I suggest that Peter’s dream portrays three versions of love. Much like the Greeks, Peter (and most of us) embraces multiple versions of love. Unfortunately, there is only one English word (“love”) that Peter can use to capture what he means when speaking of (or dreaming about) a loving relationship. This is not the case for the Greeks—who identify four kinds of loving engagements: eros, philia, storge and agape. We can borrow from the Greeks in considering how Peter portrays these engagements in his dream.
Peter’s sexual encounter with Elizabeth Taylor can be placed in the Eros category. Eroticism was in full bloom at the start of his dream. This is where we might tip our hat to Sigmund Freud and his proposal that our superego functions take a back seat to our ID during many of our dreams. Peter had the opportunity to live out his desire to make love with Elizabeth—a desire that might have been ignited (or at least kindled) by the love scenes in Cleopatra between Lis and Richard. Perhaps it was simply the provocative costumes worn by Elizabeth Taylor or the accompanying music.
I would assign Peter’s short-term relationship with Robert Redford as a tribute to Philia – the love among brothers (and sisters). We find the appeal of this form of love in many of the buddy pictures that have been so popular in Hollywood ranging from the two-person cop movies to the movies made by Redford and Newman (notably “the Sting” as well as Butch Cassady). Many years ago, the noted psychiatrist, Harry Stack Sullivan, observed that young men (and I suspect young women) often establish strong buddy relationship during their teenage years. Sullivan went on to propose that we learn about and explore the nature of true Intimacy when interacting with our buddies—rather than when we interact with the first person with whom we experience “infatuation” (usually as a teenager or adult in our early 20s). I would also note that many of the male buddy pictures involved two men, whereas many of the female buddy movies involve three of more women. Perhaps, those of us who are wired as men lack the capacity to deal with more complex buddy relationships. We can only handle small doses of Philia.
Finally, I wish to assign mythic status to the encounter of Peter with the young woman on the beach who was coming out of the fog. This feminine image aligns with Carl Jung’s archetype of Innocent. Peter does not make love to this young woman – or at least his dream comes to an end before he is tempted to do so. The young woman remains a “virgin” in the head and heart of Peter (much like the “virgin” in Bergman’s “Virgin Spring”). The image of the young girl on the beach seems to take on an almost spiritual quality I would suggest that this version of Peter’s love is reflective of what the Greeks would identify as Agape—the love of two people who share an even greater love for a third entity (God, Lifeforce, etc). We might inquire into the current relationship between Peter and his wife: is their loving relationship built at least in part on something that they shared together—such as raising children, creating a lovely home, or engaging together in a community action project (Bergquist, 2023).
With this exploration of several possible mythic themes in Peter’s dream, I expand my analysis by considering the broader myth-making propensities and capacities of human beings and the ways in which these propensities and capacities are manifest in our dreams.
