Analysis for Anonymous, 30 January 1999

This is how you described the room:

The room is one of velvety blackness. The ceiling and floor differ from the inkiness of the walls only by a few shades, giving the room a solid definition, with set boundaries that may not be crossed. The silence is as oppressive as the darkness. The could be full of things, normal things you would expect to find in a room. A bed, a chair, a table, or even a couch. Or it could be filled with all manner of horror. A rack, chains, an iron wrought cage, or any other instrument of pain...or perhaps pleasure. In the darkness that is so unending, it is impossible to tell.

The initial room is the subject’s childhood. What interests us here is the general atmosphere of the room, in addition to the level of furnishings described by the subject. A nice morbid beginning, all things considered. The darkness here doesn’t represent discomfort; it is more like confusion: the subject has only dim, indistinct memories of childhood, and cannot remember if it was a happy time or not.

You wanted to leave the room.

The subject wanted to become an adult.

This is how you described the forest:

A forset is only a forest when it the mind beholding it classifies it as a forest. That which stretches before my eyes is as much of a forset as any I have know, and yet lacks the strength, the beauty, and the natural power of the forests of my imagination. It is a barren landscape, it's dryness broken by a few straggling stumps, and hardened wood that seems to try to defy the hard-baked ground, from which it springs.

The forest is growing up, and the trees are those adults with whom the subject interacted at that time. Stunted, damaged, or absent trees imply a dearth of adult interaction with the subject.

This is how you described the path:

If a path is said to exist through this patch of woods, it is very hard to find. For the most part, the baked ground lay exposed to the hot and blistering sun, making navigation through the blasted trunks easy. There doesn't seem to be any direction, or any path that lay out a course to a better or worse place, just flat wasted and baked land, with a few burned out stumps to break the monotony.

Adolescence is represented by the path through the forest. Poor visibility of the path tells us the subject was often confused by the changes brought on by adolescence. That the path is free of obstructions indicates that the subject had no problems during adolescence.

This is how you described the water:

My wanderings through the blasted lands, lead me to a large gorge, rocky, it's valley walls sharp, steep, and as hard as the land I just traveled through.

Flowing quickly at it's bottom is the source of the chasm before me. A powerfully flowing river has carved it's way through the stones, leading a loud roar hearable even from my perch upon the canyon rim. The water itself is white with froth as it flows over the stones, spraying itself into the air, offering some relief from the heat.

The water is the subject’s sexuality. What interests us here is the clarity of the water (representing attitude) and its movement (representing libido). Rushing, violent water indicates a powerful, vigorous, and quite possibly compulsive sex drive.

When you came to the water, you crossed it.

The subject is open to new sexual experiences.

This is how you described the cup:

The narrow bridge over the yawning chasm has brought me to a cross roads of sorts and left me with a dilemma. For here upon my chosen course, lay a delicate wine glass. It's long neck, and narrow mouth gleam so temptingly in the sun, begging me to take it, to fill it, and to drink my fill from it. The quandary lay in the fact that such a piece of worked beauty must belong to someone. What right have I to give into my temptation, and to take it with me, adding it to my treasures? And yet the question begs, what if it is simply lost, and it's owner long since gone, having lost hope of recovering this teasing beauty?

The vessel, or specifically the practicality of the vessel, is how the subject approaches marriage or bonding. A container that is both decorative and practical indicates that the subject considers both romantic and pragmatic aspects of marriage.

You took the cup and filled it.

The subject is interested in marriage, and sex will be a significant part of that relationship.

This is how you described the key:

The key lay next to the glass, a sharp contrast and reminder that beauty cannot exist without ugliness. It is a hard blasted piece of iron, well worn, it's surface pitted with sand and other particles. It has not survived the test of time well, and is beyond use, it's teeth jagged and broken it lay here discarded a testament to its current usefulness.

The key is the ideal career for the subject. What interests us here is how the key appears (representing how others view the career) and what it may open (representing the subject’s goals for the career). Note that the key is worthless: this suggests that the subject is cynical about finding any satisfaction through a job. Old-fashioned keys suggest that the subject desires a traditional career.

You avoided the bear.

In a crisis, the subject prefers the indirect, non-confrontational approach.

When you came to the wall, you turned around and walked back along the path.

The wall represents death: by avoiding it altogether, the subject shows complete denial about the possibility of death.