Working with Dream Images: The Lime Green Jacket

Outside the therapy room, I often find myself with an image that won't leave me alone, usually a symbol from a dream. Dreams rarely come with clear explanations and neat interpretations but they sometimes linger in the form of an image, a colour or a feeling. Part of my own process is to stay with the image, especially if it feels uncomfortable, and work with it.

Last week, I had a dream that left me with an image of a lime green, tailored jacket. I had a morning free so thought I would set up my paints and brushes and create the jacket on paper. Through that process, I discovered something about exposure and what happens when we let go of perfection and resist the urge to rip it up and walk away if something hasn't gone to plan.

The Dream

I was at the counselling foundation where I work. I was about to see a client. A colleague was already in the waiting room speaking with my client talking to her. When we moved to a counselling room, the colleague came with us and she sat in my chair and began doing my job and better than I could do it!

I felt frustrated, excluded and deflated. So I left the room.

When I woke up, I was curious about the power dynamic but what stayed, vividly, was the lime green jacket. It was a cropped, fitted jacket with polished gold buttons. My immediate thought was:

"I could never wear a jacket like that!"

The Jacket as a Symbol

In waking life, I was aware of a familiar pattern in my creative work. There's one part of me that runs away with ideas. What starts as a short article quickly becomes an academic paper, becomes a workshop, a whole training program. A FRANCHISE!! It becomes too big to contain. Another part of me becomes critical and cautious and is quick to pick out what might be wrong or not good enough.

The dream seemed to place these dynamics side by side. The lime jacket represented visibility and authority. The jacket was bold, structured and exposing. You can't help but notice if someone in the room is wearing a lime jacket. My waking thought of "I could never wear a jacket like that" might have been a quieter fear; what if wearing something like that meant being seen before everything is perfect? What if I am exposed? What if I am seen?

Painting the Dream

Rather than try to interpret the dream, I did something different. I got my paints out. I decided to paint a jacket in two halves. One side was the dream symbol and the other side a jacket I actually own; a teal corduroy blazer with darker buttons and a looser structure and fit.

Around the edges of the painting I wrote:

"I am afraid of being exposed. I am not afraid of being human."

Halfway through the painting I realised I made a mistake! I reversed the background colours. Not what I had planned at all. For a moment I almost tore up the painting and gave up. And there it was; the familiar pattern of if it's not perfect, I must destroy it. If it's not going to plan, I abandon it. If it's not perfect, don't let it be seen. Instead of ripping up the painting, I kept going.

I felt a little proud when I finished the painting but not around how it looked as such. The pride was in the process. For staying with it. For tolerating the wobble. For not tearing it up and walking away. For allowing the imperfection to be visible.

In the dream, I left the room. In the painting, I didn't.

Part of being human means:

• Sometimes things don't go according to plan

• You feel the itch of self criticism

• You stay with it

• You don't fall apart if it's not perfect

So in the painting, the lime and the teal didn't cancel each other out, they shared a space. They met in the middle.

This is why I value dreamwork

Dreamwork is about finding meaning through patterns, symbols and feelings rather than nice, neat interpretations. In my dream, a jacket became a symbol of perfection, structure and authority. The colour was a symbol of exposure and with the painting, the mistake became an opportunity to change my usual pattern of behaviour and respond differently.

My take away from this process:

Stay with it. Let something meaningful emerge, even it's imperfect.

The finished painting with all its imperfections