Anatomy of Disgust -or- Once Upon a Dream?
Dreamer: Angela, 30, North American female
In this dream I was attempting to remove shells (similar to mussel shells) from under my skin on my thighs (front above the knee and upward). At first it was difficult because the skin was thick, but as I continued rubbing, the skin became thinner and I was able to remove the shells (I remember a slimy swooshing sound as I removed each shell). The most difficult object to remove was not a shell but something similar to a doll's head (It was not very large, no hair and a black face). I recall having trouble with it and could not remove it in the same manner as the shells. With some effort I was able to remove it and a feeling of satisfaction followed. This dream affected on me for almost a week, nausea and a general feeling of disgust followed as I recalled the details.
Mr. Hagen's Reply:
Do you have any associations out of your daily life that might help explain the dream?
Angela's Reply:
I was moving out of my sister's house because she was getting divorced. I was also in a relationship which I wanted to get out of.
Mr. Hagen's Reply: Anatomy of Disgust in a Nutshell
Your dream seems to focus on the "Anatomy of Disgust". I am including 7 research perspectives to view your dream.
1. Poetics of the Grotesque Body
The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, in "The Poetics of Space", devotes a whole chapter to the symbolic meanings of shells. The expressions "going into" or "coming out" of your shell are existential daydreams which express the need for a protected space. Primitive humans metaphorically viewed the human body as a shell or vessel while the soul was represented by the inner mollusk. Your feelings of disgust can be viewed philosophically especially from the perspective of aesthetics (i.e. art).
The grotesque in art, and literature have received a good deal of attention. Wolfgang Keyser Das Groteske (The Grotesque), sees in the romantic grotesque a nightmarish image of the "world going to pieces". The grotesque is found in the works of Rabelais, Poe and Kafka. The grotesque in dreams as far as I know has received little attention. The qrotesque continues to survive and inhabit our dreams. Mikail Bakhtin Rabelais and His World uses the parts of the body to promote folk understanding of the grotesque body. Your feelings provides a point of departure to understand how the grotesque operates in dreams when intimate relationships fail, leaving only grotesque sensations, thoughts and memories.
2. Artistic Perspective: Love's Body or The Birth of Venus
From an aesthetic perspective the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli's (1445-1510AD) painting of the "Birth of Venus" depicts the goddess Venus rising out of a shell fanned by the winds. In mythology Venus was the Roman goddess of love and beauty. From an artistic point of view, your dream seems to represent your feminine feelings of disgust and ugliness and your attempt to remove these.
3. Zoology (Study of animal life) - Animal Attraction
The zoologist Desmond Morris has written numerous books including "Intimate Behavior" which outlines the natural history of intimate physical relations, the word intimacy being a euphemism for sexual intercourse. The fact is that the shells are "under your skin." People can "get under your skin" therefore, your attempt to remove them may symbolize and personify the failure of love, beauty, and intimacy.
4. Anthropology: Is beauty only skin deep?
The anthropologist Mary Douglas in "The Natural Symbol" and "Purity and Danger" provides for an understanding of your dream in its individual as well as collective meanings. The skin in folk psychology is the "place" where we conceptualize touch. In the not to distant past (and still today) disease that attacked the skin in grotesque ways such as leprosy and syphilis were understood by some as allegories of "the wages of sin." Modern folklore has displaced these ideas onto AIDS.
5. Feminist Perspective: Margaret Atwood and Anne Sexton
Arthur Clayborough The Grotesque in English Literature provides a Jungian oriented theory of the grotesque. The Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood recognizes the folktale as a foundation of Western narratives. Atwood's novels include The Edible Woman and Bodily Harm; these seem to address some of the feelings in your dream. Atwood believes, that especially Canadian women suffer from the "Rapunzel syndrome". It is interesting that the doll's head which you also remove from your dream body has no hair (Rapunzel having long golden hair).
In the U.S. the American poet Anne Sexton, who committed suicide in 1974, wrote Transformations a subversive adaptation of Grimm's fairy tales from a woman's perspective, in which she addresses the abuse, commodification and alienation of women. The Americanized version of Cinderella does not end on a happy note. Sexton writes: "Cinderella and the prince, lived they say, happily ever after, like two dolls in a museum case never bothered by diapers or dust, never arguing over the timing of an egg, never telling the same story twice, never getting a middle-aged spread, their darling smiles passed on for eternity. Regular Bobbsey Twins." Your dream does not tell the same story as Disney's Sleeping Beauty's Once Upon a Dream or Cinderella's song A Dream is a Wish that Your Heart Makes.
6. Psychoanalytic Perspective: Tales of the Dream of Love and Hate
The psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva in Tales of Love as well as Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia attempts to relate the poetic (metaphoric) language of love and hate. By extracting yourself out of your sister's house as well as out of your relationship you seem to have successfully removed the physical objects of your disgust, contempt and hate.
7. Biotopographic Perspective: Film Noir - A doll's black face
The 1978 British film Rapunzel Let Your Hair Down uses the noir style narrative in which the prince is portrayed as a detective and Rapunzel as a good girl (needing to be rescued from a lesbian protector) who has been turned into a junkie living at the top of a black tower. For more about Film Noir see my article Dreams and Film Noir at this website.
Literature that might be of interest includes:
- Sonia Mycak, "In Search of the Split Subject: Psychoanalysis, Phenomenology and the Novels of Margaret Atwood"
- William Ian Miller, "The Anatomy of Disgust"
Hope these thoughts are of help and provide some insight,
Mark H.