The Ex-File Cases -or- Battle of the Sexes in the Global Village

A Case Study of Soap Opera -or- The Melodrama of Lovers

Many of the dream interpretations posted at the International Institute for Dream Research (IIDR) website speak of the epidemic interpersonal problems of the battle of the sexes, separation and divorce. Many carry emotional baggage from past intimate relationships, which then haunts the present and usually causes some emotional havoc in the future. The IIDR has identified this communal dream pattern as; "The Ex-Files". For the modern "soap opera", the psychological centre of every melodramatic plot is love, sex, erotic and the battle of the sexes.

A simple prescription for resolving the soap opera of the battle of the sexes and the melodramatic ecstasy and the agony of lovers is not possible. Many have tried to provide such prescriptions, such as Michelle Weiner-Davis in her book "Divorce Busting". Nicholas Heyneman "dreams & relationships" prescription is to have couples keep their own dream journals. By recognizing psycho-dramatic conflicts in dreams, couples can jointly work through the issues. This has been my own therapeutic orientation for almost twenty five years. 

From a case study perspective, many of the relationship problems between couples are based on everyday unresolved communication conflicts, they then translate themselves into nighttime dream communication conflicts. I remember a recent couple who were fighting for about 5 minutes, while I remained silent during the verbal boxing match. Before things really got out of hand, I stopped the fight and asked the husband, what was his wife feeling? His response was that "she was angry". My response was that his wife was "feeling depressed", which was expressed in terms of anger. Many do not know or understand that anger can be part of a depression. 

Western Lover's Discourse -or- Labyrinths of Desire

The five interpretations below discuss some aspects of the communication problems between couples found in dreams.  

Dream Vision and the Grotesque: Couples and the Battle of the Sexes 

Jurg Will "Couples in Collusion" sees the psychological conflicts over freedom and power as the most common marital conflicts and collusions. For Willi, a couple's relationship and communication becomes psychologically fixated on the "psychosexual" stages of development, leading to psychological problems with loving. The sad aspect of the generational psychosexual battle of the sexes, is that children become involved, caught in the crossfire of the battlefield, thereby creating a vicious trans-generational dream cycle. The IIDR dream interpretations below lays bare the generational dark side of love (read interpretation, "The Grotesque Body". 

Perhaps on a final note, from the popular music perspective of Hermann's Hermits "There's a Kind of Hush", whose lyrics tells us that all over the world tonight we can hear the sounds of lovers in love. What is certain is that they are not the only sounds communicated in our dreams. The sometimes deafening sounds of the battle of the sexes in dreams, has gone on for perhaps 300 to 400 generations (6000 BCE) or more, when it is believed humans first understood the concept of fatherhood and in-turn instituted the authority of patriarchy.

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