This dream seems to be telling me that, in the end, there is no safe way to enact the retrograde circulation that makes the unconscious conscious:

I am trying to escape from a woman who frightens me. The idea is to find my way home, to safety, by a kind of circular movement that runs counter to the usual routes. I have to work my way back in an unexpected fashion if I don’t want to be discovered. This involves moving through darkened streets that are off the beaten track. These side streets or back streets are familiar to me.

Is there a promise of safety in these streets? The path to safety is off the beaten track, through the familiar, the unobtrusive, the inconspicuous. Apparently, I will not be noticed if I slide inconspicuously into these back spaces, working my way home in this manner. To avoid exposure to the force of the woman I so greatly fear, I have to play it safe.

In the dream’s finale, I’m climbing a circular or spiral staircase, moving counter-clockwise. Suddenly I sense that, coming down from above and moving clockwise, is a woman holding a baby or child. I am so panicked by this that I wake up moaning.

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The dream may speak to my ambivalence about my work on the unconscious: while it feels quite safe to think and write about making the unconscious conscious, actually doing it terrifies me!