LDI ~ Unlocking the gate to her daughter’s heart

Logotherapy Dream Interpretation ~ 9 March 2020

Theory on Interpretation of Dreams
(Logotherapy Immediate Workshop Manual – 2009)
 
“Dreams - can reflect hopes and wishes form the unconscious, not only repressed aggression and lust, but calls from the conscious towards meaningful behaviour.  Advice from the unconscious to the conscious.”
 
“Frankl has an expanded concept of the unconscious.  He asserts that it contains, also, repressed hopes, goals, and meanings to which dreams are royal roads.”
 
“Viktor Frankl.... sees the unconscious not only in a psychological but also in a spiritual dimension as a royal road into a much wider land.  It can lead to meaning.”
 
“Dreams may make you aware of repressed drives and traumas that are too painful to face.  But dreams may also convey advice from the conscience.  A dream interpretation from this perspective can help you to discover what is meaningful.”
 
(Because the messages in dreams are often hard to understand, because of their symbolic nature, it is often easier to elicit ideas from your client using metaphors, fantasies and imagery.)
 
MY CLIENT WROTE
Hello,
Just read your blog and loved it. You are so wise.
I can never remember my dreams but there is something that happens to me every now and then. On Saturday morning I woke up at 5.51am with my daughter calling, “Ma”, from the top of my passage. I lock my security gate at the top of my passage at night so she would not have been able to get to my bedroom. Anyway, I got out of bed, unlocked the security gate and looked for her. Walked all the way to her house and she was fast asleep. I realized that I must have dreamt her calling me. Now this often happens that I hear the word “Ma” being called but it is all in my head or a dream. At the time it happens, I think, are one of my kids in trouble and this is mother’s instinct?  But this is not the case. My kids are fine. This never happened while my late husband was alive or after his death but it has happened while second husband lived with me and now after his passing. Do you perhaps know what this means or am I just losing the plot?
 
PANAYIOTA
Thank you so much! 😊
This is an interesting one… I’m presuming that you physically wake up and get up to go look for her when you hear her call.
 
The only ideas on the meaningful interpretation of your dream that I can think of right now is, that deep down you are aware that this daughter needs something more from you.  You are being called to give whatever it is.  Does she need more attention or hugs… does she need you to listen to her calling, or to be walking more on her side as far as something she is dealing with?  Is there anything you might be ignoring that she needs you to face with her?
 
It’s something you know about already, but you have been avoiding, or ignoring, because you don’t really want to “go there” with her, or something.  Or is there just something that you are worried about as far as she’s concerned, but you don’t know how to broach the subject with her, yet you feel you need to, because as a mom you feel it would help her a lot, but maybe there’s this gate between you preventing you from opening up on the subject.  She seems quite happy with whatever it is, but it’s worrying you.  You feel you have the answer for her, but the gate stands between you.
 
You’re very close to opening the gate on the subject, because you do when you wake from the dream…
 
Let me know if any of this resonates with you…
 
Love you bunches
 
CLIENT
Reading through your interpretation makes sense. Just some background. My younger daughter, has been having an affair with her boss since her divorce many years ago. This man keeps promising that he is going to leave his wife but never does. She has broken up with him so many times but always goes back. When she is with him, we never see her and don’t hear much from her. When she breaks up with him, then she visits us and becomes my eldest daughter’s best friend. This makes my oldest daughter very sad that she is treated by her sister like this and is now not allowing this anymore. My youngest daughter’s children have also lost out on so many family occasions because their mom doesn’t attend. This angers my oldest daughter who is very big on family. At the moment my oldest daughter is very hurt at the way she was spoken to by her sister a little while ago and there is a bit of friction between the two of them. I never interfere in their fights as I believe that they need to resolve their own problems with each other plus don’t want to be seen as taking sides. I just listen to each one griping about the other and I may offer a bit of advice.
 
Both my children know that I love them unconditionally and that I will always support them and be there for them even if I don’t like/agree/condone whatever they are doing. I know my oldest daughter would love me to blast her sister about her choices. My youngest daughter knows how I feel about this man and her relationship with him but I cannot stop her from seeing him. Both daughters have completely different personalities and each has to be handled differently.
 
The youngest sometimes says that she feels like the outcast because she is not included in everything I do with her sister. Her sister and I live together so we do a lot together. My youngest daughter excludes herself because of this man and I have explained this to her. She misses all these occasions which are such fun with grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, grandchildren. My youngest daughter and her children (my beautiful grandchildren) used to come to me one night a week for dinner. Sometime last year she stopped this so I don’t get to see her and my grandchildren very often.
 
Not sure which daughter needs whatever from me. The oldest is hurting because of the way she gets treated by her sister and that her sister does not feel the same way as her about family. My youngest daughter is hurting because this man disappoints her all the time and so she feels that her and her kids are the outcasts. I have tried to get my oldest daughter to accept her sister as she is with all her good and bad points. My youngest daughter has to learn her own lessons and we must just be there for her when she finally wakes up to this man’s intentions.  I’ve spoken to her about her relationship with this man, about her excluding herself from family and how her children are missing out. At one stage she was suicidal because of him. She agreed to see a Logotherapist and I made the appointment. She then cancelled her appointment.
 
Golly, I have given you so much information about my kids. A mother stuck in the middle of two strong women who both think they are always right, though my oldest will apologise but the youngest never. Will have to think hard about who needs what from me.
 
Thank you my darling friend.
 
PANAYIOTA
Thank you so much for sharing this with me and for trusting me so much.  It means the world to me.  Your dream does make a lot of sense then.  It seems to me that you already know which one is calling to you most to just be there for her with your unconditional love... her mom... instead of you feeling trapped by not wanting to get caught in-between your two daughters and THEIR situation with each other... or to choose sides.
 
I feel that it is possible that you keep a certain distance so as not to upset one or the other, yet your spirit and conscience is witnessing to you through your dream, that you already know which one needs you closer.  It seems that it is you that is keeping the gate locked to her calls... and that maybe you should be opening it to her needs.  She needs you.  Feeling judged or that you might be taking sides against her could actually keep her stuck in the situation that she is in with this man.  I might be wrong... only you will know for sure.
 
“Something meaningful draws us out of ourselves – it enlarges our vision, enriches us and causes us to grow: to become bigger and better than we are.  Frankl quoted Goethe as saying: “If we take a man as he is, we make him worse; if we take him as he ought to be, we help him become it” (Shantall, 2002, p. 19) ~ Life’s Meaning in the Face of Suffering
 
“Ought to be”, in this situation as I am reading it:  Unconditionally loved and accepted by her mom... (by her sister too... but as this is your dream, it refers to you... her sister might have her own dreams pertaining to this)…
 
CLIENT
Thank you very much for all of this. I understand now. Here I was thinking that there is not much more I can do for her but stay in the background and be here if she needs me - keeping the gate locked – when I could make a bigger effort in communicating with her, making her understand that I am not judging her, that I just want her to be happy. Also try harder to spend more time with her and my grandchildren.
 
You may use this in your blogs but please don’t mention my children’s names.
I just love you so much. xxxxxx
 
 
 
Thank you for sharing this Logotherapy dream interpretation with my client and I. 
 
I would love to know if you are learning how to interpret your own dreams by all that has been shared concerning this subject.
 
~ Panayiota