Eating in the Light of the Moon

One night the peddler had the most incredible dream. He dreamed that he went on a journey to the London Bridge, and when he arrived at the bridge, he found a sack of gold. This dream was so vivid and seemed so real that it stayed in his thoughts long after he had awakened. He was so consumed with the images from this dream that late in the afternoon he announced to his wife, “I had a dream that I found a sack of gold under the London Bridge. I need to leave for London immediately to seek my treasure.”

“You must be mad^!” she exclaimed. “You can’t just go off here or there because you dreamed there was gold to be found. You must stay here and provide for me and your family.” But the peddler was insistent, determined as he was to seek his fortune. So his wife was left with no choice but to pack him some food and wish him well on his way.

On the eve of the third day, the peddler found his food supply running low, along with his optimism, and he thought, “What a fool I have been to follow my dream.” As he was gathering his jacket and knapsack for his return trip home, a man from the inn across the bridge approached him and said, “I have been observing you from my room across the way and have noticed you have spent three days underneath this bridge. What are you doing here?” When the peddler told him about his dream, the man laughed “I, too, have had ridiculous dreams! I once dreamed that I traveled to a small, modest cottage in a country village. Behind the cottage was a large cherry tree encircled by a vegetable garden. There, buried beneath that cherry tree, I found a sack of gold.”

Like the peddler in the story, we live in a society that does not place much value on dreams. When children have nightmares we say, “It was just a dream,” as if to imply that there is nothing more to it. We speak of someone “being a dreamer” when we disparage her lack of accomplishment. As children we are admonished at school for “daydreaming.” The idea that dreams provide access to an extraordinary source of information regarding our past, present, and future is not widely recognized.

In ancient societies, dreams were thought to hold all kinds of powerful and mystical qualities. Some believed that dreams were messages from the gods and goddesses, a key to unlock the mysteries of the universe. Others held that dreams actually provided a path into an entirely different world, just as real as our waking existence. Shamans of many cultures looked to dreams for revelations of future events while indigenous healers the world over relied on dreams for the wisdom to treat distress and disease.

In our modern Western culture, dreams have come to be associated with the “unconscious” mind, the deeper aspect of the self that normally lies hidden beneath the surface that we present to the outside world. Many psychotherapists work intensely with dream interpretation in the belief that dreams provide a “royal road” to self-exploration. The dream is viewed as a symbolic representation of the real thoughts, true feelings, and most heartfelt desires of the dreamer. However, many people, especially those drawn to the “harder” sciences, scoff at the notion that dreams have any meaning at all, considering them instead to be nothing more than “neurological static.”

The great challenge of dreams is that to really be able to appreciate them, you have to be able to understand dream language. Dreams do not speak to us in the language of waking life. A dream is much like a poem or a painting or a story that bypasses our conscious mind and speaks directly to our soul by evoking certain thoughts, feelings or images that resonate with something deep inside of us. Dreams, like art, speak to us in symbol or metaphor, and do not follow the same direct, linear, logical thought processes we are accustomed to in most of our waking life. The metaphors found in poems, dreams, and fairy tales affect us on imaginative and emotional levels, not just on the intellectual level. If we try to relate to them from simply the literal, intellectual level at which we are most accustomed to thinking, we will not be able to discover or experience the more subtle and infinitely more complex meanings they have to offer. If we limit ourselves to literal interpretations, our dreams will just seem “weird” or be frightening. We won’t understand them or won’t want to understand them and will tend to dismiss them altogether, depriving ourselves of a chance to find the “gold.”

The unconscious mind is like a vast sea of life’s experiences, memories of the recent and distant past, possibilities for the future. The conscious mind is nothing more than a tiny island in the middle of that vast sea. For our limited conscious mind to be able to comprehend the immense knowledge available to the unconscious mind, this knowledge must be condensed into symbols that contain layers upon layers of meaning. This is done through the use of metaphor. Metaphors transform raw impulses, patterns, or instincts found in our unconscious mind into forms that can be assimilated by our conscious mind. One symbol, one word, one image found in a dream can contain an immeasurable amount of meaning for the dreamer.

When we learn the language of dreams, the language of metaphor, a whole new world opens to us. We develop a deeper connection with our inner selves, receive information for guidance, recover meaningful memories, and discover sources of inspiration and resources for healing. A dream can tell you where you are, where you have come from, where you need to go, and what you need to get there. Dreams often show us what we have overlooked or avoided in our daily lives; they often reveal feelings, thoughts, or attitudes that may be most helpful to us in our quest to become more conscious of who we are and what we want, to become more whole and complete. If, for example, in your dream you are horrified to discover that you forgot to put on clothes when you went to work, your dream may be revealing to you fears of being exposed or of feeling vulnerable in your job, fears that you might have been ignoring and may need to question or explore.

In order to receive the messages sent to you from your unconscious via the dream, it is important to recognize that the objects, characters, events, and locations in your dream are multidimensional symbols, not simply concrete representations of things, people, and places that may or may not be familiar to you. Dreams are much more dramatic in their presentation of images and ideas than our daily thoughts are. They tend to shock us and to exaggerate things in their attempts to get our attention. Unfortunately, many people get so frightened by the dream images they receive at night or by their behavior in their dreams, that they do their best to forget their dreams and lose an opportunity to understand their fears, an understanding that can lead to healing. They do not recognize the amoral nature of dreams and judge them according to waking life standards, failing to realize that dreams cannot hurt anyone. For example, if you dream of violently attacking and killing a security guard outside an art gallery in order to steal a painting, your dream is not telling you that you are a homicidal maniac with tendencies toward kleptomania. It may be, instead, trying to tell you something about the anger you are not expressing in your waking life. Instead of judging your behavior in the dream, it may be more useful to ask, who might you be angry at? Is there someone in your life that is keeping you from being creative?

In a dream, any figure might represent a person in your life or a part of yourself that you disown, that you don’t want to acknowledge or accept as part of who you are. Upon careful analysis, you may discover there is a part of yourself (your inner security-oriented, authoritarian voice) that you want to get rid of in order to proceed with a creative project.

The relationships we witness and experience in our dreams tell us deep truths about the relationships among our many selves. We are much more complex than we realize and have a whole array of characters that exist within our psyches. There are some aspects of our selves that are familiar and with which we feel comfortable identifying, such as our responsible, supportive, caring, practical selves. But there are other aspects, such as our creative, carefree, self-confident selves that may seem alien and yet other aspects that are downright distasteful, such as our irrational, critical, dissatisfied, self-indulgent, angry selves. It is those parts of our selves that we don’t recognize or don’t like and try to disown that often show up in our dreams, calling out to us, trying to get our attention. They may appear in a dream as dark, hostile figures trying to break into your house or as a pack of wild dogs chasing you, or as a couple of demonic creatures that are holding you hostage.

In dreams, male figures can tell us about our inner masculine, and females about our inner feminine. How the males and females are relating in a dream can indicate the nature of the relationship between our own inner masculine and feminine, between our logical, outwardly focused, independent, goal- and achievement-oriented self, and our emotional, intuitive, relationship-oriented self. Does one aspect feel threatened and dominated by the other or are they “in love” and working together as a team? If you dream, for example, of having sex with your best friend’s husband, who is a financial consultant, this does not necessarily indicate any sexual feelings toward this person, but may depict a deep movement within yourself toward union with the masculine side of yourself that handles your financial “affairs.”

Dreams about our mothers and fathers often tell us a lot about the parts of our mothers or fathers that we have taken in unconsciously and made parts of ourselves. At the same time, dreams might give us insight into our relationship to our mothering or fathering natures as well as to the archetypal concept of Great Mother or Our Father. Children or babies in dreams often represent our inner children, our vulnerable, undeveloped selves. Dreams about animals often speak to us about our more instinctual nature.

When a woman is trying to understand the deeper nature of her struggle with food, her dreams can provide her with valuable clues to what she is really hungry for, what her unfulfilled desires are, what inner conflicts she is trying to resolve through her body size, what feelings she is trying to stuff down with food, what her fears are. Dreams can reveal, often very poignantly, in what way food, fat, and eating serve as metaphors in her waking life. They can show her what aspects of herself she wants to disown and how she uses food or dieting to keep them hidden. Dreams can also give instruction about what steps to take, what skills she needs to develop, what inner voices she needs to listen to, and which of her inner resources she needs to call upon.

Patty, a flight attendant struggling with compulsive eating, tells of a dream where “my two older children are flying first class to Hong Kong and I am upset because I am not on the flight.” This piece of the dream was very revealing to her because she recognized it was a dramatic depiction of the deprivation she feels as a result of giving first class treatment to others in her life and not getting any in return. Her dream expressed her frustration over not being able to get away from her responsibilities and go on vacation.

The restaurant setting was a clue to Patty that these feelings of frustration and vulnerability were related to her food and eating issues. She recognized that at a Chinese restaurant she was trying to get the “food” her older children were getting in Hong Kong. The angry outburst suggests the inner rage she experiences when a part of herself—the waiter who waits on everyone—does not allow her to choose what she wants. The dream is directing her attention to her anger (hitting her over the head with it) and her need to express it so that she can consciously choose what she wants rather than use her compulsive eating behavior to distract her from feelings of deprivation, vulnerability, frustration, and anger.

Your inner dream maker can be your best guide through difficult situations. It often presents a dream story that moves one step ahead of the story you are living in your waking life, beckoning you on, urging you forward in uncovering the truth of all of who you are. With its own unique language of images, plays on words, and emotional states, it can teach you, paradoxically, to “wake up” to parts of yourself that you were not aware of or not using most effectively.

“A woman is chasing me into the woods with a knife and is trying to kill me. She gets me to drive her to the woods under false pretenses and to my surprise starts to chase me. I’m really scared. Then, for some reason, I stop running and angrily say to her, ‘It’s not going to be this way. This is dumb! I don’t want to be here. I have other things to do and I’m going to take you home.’ I drive the woman (who is now complacent) home, but I see that she has a long, steep driveway and I think, ‘I’m not going out of my way because I have a lot to do.’ I say to her, ‘I’ll drop you off here’ (at the bottom of the driveway). Then I kiss her on the cheek and drive away to do what I need to do.”

Tricia immediately recognized that the woman in the dream represented her older sister who, since childhood, had treated her harshly, with hostility and criticism. Not too long ago, she had discovered that her binge-purge episodes inevitably followed instances when her sister had put her down or rejected her, or moments when Tricia thought about being judged by her sister. The dream showed her how she would run into the woods of her unconscious (by bingeing and purging) whenever her sister attacked her or whenever she feared being persecuted by her sister’s judgment.

In this dream, however, instead of continuing to run, she became angry and stopped running. She realized she had other things she wanted to do in her life, and she didn’t want to remain unconscious about how she felt or what she wanted. The dream revealed to her how expressing her anger over being treated this way could stop this process of running away from her true feelings.

On a deeper level, Tricia recognized that the woman in the dream also represented the part of herself that treats her the way her sister does, that ambushes her with excessive criticism and harsh judgment whenever she doesn’t do what she “should” do or doesn’t do something as quickly or as perfectly as it “should” be done. This is the “cutting” part of herself from which she seeks refuge in her unconscious bulimic behavior. The dream’s message to Tricia is that it doesn’t have to be this way, she doesn’t have to stay in the woods. By experiencing and expressing her anger, she can return to the “driver’s seat” of her life, bring this disowned critical part of herself home, set limits on what she is willing and not willing to do, and do it in a firm but loving way.

Cynthia had been hospitalized for anorexia as a teenager and never fully recovered from her eating disorder. As a young adult, she remained terrified of becoming fat and frequently purged her meals. Although she had been in therapy in the past, she remained unclear about what the deeper issues were that had triggered her anorexia and continued to be mystified about why she continued to struggle with disordered eating. The following dream provided Cynthia with the insight she needed that ultimately led to her recovery.

Cynthia recognized that the tall, skinny guy looked like a former boyfriend who, she found out later, had sexually molested her five-year-old sister. Talking about him and her feelings over what he did brought up old feelings. She had always felt tremendous shame about being with a boy who could molest her sister. When she was a “skinny” anorexic teenager, she was identifying with the behavior of her boyfriend, saying without words, “See, I’m just like him—perverted in my sexuality.” The fat, hairy man represented her “crude,” animalistic, sexual nature that she had associated with the “evil” acts her boyfriend committed against her sister. Her fear of becoming fat was connected with her fear of becoming sexual. The “nice” guy represented the positive aspects of her sexuality that she could “barely” see.

It is significant that the dream takes place in the kitchen, a place of transformation, where raw food is “cooked up,” where raw instincts can be transformed into something palatable that can be consumed and digested by the conscious mind. In interpreting her dream, Cynthia could see that the starving guys were all the different aspects of her rejected sexuality that were wanting to be fed, that were wanting to become conscious. The process of trying to feed them food was overwhelming because, no matter how much she fed them, it was never enough. What these disowned parts of herself needed to be fed was attention so that she could be freed from the obsession with food and fat, an obsession whose purpose was to keep these aspects out of her awareness. Her dream presented her with a drama that would bring them that attention, her very own version of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”

When a woman is struggling to recover from some form of disordered eating, it is important for her to remember that food is a metaphor and that through the process of understanding that metaphor, healing occurs. While dreamwork can be helpful in finding the often elusive meaning of that metaphor in particular dreams (by revealing the symbolism of food, what fat means to us, or how we use eating to express, suppress, or distract ourselves from certain feelings), it can be of even greater value when we learn the dream language.

When we begin to pay attention to our dreams and learn to interpret them, we become familiar with the language of metaphor. This helps us to recognize how metaphors operate in our waking life. We begin to see, for example, that food is a metaphor for emotional nourishment and that we tend to eat when we are hungry for attention, affection, or appreciation. We begin to see more clearly how stuffing ourselves rapidly with food is a frantic attempt to stuff down those feelings that are threatening to surface. We see how fat represents insulation from hurtful comments, protection from unwanted sexual advances, or protection from other people’s jealousy.

The best time for dream catching is during that early state of reverie, when you are not quite asleep nor quite awake. If you get up too quickly or let your mind race immediately to those things you need to do once you are awake, images from a dream can be quickly lost. So take a moment to fix on any words, thoughts, or images that linger from the dream world.

The next thing to do is to record them immediately. It takes only moments to lose a dream. It is best to keep a dream journal and pen near your bed to jot down your dreams. Often just intending to record your dream of the night before and preparing the materials to do so, can elicit a dream memory. Even if you are not able to remember a complete dream, make note of any words, images or feelings that come to mind. In time, you will be able to describe your dreams more clearly. When recording your dreams, it is best to record them in both the first person and the present tense, as though they are happening while you are writing. For example, “I am driving down this dark road and the man sitting next to me is smoking a cigar.” This helps you maintain the immediacy of the dream.

If there is a certain problem you want help with, make a mental note just before falling asleep at night, to ask for a dream that will give you the insight or guidance you need. Whatever your struggle happens to be with food, fat, or eating, ask for a dream that will reveal the symbolism of food, what fat means to you, or what feelings you are trying to express or suppress by eating. Ask for help in discovering the underlying issues you need to resolve or the attitude that will be most helpful to your recovery process. You may not get a dream immediately, it may take weeks, but when you do get the dream, there is a good chance you will recognize it as the one you asked for.

When it comes to interpreting dreams, there are no specific techniques that will give you the “answers.” By experiencing many dreams and using your imagination to discover what certain things mean and what associations they have to your waking life, you will develop confidence in your intuition. You may want to get a book on dream symbols as a starting-off point, to help you get used to thinking in terms of symbol and metaphor. But it is important to understand that there are no right and wrong interpretations. Your dreams are your dreams, and are as unique as your fingerprints.

Although dreams can present many traditional archetypal symbols, those ancient, fascinating, often intense images (such as the Witch, the Queen, the Moon, the Mother) that speak to the human experience and have meanings that are common to various cultures, most dreams have very personal meanings that you must discover yourself. This discovery process is often very different from the analytical thought processes we are used to, where we quite deliberately string together ideas that build upon each other and lead to logical conclusions. Rather than using logic and sequential thinking to determine what the dream means, it is usually more helpful to mull about the dream images and feelings, letting the meanings emerge. What or who do they remind you of? When have you felt those feelings before? What sensations do they evoke? How is this related to what is going on in your life? Do they speak in any way to your feelings and concerns about food? Ask more specific questions without demanding immediate answers. If there are characters you recognize in the dream, ask what qualities do they have in waking life? How would you describe them? What do the objects in the dream symbolize? For example, ask yourself, what do I think of when I think of the ocean, driving fast, big teeth, the color red, chocolate chips, empty boxes, fish, baldness, etc.? What feelings do certain settings in the dream evoke? When have I felt like that before? If they are familiar settings, ask what was going on in your life the last time you were there. How are the males and females getting along? Is there conflict? Balance? Does the dream in any way speak to your struggle with eating, food, fat, body image? How does the dream end?

Sharing your dreams with someone who is not too quick to tell you what they mean can be very helpful. Often in describing the dream or in explaining what certain things, characters, or places mean to you, you will discover even deeper meanings. I have one friend who I call first thing in the morning and we share the dreams we had the night before, and I have another friend I walk with in the morning and we often talk about our most compelling or interesting dreams. If you are in therapy, sometimes an entire session can be spent analyzing one dream or dream fragment which can reveal an enormous amount of information for guidance and healing.

While the content of a woman’s dreams can be very valuable, the real treasure, as shown in the story of the peddler, is found in the process of following the dream. When a woman starts listening to her dreams, to her inner voice, she discovers that her truest source of knowledge comes from within. The answers to her life’s struggles and dilemmas can be found by exploring her own personal experiences and feelings, not by adhering to the opinions and standards of outer authorities.

In the words of Cynthia, “I never realized how important my dreams could be. It amazed me how much information I could get from one little piece of a dream, just by writing it down and looking at it. But most of all, my dreams have helped me to trust my body, because by seeing how all this information was coming from inside myself, I could see how to trust my inner self and my body signals.”