Symbol Watcher

My rendering of the wooden floor tile in my dream. Although there are many elements which speak of wholeness in this graphic, it is not a mandala. I'll explain the differences and provide Jung's characteristics for a mandala in a blog later this week.

I can recall only a handful of dreams I’ve had in which a graphic pattern was a central symbol. But I had one late last week and I’ve been trying to make sense of it for days.

The dream is very long so, for the sake of electronic brevity, here’s a shortened version:

I am in the living room of my “home” (not where I reside in conscious life). I see the dark turquoise paint has begun to peel off my living room wall. It’s rolling neatly down to the floor, revealing the white drywall underneath. I realize the paint is peeling because there’s a leak somewhere; water is dripping down the back of the wall.

Now I’ve gone up to the attic to find out what part of the ceiling is leaking. I am surprised at how large the attic is. It’s actually a very wide, long hallway. Nothing is stored in the attic, but I can see the opening to another room at the far end. I can’t see how large the room is or what’s in it.

I look down at the floor. It’s made of a beautiful, rich wood — like cedar or redwood or teak. The wood is cut into square tiles that repeat throughout the entire space. The walls are made of the same rich wood but they are cut in long planks that run on a diagonal from floor to ceiling.

I wonder why the workers who built the house went to such great pains to build the attic with such quality and detail. I look up and see an open sky light. Then I see a second one that’s open but covered with a screen. I look to my left and see that a portion of the upper part of the wall is completely open. I realize the attic has been open all this time, but I didn’t know it. I think of winter time and the attic being open to the cold and I wonder if it’s made the living areas of the house colder.

I look at the floor again. The wood is wet from the rain, but I realize it’s the kind of wood that is made to withstand the elements. I understand the leak in my living room is not coming from the attic.

Now I’m standing on the outside of my house. I look up very high above my head and see water streaming down from the roof line. The wood is not of the same high quality as the wood in my attic, so the rain has rotted it through. I know this is where the leak is coming from.

Since this is a blog and not a book, I’m going to focus on the symbolism and interpretation of the middle part of the dream: my journey through the attic. When I think of an attic, I think of a place where we store things from our past that we rarely use but that we may want to keep for sentimental or reference reasons, such as family heirlooms or old paperwork. So in dream symbolism, I associate an attic as my psyche’s repository for my individual life experiences.

At first, I couldn’t understand why there weren’t any objects there — only the wood-laden walls and floors and the sky-lit roof. Then I realized my attic being empty is a comment on me feeling that I don’t have any life experiences that are hidden from view. Either because of my own candor or the candor of others, my ups and downs are well known among the people closest to me. It’s all quite open and exposed to the outside.  

I suppose anyone who’s gone through any sort of self-induced disclosure or public prying knows what it’s like to have an empty attic. For me, discovering this open dream attic forces me to ask myself: have the harsh feelings and cold assumptions of the outside world (winter) caused me to become a bit of a hermit, to withdraw and distance myself from other people (have my experiences made the living areas of my house colder)? As I thought about this part of the dream, I teared up and became very sad because I know the answer is yes.  

So at the same time I’m beginning to realize how my open-book life has affected my relationships, the dream also points out that I have the inner strength to withstand what the outside world brings in. There’s no reason to stop. I need to keep moving along my journey. This is the comment my dream makes through the symbolism of the wooden floor tiles and walls.

My dream attic screams movement. Its proportion is that of a very wide and long hallway — a passageway to that room at the far end. The wall planks slant forward, not straight up and down or back. The wood tiles are a paradox in that their design both points to the center yet repeats out ahead of me to create the entire expanse of floor.

In Man and His Symbols, Aniela Jaffé tells us, “The square is a symbol of earthbound matter, of the body and reality.” The square relates to physical space, the four directions. In some circumstances it can also refer to the four functions of consciousness — thought, feeling, intuition and sensation. It’s a shape of balance. It’s a shape that comments on earthly existence and our relationship to it, in it. The square is the here and now of this life. 

The two lines that form an X speak to me of symbiotic movement to and from the center, to and from the four corners (the directions I take my life and the functions of consciousness I utilize to carry me in those directions).  This center point represents the balance that is possible for me to achieve within myself and therefore within this world if I can manage to bring these disparate aspects together. 

The triangles perform double duty to me. Each acts as a directional device pointing to the center. But each also seems to represent a certain element of my psyche. A triangle pointing up is a male symbol and a triangle pointing down is a female symbol. The triangle on the right says something to me about consciousness and the one on the left reminds me of what is within myself that is shadow and unconscious. So it seems the triangles are showing me that I must also strive to incorporate these aspects of myself, to bring them together, in balance, at the center.

What also struck me about these tiles is that the square and the triangle shapes are each doubled within the tile. There is a square inside a square. There are the triangles created by the two intersecting lines and then the triangles within each of those four quadrants. I’m not sure, but perhaps this is to emphasize the importance of the task I have in front of me, and/or to reassure me that I have the power (times 2 maybe?) to accomplish it. I’m not sure.

What I do know is the strength, richness and intricacy of the wood in my attic touched me and I’m grateful I was given the dream.

Please feel free to post any thoughts you have on the dream I’ve shared with you or on any dream you’ve had where a graphic element has had special meaning for you.

– Writeye  

Posted on May 19th, 2009 under Dreams, Jungian Psychology • Tags: attic symbolism, square symbolism, Triangle symbolism, winter symbolism, wood symbolism. •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback