The Yin and Yang of Dream

The dream this time was set at the old dairy farm house where I grew up. I am a young man again. I am seated at the dinner table with my mother and sister. There are odd things that happen in the dream universe. We are having dinner. My sister, Lisa, and I are much younger versions here. My mother passed away ten years ago in the waking universe. The farm house here exists in a reality outside time. We are forever together and do not age while we stay here. This would be most people's dream of heaven, I suppose, however, my mother and sister seem sad and bored.

I suddenly turn and look behind me, and out beyond the front yard, a short distance away, there is a tall chain link fence. I look just beyond that and I see a lost little boy ambling about. He has dark hair and looks to be Chinese. He reminds me very much of my nephew Michael, when he was a small boy. Michael is a grown man in his twenties in the waking world. He is my sister's oldest child.

I walk away outside to the fence. I find a break in the fence and leave the property, and grab the toddler and hug him. He is lost and needs reassurance and sobs as I hold him.

A Jungian might look at this dream as a manifestation of my unconscious and unfulfilled desires. I want things to not change and to have the home life I never quite had in my waking life. My mother and sister are the symbol of the feminine principle and my innate desire to always have that nurturing loving aspect in my life. The boy represents my own masculine nature and the need to get back in touch with it and break free of confines of home.


This is the paradox. As a complete human being you are never free from one or other. The yin and yang symbol illustrates how this is so. The two swirls of light and dark represent the external male and female in union. The dots inside of each represent the internal female within the male and the internal male within the female.

Traditional Chinese cooking takes this principal and runs with it by creating harmonious dishes of opposite textures and tastes, such as, Sweet and sour, and cold and hot.

Interesting that the toddler in my dream is actually Chinese. This meshes well with my interpretation. I was comforting the boy like a mother would do. This whole dream mirrors the yin and yang principal perfectly. This is another one of those dreams that become suddenly revealing and enlightening when subjected to deeper analysis. I was not expecting these insights when I started this process. I am once again profoundly surprised at what is going on in my mysterious unconscious.