Author

Subject: blood on the dress

Vivien

12:09 06/09/2001 

I had parked my car, an old, battered, red station wagon (in my dream) in a small enclosure, one of four, which surrounded a large, enclosed square situated on a moderate hill in a city. My car was walled in and I couldn't get it out, leaving me feeling very frustrated.

Then I am crossing a street at night. I am striding out very confidently, wearing a period dress which appears to be new or at least in very good condition. It is full length, long sleeved and made of black and white striped taffeta. It has ruffles at the cuffs and elsewhere. The stripes are about 1 - 1.5cm wide running vertically. It’s a most unusual dress for me to be wearing.

A man is standing a distance away down the street watching me cross. He watches admiringly. I don't like or trust him. He is short and unattractive and wears a black suit and bowler hat.

Then I am in the house of the woman who has loaned me the dress. She is maybe 10 years older than me and of the same colouring. We are in the kitchen I think, and the man has also appeared. I follow the woman out of the kitchen, the man also following, and when she begins to climb the stairs I wait at the bottom, knowing she will shortly return with something for me. Her house is old, large and substantial.

The man is standing a few metres behind me. I hold my arms out in front of me and a huge spot of blood appears on the left sleeve near my wrist. Immediately more blood appears and pours down the waist and skirt of the dress. It pours onto the carpet and I move back a few steps to escape the blood but it just continues pouring down onto the carpet.

I'm horrified at the mess I'm making. Not only have I ruined the woman's dress, now I'm ruining her carpet! I step forward again to my original position to try and contain the mess I'm making. I feel mortified and overwhelmed by the blood and the mess.

Still holding my arms in front of me I begin sobbing and saying "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry" over and over. I feel enormous shame.

My dream later moves back to my car and it is still parked in. I feel embarrassed and ashamed that I can't get my car out.

The feelings in this dream were powerful and stayed with me for days.

Dream edited for easier reading - JT, 2005

Read the original thread or Jane Teresa's view.

Jane Teresa Anderson

11:22 10/09/2001 

Hi Vivien,

There is so much in your dream, but just to start, have a look at the fact that the car was red, walled in and a "station" wagon. For "station" think "stationary". The first part of a dream is often the theme to be addressed. The dream appears to be addressing a feeling (or situation) of being walled-in and stationary - no moving forward.

Red can mean many things, especially if it has a personal association for you, but it often comes up in dreams to symbolise physical energy, sometimes assertiveness, sometimes anger .... but also "stop" .. red traffic lights/ stopped car.

This suggests you are feeling stopped/ stuck somewhere in your life - or, perhaps, have recently been so, and that anger, assertiveness or some physical expression of your being may be blocked.

Jump ahead in your dream and see the red blood flowing. Red again .. only this time it is moving with great abundance! Blood is our life force and when it flows in dreams it can symbolise our life force released ... our personal expression and energy flowing more freely.

In the dream you feel embarrassed about this. If you can identify the waking life situation, why do you think you might feel embarrassed at the thought of being more free flowing? In the dream you keep saying "sorry". In what ways might you feel you "have to" apologise for moving ahead or for being more free-flowing?

Sometimes dreams can release feelings that have been repressed. We might release a feeling of shame (as you put it) or release an unexpressed apology ... which releases us from an old "stuck" situation where lack of recognition of the part we played (lack of apology) was holding us back.

So, in one sense your dream may have helped release you from an old unexpressed apology.

On the other hand, it seems to me that your dream is more about recognising that you are holding back on expressing something because you feel such self-expression would leave you feeling some element of shame. What do you feel ashamed about - and is this valid?

We can feel shame for incredibly positive things .. shame for not expressing our natural talents .. shame for speaking out when speaking out is needed... and so on. Such a feeling of shame (necessitating over-apologising) usually stems from childhood ... look back for times and situations where you felt you had to apologise for just being yourself ..

There are more clues in your dream, Vivien, but I have reflected these questions back to you, from your dream, for you to contemplate.

Get back with your thoughts ... and I'm sure others will look at your dream and open it further...

Jane Teresa Anderson

Stephen O

21:44 10/09/2001 

Hi Vivien

What were your feelings around the woman climbing the stairs to a higher place and bringing something back for you?

What were you feeling about the man in the bowler hat when you were standing at the foot of the stairs? Why do you think he was there?

Why would you return to the parked in car again? Your vehicle? Your body unable to be freed from constraints?

Angela

15:20 12/09/2001 

Hi Vivien.

And I'm seeing 'period' dress linking up with the blood again, as in a monthly period.

And then there is 'period', also meaning full-stop. So, if you link that with what Jane's saying about looking for the meaning of red, it seems to be another vote for 'stop'.

Curious to see your thoughts on all of this.

Angela.

vivien

16:39 14/09/2001 

Hi Jane Teresa, Stephen, Angela,

Thank you so much for replying. I felt this was an important dream for me simply because of the impact it had on me emotionally.

Jane Teresa youre my hero. I'd tried to work this out, picking away here and there, but there was no feeling of 'Ah ha' happening. Like you Angela I'd thought of the period connection, but not being American, calling a full stop a period has always seemed very strange to me. Maybe my subconscious thinks differently. Being stuck is the big issue here. Ive been going through a period - see - of feeling very stuck in my work as an artist, feeling very paralysed in areas of marketing and so on. Looking back on my morning pages (I'm doing an Artist's Way course) after posting my dream, I saw that I had my dream the day after I'd done a particularly exciting shoot which is leading me back into a series I was working on last year. I did feel very unblocked and have continued to feel so. My energy levels are higher and I've started swimming again.

I can't quite put my finger on the shame issue, although my photo series does deal with issues of church and sexuality. As a recovering Catholic perhaps it causes me a very small amount of anxiety. I suppose shame was something I was brought up with, from the nuns and the church obviously, but also from my home. I was a day-dreamer and a reader in a large (7 children) family of snappy, talented sportspeople, and while I was also very involved in sport, the other side of me was very much discouraged. My father in particular was a very angry and disapproving man, his only approval coming when one achieved or won something. Is this the shame that my dream refers to? When I woke up from the dream I felt a failure in every aspect of my life, as an artist, as a wife, as a mother. I see that this is not true, but at the time was focusing on issues with my teenage son and some others with my husband that need dealing with.

Stephen, I felt nothing in particular about the woman climbing the stairs. I didnt know what she was bringing me, but think I was thinking that it was perhaps some more appropriate clothing or my own clothing. I still did not like the man, but forgot him in my distress over the blood. Why would I return to the parked in car again? Good question. Maybe this is what I do in life, repeat cycles, go through periods. Will have to think about that.

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