This essay concerns ways in which we might interpret dreams from this mythic perspective. I begin by offering a dream segment, as I did in my previous essay in this series.
Peter’s Dream
Peter is a 45-year-old man–with a rich fantasy life. He loves movies. Peter just re-watched Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton for the umpteenth time. He recalls the following dream [with his side comments in brackets].
I began the dream by making love to Elizabeth Taylor [not a bad way to start a dream!]. I was then suddenly walking on a field that extended far into the distance. The field was very hilly. I suddenly came to a crest in the hill that looked down on a deep canyon. Someone joined me. It was Robert Redford. He and I were suddenly reliving the scene from Butch Cassidy when he and Paul Newman were jumping off the cliff and into the river far below. In this case there was no river, but instead a beach leading to an ocean. Fortunately, the cliff was sloped so that Robert and I could slide down the slope to safety. Robert then left me. I was walking on the beach. It became foggy and then from the distance I could see a young woman (in her 20s) walking toward me on the beach. She was beautiful, clad all in Black, with blond hair. Thinly built. [Looked a bit like Kim Novak (though not as shapely) or a young Swedish woman from an Ingmar Bergman film]. As she was walked toward me, this young woman began to smile. It was a radiant smile. She walked up to me and gave me a hug. Then we kissed. I was fully in love. I then woke up. [I immediately realized that it was not Elizabeth Taylor who I held up as the woman I would most cherish. This young woman on the beach was my ideal! Furthermore, this young girl resembles my wife when she was a young woman and I first fell in love with her!]
Initial Interpretations of the Dream
There are multiple ways in which to interpret the meaning inherent in this dream—as is the case with all dreams. That’s what makes them so interesting. There are multiple interpretations not only because dreams are often “dense” with regard to details and even contradictory details but also because there often appears to be multiple layers at which the story of the dream is being told. Almost all schools of dream interpretation acknowledge this multi-tiered character of most dreams.
I begin, therefore, by briefly considering several possible interpretations.
Wish-Fulfillment
This first interpretation is found in the world of traditional psychoanalysis. It is easy to interpret this dream as a vehicle for fulfillment of a wish. What “virile” man would not want to make love to Elizabeth Taylor or some other beautiful Hollywood woman? What “unbounded” woman would not want to spend a night with Paul Newman or Robert Redford? Actually, the assumed desire of all men and women to “shack up” with someone of the opposite sex who is pleasing to the eye is itself part of the non-reality created by Hollywood.
