Hello! My name is Levi Lebovitz and welcome to Pillow Talk, the one and only column where we analyze DREAMS.
Hello and welcome back to Pillow Talk! For those of you who are just now tuning in: Yes, this is a dream interpretation column. No, I am not a licensed professional. And maybe we might learn something from looking at dreams…
A friend of mine called my last column “interestingly sensual,” which I absolutely love, partially because it evokes the image of receiving a lukewarm massage at a mall kiosk, but also because it says something about how dreams can affect us. Dreams are meant to poke you, to disturb you, to symbolically slap you, silly… all in order to bring to light some unconscious personal truth. And though dream images often seem utterly insane and indecipherable to the rational mind, they still serve a purpose — mainly, to make us change our attitude and behavior.
So, in seeking to better understand ourselves, it is important not to dismiss the language of our dreams as pure nonsense, but rather, to search for some morsel of meaning in the symbols produced nightly by our brains. With that being said, let’s look at some more dreams! Today, we will compare two from Ananya Udaygiri ‘26, The Daily’s video managing editor. Here’s the first:
I was walking through the halls of my high school and suddenly felt the need to cough. All of a sudden — like a magician — I started pulling rainbow handkerchiefs out of my mouth, and I couldn’t stop. I was extremely embarrassed so I ran to my favorite teacher’s classroom. She hid me behind her desk.
There was also one point in the dream where I was momentarily transported to a theater. Sitting in the audience, I watched someone pull handkerchiefs out of their mouth…. except, that person was me! (I was in the audience, watching myself.) On stage, I was dressed in magician’s clothes, and looked very happy.
This dream is fascinating because it shows two contradictory images of Ananya. On the one hand, we have an Ananya who is consciously embarrassed by her magical handkerchief-ery. On the other hand, we have an Ananya who fully embraces the wardrobe of the magician and performs the role merrily. Why would Ananya’s mind show her these two opposing images? And what does her handkerchief magic symbolize anyway?
Looking at the bare bones image, Ananya is literally pulling something amazing (the handkerchief) from inside of her, through her mouth. This might be symbolic for her ability to authentically communicate herself — that is, take what’s inside of her and (through her mouth) bring it to the world. It is noteworthy that the dream takes place specifically in her high school, a place where Ananya claimed to feel more liberty to authentically express herself than at college. Ananya is also a communications major and has a strong drive to be an impressionable, impactful communicator. The dream may be trying to show her that she does have this ability to bring amazing things forth from herself into the world. However, Ananya is notably embarrassed by her magical talent and hides it.
Yet, there is another image that Ananya sees: herself on a stage, dressed fully as a magician, happily pulling handkerchiefs. This image shows the part of Ananya that fully embraces her magical abilities — a part which the conscious Ananya is only able to view momentarily and from a distance. I’d offer that perhaps her dream is pushing her to embrace her unique abilities and to reclaim her confidence.
Let’s compare this with a different dream that Ananya had about a week later:
I was going on a road trip with my supposed family, though I had never met them before, and I took care of this little girl who was apparently my (second) cousin. The little girl was very talkative and felt weightless when I carried her. Initially I didn’t want to take care of her, but then we bonded and both she and I were really sad when the road trip ended. When I gave her back to her dad, we both cried out of sadness.
Comparing this with the first dream, we can draw forth some remarkably similar themes. But first, let’s look at some significant symbols:
The dream shows Ananya traveling with family. But not just her normal family… cousins that she hasn’t met before. These cousins may represent extensions of Ananya (literally part of her DNA) that are new to her — symbolically meaning that Ananya is currently discovering new parts of herself. If we accept this interpretation, then we may say that the little girl who Ananya cares for may be a part or attitude of Ananya as well. But what does the little girl represent?
Ananya bonded with this baby cousin because she was precocious — she talked a lot and told stories. Perhaps, the child represents an ability to talk, tell stories, communicate — those very traits which Ananya aspires towards. And not only that, in the dream, Ananya is LITERALLY nurturing this child, who represents this ability to be an amazing communicator. It is of additional significance that during the road trip, Ananya drove in a car with this child separate from her aunt and uncle… taking care of the child is her responsibility. It is her task.
At first, Ananya thought taking care of the child would be a burden. This reminds me of the embarrassment Ananya felt for her magical talents in the first dream. But then, Ananya discovered that the child was weightless. The precocious child didn’t weigh Ananya down! This reminds me of Ananya’s other image from her first dream, when she sees herself happily embracing her magical act.
The dream concludes with the road trip (a symbol of psychological progression) ending and her sadly giving the baby cousin up. Clearly, this upsets Ananya. Perhaps the dream is telling her she shouldn’t give up this aspect of herself so easily…
Both of Ananya’s dreams overwhelmingly point to a current conscious malaise. The first portrayed an embarrassed, ashamed Ananya who hides her talents, but who sees a possibility of proudly displaying them. The second depicted Ananya nurturing a precocious attitude, one which she gained a love for but eventually lost. In both dreams, Ananya ended up distant from her own state of happiness. BUT, clearly these aspects of Ananya’s — to enjoy and embrace her talents, and to love and care for this new attitude — are not only possible, but are almost begging to be realized in her conscious life. For Ananya, the unconscious (that which produces dreams) has said its piece. It is now up to Ananya herself to wrestle with the questions: What is her magic ability? What part of herself is she seeking to nurture?
Welp, that’s all for the second installment of Pillow Talk! As always, if you have any zany dreams, feel free to send them over at levilebo@stanford.edu. They just might make a feature.
Until next time… thank you for reading!