it may simply be a washing up of some “sore spot” memories that bugged you at the time but which you now are growing past.

Thanks for sharing your dreams. Keep paying attention to them and they will give you a running barometer on how you are feeling on the inside.

REPLY

Hi Charles,

It's me, Elyse. I would feel honored if you used my dream on your web site. You hit a lot of key things that are completely relevant to my life. In the past two years I became severely anorexic and was finally hospitalized this summer. In the past 8 months I have faced many of my repressed problems and feelings regarding my family. My father has made great efforts to relate to me and make up for lost time while I’ve come to recognize that my mother is too scared to change or confront her repressed memories. I know that her parents put her down a lot because she told me, so I try to show what she is saying to me is exactly what she feels about herself and what her parents told her she was, and I know that, clearly, I’m not. Thanx for your time, I really appreciate it.