lrokwild Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 I'd like to share a bit of a psychological case study and then a dream that this particular patient had. Then I thought it would be fun for some of you psycho analytical - modern day Freud’s to take a stab at interpreting it! A man in his early thirty visits his psychologist for the first time. The man is about 35 years old, and a catholic priest. He has never been in a sexual relationship ever in his life, partly because he was raised by his mother to believe that sex was an awful and disgusting act that totally degraded women. Which you could argue the fact that his relationship with his mother drove him to become a priest. The man had been struggling with thoughts of sexuality for some time. He got into a relationship with women and started becoming very uncomfortable with the way the physical aspects of the relationship were progressing. The man tells the psychologist that he doesn’t understand why women would allow men to touch them in a sexual way. He continues by saying it bothers him that his new girlfriend allows him to touch her in sexual ways. She gets offended when he gets disgusted when she becomes too aggressive. The man continues therapy for months, and still the psychologist is un able to help this man realize that sex is not such an awful thing. The man then starts having the same reoccurring dream. I'll tell the dream in first person as if you are hearing the man tell it directly to you. "I find myself fishing off a steep river bank. I’m fishing in this very disgusting and polluted water, and I just cant seem to understand why I would even consider fishing for fish in this awful water. That’s when I catch a fish on the end of my fishing rod and I pull the fish out of the water only to find it is rotted and decaying. I am completely appalled at the sight of this fish, but as I go to throw it back the fish is so heavy that I fall off the river bank and land feet first in the polluted water. I am surprised to find I land feet first and im only a few inches in the water. I’m also surprised to see 2 women bathing in the disgusting, dirty water only a few hundred feet down stream. I just could not come to terms why these 2 girls would be bathing in this horribly polluted and decaying river. I’m even more surprised to spot a whale further down stream charging towards these women and I just cannot understand why they wouldn’t get out of the way." That’s the dream, have fun, and this one should be pretty easy: P ... I figured it out pretty quick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reverse Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 He feels like he's gotten himself into a disgusting situation and can’t understand why others don’t mind being disgusting. Why oh why is the conduit of life so disgusting? And he's also obviously got whale envy.(joke) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrokwild Posted January 24, 2006 Author Share Posted January 24, 2006 Those are all valid ideas, thanks! Ill let a few more people try until I spill the beans...I have a clinical psychologists interpretation of the dream here...just waiting to be spilled out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reverse Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 ease do... I'm on the edge of my seat wondering if those two poor ladies are going to be eaten by the whale. this has a happy ending right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackonaut Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 I see it this way. The disgusting river symbolises the disgusting act of sex. The fact that he is fishing in this river shows his new experiments with this act (new girlfriend). When he catches the heavy fish, he is experiencing something from sex that is drawing him in, and very difficult to avoid. Being in the very shallow water may be showing him that this disgusting act isn't as horrible as he may have once thought, but seems to have difficulty accepting this. The women in the river could represent all the others who do not find this disgusting the way he does. The whale rushing at them could the man's belief that something horrible will come from this act, though people do not realize this, or seem to care. close? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aguy2 Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 disgusting and polluted water... awful water.. rotted and decaying....the polluted water....the disgusting' date=' dirty water ...horribly polluted and decaying river.[/quote'] Was he smelling this in his dream? aguy2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fushigi Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 I am no Clinical Psychologist, but I noticed something in this riddle. I must ask.... Isn't the Patient a Priest? And Catholic, "Nun" the less? (pardon the pun) First of all, how is he allowed to have a girlfriend. I have always been under the impression that Catholic Priests are not allowed to fraternize or frolic either romantically or physically with the opposite sex. My opinion; There IS a girlfriend and the discuss of knowing he is breaking his vows of priesthood is the river and God is the whale, coming to condemn his actions and those whom promote or encourage them. The rotting and decay is his faith in himself as a worthy minister, yet not being enveloped in the rot, he is not feeling completely consumed with guilt as he as successfully refrained from committing any sexual actions. That: or the dream is about his Mom (don't know how, but consider it a guess), as there is no girlfriend in the picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrokwild Posted January 25, 2006 Author Share Posted January 25, 2006 I see it this way. The disgusting river symbolises the disgusting act of sex. The fact that he is fishing in this river shows his new experiments with this act (new girlfriend). When he catches the heavy fish' date=' he is experiencing something from sex that is drawing him in, and very difficult to avoid. Being in the very shallow water may be showing him that this disgusting act isn't as horrible as he may have once thought, but seems to have difficulty accepting this. The women in the river could represent all the others who do not find this disgusting the way he does. The whale rushing at them could the man's belief that something horrible will come from this act, though people do not realize this, or seem to care. close?[/quote'] Bang on.... very well done.... you missed a few parts here and there.... but over all that is the idea.... ill add a few points at the end of this post. Smart cookie you are! Was he smelling this in his dream? close? I don’t know.... I wish I did! I have another thread where I talk about smelling and tasting in a dream...this is something that imp very curious about.... how come we cant remember exactly a smell or taste from a dream...but can remember visuals and maybe even audios? !!!!! I am no Clinical Psychologist' date=' but I noticed something in this riddle. I must ask.... Isn't the Patient a Priest? And Catholic, "Nun" the less? (pardon the pun) First of all, how is he allowed to have a girlfriend. I have always been under the impression that Catholic Priests are not allowed to fraternize or frolic either romantically or physically with the opposite sex. My opinion; There IS a girlfriend and the discuss of knowing he is breaking his vows of priesthood is the river and God is the whale, coming to condemn his actions and those whom promote or encourage them. The rotting and decay is his faith in himself as a worthy minister, yet not being enveloped in the rot, he is not feeling completely consumed with guilt as he as successfully refrained from committing any sexual actions. That: or the dream is about his Mom (don't know how, but consider it a guess), as there is no girlfriend in the picture. close?[/quote'] He happens to be a priest that is "sinning" I guess...but I think he has conflicting thoughts about his religion and his beliefs...like a more sensible part of him is trying to surface and challenge his beliefs through the curiosity of sex.... after all.... sex is what ultimately drives us.... anyways I think your allowed to kiss a girl if your a priest...and have a wife...and these days its probably even acceptable to have sex after your married...but as You can see.... there is meaning on all sorts of levels! You were right with your interpretation as well. Nicely Done! It IS a riddle.... and one that is fun to tango with! Onward.... I wont fill every thing in.but ill mention a few things.... You could almost say he was "just getting his feet wet" in relationships... landing feet first in the water...but only a few inches into it could symbolize this. And what type of falic imagery comes to mind when you think of fishing rod.... pole...and what type of disgusting thing might you catch on that pole that could be symbolized by rotting decaying fish? Think about what his mother probably told him as a kid. Someone needs to touch on the whale a bit more.... there is a falic interpretation with Whales.... what does a Whale do when it takes a breath i should mention that jackonaut idea about the whale could also be correct! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrokwild Posted January 25, 2006 Author Share Posted January 25, 2006 Any body care to make a dream up or share a dream of their own? Some of us would probably like to analyze it! Its all in the name of science! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reverse Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 You know that the fish is a secret symbol for Christianity don’t you…any priest would know this. And be familiar wit the story of Jonah. And water is used in baptism. A priest would know this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ski_power Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Hi I'm 18 and I've always been having one particular dream for more than 7-8 years. The dream is like this... I am below a building where I used to live when I was 6-7 years. The thing is that I am very springy. While everyone else is comfortable walking, when I take a step I bounce into the air and then come down. It's like a case of low gravity, where I cannot walk like normal but I am taking large footsteps, greater than the ones that people took on the moon. Quite literally jumping. I want to stand at one place, but no matter what the next time I land on the ground only to bounce/jump higher... That's the dream that I have ever so often. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d22k Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 I have VERY similar dreams, although sometimes is the low gravity and sometimes its a complete lack of friction with the floor. i have to push off objects to go where i want and i usually end up sliding into people by accident. Also the place changes all the time... I always put it down to me not feeling in control of what was happening in my life. Indeed i wouldnt be surprised if alot of teenagers have very similar dreams... im 19 by the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrokwild Posted January 25, 2006 Author Share Posted January 25, 2006 I am below a building where I used to live when I was 6-7 years. The thing is that I am very springy. While everyone else is comfortable walking' date=' when I take a step I bounce into the air and then come down. It's like a case of low gravity, where I cannot walk like normal but I am taking large footsteps, greater than the ones that people took on the moon. Quite literally jumping. I want to stand at one place, but no matter what the next time I land on the ground only to bounce/jump higher... Thanks![/quote'] I don’t know a single thing about you, and order for me to make a proper Freudian interpretation I would have to at least have a talk with you and pry into your mind a bit. Ill take a stab at this anyways.... this is what I think... First of all...this most likely has to do with something that happened to you in your life when you were 6 or 7 years old. It must have happened in a familiar environment. That’s what the picture in the first sentence seems to symbolize. Being springy while everyone else is "normal" could symbolize that at the time of your life you or something was out of control. Perhaps you were "out of control" in a sense it seemed no matter what you did...your parents would get mad at you for something.... and with every action you did that was out of control would then escalated into something worse...(landing on the ground...only to be sprung right back up again) Then again it could be a positive repressed memory of when you were that age...you seemed to excel "above" the rest of the people and every time you did something amazing...something even more amazing would come out of it... Think back to how your life was at 6 or 7... can you remember any thing significant? To d22k, Your right.... that dream probably symbolizes you aren’t entirely in control of your life...or your actions. And your actions seem to bother or conflict with other people (sliding into them) So a way to resolve this issue would be to take control of your life...and consciously "think" before you act.... so you always are in control of your life.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starbug1 Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Onward.... I wont fill every thing in.but ill mention a few things.... You could almost say he was "just getting his feet wet" in relationships... landing feet first in the water...but only a few inches into it could symbolize this. And what type of falic imagery comes to mind when you think of fishing rod.... pole...and what type of disgusting thing might you catch on that pole that could be symbolized by rotting decaying fish? Think about what his mother probably told him as a kid. Someone needs to touch on the whale a bit more.... there is a falic interpretation with Whales.... what does a Whale do when it takes a breath i should mention that jackonaut idea about the whale could also be correct! The pole is his penis. That's obvious. "Fishing"--this would be the act of sex. In short, his mother told him that a vagina was a rotting, decaying fish. Since childhood memories are the ones that are most vivid, this would leak into the man's subconscious, telling him that getting "my feet wet" in this digusting water is going too far, which would be the source of the recurring dream. I see the women in the water as temptation, despite the condition of the water that they are bathing in. Whereas some people might be drawn to this temptation, others, such as the priest, are disgusted by the morality and the consequences of jumping on this emotion. The priest has lingering ideas of what his "besmirched" image of sex is like even though he can't help his innate and ingrained desires, which we all have. The whale is a bit tricky. In my opinion, this is another metaphor for penis, except this time it is a monster; it is a whale because of the blowhole, which probably symbolizes "ejaculation," or maybe "conception." The monster is coming to attack and "hurt the females sexually." Furthermore, this is probably hiding the priests own sexual aggression from testosterone he can't stop, which is why he's with a girl to begin with. Without a relationship or sexual contact for long periods of time, the dreams become more recurrent and vivid. In short, I think the priest has bigger problems. If this is a real-life case, then it's a very unqualified priest. NO marriage, NO relationships, AND ESPECIALLY NO SEX. I have criticism because, in a priest's universe, they find salvation in jesus, not girls. Obviously, if this is in fact a true story, the mother is the sole perpetrator for causing the problems in this man's life. And it was her telling him how awful woman are, which is ironic, and the mother probably has loads of her own insecurities. Mother's like the priests revolve around hypocrisy; she probably controlled her son from the very start. And because of it, the priest, probably against his will, is doing something he doesn't know what for, and has sexual repression and confusion that are a stint on both his social life and his tenure with the church. His mother gave him serious problems that he'll most likely have for the rest of his life. The cliff might also have something to do with it. Maybe he feels that he is pure, on a pedestal, closer to god because he is with the church, yet he can't get over his curiosity for the "dirty" women and acts that are down in the "river of corruption." Also, it might be possible he let himself fall in the river, which would correlate accurately with his real life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reverse Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 And what if the Priest has assimilated the symbolic meanings of the church through intense exposure. In that case the fish is Christianity...the river is a new life of sin. and that baptism has destroyed his faith and is dragging him in... I would speculate that a priest would have different dream symbols compared to lay people, due to intense religious saturation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrokwild Posted January 26, 2006 Author Share Posted January 26, 2006 Starbug1, Great interpretation. That’s the cool thing about dream analysis...there can be many different possible interpretations but usually only one meaning. Without extensive psycho therapy the actual meaning is hard to determine...and even then, one psychologists opinion can greatly differ from anothers. Reverse, I think your right...the fact that the man dreamed about fish probably has something to do with his faith. On another note...... It’s amazing what the power of suggestion can do to the mind. Religion, in my opinion, is brainwash through the power of suggestion. Religion is simply a cult with some power.....arg! it gets me so mad that people still believe in a "fairy tale" if you believe in the bible you might as well believe in every other piece of fiction ever written! ARG ANYWAYS THATS NOT WHAT THIS THREAD IS ABOUT! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starbug1 Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 In that case the fish is Christianity...the river is a new life of sin. and that baptism has destroyed his faith and is dragging him in... This works, too. However, because we assume he is old enough to know where he's at in life, I'd think that he would have recognized this sooner; however, this could also be said for his sexuality... It’s amazing what the power of suggestion can do to the mind. Religion, in my opinion, is brainwash through the power of suggestion. Religion is simply a cult with some power.....arg! it gets me so mad that people still believe in a "fairy tale" if you believe in the bible you might as well believe in every other piece of fiction ever written! ARG ANYWAYS THATS NOT WHAT THIS THREAD IS ABOUT! Precisely. I'd save that for another thread. So do you have the real psycho-analytic interpretation for us? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrokwild Posted January 26, 2006 Author Share Posted January 26, 2006 So do you have the real psycho-analytic interpretation for us? I don’t really need to, everyone nailed it, but if you REALLY want, I DO have the interpretation on tape, from the psychologist who dealt with the Priest. However, I must warn, its not as in depth as you might think.... many of the people in this thread have gone into it way more than this psychologist did on tape.... probably for patient/doctor confidentiality. On another note, do you think anyone would get really offened if i started a thread about religon and how it is all, more or less, bs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reverse Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 Why not start one on how the capitalist dream is BS. That lie: That the consumption of objects and more objects will make you happy. (Bombardment from advertising being the brainwashing stimuli). (An I pod and some Nike shoes are my stairway to happiness). Ps.... you didn't tell us if the ladies got eaten by the whale! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrokwild Posted January 26, 2006 Author Share Posted January 26, 2006 the ladies didnt get eaten.... rofl And I would argue that any form of education is brainwash..... Our school system is essentially brain wash IE: They teach doctors how to diagnose a condition and how to treat it with drugs.... they don’t teach them how to cure anything ... this way the drug companies continue to sell drugs and so on.... same can be said with many other things that we just automatically assume is truthful.... like religion ... that canned, boxed, and other wise processed food is healthy for you ... many things ... even scientists could be considered a cult that tries to influence society with their "findings" it all comes down to your own personal opinion ... doh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reverse Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 I know what you mean. but more surprising is that fact that you can get a whole country of people to more or less co-operate with the general social direction. Could you imagine trying to get a million cats to do that. Possibly primates like us are bred to be submissive followers. Theoretically because antisocial behavior was punished by death for a large part of our history. the renegade ones were culled as it were. wild theory. what the hey. I had a dream about exactly that ( now its back on topic ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunspot Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 Dream symbols are all parts of the person having the dream. Water symbolises thoughts, which in this case are connected to thoughts that the dreamer feels are poluted; Poluted in the sense of not being clean or wholesome within the value system of the dreamer. When he falls into the water, it is shallow and only his feet touch the water. The feet symbolize instincts; how one is connected to the earth. His conflict is connected to his instinctive repression. Being shallow, show this is quite close to consciousness; not deeply repressed. The two women are aspects of his female side. Being two show there is a split in his emotional state, with both aspects in the poluted water. This is interesting in that the unconscious mind consideres both sides of the split unhealthy or in the poluted water. This probably indicates the two women who led and are leading him are neither kosher for him. The whale is symbolic of the unconscious mind. It going after the two women, showing his unconscious mind starting to disrupt his unhealthy split emotional state. But it is also symbolic, being a former priest, of Jonah and the whale. Jonah comes out the whale by the grace of god. He will probably return to his faith and find a more wholesome woman more in harmony with his beliefs; not like his mother or his present girlfriend. His present girlfriend was the antedote to his mother but the medicine is becoming harmful in another way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reverse Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 Did you just use the word "kosher" to talk about a priest.. That is kinda funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrokwild Posted January 27, 2006 Author Share Posted January 27, 2006 You guys are going to hate me i went back and reviewed my notes and guess what.... the priest had actually left priesthood after many years... partly because he didn’t like the celibacy and he wanted to be a father...and felt many things were missing from his life .... but still couldn’t bring himself to take part in sexual acts and have a bonded realtionship .... that changes things a lot doesn’t it I’m sorry. Btw: Water(river) = Sex 2 Girls = Temptation Pole = Penis Fish = Disease Cliff Fall = "Lowering Standards" Whale = Avoidable danger That’s a REAL general run down of the symbolism. Interesting interpretation sunspot, that was refreshing... you are very open minded or at least able to think out side of the box. Good job, I’m sure those are all valid ideas. Pretty soon im going to have to give my full out interpretation.... but ill let this thread age a bit more first Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starbug1 Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 That sure changes things. Though it was still pretty much obvious, except for getting around the priests delving into sinning, which is in fact not true now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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