How to Find Yourself in Your Dreams

My curiosity is always piqued when someone says “I found myself” while describing a dream. As one of my first dream teachers taught me decades ago, the phrase can be a clue that the dreamer may be on the verge of discovering, or making conscious, a piece of the psyche.

Take these two dreams as examples:

I was walking down a path and found myself talking to my ex-partner.

I was looking at two types of shoes, but I didn’t have anything to carry them in. Then I found myself with a shopping cart.

In the first example, the dreamer found herself talking to an ex-partner. It was very surprising to her that she had dreamed of her ex, whom she hadn’t even spoken to in years. What lost piece of herself did he represent? As she worked with her associations to her ex, she realized that she still judged herself for being involved with him. She needed to make this self-judgment conscious lest it got in the way of trusting herself with her current relationship choices.

Interestingly, when she recalled the ex, she remembered how he had put her down. But what she wasn’t seeing was how she was using this unfortunate period of her past to put herself down. When she became aware of this, she began the process of self-forgiveness, as well shifting her self-talk and self-perception, so she could truly move on with her life.

The second example is a little less straightforward but just as potent. The dreamer didn’t think that she had a way to carry two pairs of shoes—until she found herself with a shopping cart. For her, the two pairs of shoes represented two ways of walking in the world: the way of the godly aspirant focused on spiritual concerns and the way of the earthly human focused on material realities. As she analyzed the dream, she realized that she didn’t believe she could “carry” both ways; she had to choose one over the other. That belief was creating a great deal of inner conflict.

But then she found herself with a shopping cart. What could it mean? In a moment of insight, she realized it represented her capacity to “hold” both worlds—a capacity she wasn’t aware she had. Indeed, she could not only carry both aspects of her experience, but also “shop around” for ways of integrating them.

Incidentally, the number four—present in the two pairs of shoes—is a symbol of wholeness in Jungian psychology. And the Jungian way to wholeness? Holding and integrating opposite aspects of our psyches. While the dreamer’s ego may have been insisting that she had to make a choice between two parts of herself and experience—spiritual and material—her psyche knew better and helped her understand that she could hold both, and inhabit more of her authentic self along the way.

There are many places or situations you may find yourself in when you are dreaming. What are some of yours? If you’d like to talk to me about them, come to my Dream Clinic for new clients on October 5. Sign up for 30-minute one-on-one free dream session slot at www.thenightisjung.com/free-dream-clinic