Strangers in Dreams: The Secret Language of Symbols
The Secret Language of Symbols: Strangers in Our Dreams
A client recently told me about a dream in which she was on a boat with several rather threatening men, possibly Mafia types. As if their company weren't bad enough, the boat began to sink.
Then, out of nowhere, a stranger appeared in a dinghy and rescued her. He wore a face covering, so only his eyes were visible. She had never met him before, yet she felt completely safe with him. As he steered them towards the shore, she leaned back against him, letting herself relax into his care.
She woke feeling immensely relieved.
What struck me first about this dream was the contrast between the two masculine experiences. On one boat, threatening men and the prospect of drowning. On the other, a man whose face was hidden, yet whom she trusted enough to lean back against, quite literally putting herself in his hands.
And he was a complete stranger. So who was he? And why would someone she'd never met inspire such a sense of safety?
The strangers who visit us at night
Our dreams are populated by a curious assortment of characters. Family members, old lovers, childhood friends, people we haven't thought about in decades, and sometimes people we've never seen before.
Some arrive with an air of authority. Others frighten us, seduce us, help us, obstruct us, or simply stand around looking mysterious. The unconscious, it seems, has a rather extensive casting department.
In everyday life, we tend to approach strangers cautiously. After all, we don't know who they are, what they want, or whether we can trust them. Yet in dreams, we sometimes reveal our deepest secrets to them, fall in love with them, or follow them into situations we'd never consider while awake.
From a Jungian perspective, strangers in dreams may represent aspects of ourselves that are unfamiliar or not yet recognised by consciousness.
The psyche is considerably larger than the part of ourselves we know and identify with (our ego identity). We may think we know who we are, what we're capable of, and how we're likely to behave, but the unconscious often has other plans.
A stranger may embody something we've disowned, a quality we've never developed, or a capacity that is just beginning to emerge. Sometimes the stranger brings something distinctly unwelcome. At other times, they arrive bearing precisely what we seem to need.
The stranger as a helper
In myths and fairy tales, help often comes from unexpected quarters. A mysterious old woman offers advice, a beggar reveals hidden knowledge, or an unknown traveller appears just when the hero has run out of ideas.
These figures often seem to possess what the central character lacks: knowledge, courage, wisdom, protection, or the ability to see a way through an apparently impossible situation.
We might think of the stranger in my client's dream in this way. She was in danger and unable to save herself, yet someone appeared who could.
What interested me was that the rescuer wasn't particularly grand or heroic. There was no magnificent ship, no dramatic display of strength. Just a man in a dinghy who knew how to get her safely to shore.
Sometimes what we need is rather ordinary.
The stranger as an inner figure
Jung used the terms anima and animus to describe the contrasexual aspects of the psyche: the unconscious feminine in a man (his inner feminine) and the unconscious masculine in a woman (her inner masculine). These figures sometimes appear in dreams as strangers of the opposite sex, embodying qualities we may not yet recognise in ourselves.
Of course, Jung's ideas reflected the gender assumptions of his time. Today, we might understand masculine and feminine qualities as belonging to all of us, regardless of sex or gender.
In this dream, the stranger might represent the positive animus: a steady, protective and trustworthy masculine presence rather than a threatening or controlling one. Perhaps the dreamer is discovering a different relationship with the masculine, both within herself and in the outside world.
I am always wary of settling on a single interpretation too quickly. Jungian concepts can illuminate a dream, but they can also become convenient labels that prevent us from looking further. Still, we have to start somewhere, and even Jung had to stick his neck out occasionally.
I digress. For me, the most interesting moment was when she leaned back against him.
She didn't need to steer the boat, watch for danger, or stay on guard. She could let someone else take responsibility for getting her to safety.
What might it mean for someone to experience that level of trust, even if only in a dream?
When the stranger is frightening
Not all dream strangers are so accommodating.
Some pursue us down dark streets, enter our homes uninvited, or appear at the foot of the bed, looking decidedly sinister. Others seem perfectly ordinary yet leave us with an inexplicable sense of dread.
One thing to consider is whether these figures represent aspects of the shadow, the parts of ourselves we find hard to acknowledge or accept.
We tend to imagine the shadow as containing our less attractive qualities: envy, aggression, selfishness, resentment, and the occasional murderous thought about someone who's upset us.
But the shadow can also contain qualities we've been discouraged from developing. Someone who has always been obliging may dream of an aggressive stranger. Someone who prides themselves on independence may encounter a helpless figure. A person who has learnt to be sensible and restrained may dream of someone gloriously reckless.
The question isn't necessarily whether we want to become like the stranger, but what their presence might prompt us to acknowledge.
And sometimes a frightening stranger is simply frightening. We need to consider the dreamer's actual experiences, including trauma, before assuming that every threatening figure represents some useful psychological quality waiting to be embraced.
Giving the dream a voice: A Gestalt approach
Another way of exploring dreams is through Gestalt therapy. Rather than standing outside the dream and trying to work out what everything means, we invite the dreamer to become the different characters and objects within it, speaking as each one in the first person and present tense.
And I do mean everything. People, animals, buildings, furniture, even the weather. Nothing is too insignificant to have something to say.
In my client's dream, for example, I might invite her to become the sinking boat.
"I am the boat. I'm sinking... I contain a number of sociopaths... I'm taking them on a journey..."
What is it like to be this boat? What is happening to it? What is it carrying? Does it want to sink, or is something causing it to go under?
Then I might ask her to become one of the Mafia men.
"I am one of the men on the boat... I am powerful... I'm part of a family... We look after each other..."
What is it like to be him? What does he want? What makes him threatening? Is he afraid of anything himself?
Next, she might become the stranger who rescues her.
"I am the man in the dinghy... I'm rowing fast to rescue a woman... I'm going to save her..."
What brings him to this particular place? How does he feel about the woman he's rescuing? What gives him the confidence to take charge?
And then there's the dinghy itself.
"I am the dinghy..."
What's it like to be this small craft, capable of carrying someone to safety when the larger boat is sinking? What does it have that the other boat lacks?
Not many people arrive in therapy expecting to speak as a dinghy, but there we are.
The important thing is that I wouldn't supply the answers. The dreamer discovers them by entering into each experience, noticing what happens in her body, how her voice changes, what feelings arise and what she finds herself wanting to say.
Sometimes we might even invite two dream figures to speak to one another. What would the sinking boat say to the dinghy? Or the threatening men to the rescuer?
In Gestalt dreamwork, the different elements of a dream may represent aspects of our experience, including parts we've rejected, neglected, or haven't yet recognised. By giving each element a voice, we may discover things we wouldn't have thought of through interpretation alone.
And quite often, what turns out to matter most is something we barely noticed when we first heard the dream.
What do we feel towards the stranger?
When exploring a dream, I'm often more interested in the dreamer's emotional response than in the figure's appearance.
Do they feel curious, attracted, suspicious, frightened, or reassured? Does the stranger seem familiar in an indefinable way? Is there a sense of recognition, despite never having met them?
And what happens between them?
A stranger who offers help, only to be rejected, tells a different story from one whose help is gratefully accepted. A threatening figure who becomes friendly when approached may suggest something different from one who grows more dangerous.
We can also ask what qualities the stranger possesses that the dreamer may find difficult to recognise in themselves.
In my client's dream, I wouldn't want to lose sight of the feeling she woke with. Relief. Safety. The experience of trusting someone she didn't know.
Perhaps the dream showed her a possibility she hadn't yet fully experienced in waking life. Perhaps this stranger represented an inner resource becoming available to her.
I wouldn't want to decide for her.
After all, the stranger had only just arrived. It might be worth getting to know him before deciding who he was.
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