the rix mix

One of the most disturbing recurring Jungian dream scenarios that bothered me for years turned out not to have overly complex psychological meaning after all but was directly related to a decades long adult fear of becoming homeless - a particular fear I never felt as a child. For a long time I believed it was crucially about the people in the dreams, few of whom I was able to identify. But the meaning was mostly in the configuration of the large yet weirdly familiar house in which I found myself wandering, located in a gray, depressing neighborhood, with basement apartments, beds in the attic, & a maze of stairways & halls. The house was a composite constructof all the places I had resided, fourteen in all, during an unsettled period between 1968 & 1977, plus a few I'd stayed at briefly. Which is why I always knew where the stairways led & was never surprised to find people & belongings everywhere.

To simplify Jung, the construct of the house itself is the dreamer, a "physical" representation of the unconscious in which the dreamer - depending on the level of lucidity - is free to roam around. I'm inclined to agree. However, my most symbolically significant dreams almost always occur in much simpler landscapes, such as the house where I grew from infancy to age 19, a flat Jersey beach, or a place in which the surroundings are subordinate to the characters; a basic stage set.

In the early Seventies in New Brunswick (& probably now), a dozen Rutgers students & "townies" would take over a seedy house, cramming themselves into any available bit of space that would fit a small mattress. Although it was a chaotic situation with almost no privacy, a nasty-looking kitchen, worn out old furniture, a scummy bathtub on claw feet, frequent turnover of occupants, constant music playing in one part of the house & someone typing in another, & always the mixed odor of pot & cheap beer, the shared rents were very low. I never lived in one of these crowded hovels, but I visited (& got high in) many. I was mugged at gunpoint twice while I resided in New Brunswick, & nearly asphyxiated by a faulty furnace. It was a terrible two years of passage out of adolescence. No wonder it formed the foundation of a repeating nightmare.