When we lived in Las Vegas, I woke one morning and decided that I would begin Jungian analysis. It was a thought that came from nowhere. It was the kind of wanting that one usually has in the form of “I think I’ll have a bagel for breakfast.” It was that casual and without any antecedent. No one I knew was in Jungian analysis. Sure I had read Memories, Dreams and Reflections but that was long before this thought came to mind. Once I made the decision and before I ate the bagel, I got out of bed and went to the phonebook and I looked up “Jungian analyst” and there was a number there. That may not sound odd to you, but it is very odd indeed. It is Alice in Wonderland chatting with a white Rabbit odd. Want me to prove it to you? Go to your phone book and you do the same thing. I’ll wait here while you do….
You back? What did you find? Nothing. I knew it. Jungians do not advertise in the yellow pages–plumbers do; Jungians don’t. There is part of me that thinks I dreamt the whole thing. The whole thing was so crazy-surreal. This Jungian analyst lived in another state and she flew in once a week to see her Vegas patients. Her office was in a bad 1960′s office complex. Her office was decorated in Victoriana and every surface was covered with lace doilies. There were even doilies on the arms of chairs. She dressed in a style that was equally antiquated. Clothes like hers are no longer made. Everything looked like vintage 1940′s—even her hair was from another time. She wore it up in a kind of combination bun/chignon/modified rats nest. And there was something about all of this old and antiquated stuff that surrounded her that was made even more odd by it’s context. Remember we were in Vegas. The Vegas where there are slot machines in the grocery store.
To get to Fronzy’s(not her real name. It was a one syllable name that I modified to sound more fun by adding a ‘y’) office I had to drive across the strip to the North side of town( the dingy side of town). I would pass tourists, and tour buses and billboards announcing Wayne Newton, Dolly Parton and Carrot Top and then I would drive by UNLV and park next to the Soup Plantation. It was all very surreal. Dali might have painted such a canvas: “Time traveling Jungian on the Vegas Strip” in oils and acrylics.
During my first session with Fronzy she explained that dreams were a big part of Jungian work. She asked if I had had any. I had. I had dreamt the night before about a snake. It was under my sheets. I was terrified. I woke up screaming. Fronzy asked me to tell her about my first memory of a snake. I told her a modified version of this:
Once upon a time there was a little Belette. She was an adorable little three year old (yes, I am saying that I was cute—but I am saying that because it was true. This is memoir, not a fairytale). Belette went out into the garden to play. Her mother was distracted and busy doing something other than watching what exactly what it was that Belette was playing with. That is until she noticed that Belette was playing with a big snake. Then came excited screams and demands that the little girl immediately leave the snake alone and come to Mommy, “NOW!!!!!!!!”. So I did. And then my mother called the fire department, the police department and the Marines. Okay, maybe not the marines. It turns out that it was not the horrible Rattlesnake that my mother had reported to the 911 Operator. It was a King-snake. The Firemen explained to my mother that this was a good snake and that it would keep the bad snakes away. My mother didn’t care. She was terrified of the snake and wanted it out of her garden, “NOW!!!!”.
I don’t remember any other run ins that I had with snakes that would make me fear them. Just that one day in the garden turned my non-poison playmate into a life long enemy. Actually, at first I was just afraid of them but as I got older I was terrified. I couldn’t look at a magazine without having someone take a look to make sure their were no pictures of them. I couldn’t go into a pet store unless someone went in first to make sure that they weren’t selling any snakes. I had to ask people at the movie theaters if a film was snake-free or not. When He-weasel and I moved to Las Vegas I called the Chamber of Commerce to ask them how many people died of snake bites a year in sin city. The woman who answered the phone had the nerve to laugh at my question and warn me that the casinos were a much bigger threat than snakes.
I have had many snake dreams in my life, hundreds I would guess. As a child I didn’t have the Jungian tool kit to deal with them. I would just wake up screaming and terrified that there was actually one under my bed. I was so afraid that If someone would talk about a snake I would immediately worry that one might enter my dream life. Very often they would.
Fronzy, who sounded an awful lot like Charles Winchester on M.A.S.H., asked me in her hoity-toity way what snakes meant to me. I thought I just had.”Pretend” she instructed, “that I have come from another planet and I have never heard of this creature you speak of.” I thought to myself that her instruction didn’t take a big leap as she did seem as if she came from some old timey plane—a planet that hadn’t yet discovered modern technology like answering machines, synthetic fibers or even the wheel.
“Okay, they are animals without legs. They are unpredictable. That’s what I don’t like about them. You never know which way they are going. They terrify me. If I saw one I would die. They are my greatest fear.”
Fronzy said back in her superior tone: “Snakes are symbolic of a fear that you inherited from your mother. They are symbols of your greatest fears. They are not actually your greatest fears.”
In my work with Fronzy we never worked directly on my fears of snakes. She didn’t ever take my fear literally. She looked at my fears symbolically. Just three months later He-weasel and I went to a pet shop and there were snakes in a cage right at the entry and I found myself uncharacteristically fascinated by them. I found them strangely beautiful. I stood in front of the cage and stared at them. Six months after that He-weasel and I were hiking in Big Sur and I were hiking and I saw four little snakes curled up in a nest. I pointed them out to He-weasel in VERY calm tones. He didn’t believe me. He knew of my terror first hand, on our first hike ever there had been a baby King snake on our trail. When I saw it I climbed him like a tree. So there was no way I could have seen four snakes and not be screaming. But it was true. I had seen snakes and I wasn’t screaming and I wasn’t climbing him.
I had a dream the next night. I was in my kitchen and there were lots of little snakes. Dozens of them. I was picking them up with my hands and putting them in small plastic Ziploc bags. I didn’t need Fronzy to tell me what the dream meant. My fears were now smaller. They could be handled. And they were contained.
***************
The illustration of the Dream Snake is by Editor. Thank you, Editor!!! That is one adorable snake.
I’m glad snakes no longer paralyze you with fear. They are very fine creatures, and there’s so much irrational hatred of them in Western culture. Some of my favorite hiking memories involve coming across lovely green snakes, or beautifully-patterned corn snakes. I’ve tried to convince my family that garter snakes make great neighbors, but to no avail.
That Genesis myth was some serious bad PR for snakes. I don’t think they’ll ever recover from it. They need a new PR agent to help redo their image.
Wow, that’s fascinating! How great that Miss Manners (that’s the image that popped into my head based on your description) helped you so quickly. It’s true, snakes are “good neighbors” and also keep insect and rodent populations down. I used to live in an area where we frequently would see a rattlesnake and gave them wide berth.
Rattlesnakes and I will never be friends. Actually, snakes and I will never cohabitate or be BFF. But I am not afraid like I was. Definite progress.
I’m distracted by the idea of a phone book still existing!
Yep. They do. Not sure why they do or if anyone uses them.
you didn’t wait long to use it.
i’ve only driven through vegas (quickly) – slot machines at the gas pump! but living there WITH Jungian therapy to boot…crazy.
I told you that I knew I wouldn’t be able to. Your picture was burning a whole in my pocket. Thank you!
I haven’t had too many encounters with snakes, but last night I dreamed of tornadoes and lots of them.
I don’t think I have ever dreamt of weather. Interesting.
Very nice snake portrait you have here and a fascinating story about dealing with a primal symbolic fear. I’m proud of you for having overcome the monster.
The fear I had to face was my abhorrence of spiders. When I was a child my minimally screened bedroom window overlooked a shadowy area where large numbers of them congregated and grew. Inevitably one of them would creep in from time to time and I was convinced they could spring at me on their many jointed limbs. There were times when I’d sit outside and wait for my parents to come home rather than try to remove or (horrors) kill one. Years later a friend who lived downstairs found a large one in her ironing basket and came running upstairs shrieking. We both had young children who’d been playing together downstairs and I ran down to find them cowering in terror at my friend’s reaction. I don’t know how I did it but I calmly paged through the laundry, found the spider, coaxed it into my hand, and carried it outside.
That doesn’t mean I still don’t like them. Last summer I awoke one morning with half a dozen large and painful spider bites on tender areas. I took the room apart but didn’t find the creature. Some fears aren’t irrational.
I do think that the fear of snakes and spiders come from the same place symbolically. And like you said, some dears are rational. But I do notice that something about the spiders extra legs and the snakes lack of them have something to do with our terror. 2-4 legs are good. 0 or 8 legs are not good.
I was equally terrified of snakes and probably still am but at least the terror has subsided. This was fascinating and useful xxx
Truth be told I would prefer all snakes be turned into handbags or shoes. That said, it feels nice to not be paralyzed by the fear.xo
Oddly, snakes didn’t bother me much as a child, but spiders caused near the level you of your mother’s! Love that you called the Chamber to ask about fatalities, but pondering the Fronzy name… one letter away from frenzy. Hmmm.
Sending you a smile,
tp
I was in a lot of frenzy during my work with the Fronz.;-) Hope you and spiders have kissed and made up–or at least that they don’t scare you any more.
What a wonderful outcome.
It was very unexpected. I didn’t go there with any conscious intention of dealing with this.
I love it that the snake is dreaming of zebra shoes. I try not to think about snakes. Or even about words that remind me of snakes, like slither, writhe and squirm.
Great post.
Me too. Isn’t it cute?
I am not a big fan of those words either. But they don’t creep me out like they used to.
Fantastic!!
I love the drawing, too.
My husband is totally afraid of snakes (like you used to be). For some reason, I’m not (although I’m scared of many, many, many other things)
.
I saw a man yesterday walking to the beach with an enormous snake wrapped around him. Ah, Venice.
Ooh, a man with a big snake? Nope, that is too much snake for me. I would have run the other way. How did your husband react?
I adore that illustration.
And what a fascinating transformation. To discover that the snakes were merely a symbol disarmed them.
Isn’t it brilliant? And he is an adorable snake. Have to love a snake that dreams of an adorable ballet flat!:-)
I love dreams. They are the holy grail of our psyche. I use a more Gestalt toolkit but this Jungian approach leaves me salivating. I need to
Dream interpretation seems lost art. You really are talented!
I loved the imagary of small snakes into small bags. Good for you. You’ve been doing some work
Darn IPhone-
I should use it to type more than a text message! Pardon the typos in my last comment
I want to learn more!
xo
No worries!:-)
With dreams the more tools the better. I bring Jung, Gestalt, and Psychoanalytic theory with me when working with a dream. A good knowledge of myth and symbolism is also very helpful when doing dream work.
xo
My buddy, Freud, said that dreams are the royal road to the unconscious. I think he’s right.
Thanks, sweet you!
Manageable snakes. Sure, there is some fears *left over* but it is nothing I can’t handle.;-)
wow. LBR, this is impressive! I hope you are having a lovely morning. I am terrified of snakes…do not know the reason, probably also dates back to childhood when someone told me weird tales of the creepy crawlers! I do know that in my dreams snakes always mean harm and if you are playing with many little ones, I would have analyzed it as you being able to handle many little nuisances easily! I really like the title of your suggested Dali painting : ) I will be off to your favorite land this week (Chicago I mean) just for a few days. Hope to see you soon!
xoxo
Must google. I feel sure Dali, or some other surrealist, had to do that painting.;-)
Can’t wait to hair about your trip to Chicago! And I hope I see you when you get back.
xo
dear cute Belette!
thanks so much for sharing this with us. my heart leaps at knowing your fears are getting smaller. i simply just love it.
after so many years of being down, i feel such glimpses of lightness on this side.
i take a special delight in us both coming to know less fear and more breeze in our days.
i’m totally loving your posts, and learning so much.
have a good week, dear cute you!
Although I’ve been known to shriek and run at an unexpected snake (in the house), I am not particularly afraid of them. Spiders however I am still struggling with. Its the legs, I think, or some terrible tales of black widow spiders someone told me when I was quite young. I don’t remember. I can deal with them now, but I really don’t like to.
Love the snake with the shoe-dreams.
I do think there is something to the many legs of the spider and the no legs of the snake that makes them so scary. Too many or not enough legs is alarming.
p.s. I am giving your email thought. You’ll hear from me soon.x
xo
Very interesting story and outcome…
I love the visual of you calmly assigning snakes to baggies…It’d make a nice painting…
I can’t think of anything (an actual thing) I fear. I fear consequences and outcomes…
Thanks for the thought provoking post.
xo
Andrea
It would make a good painting. I think Dali would have liked that as a theme.
I envy your near fearlessness!
xo
Hooray for Fronzay. How interesting that one thing stands in for another . . . to terrify us!
It is. And they do such a good job.
I’m so happy I was able to catch up on your past 3 posts!!! YAY!!! … I’m happy that the snakes are now smaller … and that you are doing well. I really enjoyed your post on he’s perfect … it actually hit home … and explains so interesting feelings I have been trying to analize… much better equiped for my discussion with Shreko – on this point. Happy Monday Mon ami…HHL
How did it go with Shreko? Must come by and catch up with you. Sorry I have been away. It has been a crazy week( even beyond the broken toe). Hope you have had a lovely week.
Thanks for sharing. I saw my first therapist in Las Vegas too. She did not interpret dreams and wasn’t worth the money I paid her but I think I needed the experience in order to know what a good therapist is like.
She wasn’t a Jungian, was she? I wish you had seen Fronzy. She was amazing. So funny that we have Jung, Vegas and Seattle in common. ISn’t it?
And a birthday! Synchronicity indeed. No, she wasn’t Jungian. I used to be so indifferent to psychology that it never even crossed my mind to research the different schools of thought. I went to her because my sister was seeing her–big mistake! I will never ever ever see a therapist that also has an acquaintance as a client.
Really good post! I too climb people – but when I spot a spider. All those legs… it’s just not right. It’s not. And when I do dream of the dreaded arachnids, it’s never calm or collected!
One time, my husband and I drove up to his garage (we were still just dating then) and as the electric door started rolling up, a spider the size of a dog could be seen hanging from a bungee cord on the door. I swear the door nearly collapsed under the weight. I refused to leave the car, and didn’t even want him to drive in the garage. But he drove in, GOT OUT (crazy bastard) and fetched a can of poison and a gas match and torched the mofo. That was when I knew he was the man for me…
As big as a dog???? OMG! I am not afraid of spiders but even I would be afraid of that spider. You have a very brave husband. My husband hates spiders. I think he would have called in the armed guard if such a spider was in our garage.
I might have embellished ever so slightly….;-)
No!!!!!!!!!I would have NEVER guessed;-)
Nope, not a Jungian analyst in my yellow pages. But I did see that the woman who helped us during our challenging first year of marriage (nearly 15 years ago) is still practicing. I swear you described her – neck up, especially the hairstyle – in your description of Fronzy! Neck down, she wore – always wore – the same blue slacks and dark blazer. Her desk looked like it was from the set of a tornado movie after the storm. She is brilliant, and was a godsend to us.
This is uncanny, but in my first months of sobriety I woke up one morning knowing I must read Jung. I went to the library and checked out everything I could and, looking back, I realize it was key to my serenity. I would love to be able to have Jungian analysis at this stage of my life…
Vegas, huh? My hometown is Reno and I wonder about the ratio of Jungian analysts to slot machines there…
Snakes, huh? I was always simply neutral about them until marrying my husband, who loves and adores them. I’ve grown to love them too.
I love the description of your therapist. I find it so interesting that she was so ordered in her dress( to the point of boredom) and her desk was so wild and chaotic. Very interesting.
So cool that you too had a Jungian wakeup call. Have you thought of seeing( in a place beyond the phonebook) of there are any Jungians in Reno? I am sure there is. Reno seems much more Jungian than Vegas.
Adores snakes? I couldn’t love anyone who adored them. You are a much better woman than I.;-) xo
Holy mother. I don’t have a problem with snakes, I find them to be fascinating and calming. Phone books on the other hand. Now I will have bad dreams about not owning one!
I’ll send you one of mine, phonebooks that is.;-)
the humor in this one is utterly terrific, the image of you climbing heweasel like a tree totally cracked me up. this was profoundly hysterical.
Sadly the tree climbing is not for dramatic impact. It is entirely true. I climbed that man!
Very cool! Such a nice progression and ending … and hullo? Of COURSE you were an adorable 3 yr old!
Aren’t all 3 year olds adorable?
Mostly… but not always! grin.
Surprisingly, I didn’t located any Jungian analysts in Cleveland, though I *did* find a plumber who moonlights as a Jungian analyst. I’m sure there’s a joke about copper pipes snaking around the underworld that is beneath the sink.
Do snakes even exist outside of zoos any longer? I never see them, so I think you’re okay if you venture outside.
OMG! I adore the notion of a Jungian plumber. “We plumb the depths and our pipe snakes are in the shape of a uroboros.”
I sadly report that there are still snakes running wild. I wish it were otherwise.
Did your analyst’s first name begin with “K”? Just wondering . . .
No, she was a “S”–like a snake.;-)
Not sure which point I’m more amazed by: the making smaller of our own fears, to ziplock size (more manageable) pieces, or the fact that you used to live in my home town!
We may have even passed each other in one of those slot machine filled grocery stores. To think of it!!
PS: You sentence, “Dali might have painted such a canvas: ‘Time traveling Jungian on the Vegas Strip’ in oils and acrylics” was brilliant, as was every single other sentence in this post. You wow me with each post. Can’t wait for your book!!
Really? You lived in Vegas? We lived in the Lakes. Is that still there? Vegas grows and changes so fast. I would have loved to know you when I was there. That would have been amazing!
Thanks, Teressa! Your encouragement means so very much.:-)
That is a great story, and the cutest snake drawing in the universe.
Thanks, Carlene. I am in total agreement with you. If only all the snakes in the world looked like Editor’s.