Clarissa Pincola Estes - Women Who Run With The Wolves - Myths And Storie by the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pincola Estes Page B
Authors: Clarissa Pincola Estes
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The Dark Man in Women’s Dreams
Thé natural predator of the psyche is not only found in fairy tales but also in dreams. There is a universal initiatoiy dream among women, one so common that it is remarkable if a woman has reached age twenty-five without having had such a dream. The dream usually causes women to jolt awake, striving and anxious.
This is the pattern of the dream: The dreamer is alone, often in her own home. There are one or more prowler-types outside in the dark. Frightened, she dials 7 the emergency phone number for help. Suddenly, she realizes, the prowler is inside the house with her... close to her ... perhaps she can feel his breath ... perhaps he is even touching her... and she cannot ring the emergency number. The dreamer awakens instantly, breathing gutturally, heart like a crazy drum.
There is a strong physical aspect to having a dream of the dark man. The dream is often accompanied by sweats, snuggles, hoarse breathing, heart pounding, and sometimes cries and moans of fear from the dreamer. We could say the dream-maker has dispensed with subtle messages to the dreamer and now sends images which shake the neurological and autonomic nervous system of the dreamer, thereby communicating the urgency of the matter.
The antagonist(s) of this “dark man” dream are usually, in women’s own words, “terrorists, rapists, thugs, concentration camp Nazis, marauders, murderers, criminals, creeps, bad men, thieves.” There are several levels to the interpretation of such a dream, depending on the life circumstances and interior dramas surrounding the dreamer.
For instance, often such a dream is a reliable indicator that a woman’s consciousness, as in the case of a very young woman, is just beginning to gain awareness of the innate psychic predator. In other instances, the dream is a harbinger; the woman dreamer has just discovered, or is about to discover and begin liberating, a forgotten and captive function of her psyche. Under yet other circumstances the dream is about an increasingly intolerable situation in the culture outside the dreamer’s personal life, one in which she is being called to either fight or flee.
First let us understand the subjective ideas in this motif as applied to the personal and interior life of the dreamer. The dark man dream tells a woman what predicament she is facing. The dream tells about a cruel attitude toward herself as personified by the thug in the dream. Like Bluebeard's wife, if the woman can consciously gain hold of the “key” question about this matter and answer it honestly, she can be set free. Then the muggers, linkers, and predators of the psyche will exert much less pressure on her. They will fall away to a distant layer of the unconscious. There she can deal with them conscientiously instead of in crisis.
The dark man in women’s dreams appears when an initiation— a psychic change from one level of knowing and behavior to another more mature or more energetic level of knowledge and action—is imminent. This dream occurs to the as-yet-to-be- initiated, as well as to those who are veterans of several rites of passage, for there is always more initiation. No matter how old a woman becomes, no matter how many years pass, she has yet more ages, stages, and more “first times” awaiting her. That is what initiation is all about: it creates an archway which one prepares to pass through to a new manner of knowing and being.
Dreams are portales , entrances, preparations, and practices for the next step in consciousness, the “next day” in the individuation process. So, a woman might have a dream of the predator when her psychic circumstances are too quiescent or complacent. We could say that this occurs in order to raise a storm in the psyche so that some energetic work can be done. But also a dream like this affirms that the woman’s life needs to change, that the woman dreamer has gotten caught in some hiatus or ennui as regards a
The Dark Man in Women’s Dreams
Thé natural predator of the psyche is not only found in fairy tales but also in dreams. There is a universal initiatoiy dream among women, one so common that it is remarkable if a woman has reached age twenty-five without having had such a dream. The dream usually causes women to jolt awake, striving and anxious.
This is the pattern of the dream: The dreamer is alone, often in her own home. There are one or more prowler-types outside in the dark. Frightened, she dials 7 the emergency phone number for help. Suddenly, she realizes, the prowler is inside the house with her... close to her ... perhaps she can feel his breath ... perhaps he is even touching her... and she cannot ring the emergency number. The dreamer awakens instantly, breathing gutturally, heart like a crazy drum.
There is a strong physical aspect to having a dream of the dark man. The dream is often accompanied by sweats, snuggles, hoarse breathing, heart pounding, and sometimes cries and moans of fear from the dreamer. We could say the dream-maker has dispensed with subtle messages to the dreamer and now sends images which shake the neurological and autonomic nervous system of the dreamer, thereby communicating the urgency of the matter.
The antagonist(s) of this “dark man” dream are usually, in women’s own words, “terrorists, rapists, thugs, concentration camp Nazis, marauders, murderers, criminals, creeps, bad men, thieves.” There are several levels to the interpretation of such a dream, depending on the life circumstances and interior dramas surrounding the dreamer.
For instance, often such a dream is a reliable indicator that a woman’s consciousness, as in the case of a very young woman, is just beginning to gain awareness of the innate psychic predator. In other instances, the dream is a harbinger; the woman dreamer has just discovered, or is about to discover and begin liberating, a forgotten and captive function of her psyche. Under yet other circumstances the dream is about an increasingly intolerable situation in the culture outside the dreamer’s personal life, one in which she is being called to either fight or flee.
First let us understand the subjective ideas in this motif as applied to the personal and interior life of the dreamer. The dark man dream tells a woman what predicament she is facing. The dream tells about a cruel attitude toward herself as personified by the thug in the dream. Like Bluebeard's wife, if the woman can consciously gain hold of the “key” question about this matter and answer it honestly, she can be set free. Then the muggers, linkers, and predators of the psyche will exert much less pressure on her. They will fall away to a distant layer of the unconscious. There she can deal with them conscientiously instead of in crisis.
The dark man in women’s dreams appears when an initiation— a psychic change from one level of knowing and behavior to another more mature or more energetic level of knowledge and action—is imminent. This dream occurs to the as-yet-to-be- initiated, as well as to those who are veterans of several rites of passage, for there is always more initiation. No matter how old a woman becomes, no matter how many years pass, she has yet more ages, stages, and more “first times” awaiting her. That is what initiation is all about: it creates an archway which one prepares to pass through to a new manner of knowing and being.
Dreams are portales , entrances, preparations, and practices for the next step in consciousness, the “next day” in the individuation process. So, a woman might have a dream of the predator when her psychic circumstances are too quiescent or complacent. We could say that this occurs in order to raise a storm in the psyche so that some energetic work can be done. But also a dream like this affirms that the woman’s life needs to change, that the woman dreamer has gotten caught in some hiatus or ennui as regards a
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