Dreaming Lens: Were you in a bathroom? Were you trying to get to one? Was it a private bathroom, or a public restroom? Did you know the bathroom from your waking life? Was it from your past or present? What was your connection to the privacy available to you in the dream? Was anyone else there with you, or waiting for you to finish?
Personal Focus: Somewhere around two years of age in our culture, we come to the most challenging obstacle of our development: toilet training. After sometimes months and months of intense public focus on fecal production, a child gets to do something for the very first time—he or she gets to shut the door. This burgeoning sense of privacy and personal space is the first time we experience control over our immediate environment. The impact of this is so powerful that it remains imprinted on our psyche for the rest of our lives.
In our dreams, we return to this place again and again throughout our entire lives when entertaining issues of individuation, separateness, and privacy. A bathroom inside a home connects with personal issues, whereas one that is more public is revealing information about your outside interactions. Not being in the appropriate bathroom for your gender might be inviting you to explore or discover your own inner feminine or inner masculine. Not being able to get to your destination in time could indicate a pressing need for individuation to occur in your life. Hiding out in the bathroom could mean you are not complete with your self-discovery and are unprepared to face life as your new individuated self. Having to go to the bathroom and not being able to find one may be a call to action about how important it is to find some private reevaluation time. Decorating your bathroom may mean you are updating your sense of individual self to match your current life. The toilet is located in a bathroom. As such, it can relate to relieving yourself of the “shit” in your life that you no longer need. [1]