ABSTRACT
Initiation rites, especially puberty rites, often include rituals that make the neophyte androgynous in some way. An androgynous person frequently appears as a symbol in dreams to bear witness to the fact that a person may be undergoing a transformational process. Such an image involves the coincidentia oppositorum and hence gives the person a chance to unite opposites and to overcome the lacerations inherent in duality. This is a process that is undertaken so that a person can get back to his or her original wholeness.
