A dream extract from Craig Hamilton-Parker's
new dream book: Fantasy Dreaming
The
truth is, we project onto other people and the world
in general our own hidden fantasies. These can be
both positive fantasies and negative ones as well.
Often, certain individuals can become our bête
noire because they come to represent everything we
hate about ourselves. We project our fantasies onto
them and they are transformed into the scapegoat for
our own inadequacies. Similarly, an individual may
remind us of someone who wronged us in the past, and
we may accuse this unwitting person of the sins of
their predecessor.
Fantasy and projected fantasy play a big role when
people fall in love. Carl Jung claimed that each of
us is psychologically part male and part female. He
called these two aspects of the self the Anima (female)
and the Animus (male). The Anima and Animus appear
in dreams and fantasies as the perfect man or woman.
These concepts of the "perfect man" and
"perfect woman" are projected onto the opposite
sex resulting in the experience of "falling in
love." In my own work as a medium and psychic
counselor one of the most often asked questions is,
"When will I meet "Mr. Right"?"
Clearly, the question itself implies that the woman
already has a preconception that there is a "Mr.
Right," someone who lives up to her fantasies
and expectations. He is the Animus figure that has
appeared in her dreams and fantasies. Men have similar
preconceptions and speak about 'the woman of my dreams."
Fantasies about sex and relationships play a huge
role in whom we choose as life partners. Unfortunately
these fantasies are usually unrealistic; newlyweds
often face a crisis when they begin to distinguish
between the person they thought they married and their
spouse. Nonetheless fantasy plays an important role
in bonding, and new fantasies gradually replace those
that are discarded. All sorts of influences affect
the nature of these fantasies, including our early
childhood and the image we have of our father, mother,
and siblings. Fantasies go on in our minds all the
time without our awareness. Sometimes they can be
spotted by other people, but often they remain clandestine.
CHECK OUT OUR: