I didn't think much of anything other than they were drug induced hallucinations that her sub-conscious was mixing bits and pieces of things from her waking hours - like it does in a dream when you're asleep - into a disjointed story that made little sense, IR even if it did make some sort of sense it really was drugs, her sub-conscious, and all that. Drugs like she received can really do some weird things and anyone who has experienced this sort of thing, might be able to match Betty hallucination for hallucination. I guess Weiner likes to be enigmatic but I find this a little off-putting. Still like the show though.

The surreal labor scenes were pretty interesting and intense. The dream was kind of like Alice in Wonderland with the caterpillar (isn't there some hookah smoking and psychedelic stuff related to that - sounds about right for drugged up Betty). And the scenes with her parents were creepy but the insights “be happy with what you have” and “you’re a housecat and you have little to do” were spot on. And her comments while under the fog – about how Don is “never where you expect him to be” and “I’m just a housewife” – Betty finally saying how she feels.

Hey Hanna! The dream was kind of like Alice in Wonderland with the caterpillar (isn't there some hookah smoking and psychedelic stuff related to that - sounds about right for drugged up Betty).

Interesting thought! I hadn't connected the caterpillar with Alice in Wonderland. You're right; we know she wanders into a fog, but also into Wonderland of sorts. The caterpillar in the book isn't smoking anything other than tobacco, but Alice in Wonderland and that smoking caterpillar did become big symbols of the drug culture in the 60's.

I thought more about butterflies and such when I saw the caterpillar. She looks so stunning in that particular scene, and she's wearing that butterfly yellow dress. She seems so free and relaxed as she walks down the street, as if this is the butterfly she'd become from that caterpillar.

Thirteen - There's all sorts of ways you can read the caterpillar scene, but I generally like to find the literature references in MM. The caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis/rebirth metaphor does fit, given the birth of the baby and Betty's life post-baby. Someone on another thread (please speak up, whoever you were) mentioned the caterpillar could symbolize a baby and the way she squashed the bug was almost like she was saying "No more babies for me!". I thought that was a very intriguing statement

Yes, Thirteen-- I agree with your idea that Betty is seeing herself as a butterfly having emerged from her cumbersome cocoon. Perhaps this is her way of dealing with labor pains, looking forward to being slim and beautiful again? We've seen how she loathes being pregnant, remarking many times about her size and inability to sleep, dance, etc.

Many have noted that she seems to gently crush the inchworm. Might this be her resolve to not birth any more babies? Being finished with that stage? Deciding to take more precautions with birth control?

Compare that to Don's apparent resolution to be a better father, and you have both of them pondering making a change for their futures.

Also, I noticed that at least subconsciously, Betty sees herself as stuck between a child and a woman in her vision while talking with her parents. How much of that self-awareness she will retain when awake remains to be seen.

Might this be her resolve to not birth any more babies?

Fifty-two, I think that almost hits the nail on the head. When I saw her walking down the street, I felt that she was back in time, rather than post baby. And I mean all the way back before getting married. Which would make the crushing of the caterpillar more a statement of "I wish I was a free young woman again and could re-think my decision to marry and have kids." I think that the liberation element of this season has a lot to do with regretting choices made, ones which make you feel trapped.

In later parts of the dream, when we see her preggers again, Betty comes across as more weighed down thanks to that opening part where she looks slender and young and seems to be floating as she walks.

We've seen how she loathes being pregnant

Spot on. Remember what she had for lunch? Cottage cheese, toast and pineapple. A diet meal and one that seems to deny that she is pregnant and should be eating for two. And she makes that mean remark about the girl Sally picked on, pointing out that the girl is fat.

I'm fascinated by dream analysis IRL and I agree with pretty much everything everyone's said here already... some great insights! The caterpillar or inchworm representing transformation, rebirth, metamorphosis, a new stage in life, etc. It's a classic symbol.

Betty's very physically and emotionally uncomfortable being pregnant. She especially hates being larger in size. She clearly has some food/body image problems, probably stemming from a combination of being heavy as a child and having a mother who was obsessed with "looking good and getting a man". Modeling isn't the most ideal thing for any young girl's psyche either.

She is also ambivalent at best about children and parenting in general. I got the impression that Betty probably never really actively wanted to have children. It just came with the territory of marriage (at first, anyway). I agree that she'll probably be more thorough with protection from now on. She already has a diaphragm, it was mentioned in the Season 2 Valentine episode, but she obviously didn't have it with her or expect to need it that night at her parents' house. Maybe she'll start taking the Pill like Joan and Peggy do.

Betty refers to the kid Sally fought with at school "a bruiser". I don't mean to get way OT but I'm curious about something. I didn't think that word meant fat? I could certainly be wrong here, but I thought it meant prone to pick fights, tomboyish, aggressive, but not really indicative of appearance? Technically the teacher is the one who first calls the other little girl heavy. That part about the kids poking her with pencils like she isn't a human being was so cruel and horrible. I almost cried.

Bluegirl, I think you're right on all points. Likely Betty had the usual fantasies of husband and kids that didn't include anything real--like when little girls play with dolls. Real children are real work. I also think that Betty and Pete share that particular need to be the coddled child of the family. This becomes problematic when there's a real baby or child that takes the attention away from them and forces them into the role of self-sacrificing adults.

You're right about the definition of bruiser, but I think it also refered to the way the girl looked. A bruiser is a word used to describe a husky man, a boxer type.

It's interesting that Betty has very definite ideas about femininity. Real girls don't fight or play with tools. They ride horses and take ballet lessons. And heavy girls are "bruisers"--not feminine.

Thanks Thirteen! You make a great point about there being some similarities between Betty and Pete. I hadn't really thought about connections between them before, but they definitely both have self-focused, childlike personas and both had similar sheltered/coddled privileged upbringings. Also thank you for the "bruiser" info/correction. I've never really heard the word used in actual conversation, just in books/films/etc. The multiple layers of meaning behind that word are very interesting and remind me of Betty's "little lesbian" remark a few episodes ago. She certainly has some strong prejudice or disdain for anything and anyone female but not traditionally feminine.

to me it looked liked betty was protecting the caterpillar. i'll it watch again.
it was mentioned at least twice that betty used to be heavy.
i wonder if hearing of how that little girl is picked on reminded her of when she was little (or not so little as the case may be)

I think you're quite right, jlh. Part of Betty's attitude about weight has to be due to self-hatred she felt as a child. If she was truly as overweight as Grandpa Gene alleged, then she was *definitely* teased by her peers in school growing up, just like the little not-so-little "bruiser" girl.

Maybe that's how Betty developed that "ice princess" affect, what a lot of people call coldness (but I personally think is just a mask) out of necessity, self-protection. If they can't see it's bothering you, it's not as much fun for the "Lord of the Flies"-esque childhood bullies to pick on you.

Back to the caterpillar, the way she folds her hand around it could probably be interpreted either way, really. I saw it as a gentle yet very deliberate movement. She's not exactly squashing the bug in a death grip, but it could be definitely be viewed as protective or as a more declarative statement.

That's one of the great things about MM-- the subtleties.

A caterpillar is supposed to turn into something. In her dream, it doesn't. She closes her hand on it (I didn't see this as a squishing), enters the house, and the idea of turning into something disappears. She's right back where she was, with another baby, with the same life, busband, married, discontent.

At least she wasn't a total prick in this episode.

I'd love to know what drugs they gave Betty. I had "Twilight Sleep" when my son was born. No hallucinations. I knew everything that was going on and I felt pain ... I just didn't care.

The dream sequence with Betty in that dress and along that avenue were breathtaking! Betty did look younger, refreshed and probably not married to Don! The yearning to be free!

Gene as a janitor: she sees him first while wide awake on her way to the delivery room and then again in a dream. I don't really understand why he is mopping up blood, however. Was it "afterbirth" or the Evans shooting?

The scene with her parents: she admitted leaving her lunch pail on the bus and being pregnant all in one breath. I agree @fifty-two that Betty may have to let go of being the "little girl", and her parents are assuring her she'll be OK.

Betty didn't seem very affected by these hallucinations and probably forgot them since she seemed very serene on the return ride home.

I had an odd thought about the dream involving her parents. Some people experience dreams in which loved ones who have passed away talk to them or interact with them, and they believe it is the spirit of those loved ones speaking to them and trying to comfort them from beyond the grave. Just wondering if anyone thinks (especially regarding the recently departed Gene) this might be the case for Betty's dream, or was is just a surrealistic exploration of her psyche.

i watch that dreamed over again. i can see how people take it that she squashing it. after her hand folds over it, her expression changes and her hold tighten. who is she annilhilating.

Jolle 10 wrote: "I don't really understand why he is mopping up blood, however. Was it "afterbirth" or the Evans shooting?"

There were some amazing observations in the "Smear of Blood" thread, and it made Gene's mopping up of the blood clearer to me. I think that it's both Evans shooting and the afterbirth--unpleasant things having to do with birth and death. It shows that Gene was always the one to shelter Betty from unpleasantness. He always mopped it up before she saw it. There is a lot of talk of in this episode (and the one before, come to that), about keeping unpleasant things from people, especially children.

jih wrote: "i watch that dreamed over again. i can see how people take it that she squashing it. after her hand folds over it, her expression changes and her hold tighten. who is she annilhilating.

You're right! I think I spoke too soon on the caterpillar issue. One thought might be that she's "squishing" her old childish self. Another is that she's taking the caterpillar in, as she's shown pregnant after that. One thing that does seem to happen in the dream is that Betty faces the fact that her parents are dead, and that makes her the new "parent." She stops dreaming about being young and slim, and sees herself as pregnant and about to be a mom again.

She didn't want this baby and she hated being pregnant with it, but in that drugged fog she seems to accept her role as a mother, as the caretaker rather than the one being cared for. When she comes out of it, she does have a serenity that suggests she's come to terms with, well, the cycle of life and that her role has changed. Perhaps she finally understands that one can't be the caterpillar forever, nor can you stay in your shell, in the womb, or be a child forever. Her parents are gone, and she's moved up into their place.

I enjoy reading all of these interpretations. My thought about Betty's dream was that maybe her parents "helped" her with a pregnancy when she was young, got rid of the evidence so to speak (abortion). When she came to her parents and said she left her lunchpail on the bus AND she was pregnant, this was the thought I had. They got rid of what they perceived as unpleasantness and Betty went on with her life.

Becky, I doubt that they helped her terminate a pregnancy, but we do know that Betty was pregnant when she married Don, and that her father never approved of him as a husband for his little princess. If Sally was born a month or two early, her parents must have known. Maybe in her dream she is remembering having to tell her parents she was pregnant out of wedlock? Admitting to pre-marital sex would've been traumatic in those days.

These are great comments. I'm wondering if anyone has any insight to the man sitting in front of Betty's mom at the kitchen table in her dream. He appeared to be bleeding and she appeared to be dressing his wounds?

psychoangelfox- It's been pretty well established that the bleeding man is Medger Edgers, a civil rights activist who was shot and murdered the week the baby was born. Sally had been talking about the murder with her teacher, asking questions about it, and that was brought up at the parent-teacher meeting. Perhaps that's why he was integrated into Betty's dream. The mother makes a statement in the dream about 'this is what happens to people who speak out' or something like that.