Tree Stumps and New Saplings

The following dream demonstrates how even a short scene can be highly meaningful, expressive, and, despite the absence of drama, archetypal in its content. The dreamer is a 25 year old male.

The dreamer, in the company of a woman, walks to an avenue where healthy trees have been so severely pruned or trimmed that they have been cut down to the middle. Only tall stumps remain. The dreamer expresses disgust, but the woman says it is meant to be this way, because the cut trunks provide the perfect foundation for new shoots to grow into new trees. As she says this, the shoots indeed sprout, and beautiful green saplings rise from the stumps.

The woman in the dream is an obvious anima figure, that is, a feminine energy within the man that can act as a guide in the inner world. Everyone—men and women—has an anima or animus. According to Jung’s theories, these are innate archetypes that often mediate between the conscious mind and the collective unconscious. In this dream, we see how she leads the dreamer to a significant place and shows him something important. Additionally, she explains to the dream ego what is happening, albeit expressed in symbols, which are the language of dreams.  

They come to an avenue where all the trees have been pruned so severely that only stumps remain. Our waking, rational ego would probably say they have simply been cut down, but in the dream, they are described as pruned. Unexpected details in dreams are always important. Trees symbolize our inner, autonomous individuation. Jung says that “the tree is an archaic symbol that always refers to an inner process of development.” (Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process, p. 272). Pruning a tree means cultivating the individuation process, and thus it tends to be a positive symbol. But here, the pruning is so drastic that the trees appear to have been cut down, which the dream ego finds appalling—the trees were healthy. The dreamer feels a grave wrong has been committed, but the woman reassures him and says that everything is as it should be.

In our dreams, we often carry the prejudices of our waking self. This means that the dream ego’s reactions are often a poor indication of the value of the dream images. We might see something in a dream that makes us turn and run because it seems dangerous or unpleasant in some way. But what we run from might actually be our salvation. Since we have repressed it, it appears as something negative when we encounter it in the dream, and we are quick to reject it again. When contemplating dreams, it is important to set aside preconceived notions and try to view the content objectively. One could say that the dream is a product of the objective, unbiased psyche. In this dream, the anima figure represents an inner wisdom that the dreamer’s conscious ego does not (yet) possess.

The trees, then, have been pruned so drastically that only stumps remain. Since trees in dreams often symbolize our individuation process, felled trees may feel like a catastrophe, and that is indeed how the dream ego perceives it in our dream. But felled trees can also represent the end of one phase in life, making way for another to begin (Dreams, A Portal to the Source, p. 138). This aligns closely with the dreamer’s situation at the time of the dream.

During that winter, he had “lost” his job, his partner, and his home. When he had this dream, he was sleeping on a mattress in the kitchen of a friend’s apartment. He had virtually nothing and was, of course, somewhat anxious about what the future might hold. In reality, however, this year marked the beginning of what he later considered the best period of his life as a young adult. He underwent major, positive changes in the months to come and would always remember this year as very special. At the time of the dream, however, there were no signs of this unexpected and welcome development.

The individuation trees lining life’s path have, in the dreamer’s initial impression, been cut down, and he reacts with dismay. But his anima reassures him and says that it is meant to be this way, because the stumps that remain provide excellent ground for new shoots to sprout and grow into new trees. As she says this, it happens before the dreamer’s eyes—the shoots spring forth. These, of course, symbolize the new life the dreamer has ahead of him and the positive changes he will personally undergo.

This short dream, with its archetypal content—trees and anima—thus marks the end of one phase in the dreamer’s life and the beginning of another. Those with basic knowledge of symbols would also understand this when they read the dream, as it is so explicit. But the dreamer himself, there in the kitchen of his friend’s apartment, was naturally quite puzzled by it. A year later, however, its meaning became clear to him, as well.