The GoGo Dancer, Resurrected

Dreamt on 5/4/2021

The Dream

Someone who looked like my friend's mom found a dead person in the bathroom (or maybe bedroom?). She was trying to pick her up and take her out of the room. I somehow knew that the person who died was female, and a grandmother. As a side note, my friend in waking life had a grandmother die in the same way. I was partially an observer, but occasionally would slip into one of the characters and become a participant. I had no control over when this would happen, it just felt natural. The character I became at various points in the dream was a young adult Asian woman who wore makeup, straightened her hair, and overall just looked very conventionally pretty. She/I had a sister, and we had two cousins who were taller than us, had dreads, and wore bucket hats. They were also Asian. I had a sense that they were lesbians. They were also noticeably beautiful, but in a queer, street fashion sort of way. Our cousins came into the hallway as it was being announced by my dream mom that someone in our family had died. The cousins looked at my sister and I (I was now in the girl's body), and told us about the interrogation room where the ‘authorities’ would ask us questions about the death. In the room, we had to lie on a bed while we were questioned. The cousins told us to roll off of the bed during any "um" sounds we heard during the song that was playing in the room. The song was from TikTok, made up entirely of “um” sounds (it actually exists).

I was in the room by myself, still in the body of the Asian girl. I was laying on the bed, not tied up, but I was afraid to move in case I got in trouble. At the foot of the bed was a large chest. To my surprise, it opened up by itself, and a GoGo Dancer was hoisted toward the ceiling, tied to a wooden frame. The frame was square and had a cross brace on the upper third section. Her hands were tied behind her back to the cross brace, and each leg was tied to a corner of the frame. It made her look very exposed, and I remembered feeling uncomfortable and involuntarily voyeuristic. I had an intuitive feeling that she was mentally liberated, which really contrasted her physical predicament. At first, I found the whole situation very creepy, like watching someone rise out of a coffin. She had on some old smeared makeup and her hair was thinning and frizzy, almost looking like a beat up version of Harley Quinn. She only wore a strapless bra and a very small skirt with red and black stripes, which reminded me of the circus. I had a feeling that I could have cut her down from the frame, but I was still afraid of her, and didn't want to get caught by the ‘authorities' (which we never saw, it was more of a concept).

I do want to mention that when I first woke up, I thought that I only had small dream fragments to work with, and I felt disappointed that I did not lucid dream. When I began to write the dream down, however, I realized just how much information I had remembered.

Dream Symbols

The first thing I did was lay out all of the symbols that stood out to me:

hallway

lesbian sisters/straight sisters

bedroom/ bed

rising from the dead

chest/coffin

death

hallway

ropes/restraint/tied up

red and black

GoGo dancer, (possibly from the circus?)

square frame

authorities

Next, I searched for the symbols in my dream dictionary to get started. Some matched, some were not found, others I already had personal definitions for. There were several symbols on this list that were replaced with another word. For example, the square frame symbol was replaced with square and line. I want to stress that the meanings chosen were meanings that resonated with me. As the dreamer, only I can say for certain what my dream means.

mother: nurturer, protective

sister (specifically one that does not exist in waking life): new perspectives, may reflect feelings of insecurity or self doubt.

cousin: alternative or competing perspective, or it points to aspects of your personality that you don’t know about yet.

grandmother/death: the end of a chapter, leave old principles in the past

hallway: in between states

bed: relaxation, intimacy

resurrection: restoring something once lost

chest/coffin: the heart center, storing something away, leaving old habits/relationships/patterns in the past.

ascending: increased awareness

stranger: an unfamiliar part of the self

square: physicality or reality

line: boundary

rope: restraint

underwear: intimacy

circus: controlling instincts

red: passion, fear

black: mystery, death, mourning

GoGo girl: (taken from Wikipedia) The term go-go derives from the phrase "go-go-go" for a high-energy person, and was influenced by the French expression à gogo, meaning "in abundance, galore", which is in turn derived from the ancient French word la gogue for "joy, happiness".

Attaching Meaning

Okay, so now that we have all of this information, it's time to synthesize and figure out what the subconscious is trying to say. First off, lets remember some basic theories on the laws of dreams (you can also find the complete list on my dream journal blog, by searching “The 10 basic assumptions of dreams”) 1. the dream ego is the thing to be least trusted, 2. all dreams come in the service of health and wholeness, 3. all parts of a dream represent some aspect of the dreamer's psyche and 4. no dream comes to tell you what you already know.

If we start from the beginning, the mom finds someone in the family to be dead in either the bedroom or bathroom. Both rooms are places of privacy and intimacy. I see this as some part of my psyche that is hidden away or that represents my intimacy has died. My inner archetypal mother is trying to 'clean up', or take this dead part of my psyche away.

Next, we are introduced to the two conventionally pretty sisters and their lesbian cousins. As I was recalling the dream, I was struck by how the pairs mirrored each other, particularly as femme and butch counterparts. I am still understanding why there were pairs. It might be pointing to Jung's idea of the self and the persona? I also find it interesting that the lesbian cousins were introduced in a hallway, as hallways represent in-between states.

The lesbian cousins also mention the interrogation room, and instruct my sister and I to roll off the bed on any "um" we hear in the song. In waking life, I am bisexual, so I can't help but think that this is a metaphor for my sexual confusion because beds traditionally represent intimacy and I find it hilarious that the song was made up entirely of “um" sounds.

When I am being interrogated, I am by myself again, and lying on a bed. I am laying so that my head is at the end of the bed, and I can see a large chest on the floor below. I have a feeling that the word chest is a play on words, also referring to the human chest. A chest is something we put things away in, and a human chest is the emotional center where the heart resides. So remember when my dream mom was trying to take away the dead body? Did she perhaps put it in the chest?? And by she, remember that she represents the archetypal mother in me, perhaps storing the body away so that I would not be sad or hurt. And then there is the idea of a human chest, the emotional center, vulnerability and love. I think that my archetypal mother was trying to put away this mystery aspect of my psyche to protect me emotionally. It is even crazier is when we discover what is inside the chest; a GoGo dancer, possibly from the circus, that appears as if she is rising from the dead. To put it all together, the grandmother in the bathroom is moved out of the way by my mother, likely to store the body out of the way. I believe that the mother moved the body into the chest, and the GoGo dancer that rose out of the chest was actually the grandmother, transformed. I had a resounding aha moment to this realization. Looking specifically at the GoGo dancer, she goes from being positioned under me ascending in the air and is now looking down at me. I think that this is an important part, because being positioned below represents unrecognized aspects of the psyche, and ascending represents increased awareness. She ascended on a wooden frame with a supporting cross-bar on the upper third section. She was tied up in such a way that the cross bar created a line that crossed her chest, and separated her upper body from her lower body. Immediately I thought of the chakras, and that the cross bar separated the heart, throat, third eye, and crown from the solar plexus, sacral and root chakras. You don't need to believe in chakras to understand what they represent- in this case it points to a disconnect between physical and emotional realms. It is also important to point out that the frame represents physicality, and the cross bar symbolizes a boundary. I also want to discuss the GoGo dancer herself; as the Wikipedia definition reminds us, her vocation is to embody abundance, high energy, joy and happiness, She is dressed in almost nothing, symbolizing intimacy, and her colors are red and black, which to me represents passion and mystery. Her outfit makes her look like she might be from the circus, symbolizing controlled instincts. She is certainly tied up against her will, but when I saw her in the dream, I intuitively knew she was mentally together and liberated. Physically, however, she was in rough shape. Her appearance with the old, smeared makeup, the circus costume, and thinning hair made it look like she had been held hostage in the chest for a long time . . . or that she had risen from the dead. My loyalties to my dream family stopped me from rescuing her, which makes me consider that she was a threat to my dream ego. Looking at the basic theories of dreams, it is important to remember that the dream ego is often the least trustworthy source of information.

What the Subconscious is Actually Trying to Say

It is important to apply the dream to waking life, as dreams are there to allow the subconscious mind to communicate with the conscious mind. I believe that the GoGo Dancer is my free-spirited, sexually liberated, intelligent, sexy, high energy, abundantly happy, inner hype girl who died, and was hidden away by my matriarchal self to protect my ego. I am seeing this through the eyes of my straight conventional avatar, and interacting with her lesbian alternative cousin (a mirror of her, and therefore a mirror of me). I am bisexual, but often question whether or not I really am, so I believe that this part may have illuminated both my straight, conventional side and my lesbian, alternative side. I am told to believe that I am about to be interrogated about the death of our grandmother, and that I should escape the room if I can, by rolling off of the bed during the "ums" in a song. I am literally being told by my alternative lesbian self to avoid intimacy by following cues of confusion. When I am in the room, I am alone and I see the chest below me; my emotional center is closed and not consciously recognized. When the chest opens and the GoGo Dancer is lifted by the frame toward the ceiling, I believe that this is a metaphor for my emotional center opening and my inner GoGo Dancer rising into my psyche’s awareness. When I see that she is hanging from the frame and its specific shape, this is the moment I see how my inner GoGo Dancer has been treated by the different aspects of my psyche; my mother hides her, my gay self avoids her, and my ego is afraid of her. She has been emotionally closed off, but when she is revealed, she is restrained in such a way that forces a disconnect between her physical and emotional self. Her circus outfit suggests that she is being forced to control her instincts, and her appearance suggests that she has been neglected by the psyche for quite some time.

When I piece this together in my conscious, waking life, I have to wonder why the other aspects of my psyche are so avoidant and scared of the GoGo Dancer. Why do they feel so threatened by her? Does her presence make others uncomfortable? My guess is that the lesbian cousins saw her sexual openness and liberation as a threat to their (my) sexuality, and that by letting her live freely, that would somehow mitigate their gay existence. The mother archetype sees that the GoGo Dancer has died, and hides the body, so that no conflicts between the inner lesbian and the sexually liberated emerge. The dream ego/ conventionally straight girl is introduced to the death of the GoGo Dancer, and ends up seeing her resurrected, abused, and restrained. In consciousness, I often struggle with whether or not my feelings for women are real. Sometimes I am repulsed by my attraction to men, and I wish it would go away. Often in sexual fantasies, I begin by imagining women, and they turn into men. I crave romantic and sexual connections with women, but find myself with men instead. Or worse, I am with a woman and I feel no true connection. It is frustrating, because deep down I know that my attraction to both men and women are real, but I have yet to actually experience true attraction to a real woman. And perhaps, in rebellion, I am hiding from my straight self, or more specifically, my sexually liberated, high energy, abundantly happy self. And maybe, if I help her down from this frame and take care of her, I may be surprised to find that her gay GoGo dancing cousin is alive and well right around the corner.

Final Takeaways

Dreams contain many, many layers of meaning, and while only the dreamer can really decide what it means for certain, anyone can find their own meaning, that is just as valid. I highly recommend imagining the dream as if it were your own, and noticing what kinds of emotions, thoughts, and fears come up. Take note of symbols or plot lines stand out to you. Regardless of whose dream it is, these things will point toward aspects of your psyche that are relevant to your healing, growth, and wholeness as a person. Dreams are work with the universal language of symbols, emotions and archetypes. In this way, my dream can reveal just as much about you as it can about me. In addition, I am human and I have blindspots, so if you have any contributions or meanings to point out, don’t hesitate to write a comment or send me a message.

Thank you for reading and being curious. This blog updates every month. If you would like to know when the next blog is up, follow me on Instagram for updates (and art, duh!). Lastly, I will be starting a dream group in June where we will interpret dreams, much like the format of this blog. I find that the multiple perspectives and group setting always gives me a deeper understanding of my dreams. It will be hosted at the Bean Cycle, once a week for four weeks. The groups will be kept to 3-6 people to ensure everyone gets a chance to have their dream worked by the group. If you are interested in joining, email me, leave a comment or DM me on instagram.

Cheers!

-Saskia

P.S.: The photos on the blog are a collaged mix of of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's lithograph of Jane Avril, a famous can-can dancer, and two Parisian GoGo dancers.