He’s In You

One of the fascinating principles I learned in my studies of Jungian psychology was Carl Jung’s theories of the animus/anima. It would take several chapters to explain in full, but the gist is that every person’s psyche contains a subconscious “other,” an autonomous personality that constitutes all your “missing parts”...in effect, the opposites to which you are attracted. Much of romantic love is based on this principle. Jung taught that when people encounter a personality with enough similarities to this animus (if you’re female) or anima (for males), we project the qualities of our animus/anima on that person. We are thus tricked into having feelings like “he’s the only one for me,” “I can’t live without her,” “he completes me.”

Between my Jungian studies and personal experience, I came to understand that my animus is truly not me, operates outside my will, and is pretty much a self-contained, autonomous being. I hesitate to say “being,” since that suggests I’m saying I’m possessed by another soul, but in some respects it boils down to that. Over the years, the fact that he’s “in me,” not somewhere outside of me, has saved my hide and sanity numerous times.

Anyone who has been incurably in love with someone very bad for them, or anyone who has had a desperate crush on an unattainable figure such as a celebrity, knows that infatuation can be a nightmare. It’s been very comforting to me in such times to step back and remember that the irresistible person I see is just the projection of the perfect-for-me animus, and not actually that real individual. For example, were I really to believe Les Stroud is the guy I imagine him to be, I’d have to get divorced and move to Canada and persuade his wife to leave him. But I know that however admirable he is, the man is just a human being with flaws and foibles and he is not in reality some sort of “dream man.”

You really have to be careful when the animus “gloms on” to some real life person, and it takes practice. There are still times I struggle with not giving in to what seems like irresistible allure. But there are other times when something happens to drive home just how the animus works, and how he truly is in me rather than outside. My dream last night was one such occasion.

In my dream I had had a longstanding, deeply devoted affection for some celebrity I had never met, and I had occasion to actually finally go to his home and meet with him. I’m not even sure if the guy in my dream was supposed to be anyone in particular; I believe his house was in Ontario which would suggest Mr. Stroud, but the similarity ends there. I can’t clearly recall what he looked like, but I certainly remember how it made me feel to be with him, talking to him and touching him and seeing him face to face. It was sheer bliss to put it mildly.

Interestingly, I had sent a number of emails to this man over a period of time, emails he did not elect to answer, but which he had certainly read intently. As we talked, I could see that at first he was unsure where I was coming from, if I were possibly crazy or some kind of threat. But as we spent time together he came around to seeing I was actually someone whose affection he could return. Observing this process taking place was no small thrill either, believe me.

This guy in person was everything I had believed him to be: he was perfect. Being in his presence made me happier than life ever manages to do. In short, he was my animus guy.

Did I get these feelings, this joy and contentment, from a real life man? Did the emotions depend upon some external source? No...this was my dream, my brain, my imagination only that was the source of Mr. Wonderful. That said, he was not a puppet, a fantasy man I could make walk and talk and do what I wished. He had his own will, and had to overcome his skepticism about me little by little. He was autonomous, and as I like to say, me-but-not-me.

Thinking about him now is an interesting exercise. The thought of him makes me happy even when awake, even knowing he “was just a dream.” I think I feel that way because he is so much my heart’s desire, and so thoroughly mine. I know I will run into him again in other dreams, in other imaginings, sometimes glimpsing him in a movie actor or TV personality, or a character I write for one of my books, or even a man on the street. He is never far away.

I’ve learned over the years that I have a particularly acute perception of this animus guy, and not everyone does. But I find often enough that other people have had similar experiences to mine that I continue to believe Jung was right.

So next time you really want somebody badly, so badly you feel you might go crazy, think about it: perhaps he’s actually in you.

(If this really strikes a chord with you--and you haven’t decided I’m just nuts--see also my book Living Beyond Reality: A Jungian Primer for Enhancing Your Life).

The Man of My Dreams

Doncha love it when I indulge in Personal Confessions? Well, it's been awhile.

There’s this one guy I know who crops up in my dreams with remarkable frequency. I can understand when it happens at times when I've been actually interacting with him or thinking about him, but I really don’t get it when he shows up for no particular reason. This has been going on for some time now and I find it very curious.

These dreams have a recurring theme. They pretty much always boil down to the guy revealing by his actions that he cares for me. There's never anything overtly sexual, rarely anything even so intense as a kiss, but he'll embrace me or hold hands with me or otherwise demonstrate his desire to be physically close and affectionate. This revelation always fills me with joy (and often relief).

This morning's dream was really amazing, because in it I had a dream about this guy (a dream within the dream!) and then told him about it against my better judgment. At first he rolled his eyes and seemed to think it ridiculous, but as the scene went on, we talked and he became more and more warm towards me. Finally he took me in his arms and we held each other, and talked about how good it felt to be so close. Anyway, it was the first time I dreamed about dreaming about him! I guess it's become such a weird phenomenon to me that even my subconscious has taken note.

Well, I have to infer from the frequency of these dreams that my psyche is really curious as to how much this guy actually likes me. It's a question I sometime ask myself consciously, I will admit, but even during periods when I’m not concerned about it at all, the dreams recur. I must ask myself, therefore, what is the big deal here?

On the one hand, there's the obvious theory that it really matters to me how much he cares. I may put the question out of my mind, but my subconscious won't let it go. On the other hand, my psyche may be struggling with subtle hints that he cares more than he'll admit, and the puzzle of this preoccupies my mind like any unsolved mystery, regardless of how much it matters to me.

As for which of these theories is the correct one, I have no idea! He and I have been good friends over the years, but at this point in my life it's not that big a concern to me. I think. And although I admit his behavior often suggests some concealed affection, the mystery of that doesn't seem to be one that tortures me by day. I think. But maybe I'm fooling myself on one or both counts. Who knows?

Or maybe the figure of this guy in my dreams represents something that really has nothing to do with him personally; maybe the figure is only wearing his appearance as a costume. He could merely be the masculine ideal I pursue in my fantasies and in my writing, the animus figure if you will. That's just as possible as the other two theories.

I'm just not sure. Do any of you out there dream about the same fellow over and over? Is the content of the dreams variations on a theme, like mine?

Ah, the mysteries of the subconscious mind....

The Starlight Ballroom

I’ve talked in the past about that mysterious psychological phenomenon, the animus, and mentioned how he seems quite autonomous and often very helpful in times of need. Well, I have a little anecdote to share that illustrates this point quite well. I recently referred to this fellow as Etrae’u, sharing the name with the hero of my most recent fiction work, so I will call him that here as well.

Yesterday was kind of rough in that my mother is suffering some serious health problems, and my dad and I are very worried about her. It was one of those occasions when you stop ignoring the idea of death for awhile and have to face your fears. I have a harmless but sometimes annoying heart condition myself, and as I lay in bed last night, my heart was bumping crazily all over the place. I really had to get a grip so I could get some rest.

As I am wont to do in such circumstances, I sought the help of my animus. I had no idea what would make me feel better and I could only trust that he would guide my imagination to come up with something. He took me by the hand and we found ourselves in the middle of the huge, black expanse of the Universe, sprinkled all over with stars. He led me up a long spiral staircase for a long time, till we got to the top and looked out over the Universe. It was huge and scary and made me feel small and very transitory. I was really pretty terrified contemplating it all.

But Etrae’u just grinned at me as if he weren’t disturbed in the least by the vast emptiness of space. He stepped off the edge of the top of the staircase and strode a few steps and turned around. To my surprise, he wasn’t floating or flying, he was standing. He held out his hand to me to come to him. His cheerful confidence convinced me it was okay to try, so I stepped off the staircase too. Then I realized I wasn’t standing on empty space at all, but on a huge black marble floor that glinted with stars, like tiny bits of mica in rock. It held me up as substantially as any floor would.

It was amazing how comforting it was to have a floor. That sort of made half the hugeness of space shrink to normal earth proportions. There was still infinite sky above, but then, that’s always true if you think about it.

Then I heard an orchestra begin to play a waltz, the song “Out of My Dreams” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical “Oklahoma!”. Etrae’u took my hands and we waltzed to the song, and as we danced and whirled around on that vast black marble floor, he told me, “This place is called the Starlight Ballroom.”

Little by little around us I could see things appearing: tables lit with candles, and people sitting at them having drinks, the orchestra, other dancers, and eventually a sense of walls and a ceiling. I looked down and I was wearing a black formal gown with a full skirt studded with little gems like diamonds, set in constellations like the sky. And my companion was in a black tuxedo.

When the music concluded, we applauded politely, and Etrae’u led me to our table. I sat down, confused and full of wonder, and a waiter came and brought us drinks in martini glasses. The cocktails were clear black liquid that also twinkled like the night sky. I looked at my escort with confusion, but he just toasted me with a smile. I drank, and looked around at the place, and it was just a very lovely and elegant club full of people enjoying themselves.

“It isn’t bad at all, now is it?” asked Etrae’u.

“Not when it’s the Starlight Ballroom instead of the Universe,” I told him.

“And what’s the difference?” he asked.

I thought about this for a minute, and the words he spoke next all rang true. Etrae’u told me, “The Universe is frightening because it makes you feel like you don’t matter. Whether you live or die, what difference does it make? You’re not even a speck in all that vastness. It doesn’t care, it offers no comfort. But this club, this ballroom, is different. It belongs to you. I mean, you can comprehend it: the music, the space, the pleasant things happening in it. You can get your mind around it and make it part of what you understand and control.”

“That’s all very true,” I agreed.

“But you see,” said Etrae’u, “the Universe is the Starlight Ballroom. That’s what you need to understand. Don’t feel that because it’s big and mysterious that it doesn’t belong to you. It does. Life, now and beyond life, belong to you. The Universe is your place to dance in, that’s the reason it’s here.”

“I’d like to put this in my blog,” I told him. (See, I’m thinking of you, readers!) “But I guess it doesn’t have anything much to do with sex.”

“Actually, it does,” he said, laughing. “I’ll show you what I mean. Take a good look at me, and if you’re still feeling a little bad, it might help.”

So I did look at him, sitting across the table from me in his tux. You have to understand he’s the most attractive guy in the world to me. So of course, I felt a little tug of desire for him. And it did make me feel better.

He went on, “The saying goes that love makes the world go round, and it’s true that all good things come out of love. But it’s sex that holds the world together. That yearning for intimacy, that desire for beauty, the union of opposites, the urge to create...all those sex-things hold the ballroom and the Universe together. And no matter how much you feel like death is the greatest power in the Universe, love and sex always win in the end, and life and beauty and joy go on.”

I’m not sure writing this down can do justice to the understanding I gleaned from this thing my animus showed me. But here it is, take from it what you will. I felt better and my heart settled down, and I went to sleep.

Pure, Unadulaterated Adultery

Ah dreams...it’s so nice how they enable you to experience things you really don’t want to experience in real life.

This morning I dreamt I was in love with a married man. No, I’m not sure I was in love with him; but I definitely was obsessed with having sex with him. I can’t tell you what the attraction was. He wasn’t anybody I know in real life, and the dream didn’t supply a lot of information about his personality, character, interests, etc. He was tall, slender, with wavy light brown hair and blue eyes. He was good enough looking I suppose. And the only other thing I can tell you is, he was married, with children, and the level of craving I had for this man was so extreme that I really didn’t care.

To make matters worse, I was at his house, and his family may or may not have been at home. His home was a place with countless rooms (as often happens in dreams) located on a huge plot of forested land along a river. Consequently there was the tempting potential for us to slip away successfully somewhere and consummate our desire, but also the risk of discovery at any time.

This dream had a theme, and one theme only: desperate lust. I have never experienced such single-mindedness in real life. I wanted this man with a fervor that drove out every other ambition, including eating, sleeping, self-respect, and any care for tomorrow. I hadn’t a thought for his marriage or his kids; morality seemed irrelevant in the face of such all-consuming desire. The feeling was akin to starvation...does a starving man weigh the moral consequences of stealing a loaf of bread? In a way I felt entitled to this man’s body by token of my very craving for it, as if that superceded any other law of nature or society.

In his presence I could do nothing other than pursue with him the opportunity for sex. Were the situation different and he a single man, I surely would have given myself to him on the floor of the first room in which we were together. Alas, we were hindered by a need for discretion, and so my dream became an endless, fruitless search for privacy--in the house, on the grounds, in the buildings of the neighborhood.

And all the while I burned for him. Not for any particular aspect of him, or due to any particular merit, but rather almost as if I must mate or perish and he were the only man on the planet. I yearned, I ached, I nearly panicked at times, but it was not so bad as that sounds. For there was a peace and comfort to the fact that I had only one need, one desire, one hope, and it was all very simple and quite near at hand. I knew I had only to make love with this man and my pleasure would be perfect forever.

Unfortunately, in the dream we never found our trysting spot, and I woke up and it was morning and my dear husband was up and about.

I have often dreamt of fantasy men who were wonderful, beautiful, charming and captivating. Upon waking I was dismayed to feel them slip away, and would spend the day thinking of them. There was nothing about this morning’s dream man to recommend him for such reminiscences. However, I did spend more than a moment contemplating what it was like to feel that kind of desire. Something in human nature covets lust like that. But at the same time, it was more a relief than anything to awaken and know I was not in thrall to a married man for whom I didn’t even feel love.

Reflections on this? Not really. It’s just interesting what the psyche can experience through dreams.

The Dream Kiss

Okay, I’ll admit my libido hasn’t exactly been raging recently. You know how it is. Just yesterday I was lamenting this to myself and I think my subconscious heard me, for last night I had one of those really vivid, erotic dreams that just wake up your entire psyche.

The dream involved a guy I know, who, like me, is happily married. I like this guy and I think he’s cute, even kinda sexy in a wholesome way, but I’ve never had any particular designs on him.

Now onto the dream, if I were to turn it into a work of prose:
___________

We’d been working on our project together quite successfully for awhile. Then suddenly without warning, he stepped closer to me. I found I didn’t mind it. The distance closed, and he leaned to me, and his proximity became not only unusual but obviously significant.

Was he going to touch me?

All at once I realized how much I hoped he would. His face was pleasant, and in his eyes was a look that seemed to be acute affection. My body quickened with like feelings in response, but I wondered how far I should let my emotions go. Then I felt his warmth on my skin and he seemed to have crossed a borderline of nearness that activated all my awareness.

What happened next was amazing. He tipped his head until his nose touched my right temple. Then he traced it over my cheek and down along my jaw line, around and up, and then over my left cheek. Then he turned his face and held stock still, leaving his mouth perhaps an inch from mine.

This gesture changed everything. My universe collapsed to our two close faces, my existence to the memory of that touch lingering softly on my skin, and the all-encompassing temptation of his lips. Two voices chanted in my head. One repeated, “you mustn’t, you mustn’t, you mustn’t.” The other, more confident, urged, “but you will, you will, you will.” Both voices were equally arousing.

The obvious wrongness of a kiss held both of us immobilized, but I could feel his yearning as desperately as my own in the lingering sensation on my cheeks. The offering of his mouth, the anticipation of its softness and warmth, was quickly overwhelming me. I tried to breathe and the breath caught, shuddering. And he heard this, knew its meaning at once, and smiled with joy at the knowledge of my desire for him.

We both knew then that it was only a matter of moments. Furious craving to feel his flesh darted just beneath the skin of my cheeks. I perceived his body as a happy, warm, fragrant presence that must be seized, surrendered to, devoured. My desire overpowered my consciousness: my brain went blind with it, my heart rushed, I couldn’t breathe, I trembled.

I kissed him. He met me with wild hunger, his mouth as eager as it was soft. My trembling increased, then seemed to break like a wave. His kiss carried me like the surf, and I drowned in it, lost myself in it. It was surcease of yearning, so sweet, so lovely. And in that moment I felt like I must love him.
____________

Thanks, subconscious.