The Alligator and the Caramel Popcorn

A Dream, a Dog, and What It Taught Me About Consciousness

I opened my eyes this morning and a thought was already there, fully formed:

Consciousness is a word. And if we did not have that word, we would not know what it is.

The moment I thought it, I remembered the old line: “In the beginning was the Word.” Because it’s the oldest insight we have about how language and reality interact. Each word we speak creates something physical in our minds. A word is a map for the territory of experience. Narrative is what weaves it all together.

Then, slowly, the dream came back to me.

The Dream

I was in some kind of community or camp. Everyone lived close together but in separate spaces.

First, I saw an old friend and her husband. She was Catholic, he was Jewish. They’ve always been wealthy, well-traveled, living a life of movement and ease. In the dream, they were heading to a dance with their daughter.

Then I saw another couple—old friends from my marriage. They’re a Mexican-American couple who worked hard to build their American dream. Back then, they were relatively poor. In the dream, they were mowing the lawn, working, tending the grass. She was smiling and waving. He had lost some hair. They looked older.

Rich and poor. Catholic and Jew. The ones who dance and the ones who work. These two couples stood like bookends on either side of whatever was coming.

Then the scene shifted.

I was a young woman painter. At least, I think I was her. I wasn’t entirely sure if the woman was me. And if she wasn’t me, I had no idea who “I” was in the dream.

There were two men. I didn’t recognize either. I can’t remember the face of the second man at all. But the first—he had black curly hair, and he stayed in a room outside the main house.

At first, there was tension between them over me. It wasn’t about being lovers. It was something deeper—a question of belonging. I felt I had to choose one or the other, as if some part of myself hung in the balance.

And then it resolved.

The image I saw when I knew it was resolved stays with me: I was lying back, and their two heads were next to mine on either side, both resting on my shoulders. They both loved me, and they both knew the other loved me. No more choosing. Only this.

Later that night, I went out to check on the man in the outer room—the one with the black curly hair. His light was on, and I smelled caramel popcorn. I quietly turned around and went back inside.

Elsewhere in the dream, the painter was speaking somewhere about my painting—my actual painting, in waking life. She stood with a group of people, talking, completely at ease.

And there was a dog that followed me everywhere. It was attached to me, and I was attached to it. The dog was simply with us, always.

Then, from somewhere separate from where the painter stood, I saw the pool. And the alligators.

One lunged. I couldn’t see what it grabbed. The image zoomed in, impossibly close, until all I could see was the alligator’s side, its belly, the texture of its skin. I couldn’t see what it was doing. I only knew something terrible was happening.

My first fear was for the young woman painter. I was terrified the alligator had taken her.

The people where the painter stood kept talking. Completely unaware.

One of the two men asked for a camera.

Then the image zoomed out.

The alligator was underwater, and it was eating my dog. A terrible, rhythmic motion beneath the surface. The dog that followed me everywhere. Gone.

A strange thing happened. Relief that the painter was safe. Horror that the dog was not. Both feelings at once, impossible to separate.

I woke up immediately.

The Interpretation

I asked for help understanding this dream through Carl Jung’s psychology. Not because I’m a believer in mysticism. Because Jung is useful. He gives you a language for how the mind organizes itself.

The two couples that opened the dream became landmarks in my inner landscape. The wealthy couple, Catholic and Jew, moving toward a dance with their daughter—they represent harmony, new potential, the weaving of opposites. The working couple, mowing the lawn—they represent my past, the life I lived when I was married. A life of hard work, tending things. They’re still there, still working, but they’re next door now. Not where I live, but close enough to see.

The dream was showing me the full spectrum of my own history and possibility before the main drama began.

Then came the painter. She’s a new, emerging part of myself—a creative identity trying to find expression. The fact that I wasn’t sure if she was “me” means this part of myself isn’t fully integrated into my waking identity. She’s me, but also not yet me.

The two men are aspects of my inner masculine energy—what Jung called the animus. At first, they were in tension. I felt I had to choose. This is the classic inner conflict: logic or intuition? Action or receptivity? Ambition or spirit?

But the dream didn’t leave me there.

The image of lying back with both heads resting on my shoulders is an image of inner integration. It’s not a choice. It’s a surrender. I’m the one lying back, receiving, holding them both. They’re at rest because the conflict is over. They love me, and they know the other loves me. No jealousy. No competition. Only belonging.

Jung called this the coniunctio—the union of opposing forces within the psyche. The dream was showing me that on some deep level, I’d resolved something. I’d found a way to hold both.

The man in the outer room—the same one who rested his head on my shoulder—offered a different kind of encounter. When I approached him at night, venturing into the unknown parts of myself, I didn’t find danger. I found a light on and the sweet smell of caramel popcorn. This was the gentle aspect of my inner masculine, quietly emanating warmth and simple pleasure. I didn’t need to intrude. I just needed to know he was there.

Then came the alligators.

This was the eruption of the primal unconscious—raw instinct, untamed emotion, the parts of myself that are ancient, powerful, and potentially destructive. The pool was the contained body of the unconscious where these forces live.

The dog was the dog that followed me everywhere. In dreams, dogs often represent faithful instinct, loyalty, the parts of ourselves that are domesticated and reliable. The companion that chooses to walk with us through life.

The alligator took that dog. And the people—including the painter, my own creative self—didn’t even see it coming. They went on talking, unaware, while underwater, the thing that had followed me everywhere was being consumed.

Here’s the detail that haunts me most: the vantage points. I could see what the painter could not. From somewhere else in the dream—some observing part of myself—I watched the attack unfold. First in terrifying close-up, unable to see what was being taken. Then in wide shot, seeing everything.

I was both the one who lost the dog and the one who watched it happen. Both unaware and utterly aware.

One of the men asked for a camera. The psyche, in its wisdom, responded not with panic but with a desire to observe and document. To bring the terrifying event into consciousness.

What I Learned This Morning

This morning, when I opened my eyes and the thought was already there—consciousness is a word—I understood something.

The dream had shown me the territory: the raw, wordless images. The dancing couple and the working couple. The tension and the resolution. The two heads resting on my shoulders. The light on in the outer room. The smell of caramel popcorn. The alligator’s belly. The rhythmic motion underwater. The dog that followed me everywhere, now gone. The people talking, unaware. The separate vantage point from which I watched it all.

The interpretation gave me the map: the words and concepts that made sense of those images. And the process of weaving them together—the narrative I just wrote—is the act of making meaning.

“In the beginning was the Word.” Not the image. Not the feeling. The Word. Because without the word, the image remains formless. Without the word, we cannot know what we are experiencing.

The alligator is still in the pool. The dog is gone. But before any of that happened, I was lying back, and two heads were resting on my shoulders. I belonged to both, and they belonged to me. That resolution came first.

And then I remembered something else. Adam blamed the woman. The pattern repeats: someone always has to carry the blame. Jews. Immigrants. The other party. The neighbor.

This is what we do with loss, with the alligator, with the dog gone—we find someone to carry the blame so we don’t have to carry the horror ourselves. In the dream, no one blamed anyone. The painter kept talking. The alligator just ate. The loss just was. But my waking mind supplied the missing piece: this is the pattern. This is the oldest story. Someone must be at fault. Someone must carry the shadow.

The dream showed me the thing itself. The myth showed me what we do with it.

In another room, a light is still on. It smells like caramel popcorn.

That feels like enough for now.