Naked Dreams
“Becoming
mortified at the realization that you are naked in public, reflects
your vulnerability or feelings of shamefulness. You may be hiding
something and are afraid that others can see right through you.
Metaphorically, clothes are a means of concealment...Nudity also
symbolizes being caught off guard.”
Dream
moods: Common Dreams: Nudity
At some time or other,
almost everyone has a dream in which they are “buck naked” in
public and no one else seems to notice. It's a dream we commonly have
when we're feeling particularly vulnerable, usually because something
or someone has entered our consciousness in a way that we were not
expecting. They have caught us in an unguarded moment, and we don't
have a prepared response. Such dreams are enormously uncomfortable,
but not necessarily bad dreams. They make a point that is hard to
ignore, as though our dream-maker is saying “you need to take a
look at this.”
Too often these naked
dreams come because we are trying to hide something we don't want
others to see about us. It's kind of like wearing a mask to hide
one's face. Think of the phantom character in Phantom of the Opera,
who hid one side of his face because it was scarred and ugly and only showed the handsome side.
Sometimes we have invisible scars that we try to keep under wraps
even to ourselves. A dream in which we are naked is saying that it
might be time to explore what's under the mask, under the wraps. When
something unexpected happens that is not in line with our persona's view of who we are, we feel especially vulnerable. The ground
beneath us shakes a little, because now we have to try and piece this
new information into our notion of self. It can be unsettling.
I remember women who
came to me for counseling many years ago. In the beginning, they
would be heavily made-up—another way of wearing a mask. As they
worked through whatever had brought them to counseling, their make-up
became less and less, because they were willing to reveal more of
their true face. Safety to be who you are makes all the difference.
It can even make us comfortable with our nakedness.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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