An Eggcellent Chicken Operation
12/31/81a
I am watching chickens in an egg-gathering operation. Someone was talking about how to speed it up. I saw an egg get laid, roll by a chicken, which was also moving, and disappear before the chicken did. This was supposed to be impressively quick. Another point in the operation had an edge that broke empty eggs. Electronics counted the number of empty eggs per a particular hen and then culled out infertile hens. I also saw small but attractive yellow nests on a brown, narrow ledge with a tall backboard.
Associations
None upon awakening. Fascinated.
Sociomatrix Commentary
Dream Self The whole process is interesting. Intriguing. I have never seen anything like it before in my dreams. An automating and speeding up of natural processes. Unnaturally? The ledge nests look nice but are too cramped. I’d be infertile too if I was put through such a process.
Chickens: We don’t like this process. It is unnatural and makes us anxious. We don’t like to be pushed. It is more efficient, but it lowers our productivity.
Conveyor: Man, just look at what a great job I do. I’ll carry those chickens right on along. I’m proud of my efficiency.
Someone: I am proud of our efficiency in this operation. We don’t like those empty eggs and infertile hens. We get rid of them.
Egg: No wonder some of the hens are infertile! You would be too!
Edge: I do my job well.
Empty Shells: We don’t like ourselves at all. We are empty because we have to get through this stupid process. These nests are the equivalent of some middle-class ghetto apartment development.
Ledge Nests: We don’t like ourselves either. We are insufficient to the job.
Comment: This dream is a condemnation of Dream Sociometry by aspects of myself! They say it is too mechanical, cold, insensitive, and that it is counterproductive. Part of myself thinks I’ve laid an egg in developing this approach?!? A guest editorial opinion!
I had no earthly idea what this was about when I woke up. As I marked preferences I got in touch with the feelings that accompany the dream. This is the first suggestion that part of me does not like this approach to dream work. Dream Self is unaware of the degree of inner rebellion and resistance to a practical, efficient approach. One of my most reactionary, rejecting, dreams. I never bargained on this sort of inner rebellion. I thought my dream work would be appreciated by my dream group members. I thought there would be an appreciative response to my attempts at dialogue and understanding.
While there is considerable internal rebellion, what parts of self are rebelling? Is it a condemnation of the entire process or just the way I’ve been blitzing it the last several days? Seems to be a condemnation of the entire process and especially a reaction to the last few days, with my speeding up of the intensity of my work on Dream Sociometry. My intent has been to try to do sociomatrices immediately on all the dreams that I remember for a period to see if the data changes. The implication is that I will interpret the numinous power of metamorphosis right out of the elements. But do I see dreams as chickens, elements as eggs? Dream Sociometry as an efficient “mechanized unfeeling operation?” No –I don’t, but aspects of myself do. The Ledge Nests sound like a metaphor for the preference grid boxes of the sociomatrix!
Dream Commentary
If you could change this dream in any way that you wanted, as long as it respected the rights of all fellow dream group members, how would you change it?
Chickens: “We’re miserable! We need a natural environment!”
Eggs: “Go away and leave us alone!”
Empty Shells: “Dismantle this infernal device!”
Ledge Nests: “We need to be in a barnyard hen house, not here!”
Dreamage
I am watching chickens in an egg-gathering operation. Someone was talking about how to speed it up. I see an egg get laid, roll by a chicken, which is also moving, and disappear before the chicken does. This is supposed to be impressively quick. Another point in the operation has an edge that breaks empty eggs. Electronics count the number of empty eggs per a particular hen and then culls out infertile hens. I also see small but attractive yellow nests on a brown, narrow ledge with a tall backboard.
I can see that the hens are miserable. I tell the operator that I am not impressed and that studies show that he will get more eggs of higher quality if he will provide a barnyard environment that is natural for the chickens. I happen to be accompanied by an attractive lady who owns a chicken ranch next door (no pun intended). She shows the operator how much happier her chickens are and how much more successful the entire operation is. I feel that this guy is starting to change his attitude.
Waking Commentary
If you were this dreamer and were dealing with his waking issues – money, relationships, fears, career choices, physical health, spiritual development – would you do anything differently? If so, what?
Dream Self: I’m not willing to give this up. Besides, you all are only one group of opinions. How do I know you represent what’s really best for me? But I am willing to cut down and not create three or four sociomatrices in one day. Would that be better?
Others : That would be better, but we will have to see if it is good enough.
Action Plan
only one dream smx
Actual Preferences
Most Accepting Character: Someone
Least Accepting Character: Ledge Nests, Empty Eggs
Most Preferred Character: Chickens, Egg
Most Rejected Character: Empty Eggs
Most Preferred Action: Laid
Most Rejected Action: speed it up
Most Preferred Feeling: None
Most Rejected Feeling: Impressive
Sociogram Commentary
Judging from the graphs, part of myself doesn’t like this process at all. Most every element is rejected, and with little ambivalence.
Most of this dream group doesn’t like the process -thinks I’ve laid an egg – yet I never would have known it if I hadn’t applied the process to the dream. This is like the body of the mother and the baby not liking the birth process but never finding it out until it goes through the experience. It is similar to the inner rebellion accompanying the learning to mind mother, learn math, or to read, or to master any other “unnatural” process which inconveniences long-held attitudes, habits, and perspectives. (Like surgery, for instance.) Parts of self experience the stress of having to adapt to stress, and they complain.
This is flat out amazing.. Very strong negative affect. There are definite positive characters/states. Natural birth by natural elements is viewed as positive. Everything else is disliked. It does not view this attitude and process as impressive or attractive. And it is true that I do.
Most energy is directed toward accepting this perspective. Forces are strongly aligned against acceptance, but these are not available to waking awareness (ambivalence).
The “laying” of an egg is the only action of a positive sort, but it is strong. Not as strong as the overwhelming oppositional elements, however.
Most of myself doesn’t think that this operation is impressive at all.
This is an antithetical nightmare sociogram. The normally nurturing elements are critical and found at the negative end of the acceptance axis. There exists a great and clear gulf between forces which are aligned with Dream Self and which accept this pattern, and those which are aligned with the (victimized) chickens and which reject this pattern. A fundamental and strong conflict.
On the form axis, the group seems to prefer performance (Chickens, Egg, Dream Self) and reject non-performance and inappropriateness (Empty Eggs, Edge, Ledge Nest, Infertile Hens). The prevailing attitude appears to be one of productivity, no matter what.
On the process axis, the conflict is extremely one-sided, with only one element preferred (laid) while the rest – seven – are rejected. Here we observe a conflict between natural birth and pressured productivity.
On the affect axis, we have no conflict, but emotions which normally are considered to be positive (attractive, impressive) are strongly rejected. What is strongly pleasurable to some aspects of self (Dream Self and surrogates, waking awareness) is strongly rejected by the majority of this dream group.
I was very pleased to have and work with this dream. It strongly confirms that Dream Sociometry provides a window into issues of importance to internal perspectives that disagree with me and have autonomous needs and agendas. It confirms for me that Dream Sociometry is a powerful tool for understanding how consciousness expresses itself in a dream. It helps to understand that the statement that awareness, as involved in a particular issue, expresses itself, as a particular dream group. Those aspects of awareness only tangentially concerned with a particular issue do not take part – they are not members of the particular dream group.
