If it is a bathroom and toilet: possibly includes the need for cleaning up one’s sexual attitudes or general attitude to others and self.
Example: ‘1 am in a toilet and people can see me. Sometimes the walls fall down. Once I looked around and everyone was watching me.’ (Ms JR). This relationship with the toilet usually shows that one needs more privacy and time to oneself.
Example: ‘1 go to the toilet and it is full up to the brim.
It is disgusting, and I can’t go’ (Alan). Alan went on to say he is often awake in his dreams and if anything unpleasant happens he wakes himself to avoid it. Alan shows great difficulty in meeting the very biological, blood and guts, and sexual side of himself. This may lead to living a very intellectual or sweet- ness-and-light son of life; occasionally suggests the body needs cleansing. Not being able to go to the toilet: as with Alan, a difficulty in expressing the more natural and down-to- earth aspects of self; holding back sexuality or emotions; being selfish and not sharing or giving’ of oneself.
Example: ‘I was watching my teddy bear go to the toilet. It fell down and disappeared’ (Jackson S). Jackson was very young and just learning to sit on the toilet by himself. His dream shows him meeting the fear of falling down it. He has seen things disappear for ever, and this disturbs him. He uses his bear as himself. This aspect of the toilet can depict the magical, hidden, or unseen world into which we disappear in sleep—the unconscious.
Toilet bowl: the pan of us which can deal with the body wastes, and the emotions we need to discharge, female sexual organ, ‘sexpot’. Going to the toilet: expressing oneself; releasing feelings, often creative; letting go of tightly held attitudes or sexuality; acceptance of one’s own natural drives and needs. What we put down the toilet: what we consider to be the least important or most unpleasant aspects of ourself or our experience; what we want to get out of our life. My small son, who had depended for long years on a pacifier, one day decided he no longer wanted to have that dependency, or be seen as needing it. He took the pacifier out of his mouth, put it down the toilet and flushed it away.