SelfhelpMagazine

by Richard Wilkerson, Dream Educator

Although these dreams have a uniqueness and deep mystery to them that only the dreamer can give meaning to, there are some common and mythic themes I can comment on with your dream.

Repetition in recurrent dreams is like a exclamation mark, a "Look here, this is important!" The way your repetition stops and then picks up again is very unique, suggesting you have a good sense of timing, drama and the unfolding of meaning over time.

Your "love dream" theme is a classic and therefore timeless one. The Faceless Lover is considered by many to be *the* story of women. It may best or most poetically be found in Apuleius' tale of "Eros and Psyche".

Psyche is the daughter of a king who must be wed to the dragon and is left abandoned on the cliff side. The "Monster" is really the god Eros, who knows if she ever looks at him directly in the face, the relationship will be over. (One just can't look directly at gods, there are too beautiful and intense).

He takes her to his castle and only comes to her in the dark, making a pact with her to never turn on the light. Eventually she can no long resist and looks, and as predicted, then the relationship is over for a long time.

The Jungian psychologists say that when the faceless lover comes to us in dreams, it is most profoundly seen as *part of ourselves* that we desire most, and see as (often) the opposite sex. If we just go along with the game, we continue to live in the rich castle of Eros and, according to the Jungians, endlessly chase after these people in real life.

Sometimes it works, but usually the pattern just repeats and gets stale. It is said that eventually we either get tired of this game or something tricky happens and we see the faceless lover directly.

The common path of growth is to see these figures *qualities* in ourselves and develop them. If this were my dream, and the faceless lover appeared as an old friend, I would write a short series of qualities that come to mind that remind me of that person; Fast, Handsome, Playful, Analytical, Self-Assured, or whatever, and then try to develop those qualities in myself. Who, after all, can love me more intimately than my larger Self?

References:

Lover's in both dreams and life can bring up the love and vitality needed to bring these qualities we once loved in others into our own personality. There are some guides along the way. The classic book on this is Animus and Anima by Emma Jung (1957-1981) (Dallas, TX: Spring Publications).

Two popular and very accessible books on this for men *and* women are: He: Understanding Masculine Psychology, by Robert Johnson, (New York: Harper and Row 1974). She: Understanding Feminine Psychology, by Robert Johnson, (New York: Harper and Row).

The Tale of Eros and Psyche is widely available. Some versions with comment include the already mentioned She, The Golden Ass by Marie-Louise von Franz and Amor & Psyche by Erich Neumann.

About the Author:

Richard Wilkerson is general editor for The Internet Dream E-zine, Electric Dreams, and director of DreamGate, the Internet Communications and Dream Education Center. He writes the Cyberphile column for the Association for the Study of Dreams Newsletter.