PAMELA AND KAREN

      He dreams that he's taking a bath at Pamela's house. She keeps saying she wants to come back to him. She's tired of waiting for her new husband to give her what she wants. He's tempted to take her back, even though he knows that he and Karen are getting married soon.

      Now Karen's here. Just before she arrived, he had decided to let the two of them figure out what he should do. He's very confused himself. He just knows that he wants both of them and can't decide between them - although he does keep imagining what it would be like to make love with Pamela again, now that he knows what lovemaking's really all about. He certainly wouldn't feel like a man with her, not as he does now with Karen.

      He knows that the two of them represent differing aspects of his own inner femininity. However, there's always a danger here of confusing his inner Pamela with the woman out there in the world, now happily married to her new husband. His dreams seem to assume that he can tell the difference. He usually can, but still it's hard on his feelings.


     In his dream, both Pamela and Karen are anima figures. As his Jungian inner woman, Pamela symbolizes the inner life that he began while he was still with her, that he's now leaving for a life of body and adventure. In his dream, Karen represents living in the outer world, being earthy and playful and body, yet still following a spiritual path.

      Pamela and Karen each represent opposing sides of an inner split in his feminine. He knows this. With his inner Pamela, he's on a deep inner spiritual quest yet very uptight about dirt and body and life. With his inner Karen, he's learning to live in the here and now of the outer world, in a very instinctive and primal way, and with much animal and child about. With his inner Pamela, he'll never be animal or child. With his inner Karen, he certainly won't be as inner directed as he was.

      The dream shows him undecided as to which inner woman he wants. He's not undecided now though. He knows that if he relates to his inner Pamela, he becomes a magician, with an inner connection through her to the world of images and magic. He also knows that if he were to go back to that side of himself, he'd lose his newfound masculine potency, his body, and his new and adventurous relationship with outer reality. He would rather not lose all this. He'd rather be body and live in the world. After all, he is a body, and he does live in this world. Anyway, he already knows his inner Pamela's trip, and he'd much rather marry his inner Karen - as he's marrying the outer - and learn new ways of being feminine and spiritual in the world.