A disturbing dream image from last week, that I discussed with my analyst today: in a chain of three dreams that conjured buildings, city streets, and figures of cryptic support, encouragement and change, an eerie version of Buffy the vampire slayer crashes into an otherwise benevolent continuity – where she seems so dangerous, so easily angered, that everyone is afraid of her.
And there is a violent fight, and I accidentally destroy a light projector of some kind – and the figure of Buffy vanishes, and I see that it is the projected mask for something much worse: a crippled, enraged Buffy wearing a stained yellow dress, stuck in a wheelchair, with a grotesquely damaged face, one ruined eye staring off to the side. Who, though she may not be as powerful or as fast as her projected image had seemed, is far more dangerous, because she has become feral, consumed with fury and resentment, and psychotically lost to any glimmer of empathy or reason....
And we manage, somehow, desperately, to kill her – in the dream.
Such an arresting way to show me my own long covered-over reactions to pain and powerlessness, and remind me of something that has made me increasingly uncomfortable over the past six months – that rage drives me at unguarded moments: and that pretending my shadow aspects are made up only of despair and envy is to underestimate their malevolence....
Though the analyst did reassure me: it is not unimportant that the dream figure is so damaged – and dying.
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