Dali and dreams

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Back in Chicago a young woman dreamed of a cigar. Now, Freud would have said it was a phallic symbol and on the surface, he would have been right; BUT, this young woman was physically abused by her father and he smoked cigars so her dream took on a more meaningful, personal, subjective response. She spent many of her dating years avoiding guys who smoked cigars no matter how attracted she was to them. She had a "Cigar Complex."  Over time she became aware of the connection and was able to focus in on the obvious dream-symbol of her father (the cigar) and begin to heal. She trashed a lot of cigars!


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It was one of those "must be seen" events I tagged along on.  Amid the crowd, noise, a woman with a shoe on her head and good but loud music, I slipped away to commune with Salvador Dali.  One image jumped off the wall because it was an incomplete staircase and had the word "Dream" in the title.  Karmic goose bumps for sure!

Just the day before I helped my first dream-reader with just such a dream; an image of an incomplete staircase. How wonderful to see that painting!  I wandered around loving Dali all the more. Aware he flipped for Freud really helped me make sense of all those sexual body parts he so loved to paint.  His known father complex just added to the provocative imagery.

So, what's a complex?  Basically it's a huge ball of emotional energy tied to someone or some thing that traumatized us in the past; usually someone, usually, but not always, a parent.  When one of our "buttons" get pushed, it's often tied to a complex.

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