On Disregard

The Oxford dictionary defines disregard as: ‘The act or state of deliberately not paying attention or caring about another’.

Intro

This dream on disregard is a very similar theme to my recent dream on contempt, stated here. However it’s very important to be attentive to the details, and not assume that they are touching on the same behavior. Jung remarks on this when he describes personal growth, or individuation as a process of integrating particular aspects of our personality. ‘It is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated from other human beings.. In particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology’.

Therefore this week I’ll compare both dreams in order to more fully demonstrate how they operate.  I’ll first outline in brief this week’s dream, then I’ll remark on the similarities to the previous dream.

The dream

In this week’s dream I’m preparing for a night out with friends. However I’m self conscious about meeting a new group of people, and as a result am too distracted to dress properly. I realize this only once we’ve reached the restaurant and people laugh. I make a commotion once I realize my friend has not bought cocaine, and am shushed and kicked out for being disruptive and dressed inappropriately. I resolve to rejoin the party, but my phone is malfunctioning and the tram line is not where I thought it was. I’ll have to walk, meaning it will be an hour or more before I join the others.

Similarities

So to summarize similarities, both dreams demonstrate how I ignore the urgings from my unconscious. Whenever we reject some aspect of our inner Self, a dream will demonstrate how we project this rejection onto others in our day-to-day life. In order for this projection to be believable, we literally pretend to ourselves that we are less than what we are, and conjure beliefs about the hostile world we operate in which confirm it.

Last week I examined how ignoring my unconscious is synonymous to showing it contempt. In the dream, I’m fired from my job, and others show me contempt when I apply for every job on the market rather than considering what I really want. This reflects directly on my current situation, where I’m failing to take action regarding my career, and by doing so show contempt for the professional context that I operate in.

In this week’s dream, I’m excessively self absorbed which results in disregard. While I’m fixated on going out and enjoying myself, there is an underlying view that I will not be accepted that drives me to be preoccupied. This sets in motion a pattern of behavior that cause me to isolate myself and disregard others.

There is also an interesting similarity wherein details in the dream directly indicate my current attitude to my unconscious. In the previous dream, my parents take the place of my unconscious. They arrive at the temp job I’ve decided to accept, and express disappointment and contempt that I am settling for less than I am. In this week’s dream my unconscious takes the place of my wife. While I am rushing about distracted, concerned with what to wear and what others will think of me, my wife is sitting on a couch in the background being ignored. Finally, disregarding my unconscious indicates that I have lost my internal sense of direction, which manifests in the dream as not being able to find my way home.

Conclusion

This week I did start taking action from my first dream, where I have reached out to my manager to discuss where to take my career. For my second dream, I have been able to draw a general outline of what it is referring to, but have not been able to identify a specific source of behavior that I can work on in my real life. This refers back to my original point in this essay that the individuation process is about specifics. While dreams can always shed light on the general context of our lives, their purpose is only made complete once we have identified the specific source they are referring to. I’ll continue to track this over time, and see if there are further developments that shed more light on what this dream is referring to.