Dream Analysis: Driving Father's Car Without License

Extract

[...] It is thus both a taking of independence and a taking of risk, against the law and against the father, against these two figures of authority. As for the path, it symbolizes our inner evolution, our personal and philosophical quest: it is the path of existence, leading to death. Now, here, it is a pedestrian path. This distinction is important, as it highlights that the dreamer does not yet have a license. This is a logical link within the dream that ensures its coherence: the personal path is the path of the one who walks, which emphasizes the dreamer's transgression, who drives his father's car. [...]

[...] Now, killing the foxes is to suppress this illegality, to put it at the norm. Death symbolizes the past, and opens up a renewal, a taking of distance and maturity. Killing the foxes is therefore seeking to kill the past, that pedestrian past subject to the law and the father, that is, to authority. But the fox that escapes from the car and jumps against the window means that the past catches up with the dreamer, and this past of subordination to authority is frightening: the dreamer is trying to escape at all costs, by fleeing and taking illegitimate power. [...]

[...] Analysis of a Dream Dream: « I was driving my father's car even before I had my driver's license. As I was on a pedestrian path along the edge of Lake Joux, there were foxes there. I accelerated in order to run them over. There was one left that caught up with me and jumped against the car window. It was at that moment that I woke up with a start after screaming with fear. Driving a vehicle in a dream symbolizes our own conduct in our life, that is, the way we behave and evolve within it. [...]

[...] The lake is the symbol of our unconscious and our fantasies. It is the dark part of our personality, from which we cannot discern what may be lurking in the depths. The path, which runs along the lake, thus shows that the dreamer's life path is distinct from his fantasies, but that he is very close to them. The dreamer risks falling into the lake at any moment and drowning, or completely surrendering to his fantasies. The presence of the foxes symbolizes the dreamer's lawless behavior: the fox is the cunning animal, acting in a sneaky way, symbolizing the search for oneself. [...]