Plunge

Taking a risk; facing uncertainty; going into something unknown or untried. To gain even an elementary understanding of dreams, one must plunge into that strange world of imagination we find in our own minds. It suggests taking the plunge in a new activity, relationship or way of life.

The plunge into the unconscious that dreams take us into may reveal some material, not deeply repressed, and which emerges easily and is understood very readily at verbal levels. Some, slightly more critical, appears veiled at first in symbolic images and dramas, in mythic dream stories. Other material, more painful, less acceptable to us, is obviously repressed to much deeper symbolic levels. To find it, the person who seeks resolution must plunge into weird and exotic gestural and physiological paradigms, or even suffer painful and upsetting symptom formations such as headaches, muscular spasms, and nervous tics and tremors.

I believe that if you really investigate dreams, first you will meet yourself. You will walk again the long road of your growth with the etched-in experiences that shaped you into the person you are. You will however, if you persist, see that there is a vaster self than this present personality, one that can reshape who you are, if you so dare. All of this means plunging into a very different world of experiences, one you need to adapt to.

 Example: Joe no longer fears death. In fact the last time it happened he rather enjoyed the ride. First he was plunged into darkness, and then came a bright light, a field of flowers, and a man in white who told him about his future. Later doctors informed him that his pulse had been flat for 44 seconds. For Joe his near-death experience was a very real preview of what is in store for him after death.

Example: There were plants, animals, people, hills, rivers and mountains all coming to birth. They danced out in their own individual movement, yet each unknowingly was part of the whole wonderful and intricate dance which made a great pattern and movement in the body of the circle. All danced to the periphery and there turned and moved, still in their ballet, back to the centre. At that centre they plunged into its oblivion again. But at that very moment new life sprang from it to dance once more.

Example: The willingness to plunge again and again into unsavoury emotions and images can also be seen as a necessity. The beautiful is often hidden in the dirt, or grows out of it. It is only when we see that beauty grows out of dirt that we realise dirt is not ‘filth’, but earth. It is the basic stuff of life, the material all growth emerges from; the stuff that our life forces transform in the process of growing. But if we are out of touch with the earth of our nature, our energy has nothing to transform into the flower of our manhood or womanhood. In the East, the lotus growing out of the mud has always been a symbol of this.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I plunge easily or with anxiety?

What was plunged into?

Am I afraid of taking the plunge into anything new?

See Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Inner World – Learning to Allow Yourself – Secrets of Power Dreaming