I know it's the weekend and there's a picture of a naked woman, but really, this is not an erotica post. It's a dream post--or more precisely, a nightmare post. For the past few nights I've had a series of unsettling dreams in which I see a woman who looks very much like Persephone above, splayed out naked in some rustic place, usually near a stream. Her body is always beautiful and desirable, impossibly perfect, except for one thing: She has no head. It's clear to me in the dream that there's a serial head collector on the loose, though I never seem to be able to persuade the police or anyone else that something is seriously amiss when decapitated ladies start turning up along the scenic waterways.
I bring this to the blog because I have always had violent dreams, but they've never once featured a headless corpse until now. I thought I must be going seriously off the rails, but just out of curiosity I googled "meaning dreams decapitation," and was surprised to discover that this is actually a very common dream image. I'm curious--anyone else out there have decapitation dreams? Or maybe something even weirder?
Persephone, Thomas Hart Benton, 1938.
19 comments:
Ack, sorry you're having these dreams. I have all kinds of weird dreams but I don't remember headless bodies turning up in them.
The fact that you're having it repeatedly means that there's something that needs to be resolved, try to write it down and analyze it part by part.( How's that for an amazing insight?)
Strangely, the girl in the painting looks like someone I know.
Nika
No, I've never had dreams in which I'm headless (or anyone else), but I'm wondering if the meaning might be tied in somehow with a possible turn of focus from 'logic' or 'higher thinking' toward something more physical.
Have you been feeling well lately? Any conscious thoughts rolling around in your head about fear of sickness or aging?
I usually enjoy my odd dreams, Nika, but this one is creepy. It's not terrifying like some I've had, but it's disturbing. I haven't recorded my dreams in a long time, but I think that might be a good idea.
Your friend, btw, must be beautiful. I really love this painting, even though it has a violent subtext.
Mary, I never thought about aging fears having something to do with this. That's a really interesting idea. The woman in the dream is always fairly young--she's not a girl, but she shows no signs of age at all.
Maybe you've been in too many bookstores lately. I've never had decapitation dreams, but I've been disgruntled for years that chick lit always, always features headless women on the cover. Why have book packagers all decided that women are more likely to buy a book if the woman on the cover is pictured only from the neck down? Or, at best, from the chin down?
Maybe your dream is telling you something similar about our culture, or at least about certain men in our culture: that women are most desirable when they aren't too smart. And if they *are* too smart then they're in deep danger from those men....
I think you may be on to something with that cultural analysis, Margaret.
As for the chick lit cover art--gad, you are so right. It's something I've always noticed and disliked. It must work, though. Some Women can't get enough of that stuff.
This is quite an interesting departure from the beautiful tanager, and I have to de-lurk to add another comment to the insightful ones you've already received. You said "by a stream", which in dream symbolism water is emotion. Is there some area of your life where your emotions are ruling your head?
I'll also take this opportunity to tell you how much I enjoy your eclectic blog.
Donna
Thanks, Donna. I'm glad you de-lurked.
The answer to your question is probably yes. That's a change for me, since I am usually one who lets her head rule her heart. Or so I like to believe ;-)
Ah, my dear.
Maybe headless folk are easier to deal with ;)...
Let's HOPE so !
[It does give one the option of physicality without emotional / psychological constraints/ complication ]
I have not had decapitation, yet.
Lots of house, staircase dreams, being boxed in [ reference: Marcel Marceau's "The Scream "].
A recurrent theme has been one in which ALL the folk who find my truth-seeking painful-
Get together over my rotting corpse while toasting themselves in a congratulatory,manner w/ champagne ;)
Well, I hope one of these nights you'll dream of rising from the dead and letting them have it!
FWIW, house dreams are pretty much a dream life staple for me. Usually the house is falling apart, or I'm being chased through it by a knife-wielding psychopath.
I've always thought of houses as being images of skulls, with windows for eyes, etc.-- cf. E.A. Poe-- and dreams (or stories) about them as exploring the depths and interiority of the mind. Anybody else?
It makes perfect sense that the house dream would be a commentary on state of mind, Bozo. Now that I think about it, it's a pretty fascinating notion, especially when the house has many floors, as dream houses often do.
I think a lot of the meaning of a dream image has to depend on the dreamer, though. For women, especially, I think the house is an image of the physical self. I know I've often dreamed of crumbling houses when I was physically sick.
BTW, no headless ladies last night. I dreamed of swarming hornets instead!
I think the police are as interesting as the decapitation--that horrible Cassandra feeling of having something important to say and being dismissed as irrelevant or worse. You're calling in The Law, but it isn't coming...
Women are disappearing in Juarez again. Maybe it's in the ether?
P.S. I thought the painting was Susanna and the Elders, not Persephone. Interesting interpretation...
It is an odd interpretation of the Persephone myth, Alyssa. THB actually did a Susanna and the Elders, too. It's quite similar, you can see it here.
That Cassandra experience happens in my dreams a lot--you, too? I bet that's one's almost universal, especially for women. Ever have the one about being unable to make a telephone work?
I wasn't aware of hearing about more murders in Juarez, but maybe it leaked in from some unnoticed media report. Then again, it's pretty much always open season on poor women everywhere...
Just skittered over to the painting--whoa! That stick! Those shoes!
That really big stick!
And one of the elders really is pretty much the same guy as the nosy parker in Persephone, yes?
I was about to say -- hey, you should do an art blog--and then I realized you are already sort of doing that, now. But I'd love to hear more about what your think of all these fantastic images you find for us.
P.S. Yes, I have that Cassandra feeling a lot, asleep and awake. Less so now, than I did in my twenties and early thirties, though. And when I dream about it, it is almost always someone I know and love who won't listen...
THB got in trouble for painting these brazen women. I think he lost a job over Persephone.
Now that you mention it, I think I might do more strictly art-focused posts. They're fun to put together.
BTW, my futile calls are almost always urgent ones for help, always have been. People I actually know rarely show up in my dreams. Weird...
I completely get the Cassandra Conundrum.
Not a fun experience...
I think we should take a lesson from Kobi, Chaya. She makes 'em listen to her...
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