Posts Tagged ‘dreamwork’

Carl Jung

Jung, Carl 1875-1961 Son of a pastor; his paternal grandfather and great grandfather were physicians. Took a degree in medicine at University of Basle, then specialised in psychiatry. In early papers he pioneered the use of word-association, and influenced research into the toxin hypothesis regarding schizophrenia.

Jung’s addition to modern therapeutic attitudes to dream work arose out of his difference of view with Freud regarding human life. Jung felt life is a meaningful experience, with spiritual roots. His interest in alchemy, myths and legends, added to the wealth of ideas he brought to his concept of the collective unconscious. The subject of symbols fascinated him and he devoted more work to this than any other psychologist. He saw dream symbols not as an attempt to veil or hide inner content, but an attempt to elucidate and express it. He saw dreams as a way of transformation where what was formless, non verbal and unconscious moves towards form and becoming known. In this way dreams ‘show us the unvarnished natural truth.’ By giving attention to our dreams we are throwing light upon who and what we really are – not simply who we are as a personality, but who we are as a phenomena of cosmic interactions.

Jung recommended looking at a series of ones dreams in order to develop a fuller insight into self. In this way one would see certain themes arising again and again. Out of these we can begin to see where we are not balancing the different aspects of ourselves.

Jung felt that human life is meaningful and has its roots in a transcendent reality. In this and other ways he differed from Freud who was at first a collaborative colleague. Jung did not, as Freud, see the unconscious as a storehouse only of repressed infantile and unsocialised urges. It was a place of mystery and life. It included not only the widest storehouse of personal and family experience, but it stretched beyond this, linking each of us with a collective experience of life. This ‘collective unconscious’ Jung said, holds within itself the merged experience of all that has lived.

Also from the unconscious arose what Jung called the influence of the Self. He defined the Self as the whole of the person, as distinct from the narrow focus of self we know in our daily life. For example if you could have a sense of all your memories rather than simply what is relevant to the moment, you would have a different view of all you did. Jung described this as similar to a ball with a small black circle drawn on it. The small black circle is our normal waking awareness, the ball is the Self.

From the Self – a more total awareness – arises what Jung called the ‘transforming influence’. Our sense of wholeness, however unconscious it may be, leads us toward becoming more inclusive of our total potential. Jung taught that part of our wholeness is an awareness of being an intrinsic and unseparated part of the universe. Dreams are often an expression or a reflection of the Self. As such they are self-regulatory and can lead to what Jung called individuation. This is an attainment of your own personal identity beyond the sense of self you arrive at from such things as class, role, gender, economic situation and physical appearance.

Jung was a psychiatrist working with and training a great number of people. A major emphasis of his work was on dreams. His approach was quite different to Freud. The major points are:

• The dream was seen as a source of information, not as an attempt to disguise meaning as Freud thought.

• Because he honoured the wisdom of the unconscious Jung was intent on unfolding what the drama and structure of the dream held in it. He did not lead away from the dream with associations. However he did add his own insights to what the dreamer might discover.

• Jung encouraged people to explore a dream using active imagination, a way of honouring personal fantasy. He also suggested allowing the body to fantasise. He wrote that fantasy is necessary because the conscious mind has no idea, no experience of what is held within unconsciously. Not only might you find the pain of past trauma, but also what Jung called the ‘dark possibilities’ – the unknown potential. You have to ‘let go’ of your consciously held convictions in order to let the voice and experience of the unconscious speak – to allow more of yourself to be lived.

• To help a person discover their associations with something in their dream Jung would stick with the dream setting and format, not encourage associations that led away.

• If the dreamer found difficulty in arriving at an association, Jung would ask them to describe the symbol in their own words, as if Jung knew nothing about it. Therefore, if you dreamt of a table, you might say something like, ‘It is a thing usually made of wood and having four supports. Upon these a flat surface is fixed, so that you can place objects, food, books, etc., on it at a level nearer your hands or mouth.’

• Use of the term the Self was Jung’s way of bringing the transcendent dimension into his work. This was something Freud never did. Later, in approaches like Psycho-Synthesis this approach to psychological growth and healing was extended, and is now frequently met under the name Trans-personal.
• Jung wrote that the conscious self raises prolific objections to becoming aware of unconscious experiences. It appears intent on blotting out spontaneous fantasy that might reveal something other than its own cherished defences and beliefs. It often takes firm determination to allow unconscious content. “In most cases the results of these efforts are not very encouraging at first. Moreover, the way of getting at the fantasies is individually different… oftentimes the hands alone can fantasy; they model or draw figures that are quite foreign to the conscious.” From Commentary in Secret Of The Golden Flower by Richard Wilhelm, commentary by Carl Jung. Published by Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Many thinkers and observers of dreams felt that it was not enough to say dreams could be understood through the association of ideas. This could mean that association explains the whole phenomena of dreaming. Through their work Freud and Jung showed the wealth of information and experience that can be uncovered within a dream’s imagery and drama. Henry Maudsley, the British doctor after whom the Maudsley Day Hospital and school of psychiatry in London was named, wrote – “We are dealing with … an actual constructive agency’ in dreams ‘whereby ideas are not merely brought together only, but new products are formed out of them.” He says elsewhere that he is struck by “the extraordinary creations of dreams,” and that a study of dreams would be “full of promise of abundant fruit.”

If we are going to use association in exploring dreams, it is helpful to recognise the difference between free association, and looking for associations with a dream’s contents. Jung points out that with free association the starting point can be anywhere – dreams, ink-blots, clouds, shapes of landscape, a prayer wheel or rosary. He gives the example of a colleague who described to him a long train journey in Russia. Not knowing the language he found himself wondering what the strange shapes of the Cyrillic characters meant. Relaxing he began to imagine all sorts of meanings for them. One image and feeling led to another until, to his annoyance he found that long buried memories and difficult emotions had become stirred up.

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The point Jung makes in connection with dreams is that if one took a dream image and ‘free associated’ with it, this could certainly lead to an uncovering of ones complexes or neuroses, but what one arrived at might have little or nothing to do with integral links with the dream. For instance the dream of the divinities and the bishop mentioned above, might, in free association, lead to a remembrance of a traumatic bullying at school, which had nothing to do with the feelings and links invested in the dream.

Finding ones memories and feelings associated with the dream however, leads to a clear realisation of how our own mental and emotional experience and structure have formed the dream. In one of my own dreams in which I was in my father’s shop attending to a man who had been shot in the arm, exploring the associations led me to uncover massive feelings to do with my relationship with my father. I felt for the first time in my life, how his lack of praise and support had led to an injury to my self confidence. In just the way my left arm supports the action of my creative right arm, and its injury would mean I could not be so effective with my right arm, so this lack of confidence had undermined my outward expression, something I was trying to attend to at that time. Working in this way, where the dream is honoured as something important instead of simply a starting point to lead elsewhere, was a turning point for Jung. He says he came to believe the dream ‘expressed something specific that the unconscious was trying to say.’ Therefore, after each excursion into associations, Jung would return to the dream and continue checking against its structure and content.

YOGA AS INCLUSIVE OF THE EAST IN JUNG’S THOUGHT

FOR JUNG, ‘yoga’ was a general term indicating all of Eastern thought and psychological practice. In his writings ‘yoga’ is used to designate Eastern traditions as diverse as Hinduism, Indian Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism and Chinese Taoism. For Jung, therefore, ‘yoga’ should not be confused with the narrow and technical definitions of the term which are encountered in Eastern thought itself In Indian philosophy, for example, yoga’ refers to one of the six classical schools of thought-the yoga view-point systematised by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras. 1

Although Jung was aware of this technical usage of ‘yoga’ as early as 1921 (3, p. 196), (and based his 1939 Lectures given at the Eidgenoiissiche Technischie Hochschule, Zurich, on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras) (JUNG 6) his interest from the beginning was not with Patanjali’s technical definitions but with the spiritual development of the personality as the goal of all yoga (Ibid.). In his lectures Jung observes that in India the practice of yoga involves both psychology and philosophy. To be a philosopher in the East requires that one has undergone the spiritual development of yoga. It is in this sense that Jung sees ‘yoga’ as a general term (inclusive of psychology as well as philosophy), which is the foundation of everything spiritual, not only for India but also for Tibet, China and Japan. Consequently in writing his Tibetan commentaries (JUNG 7), Jung talks about ‘Tibetan Yoga’. In his commentary on the Taoist text, The secret of the golden flower (JUNG 5), he refers to ‘Chinese Yoga’ and in his psychology of Eastern meditation (JUNG 9) (actually a commentary on the Pure Land Buddhist Text, Amitayur-dhyana Sutra), Jung speaks of the ‘Japanese practice of yoga.

Although ‘yoga’ in Eastern thought often has a very technical meaning, it is also employed in a general way similar to Jung’s usage. Mircea Eliade, in his well-known book, Yoga: immortality and freedom, observes that yoga is one of the basic motifs of Eastern thought (ELIADE 2, p. 3). And T. H. Stcherbatsky, the Russian scholar of Buddhism, maintains that yogic trance (samadhi) and yogic courses for the training of the mind in the achievement of the goal of release from suffering (moksa, or nirvana) appear in virtually all Eastern schools of thought-be they Hindu or Buddhist (STCHERBATSKY 20, pp. 16-19). It is exactly this sense of yoga as a way to release and self-realisation that Jung has taken as the general theme of all Eastern thought and practice. However, the conception of the nature of the self-realisation to be achieved, and the proper method to follow, are points on which Jung and the East show significant differences.

II.    THE ATTITUDE (OR WORLD VIEW) WHICH JUNG BROUGHT TO YOGA

If we arc to understand Jung’s encounter with yoga, a firm grasp of the viewpoint from which Jung began is required. Although the period of Jung’s life with which we are concerned was very turbulent both personally and professionally, 2 through it all one thing remained firm in his mind-that he was an empiricist, grounded completely on observation and experience. Jung understood his whole encounter with the contents of his unconscious as a scientific experiment. In Jung’s view, the possibility of being an objective psychological observer of others required first that the observer be sufficiently informed about the nature and scope of his own personality: ‘He can, however. be sufficiently informed only when he has in a large measure freed himself from the levelling influence of collective opinions and thereby arrived at a clear conception of his own individuality’ (JUNG 3, p. 10). It is Jung’s view that as one goes farther back in his history and as one goes East, the individual is more and more swallowed up in the collectivity of the society. Only in recent times has there been sufficient individual awareness to make possible impartial observation and objective psychology (Ibid., p. 8).

From a scientific point of view, Jung’s purpose in opening himself to the contents of his unconscious was twofold. in the first place, it was necessary that he gain awareness of these contents with their warping needs and biases if he was to become an objective observer of others. Secondly, the contents of the unconscious are, for Jung, empirically real, and therefore proper objects for the scientific study of psychology. With regard to yoga, this means that Jung saw his approach as that of an objective observer who had encountered certain psychic realities in his own self-analysis, and then looked elsewhere (including to the East) for supporting evidence. This is made quite clear in Jung’s September 1935 letter to Pastor Jahn in Berlin. Jung says:

.    . . You seem to forget that I am first and foremost an empiricist, who was led to the question of Western and Eastern mysticism only for empirical reasons. For instance, I do not by any means take my stand on Tao or any yoga techniques, but I have found that Taoist philosophy as well as yoga have very many parallels with the psychic processes we can observe in Western man (JUNG 13, p. 195).

In his Memories, dreams, reflections, Jung offers two examples of how the study of yoga can provide verification or support for something already encountered in Western consciousness. The first has to do with Jung’s 1918-1920 discovery of the psychic development of the self occurring in a circular (circumambulation) rather than linear fashion. He found that this new insight could best be expressed in paintings such as his ‘Window on eternity’. Several years later Jung reports an event that provided for him confirmation of his experience of the self. He received a letter from Richard Wilhelm enclosing the Taoist treatise, The secret of the golden flower with the request that Jung write a commentary on it.

I devoured the manuscript at once, for the text gave me undreamed-of confirmation of my ideas about the mandala and the circumambulation of the centre. That was the first event which broke through my isolation. I became aware of an affinity; I could establish ties with something and someone (JUNG II, p. 189 (197)). 3

The second example comes out of Jung’s struggle with the contents of his unconscious. In the course of his self-analysis one of the several dream figures he encountered was Elijah (called by Jung ‘Philemon’). Psychologically, says Jung, Philemon came to represent Superior insight. He was a guide through the inner darkness (Ibid., pp. 176~7 (182-3)). Many years later, in a conversation with an Indian friend, the role of the Indian guru in the process of education was discussed. When Jung’s friend admitted that Sankara, the 8th-century philosopher-saint, had been his personal guru, Jung made the discovery that in Yoga there arc ‘spirit gurus’. Jung reports the conversation as follows:

‘You don’t mean the commentator on the Vedas who died centuries ago?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I mean him he said, to my amazement.

‘Then you are referring to a spirit?’ I asked.

‘Of course it was his spirit,’ he agreed.

At that moment I thought of Philemon.

‘There arc ghostly gurus too,’ he added. ‘Most people have living gurus. But there always some who have a spirit for teacher’ (ibid. p. 177 (184)).

To Jung this did not signify that he had experienced an Indian spirit guru.  Only that, as he put it, ‘Evidently, then, I had not plummeted right out of the human world, but had only experienced the sort of thing that could happen to others who made similar efforts’ (Ibid.). It was confirmation only in the sense of confirming that Jung’s experience of Philemon was a true human experience and not an idiosyncratic fantasy of Jung’s own mind. But the content of Jung’s Philemon remained resolutely Western, understandable not through the teachings of Eastern yoga, but through the wisdom of Western alchemy. As we shall see, this principle of finding confirmation ill form rather than content, typifies most of Jung’s contacts with yoga.

But the principle of looking for ‘confirmation in forms’ of psychic experience is too narrow. For Jung, yoga was not just an after-the-fact confirmation of his Western discoveries. Yoga often played the role of broadening and heightening one’s experience of consciousness, by stimulating one to an increased awareness. This does not mean, warns Jung, that Western science should be belittled or given up only that one must not become so encapsulated in the Western scientific approach as to claim that it is the only approach there is. In his ‘Commentary on The secret of the golden flower’, Jung says, ‘The East teaches us another broader, more profound, and higher understanding-understanding through life’ (JUNG 5, p. 7). The difficulty the typical Westerner has in experiencing this higher understanding arises from two things; his attachment to Western science as the only valid way knowing, and his difficulty in identifying with the strangeness of Eastern texts such as The Secret of the Golden Flower. This means that the Westerner approaching Eastern yoga must not give in to his first reaction which will be to quickly dispose of it by calling it ‘Eastern wisdom’, in quotation marks, or by relegating it to the obscurity of religion or superstition. Nor must he make the mistake of attempting to cope with the strangeness of Eastern ideas by becoming an uncritical imitator of yoga practices. Through a shallow imitation of yoga Practices, says Jung, Western man ‘abandons the one safe foundation of the Western mind, and loses himself in a mist of words and ideas that could never have originated in European brains, and can never be profitably grafted upon them’ (Ibid., p. 7). The increased awareness, which Jung values as a result of his contact with the East, comes not through mindless imitation. It comes, rather, as a result of critical study of the East as a parallel to our human experience in West-a parallel that reawakens Western man to aspects of his own experience that in modern times he had lost touch with, i.e. the intuitive, the spiritual.

A careful study of Eastern texts such as The secret of the golden flower stresses the importance of having a balance between opposites in one’s experience. When the opposites balance one another, says Jung, that is a sign of a high and stable culture. ‘One-sidedness, though it lends momentum, is a mark of barbarism’ (JUNG 5, p. 9). This, in Jung’s view, is the difficulty in which the modern West finds itself After having placed great value on the spiritual and the intuitive during the Middle Ages, the intellect has come to a position of overwhelming dominance in modern man. But now there is a reaction in the West against the one-sidedness of the overstressing of intellect to the virtual exclusion of the other aspects of human experience. At this point, study of the East is helpful in presenting an approach to life which includes all of the aspects or opposites and attempts to hold them in tension-intellect balanced with intuition. The truth of the East is not in the Eastern way itself, but in the demonstrated need for a balance between intellect and intuition, between thinking and feeling. And this serves to provide parallel confirmation of the reaction in the modern West in favour of feeling and intuition as a cultural advance or ‘a widening of consciousness beyond the narrow confines of a tyrannical intellect’ (Ibid., p. 9). The wisdom of Eastern yoga for the West is that one must ‘yoke’ these extreme oscillations from intuition to intellect and now back again towards intuition, into a creative tension or balance. To be overbalanced in any one aspect of consciousness is a sign of immaturity and ‘barbarism’, to use Jung’s word for it. Consequently, it is not the case that the modern West should give up its highly developed scientific intellectually that the intuitive and feeling aspects of psychic function must achieve an equally high development in Western consciousness so that a creative balance can be achieved, and a widening of consciousness result.

While Jung openly admired the Eastern yoga principle of inclusiveness and balance between the opposing aspects of psychic function it is clear that he felt that the East had overstressed the intuitive, just as the modern West had overdeveloped the scientific. As Jung put it in his ‘Commentary on The Tibetan book of the great liberation’: ‘In the East, the inner man has always had such a firm hold on the outer man that the world had no chance of tearing him away from his inner roots; in the West, the outer man gained ascendancy to such an extent that he was alienated from his innermost being.’ (JUNG 7, pp. 492-3). Jung illustrated this contention by observing the following difference in Eastern versus Western religious practice. In the West, the spiritual is associated with something external and lifted up, thus the high and raised up place of the altar and cross in Christian Churches. In an Eastern Siva temple, however, the spiritual symbol, the lingam, is often sunk in a deep shaft several metres below ground level. To Jung this indicated that, in Eastern experience the spiritual is to be found in the inward direction, in the deepest and darkest place (JUNG 6, pp. 121-2). In his Psychology of Eastern meditation, Jung makes the same point:

The West is always seeking uplift, but the East seeks a sinking or deepening, Outer reality, with its bodiliness and weight, appears to make a much stronger and sharper impression on the European than it does on the Indian. The European seeks to raise him-self above this world, while the Indian likes to turn back into the maternal depths of Nature (JUNG 9, p. 570).

The principle of all Eastern yoga is that the pairs of opposites (dvanda) the extremes, must be transcended or held in creative tension (JUNG 3 pp. 195-8; 5). They must not exclude or devalue one another. From the East, therefore, the West needs to rediscover or resensitise itself to the interior aspects of intuition and feeling-but without letting go of its strong grip on exterior scientific consciousness. The East, on the other hand, needs the science industry and technology of the West, but not at the expense of its sensitivity to the inner man.

On both sides, ‘said Jung, a balanced, widened and inclusive consciousness needs to be achieved. But on the question of how this balancing was to be achieved, Jung was emphatic. The West must not simply attempt to copy the Eastern spiritual yoga, or the East blindly adopt Western science. Each should study the other and gain inspiration from its example, but each must pursue its own development within its own historical consciousness. As E. A. Bennett put it, ‘A race with an ancient cultural heritage, in Jung’s opinion had a collective experience not available to other races’ (BENNETT I, pp. 68-9). The modern West, says Jung, cannot graft Eastern yoga onto its scientific consciousness as so many misled individuals naively attempt to do (JUNG 4, p. 149 fn. 8, p. 171£). In his letters the question of the practice of Eastern yoga frequently arises, and Jung’s response is always emphatic and always the same. Yoga is suitable to the Eastern but not to the Western mind (cf. JUNG 13, p. 310). The occidental world should leave it alone and instead develop or rediscover its own spiritual practice. While yoga is the spiritual foundation of everything in the East, on no account is it a suitable practice for the West (JUNG 6, pp. II, 13,42). Although Jung admits to having practised yoga himself on a few occasions during his turbulent period of self-analysis, he states that his purpose was quite different from that of an Easterner.

I was frequently so wrought up that I had to do certain yoga exercises in order to hold my emotions in check. But since it was my purpose to know what was going on within myself, I would do these exercises only until I had calmed myself enough to resume my work with the unconscious. As soon as I had the feeling that I was myself again, I abandoned this restraint upon the emotions and allowed the images and inner voices to speak afresh. The Indian, on the other hand, does yoga exercises in order to obliterate completely the multitude of psychic contents and images (JUNG II, p. 171 (177)).

This is not the place to examine critically the correctness of Jung’s analysis of the Easterner’s experience of yoga; our present concern is to understand the attitude which  Jung brought to his study of it. It is quite clear that for Jung the study of yoga served two important purposes. First, it provided confirming evidence that others had had similar experience to that of his own. Secondly, it suggested that consciousness was wider than the typical modem Western fixation on the scientific intellect. The study of Eastern yoga highlighted the intuitive side of psychic functioning, and encouraged modern Western man to redevelop his sensitivity to this aspect which had been so dominant in Western experience during the Middle Ages. For Jung personally, as we shall see, the role Eastern yoga played in the development of his thinking was brief but influential. Although Eastern ideas lingered on throughout his thinking, Jung’s main fascination with yoga occurred during the 1920s and 1930s, culminating with his journey to India in 1938. By the end of his visit, however, the focus of his interest had already returned West, so that when his boat docked at Bombay he had no desire to leave the ship to see the city. ‘Instead’, reports Jung, ‘I buried myself in my Latin alchemical texts (Ibid., p. 265 (284)). Indeed it may well be that in the development of Jung’s thinking yoga lead him on from his early fascination with Western gnosticism and then back to Western alchemy, which then remained the keystone for the rest of his life.

In. JUNG’S APPROACH TO YOGA THROUGH WESTERN GN0STICISM

In a conversation with Richard Evans a few years before his death, Jung recalled the way he had come upon the notions of archetypes’ and the collective unconscious. He noticed that in primitive groups, as well as the great religious traditions, there exist certain typical patterns of behaviour, often supported by mythological tales. In religions there are the codes of conduct as well as the examples set by the saints. In Greek mythology there are the poetic models of fine men and women. As he thought about the notion of archetypes, Jung asked himself whether anyone else in the history of the world had studied that problem. After casting his ‘scholarly net’ widely Jung first concluded that nobody had, except a peculiar spiritual movement that went together with the beginnings of Christianity, namely, Gnosticism . . .  and that, the Gnostics were concerned with the problem of archetypes’ (Jung 14, p. 350). The Christian Gnostics, who lived in the first, second and third centuries A.D., had come across structural elements in the unconscious psyche and made a philosophic system out of it. In his autobiography Jung notes that between 1918 and 1926 he seriously studied the Gnostic writers (JUNG 11, p. 192 (200)).

It is in his Psychological types, first published in 192 1, that Jung’s analysis of Gnosticism is clearly seen. Jung points out that the farther we go back into history, the less the individuality and the more of the collective we encounter. In primitive peoples, says Jung, we find no trace of the concept of the individual. Indeed, the very idea ‘individuality’ is fairly recent in the history of human thought. Jung felt that the development of the notion of ‘individuality’ went hand in hand with the differentiation of man’s psychological functioning (JUNG 3, p. 10). The Gnostics caught Jung’s eye because they were one group in classical Western literature that did differentiate between basic types of psychological functioning, and stressed the individual development of the personality even to the point of perfection (PAssMORE 17, pp. 83-8).4 As we shall see, this notion of the perfectibility of man’s nature is also found in Eastern yoga, although it is a premise which Jung never accepted. The Gnostics dual emphasis on perfectibility and the need for disciplined individual development, both of which are shared by yoga, may well have paved way for the movement in Jung’s thinking to the East.

Gnostic philosophy established three basic types: the pneumatikoi or ‘thinking type’, the psychikoi or ‘feeling type’, and the hylikoi or ‘sensation type’ (JUNG 3, p. ii). In addition to their perception, of different psychological types, the Gnostics, says Jung, lay before us man’s unconscious psychology in full flower, almost perverse in its luxuriance; it contained the very thing that most strongly resisted the regula fidei, that Promethean and creative spirit which will bow only to the individual soul and to no collective ruling. (Ibid., pp. 241-2). For Jung, therefore, the Gnostics evidenced awareness not only of different psychological types, but also the importance of individuality. In Jung’s view, such psychological knowledge set the Gnostics apart from the collective psychology characteristic of the centuries before and after them right up to the modem period. Jung expressed it in the words: ‘Although in crude form, we find in Gnosticism what was lacking the centuries that followed: a belief in the efficacy of individual revelation and individual knowledge’ (Ibid., p. 242).

It is clear that the foundations for several of Jung’s major theoretical concepts may have originated or at least received strong support from early Christian Gnostics, i.e. the psychic functions of thinking’, ‘feeling ‘sensing’, and the ‘process of individuation’. The Gnostics were also fascinated with symbols and the question of how to release these symbols (e.g. God, Sophia and Christ) from the entrapment of the baser instincts. While all of this fascinated Jung as a parallel providing his thinking within historical support, he became increasingly frustrated by the lack of material available due to the suppression of the Gnostics by the early Christian Church. In his autobiography he summarises his Gnostic studies in the following words:

But the Gnostics were too remote for me to establish any link with them in regard to the questions that were confronting me. As far as I could see, the tradition that might have connected Gnosis with the present seemed to have been severed, and for a long time it proved impossible to find any bridge that led from Gnosticism – or neo-Platonism-to the contemporary world JUNG 11, pp. 192-3 (20 1).

That bridge from Gnosticism to the modem world Jung later discovered to be medieval alchemy. But Jung made this discovery through his study of Eastern yoga.

It is quite natural that Jung’s study of early Christian Gnosticism should have led him to the East. One of the Church Fathers who most fascinated him was Origen, and of course Origen was much influenced by Eastern thought (JUNG 3, p. 16f). In addition Jung was also reading the contemporary philosopher Schiller. Schiller was strongly influenced by Schopenhauer who championed Eastern yoga as it is presented in the Hindu scriptures, The Upanishads. It is not surprising then to find Jung putting aside Gnosticism and immersing himself in Eastern thought, beginning with the Indian Brahmanical tradition of the Upanishads.

IV.    JUNG’S ENCOUNTER WITH THE DVANDVA OR ‘PAIRS OF OPPOSITES’ OF YOGA

Jung reports, in his memoir, that very early in life he had become aware of a kind of split within his personality, as if two Opposing souls were housed in the one breast (JUNG II, p. 221 (234)). And when, as a young man, Jung read Goethe’s Faust, it awakened in him the problem of opposites, of good and evil, of mind and matter, of light and darkness (Ibid., p. 222 (235)). Faust, and his shadow Mephistopheles, presented to Jung in dramatic form his own inner contradictions. ‘Later’, says Jung, ‘I consciously linked my work to what Faust had passed over: respect for the external rights of man, recognition of “the ancient”, and the continuity of culture and intellectual history’ (Ibid.). Although Jung’s search into the ‘ancient sources’ first took him to the Gnostic experience of the opposites of matter and spirit, it was in the Eastern approach to the problem that he found the first real ‘light’.

Dvandva is the Sanskrit term for the pairs of opposites in classical Indian thought. The dvandva include one’s individual experience of opposites such as hot and cold, love and hate, honour and disgrace, male and female, as well as the encounter with universal cosmic opposites such as good and evil. In Hindu thought it is by the inherent separation of the pairs of opposites from another that the universe itself is said to come in to being (RHADHAKRISHNAN & MOORE 18, p. 23). The experience of the dvandva is psychologically analysed by Jung as a tension between the opposite aspects of each archetype or a split in the deployment of psychic energy at the level of the unconscious (JUNG 3, p. 194). There is an infinite variety in the amounts of psychic energy that could be contained on either side of the split, e.g. 50/5O, 60/40, 70/3O, etc. In Jung’s view, however, an unbalanced deployment of psychic energy on one side can only go on for so long until finally the opposite tendency will reassert itself and swingthe ‘pendulum’ in the other direction. Jung said that this is exactly what is Occurring in modern Western experience: the psyche has developed in too one-sided a fashion with an overemphasis on the scientific intellect, thus robbing the intuitive function of its power. Now, the intuitive side is reasserting itself (e.g., witness the contemporary Western fascination with the East) and the movement is beginning to flow in the opposite direction. In Jung’s view any imbalance in the split of psychic energy, while it may produce the short-term gains of rigorous specialisation (e.g. modern Western technology), will, in the long run, prove detrimental.

Naturally this split is a hindrance not only in society but also in the individual. As a result, the vital optimum withdraws more and more from the opposing extremes and seeks a middle way, which must naturally be irrational and unconscious, just because the opposites are rational and conscious. Since the middle position, as a function of mediation between the opposites, possesses an irrational character and is still unconscious, it can also be projected in the form of a mediating god, a Messiah (Ibid., p. 194).

The projection of a mediating Messiah, says Jung, is indicative of the more primitive nature of Western religion-primitive because it lacks insight into the psychological balancing of the opposites that is occurring, and instead blindly accepts the whole thing as the action of God’s grace. By contrast, the East has for thousands of years known of the processes required to balance the opposites, and had made them into paths (marga) of liberation or release. 5

In his Psychological types, Jung reviews the teaching of the Vedas, Upanisads and Yoga sutra on the problem of the pairs of opposites (Ibid., pp. 195-7) and reaches the following conclusions. In Hindu or Brahmanical thought, the pairs of opposites are experienced as a continuum extending from external opposites such as heat and cold to the fluctuations of inner emotion and the conflict of ideas such as good and bad (Ibid., p. 197). The Hindu marga, or path, aims at freeing the individual completely from entanglement in the opposites, which seem inherent in human experience, so that he can experience oneness with Brahman (moksa). What is meant, says Jung, is a union of opposites in which they are cancelled out. … . Brahman is the union and dissolution of all opposites, and at the same time stands outside them as an irrational factor. It is therefore wholly beyond cognition and comprehension ( II Ibd., p. 198). The specific psychological process the yogi uses to realise this transcendence of the opposites involves the systematic withdrawing of libido or ‘attention’ from both external objects and internal psychic states-in other words, from the opposites. This eventually results in the elimination of sense perception and the disappearance of conscious contents (e.g. rational ideas), which opens the way for rising up of images from the collective unconscious. These, says Jung, are the archetypes, ‘. . . prinnordial images, which, because of their universality and immense antiquity, possess a cosmic and suprahuman character’ (Ibid., p.202).the great images of the Vedas, such as Rta (divine cosmic order) and Dharma (The universal moral law), are symbols with the power to regulate and unite the destructive tensions of the pairs of opposites.

In Indian thought Rta acts as a principle of dynamic regulation by with-drawing energy from any imbalance existing between the pairs of opposites until a balance or ‘middle path’ is achieved. As Jung put it, ‘The optimum can be reached only through obedience to the tidal laws of the libido, by which systole alternates within diastole-laws which bring pleasure and the necessary limitations of pleasure, and also set us those individual life tasks without whose accomplishment the vital optimum can never be attained’ (Ibid., p. 213).

It is this psychological vital optimum that is symbolised in Indian concepts such as Rta. Rta and Dharma function to bring out the inherent fundamental laws of human nature which, when followed, guide the natural flow of libido into the middle path through the conflict of opposites. Although Jung finds close agreement between his own personal experience and the Indian view of the dynamic relationship between the pairs of opposites, there is one point on which he sharply differs. In a letter to his friend V. Subrahamanya Iyer, guru of the Maharaja of Mysore, and with whom Jung had searching talks during his visit to India in 1938, Jung discusses the impossibility of getting beyond the pairs of opposites in this life. Whereas to the orthodox Hindu moksa means a complete freedom or transcendence from the tensions of the pairs of opposites, Jung argued that without the dynamic tension between the opposites there is no life.

It is certainly desirable to liberate oneself from the operation of the opposites but one can only do it to a certain extent, because no sooner do you get out of the conflict than you get out of life altogether. So that liberation can only be a very partial one. It can be the construction of a consciousness just beyond the opposites. Your head may be liberated, your feet remain entangled. Complete liberation means death (JUNG 13, p. 217).

The basis of Jung’s disagreement is rooted in his typically Western view of ego. Since the experience of oneself as an individual ego is fundamentally an experience of separation of oneself from other objects and persons, and since separation is the cause of the pairs of opposites, the complete over-coming of the pairs of opposites would also imply the eradication of the ego and its sense of separation. But if there is no ego, there is no kinower and therefore no consciousness. Abolishing the ego to transcend the opposites leaves only unconsciousness. In response to Subrahamanya Iyer’s suggestion that there is, at the highest level, a consciousness without ego, Jung replies, ‘I’m afraid this supreme consciousness is at least not one we could possess. In as much as it exists, we do not exist’ (Ibd., p. 247).

In contrast to the very idealistic approach of Hindu yoga, Jung found the attitude of Chinese yoga more realistic in its perception of the problem of the pairs of opposites. Jung observed that, like Hindu Rta, the Chinese Tao is a uniting symbol for the pairs of opposites. Jung uses the fact that uniting symbols are found independently in Chinese and Indian thought as evidence for the existence of a ‘uniting’ archetype in the collective unconscious. In Jungian theory this uniting archetype comes to be known as the ‘self’. For Lao-Tsu, author of the Tao Ti’ Ching’, the Tao is hidden, nameless and yet at the same time the source of all creation. The Tao manifests the created universe by being divided in to a fundamental pair of opposites named yang and yin. All of the other pairs of opposites can be grouped under yang, on the one side, and yin on the other. Yang, for example, includes ‘warmth, light and maleness, while yin; is cold, darkness and femaleness (JUNG 6, pp. 214-1 5). The Taoist view is that psychic danger occurs when there comes to be too great a split between the opposites thus resulting in a serious imbalance. In his commentary on The secret of the golden flower, Jung says that this is exactly what has happened to the psyche of the modern West. As contemporary Western man’s conscious scientific intellect achieved more independence and power, his intuitive unconscious was thrust into the background to a corresponding degree. This made it even easier for the evolving emphasis upon consciousness to emancipate itself from the unconscious archetypal patterns. Gaining in freedom, the modern Western scientific intellect burst the bounds of mere instinctuality and reached a condition of instinct atrophy (JUNG 5, p. 2).

The overdeveloped conscious intellect of today’s Western man not only suffers from being cut off from his instinctive roots in the collective unconscious, but, due to this very ‘rootlessness’, he experiences a false sense of mastery over and – freedom from nature – to the point of proclaiming him-self God (Ibid., p. 12). Jung points to Nietzsche as an example of just such a result (JUNG 3, pp. 13646).Jung also takes up the Chinese insight that when one of the opposites reaches its greatest strength the other will begin to reassert itself Quoting from the I Ching, he says, ‘When yang has reached its greatest strength, the dark power of yin is born within its depths, for night begins at midday when yang breaks up and begins to change into yin’ (JUNG 5, p. 13). For Jung, the Dionysian eruption of Nietzsche’s unconscious, with its intuitive and instinctive qualities, was confirming evidence of the correctness of the ancient Chinese insight.

Jung also saw the split of psychic energy into varying levels of imbalance throughout the pairs of opposites as a helpful theoretical model for understanding mental breakdown. Jung makes use of a parallel between the one-sidedness of a patient’s orientation threatened with breakdown and the purely conscious orientation of modern Western man suffering from a chronic imbalance.

The Easterner, by contrast, through the practice of his various yogas has kept a better balance between the pairs of opposites and thus does not as yet suffer from the same chronic problems as his Western colleague. Here Jung again sounds his warning that the solution for the Westerner cannot be found by taking up the direct practice of Eastern yoga. Jung says the neurosis or split within consciousness would then simply be intensified (Ibid., p. 14). But what can be learned from the East is a general approach to be adopted so that the split, the imbalance between the opposites may be brought into harmony.

Although during 1918 and 1920, Jung had received from the analysis of his own unconscious a clue that the way to psychic integration was not linear but circular, it was not until his encounter with The secret of the golden flower several years later that his therapeutic concept of ‘circumambulation of the self’ was crystallised and confirmed (JUNG 11, p. 311 (I9~7)). In his commentary on The secret of the golden flower Jung points out that ‘the union of opposites on a higher level of consciousness is not a rational thing, nor is it a matter of will: it is a process of psychic development that expresses itself in symbols’ (JUNG 5, p. 21). Jung maintains that in Western as well as Eastern experience the symbols of integration that appear are chiefly of the mandala type. Afa’udala means circle, and implies a circular movement focused on the centre. It is a mental image or a ritually acted out symbol which aims at engaging all sides of one’s personality-all the positive and the negative opposites of one’s nature.

In Jungian theory the unifying psychological process of symbol formation is usually described as the raisiing or individuating of an archetype from the level of the collective unconscious to the level of conscious awareness. This may occur with varying degrees of psychic intensity from a relatively ordinary ‘insight’ experience to the most extraordinary mystical experience (e.g. Paul’s visionary experience of Christ). In conformity with much Eastern yoga, Jung admits that such a symbolic unity cannot be achieved by a determined effort of the conscious will-because the will is, by nature, biased in favour of one of the sides of the opposites, namely, the conscious side. It is necessary that the appropriate cultural image, through the psychic process of intuition, be allowed to speak to and engage the contents of the collective unconscious in a manner that defies defmitive expression.

It is the purpose of the various meditational tecimiques ofEastern yoga to make possible and promote this process. In the West this same goal of psychic unity should be pursued, not by imitatiing Eastern yoga, but by developing parallel Western practices such as the cultivation of what Jung calls ‘active imagination’. By such means the contents of deeply unconscious layers can be raised and brought into fertile contact with ego-consciousness. Human history, too, may be seen to progress and unfold by sudden moments. When this happens, a pair of opposites may, momentarily at least, be said to be in balance and harmony (JUNG 5, pp. 22-8).

V.    THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN JUNG S ENCOUNTER WITH YOGA

Jung, in the ‘Late thoughts’ section of his biography observes that religious symbols, ‘by their very nature, can so unite the opposites that these no longer diverge or clash, but mutually supplement one another and give meaningful shape to life’ (JUNG 11, p. 311 (338)). This insight, which is nowhere more necessary than in reconciling the inevitable internal contradictions in any conception of God or Absolute Reality, Jung encountered in a highly refined form in Tibetan Buddhism. While writing his Commentary on ‘The Tibetan book of the great liberation’, he notes that in the Tibetan meditations the different gods are nothing but symbolic representations of various aspects of the pairs of opposites which when taken together, constitute the whole (JUNG p. 495). In Indian and Chinese thought, too, any representation of the divine in either philosophical or artistic forms almost always includes the various aspects of the pairs of opposites. The Hindu gods, for example, are balanced and completed by their goddesses (e.g. Siva-Sakti). Indeed, this balancing and fulfilling union between the male and female aspects of the absolute Brahman is the dominant symbolism in medieval Indian art (ZIMMER 23). The same  may be found in the Tibetan yab-yum images (Obermiller, 16), the Taoist yin-yang symbol (Thompson 22, pp. 63-76) and the many different ways in which Zen art represents the finite in the infinite (Suzuki 21). This aspect of Eastern religious symbolism seems to have made a pro-found impact upon Jung. It provided a ‘bridge’ for his return to Western thought in that he discovered the same sort of symbolising of the opposites in Western alchemy (JUNG 8, p. 152f.). However, perhaps even more important, it provided him with a theoretical structure for the Christian experience of God by means of which ‘the unavoidable internal contradictions in the image of a creator-god can be reconciled in the unity and wholeness of the self as the coniunctio oppositorum of the alchemists or as a unio inystica’ (JUNG II, p. 311 (338)). It is clear that Jung’s most significant religious experience did not have to do with the reconciling of God and man, but rather with the reconciliation of the opposites within the God-image itself (Ibid.). Although Jung’s theological solution takes its content from Western alchemy, its form was largely shaped in his earlier encounter with Eastern religion. In his Commentary on ‘The secret of the golden flower’ Jung summarised the significance of this encounter as bringing God within the range of his own experience of reality. By this he did not mean that he was adopting the metaphysics of Eastern yoga, for this he explicitly rejects. By seeing God, not as an absolute beyond all human experience, but as a powerful impulse within my personality, says Jung, ‘I must concern myself with him, for then he can become important, even unpleasantly so, and can affect me in practical ways . . . ‘ (JUNG 5, p. so).

While analysing the differences he found between East and West Jung noticed that in the East the religions received great respect because they provided the paths or yogas by which entrapment in the tensions of the pairs of opposites could be overcome. By contrast, Western forms of contemplation are little developed and in general are not respected. Contemplative religious orders are often judged to be worthless because they spend their time meditating and doing nothing, rather than in helping the needy. Jung states it concisely. ‘No one has time for self-knowledge or believes that it could serve any sensible purpose . . . We believe exclusively in doing and do not ask about the doer… ‘(JUNG 10, p. 498). This leads Jung to conclude that the religious attitude of the West is extroverted while that of the East is introverted (JUNG 7, p.488). While Western religion sees God immanently at work in the events of the natural world, and acting through grace in his transcendental separation from the world (Rudolph Otto), Eastern religion finds spiritual information and guidance mainly through introspection. Here Jung would probably admit that he is overemphasising for the purpose of making his point (Ibid., p. 506). Eastern religions, such as Hinduism, do not receive spiritual information and guidance only through introspection. For the Hindu the encounter with his scriptural revelation, the Veda, which comes to him from the external world (thus given cultural environment), is essential for his eventual realisation of moksa or release. Similarly, the Western Christian, for example, has some sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit within. But the general insight Jung stated as a result of his encounter with Eastern yoga still receives credence today. Recent Western commentators such as Jacob Needleman (15) and Theodore Roszak (19) still stress the necessity. of an ‘inward turn’ exactly as Jung prescribed it some forty years ago.

Yet another aspect of Eastern religion which attracted Jung was that it was based on an experiential knowledge of man’s own consciousness, and not on the blind faith or otherworldly grace that he felt characterised much Western religion. If the Eastern approach were adopted by the West, not only would this remove religion from the realms of otherworldly superstition, it would also do away with the conflict between religion and science. As long as science is based on empirical fact, and religion on blind faith, the barrier between the two will remain and the psychic split within Western man will deepen into still more of Nietzsche’s madness. In the West both science and religion have to become less dogmatic and expand their awareness. ‘There is no conflict between religion and science in the East,’ says Jung, ‘because no science is there based upon the passion for facts, and no religion upon mere faith …’ (JUNG 7, p. 480). Of course Jung realised that he was referring here to traditional Eastern science and not to the imported brands of  Western science that one now encounters in contemporary Eastern universities.6

VI.    JUNG’S VIEW OF THE LIMITS (BENEFITS AND DANGERS) IN THE WESTERN ENCOUNTER WITH YOGA

There is little doubt that Jung’s encounter with the various Indian, Tibetan and Chinese forms of yoga had a significant and beneficial impact upon his life. But it was an impact that he found difficult to communicate to his Western readers. Jung was only too aware of the strong possibility that any such attempt would run the risk of promoting misunderstanding at many different levels-some relatively harness, others quite dangerous. He realised that because the Westerner typically does not know his own unconscious, it is quite likely that when he finds the East strange and hard to understand he will project onto it everything he fears and despises in himself Anyone who has had the experience of teaching the East to the general public of the West can confirm this insight of Jung. The other kind of typical Western reaction, and perhaps the one which Jung feared most, is to be quickly attracted to the East, to give up one’s own heritage, and, with little or no understanding of the psychic processes involved, to become a ‘surface’ imitator of Eastern yoga-in a word, to mindlessly ape the East. As Jung put it, “The usual mistake of Western man when faced with this problem   of grasping the ideas of the East is like that of the student in Faust. Misled by the devil, he contemptuously turns his back on science and, carried away into Eastern occultism, takes over yoga practices word for word and becomes a pitiable imitator’ (JUNG 5, p. 7). The reason Jung feared this so much was that he felt the direct practice of yoga by a Westerner would only serve to strengthen his will and consciousness and so further intensify the split with the unconscious. This would simply add more aggravation to the already chronic Western ailment – over-development of the will and the conscious aspect of the psyche. The outcome would be just as disastrous for the Western neurotic who suffers from the opposite problem of a lack of development of the conscious and a predominance of the unconscious. Since the thrust of yoga is inward, it would only plunge such a neurosis further into the depths (Ibid., p. 14). In addition to these considerations, Jung pointed out that if we try to snatch spiritual techniques directly from the East ‘we have merely indulged our Western acquisitiveness, confirming yet again that “everything good is outside”, whence it has to be fetched and pumped into our barren souls’ (JUNG 7, p. 483).

When the above limitations and dangers are taken seriously, Jung felt that the West could obtain substantial benefits from encounter with the East. One of the major contributions of Western contact with the various spiritual disciplines of Eastern yoga is that they serve to remind the West that some-thing similar may be found in its own cultural heritage. As examples of authentic spiritual practices, which have been forgotten by the modem West, Jung points frequently to the spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola, but with deepest interest to Western medieval alchemy. And in addition to helping the West recover these most valuable aspects of its own tradition, contact with the East also had the effect of directing the attention of modem Western man to the importance of his inner nature and its intuitive function. As Jung clearly demonstrates in His last essay, ‘Approaching the unconscious’, scientific as well as artistic and religious creativity may directly depend on sensitivity to the intuitive process of the unconscious (JUNG 12). Even in his own day Jung looked upon the growing interest in Eastern yoga as a sign that the West was beginning to relate to the intuitive elements within itself

Were he alive today Jung would probably judge the even greater fascination with the East in the same optimistic way. But he would surely repeat again and again his warning to the West that denial of its own historical foundations and its contemporary scientific advances would be sheer folly and the best way to bring about yet another uprooting of consciousness JUNG 5, p. 49).

You cannot he a good Christian and redeem yourself, nor can you be a Buddha and worship God. It is much better to accept the conflict we must get at Eastern values from within and not from without, seeking them in ourselves, in the unconscious… (JUNG 7, pp. 483-4).

Jung believed that the science of modern psychology would provide the necessary means for the contemporary West to seek within successfully Jung 5, p. 43)

VII. SUMMARY

Jung does not use the term ‘yoga’ in a narrow technical way as is the case, for example, in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. In his writings Jung applies ‘yoga’ in a general way to encompass all of his encounters with Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist systems of thought. Following upon His 1912-1918 confrontation with the unconscious, Jung’s encounter with yoga served two important purposes. First, it provided him with confirming evidence that others had had similar experiences to his own. Second, it gave further substance to the Gnostic suggestion that consciousness was wider than modem man’s fixation upon the scientific intellect seemed to allow. Indeed it appears that in the development of Jung’s thinking, yoga led him on from his early fascination with gnosticism to a decade or so of sojourn to the East, and then back to Western alchemy.

The fundamental importance of the pairs of Opposites (dvandva) in Eastern thought provided Jung with powerful cross-cultural confirmation of his personal experience of the psychic tension within the personality. Jung observed that Hindu concepts such as Rta and Dharma highlight the inherent laws of human nature which, when followed, guide the natural flow of libido into the middle path through the conflict of opposites. The overcoming of the conflict of opposites within the personality is the goal of the various margas or psychological disciplines of Eastern yoga. Modern Western man has overweighted the conscious orientation of the psyche and thus suffers from a condition of chronic imbalance. The Easterner, by contrast, through the practice of his various yogas has kept a better balance between the pairs of opposites and thus does not as yet suffer from the same chronic problems as Western man. Jung repeatedly warns, however, that the solution for the Westerner cannot be found in taking up the direct practice of Eastern yoga-this would only serve to intensify the existing neurosis or split within consciousness. But Jung felt that knowledge of Eastern yoga could play an effective role in sensitising one to techniques or disciplines present within Western thought, which when adopted, could correct the imbalance of the modern psyche. Jung’s study of yoga focused his interest on the spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola, and particularly upon the practices of medieval alchemy. However, in the end it was the pathway of individuation through active imagination that, in Jung’s view, was the appropriate ‘yoga’ for modern Western man.

Perhaps the most important result of this study is the observance of a basic divergence between Jung and most traditional Eastern yoga. Although Jung finds close agreement between his personal experience and the Eastern view of the dynamic tension between the pairs of opposites, Jung firmly believed that it was impossible to get beyond this tension. To most orthodox Hindus, for example, moksa means a complete freedom or transcendence from the tensions of the pairs of opposites. Jung, however, argued that without such dynamic tension there is no life. The basis of Jung’s disagreement is rooted in his typically Western view of ego. Since experience of oneself as an individual ego is fundamentally an experience of separation from other objects and persons, and since separation is the cause of the pairs of opposites, the complete overcoming of the pairs of opposites implies the eradication of the ego. But if there is no ego, there is no knower and therefore no consciousness. In Jung’s view abolishing the ego to transcend the opposites leaves Only the unconscious – an outcome which simply will not square with the Western experience of philosophy, religion, and modern science.

REFERENCES

I.    BENNETT, E. A. (I 966). What Jung really said. London, Macdonald.

2.    Eliade, M. (1958). Yoga: immortality and freedom. Princeton University Press.

F    3. JUNG, C. G. (1921). Psychological types. Coil. wks., 7.

4.    (1928). ‘The relations between the ego and the unconscious’. Coil. wks., 7.

From Man and His Symbols

Jung’s thinking has coloured the world of modern psychology more than many of those with casual knowledge realise. Such familiar terms, for instance, as “extrovert,” “introvert,” and “archetype” are all Jungian concepts-borrowed and sometimes misused by others. But his overwhelming contribution to psychological understanding is his concept of the unconscious-not (like the “subconscious” of Freud) merely a sort of glory-hole of repressed desires, but a world that is just as much a vital and real part of the life of an individual as the conscious, “cogitating” world of the ego, and infinitely wider and richer.  The language and the “people” of the unconscious are symbols, and the means of communications dreams.

Thus an examination of Man and his Symbols is in effect an examination of man’s relation to his own unconscious. And since in Jung’s view the unconscious is the great guide, friend, and adviser of the conscious, this book is related in the most direct terms to the study of human beings and their

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spiritual problems. We know the unconscious and communicate with it (a two-way service) principally by dreams; and all through this book (above all in Jung’s own chapter) you will find a quite remarkable emphasis placed on the importance of dreaming in the life of the individual.

It would be an impertinence on my part to attempt to interpret Jung’s work to readers, many of whom will surely be far better qualified to understand it than I am. My role, remember, was merely to serve as a sort of “intelligibility filter” and by no means as an interpreter. Nevertheless, I venture to offer two general points that seem important to me as a layman and that may possibly be helpful to other non-experts. The first is about dreams. To Jungians the dream is not a kind of standardised cryptogram that can be decoded by a glossary of symbol meanings. It is an integral, important, and personal expression of the individual unconscious. It is just as “real” as any other phenomenon attaching to the individual. The dreamer’s individual unconscious is communicating with the dreamer alone and is selecting symbols for its purpose that have meaning to the dreamer and to nobody else. Thus the interpretation of dreams, whether by the analyst or by the dreamer himself, is for the Jungian psychologist an entirely personal and individual business (and sometimes an experimental and very lengthy one as well) that can by no means be undertaken by rule of thumb.

The converse of this is that the communications of the unconscious are of the highest importance to the dreamer-naturally so, since the unconscious is at least half of his total being-and frequently offer him advice or guidance that could be obtained from no other source. Thus, when I described Jung’s dream about addressing the multitude, I was not describing a piece of magic or suggesting that Jung dabbled in fortune telling. I was recounting in the simple terms of daily experience how Jung was “advised” by his own unconscious to reconsider an inadequate judgement he had made with the conscious part of his mind.

Now it follows from this that the dreaming of dreams is not a matter that the well-adjusted Jungian can regard as simply a matter of chance. On the contrary, the ability to establish communication with the unconscious is a part of the whole man, and Jungians “teach” themselves (I can think of no better term) to be receptive to dreams. When, therefore, Jung himself was faced with the critical decision whether or not to write this book, he was able to draw on the resources of both his conscious and his unconscious in making up his mind. And all through this book you will find the dream treated as a direct, personal, and meaningful communication to the dreamer-a communication that uses the symbols common to all mankind, but that uses them on every occasion in an entirely individual way that can be interpreted only by an entirely individual “key.”

The second point I wish to make is about a particular characteristic of argumentative method that is common to all the writers of this book-perhaps of all Jungians. Those who have limited themselves to living entirely in the world of the conscious and who reject communication with the unconscious bind themselves by the laws of conscious, formal life. With the infallible (but often meaningless) logic of the algebraic equation, they argue from assumed premises to incontestably deduced conclusions. Jung and his colleagues seem to me (whether they know it or not) to reject the limitations of this method of argument. It is not that they ignore logic, but they appear all the time to be arguing to the unconscious as well as to the conscious. Their dialectical method is itself symbolic and often devious. They convince not by means of the narrowly focused spotlight of the syllogism, but by skirting, by repetition, by presenting a recurring view of the same subject seen each time from a slightly different angle-until suddenly the reader who has never been aware of a single, conclusive moment of proof finds that he has unknowingly embraced and taken into himself some wider truth.

Jung’s arguments (and those of his colleagues) spiral upward over his subject like a bird circling a tree. At first, near the ground, it sees only a confusion of leaves and branches. Gradually, as it circles higher and higher, the recurring aspects of the tree form a wholeness and relate to their surroundings. Some readers may find this “spiralling” method of argument obscure or even confusing for a few pages-but not, I think, for long. It is characteristic of Jung’s method, and very soon the reader will find it carrying him with it on a persuasive and profoundly absorbing journey.

The different sections of this book speak for themselves and require little introduction from me. Jung’s own chapter introduces the reader to the unconscious, to the archetypes and symbols that form its language and to the dreams by which it communicates. Dr. Henderson in the following chapter illustrates the appearance of several archetypal patterns in ancient mythology, folk legend, and primitive ritual. Dr. von Franz, in the chapter entitled “The Process of Individuation,” describes the process by which the conscious and the unconscious within an individual learn to know, respect, and accommodate one another. In a certain sense this chapter contains not only the crux of the whole book, but perhaps the essence of Jung’s philosophy of life: Man becomes whole, integrated, calm, fertile, and happy when (and only when) the process of individuation is complete, when the conscious and the unconscious have learned to live at peace and to complement one another. Mrs. Jaffe’, like Dr. Henderson, is concerned with demonstrating, in the familiar fabric of the conscious, man’s recurring interest in-almost obsession with-the symbols of the unconscious. They have for him a profoundly significant, almost a nourishing and sustaining, inner attraction-whether they occur in the myths and fairy tales that Dr. Henderson analyses or in the visual arts, which, as Mrs. Jaffe’ shows, satisfy and delight us by a constant appeal to the unconscious.

Finally I must say a brief word about Dr. Jacobi’s chapter, which is somewhat separate from the rest of the book. It is in fact an abbreviated case history of one interesting and successful analysis. The value of such a chapter in a book like this is obvious; but two words of warning are nevertheless necessary. First, as Dr. von Franz points out, there is no such thing as a typical Jungian analysis. There can’t be, because every dream is a private and individual communication, and no two dreams use the symbols of the unconscious in the same way. So every Jungian analysis is unique-and it is misleading to consider this one, taken from Dr. Jacobi’s clinical files (or any other one there has ever been), as “representative” or “typical.” All one can say of the case of Henry and his sometimes lurid dreams is that they form one true example of the way in which the Jungian method may be applied to a particular case. Secondly, the full history of even a comparatively uncomplicated case would take a whole book to recount. Inevitably, the story of Henry’s analysis suffers a little in compression. The references, for instance, to the I Ching have been somewhat obscured and lent an unnatural (and to me unsatisfactory) flavour of the occult by being presented out of their full context. Nevertheless, we concluded-and I am sure the reader will agree-that, with the warnings duly given, the clarity, to say nothing of the human interest, of Henry’s analysis greatly enriches this book.

I began by describing how Jung came to write Man and his Symbols. I end by reminding the reader of what a remarkable-perhaps unique-publication this is. Carl Gustav Jung was one of the great doctors of all time and one of the great thinkers of this century. His object always was to help men and women to know themselves, so that by self-knowledge and thoughtful self-use they could lead full, rich, and happy lives. At the very end of his own life, which was as full, rich, and happy as any I have ever encountered, he decided to use the strength that was left to him to address his message to a wider public than he had ever tried to reach before. He completed his task and his life in the same month. This book is his legacy to the broad reading public.

Example 11 – Descriptions of Enlightenment

A person trying to describe their experience of wider awareness

Now it seemed as if my awareness went beyond the frontier. This was a very visual experience. I was seeing a vast desert and I knew this represented immense periods of time, perhaps what we call eternity. So it could be called the Desert of Eternity. Here and there in the desert were huge rock formations, a little bit like what one sees in Monument Valley in Arizona. But these rock formations were not plain or slightly coloured rock. Also they were immense. They had the appearance of massive mosaics – brightly coloured mosaics. But the mosaics did not form illustrations or patterns. However, some pieces of the mosaics were larger than others. And each piece might be in itself multicoloured and a sort of miniature pictograph.

As I looked at these massive formations I understood that they had been carved or created through events in the passage of time. Each mosaic, each part of the overall mosaic, had been formed by enormous creative acts, or by long-standing actions. So these latter were like ideograms or archetypes. So, for instance, mother creatures have cared for, fought for, died for their young. This pattern of behaviour has been so enormously potent and perhaps we can use the word successful, that it has created, shaped aspects of eternity. It has left its pattern, its artwork, on time itself. Thus eternity honours that pattern by giving it a place in the very structure of itself. No one being created such a mosaic in the formations. Such a mosaic was large and had in it the essence of all the lives that formed it.

So the rock formations and the mosaics on them represented influences that will flow into the future. They were sources of power or influence that shaped the phenomenal world. They were the body under the coat so to speak.

 

Afloat in the Ocean of Sentience

While snorkelling off Atsitsa Bay on the Greek Island of Skyros, I was cruising along in crystal clear water about four or five meters deep. The water was warm and there were plenty of fish to watch. As I reached the tip of the island I suddenly swam over the edge of an underwater precipice. The water was so incredibly clear I could see into an immense depth, with thousands of fish adding dimension to the abyss. The sudden depth scared me, so I scrambled back to shallow water to gain confidence before once more floating over the abyss. It was an extraordinary experience, swimming in shafts of light, floating in enormous space in the midst of thousands of living creatures.

This describes a little of how it feels when we become aware of the immense web of life in which we exist. The analogy can be taken further, because one way of explaining how synchronous events work in our life is to say that we all float in an ocean of sentience.

Experience of War

As I lay there on the floor, torn from the depths of sleep, I felt such extremity of fear as I had never known. From the waist downward I shook in an uncontrollable trembling, horrible to experience. In the same fraction of time, the upper part of me reached out instinctively, with a deep gasping breath, to something beyond my knowledge.

I had the experience of being caught, as neatly and cleanly as a good fielder catches a ball. A sense of indescribable relief flowed through my whole being. I knew with a certainty, such as no other certainty could be, that I was secure. There was no assur­ance that I should not be blown to pieces in the next instant. I expected to be. But I knew that, though such might be my fate, it was not of great account. There was something in me that was indestructible. The trembling ceased and I was completely col­lected and calm. Another shell came and burst, but it had lost its terror.

An overview of Life

To quote J. B. Priestly from his book Rain Upon Godshill: ‘Just before I went to America, during the exhausting weeks when I was busy with my Time Plays, I had such a dream, and I think it left a greater impression on my mind than any experience I had ever known before, awake or in dreams, and said more to me about this life than any book I have ever read. The setting of the dream was quite simple, and owed something to the fact that not long before my wife had visited the lighthouse here at St Catherine’s to do some bird ringing. I dreamt I was standing at the top of a very high tower, alone, looking down upon myriads of birds all flying in one direction; every kind of bird was there, all the birds in the world. It was a noble sight, this vast aerial river of birds. But now in some mysterious fashion the gear was changed, and time speeded up, so that I saw generations of birds, watched them break their shells, flutter into life, mate, weaken, falter and die. Wings grew only to crumble; bodies were sleek, and then, in a flash bled and shrivelled; and death struck everywhere at every second. What was the use of all this blind struggle towards life, this eager trying of wings, this hurried mating, this flight and surge, all this gigantic meaningless effort?

As I stared down, seeming to see every creature’s ignoble little history almost at a glance, I felt sick at heart. It would be better if not one of them, if not one of us, had been born, if the struggle ceased for ever. I stood on my tower, still alone, desperately unhappy. But now the gear was changed again, and the time went faster still, and it was rushing by at such a rate, that the birds could not show any movement, but were like an enormous plain sown with feathers. But along this plain, flickering through the bodies themselves, there now passed a sort of white flame, trembling, dancing, then hurrying on; and as soon as I saw it I knew that this white flame was life itself, the very quintessence of being; and then it came to me, in a rocket burst of ecstasy, that nothing mattered, nothing could ever matter, because nothing else was real but this quivering and hurrying lambency of being. Birds, men and creatures not yet shaped and coloured, all were of no account except so far as this flame of life travelled though them. It left nothing to mourn over behind it; what I had thought was tragedy was mere emptiness or a shadow show; for now all real feeling was caught and purified and danced on ecstatically with the white flame of life. I had never before felt such deep happiness as I knew at the end of my dream of the tower and the birds.’

Extending Further

This has happened to me several times, and each time is similar. It is as though I have grown used to living in a room in a house. It is all I have ever known, so I take it that this is all there is of me. Then suddenly it feels as if the walls of that room melt away, or a door opens, and there I am stretching away forever. My mind, and what I can know, has no boundaries. If I think about a question, whatever it is, I have the most amazing response and insight, as if I have lived throughout all history. I feel as If I am part of a huge and unlimited sea of mind or consciousness. In it is all that has ever existed, merged and yet distinct. Every human talent and thought is in it alive and vital. At those times I know with an unshakeable surety that we cannot help but be a part of this immense life. Yet at the same time we can be at odds with it, be unsympathetic to it. This causes a condition of stress within us, and within our relationship with it. But I feel that if we completely accept our place in this being, even though one is a minute and seemingly insignificant part of it, then we are aligned with its huge universal life and purpose. Then we become revivified in some way.

Remembering

About 10 years ago I was what you would call awakened, enlightened, I would say living on the next spiritual plane. In a state of being where you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror expecting your eyes to have turned into deep, unending pools, encompassing all space, time and knowledge. All of life looked to me like a giant, glistening, shining web, and I lived at the centre of that web, and everyone else lived at the centre of their own web, and all of the webs were interlinked. Like a spider I could feel every tremor in the web; everything that happened in the world, every footfall, every mind waking up and going to sleep… I felt it and knew of it all…

I lived outside of time. The past, present and future were all one, and I always knew what was coming next. I saw how all of our yesterdays and tomorrows affected our now’s and next year’s… I lived in the pure present, and yet my consciousness spanned across all of time…

(Wow, what a great feeling to suddenly remember all of this again!)

I lived this way for some time but ultimately I did not know where to go next – I did not know what the next stage was. So I spent all my time frantically trying to enlighten others, and eventually I burned out. I came back to earth with a crash and sank into a deep depression. As a result, I have been a little afraid of going back there. But everything I have learned since then has suddenly come together and I know that it is safe to attempt to reach that state of being once more. I knew straight away that this dream I had was a calling back to that realm, a catalyst.

Every truth I have searched for, every book I have read, every conversation I’ve had, and every thought I have formed since then, has been an endless search for knowledge of where we go next once we have achieved that state of being, of how to live in that dimension. I have not been able to access that realm until now, because I could not go there again without knowledge of what to do once I am there, and without some surety that I will not come back to earth with such a bump this time. The new discoveries in quantum physics and neuroscience are a big part of this new understanding. If anyone had told me 10 years ago that science would bring some coherence to my spirituality, I would have doubted it. But for some time now I have had the surety that science and spirituality would one day come together, and I have devoted my time to both equally for the last 8 years, looking for some sign that this would come to pass. It seems that time is here.

 

The Bubble

I needed to go to the toilet to urinate. It was a great pleasure to do this, and to watch the falling water splash into the pool creating many bubbles. But something caught my attention, for it seemed that each small bubble was an eye looking up at me. Wondering what this could mean I looked more closely, to see not eyes, but I’s. Each bubble had a tiny reflection of myself in it. Because my senses were amplified the ability of our waking consciousness to receive information from the unconscious was heightened, I was led to see each of the tiny replicas of myself as having separate identity. The suggestion behind this was that I, and everybody else, with our personal identity, are like bubbles. We are all in our own sphere of skin, apparently separated, and yet at the same time, all part of the same substance. As this interesting line of experience developed, I saw that each of the separate bubbles, although they each were different in size, occupied a different space, and therefore had a different identity, only had awareness out of my own consciousness. They were all unknowingly reflections of me.[i]

Suddenly, and with some fear, I realised the meaning of this interesting fantasy. I am a bubble. My personal awareness, although it seems distinct and separate, is in fact the reflection of one great consciousness pervading the universe. So who am I when my bubble bursts, as it must, and I return to my source? The fear I first felt has long melted. It has been replaced by joy as I have explored what it means to burst and return home.

Touching the Centre

In the dream I looked over at a plain wall in the room. It was light green. To my amazement a huge living and wondrous circle appeared on the wall. It was full of movement, everything dancing in time to music. At the very centre of the circle was emptiness, nothing, a void. Yet out of this nothingness all things emerged. There were plants, animals, people, hills, rivers and mountains all coming to birth. They danced out in their own individual movement, yet each unknowing 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.

To touch that centre, to be renewed by it, you may need to surrender to it, to let things happen. You need to hold it as an image and drop into the centre with as much trust as you can. By doing so you are opening to the primal essence in you for renewal, for guidance – a guide in the dance. You may be out of step even with yourself. That is your sickness.

A View of Eternity

Before I went to sleep that night I focused on the question -Who am I, really?

The dream was vivid, and still gives me shivers to this day. I dreamed that I looked up and there was this incredible star that was emanating points of light in the sky. It got brighter and brighter and the bottom-most point reached down to where I was and transported me up to the star. The points of light came out from the centre in all directions, and I found myself on the end of one of the horizontal points.

A wonderful (female) voice spoke to me and said this is who you are, and I had the strong sense of being located at the end of the horizontal light bar. Then she said and this is who you are and carried (transported in some way) me to the next bar of light, where I saw another version (incarnation?) of myself (in a different time and place, although I knew that the essence of this version of me was really me). She continued transporting me from bar to bar where I experienced myself in many different versions in the past, present, and future. I had different skills and interests that were the focal point of each version of myself–a musician in one, a farmer in another.

Some of the versions were females, although I experienced the same sense of self in all of them. Then she returned me to the horizontal bar of my current self and said to me that all of this is who I am, but that now she was going to show me who I really am. Then she drew me into the centre of the star (light, energy source) where I merged with her and could see each of the emanating points of light as manifestations of a single source or spirit. It was one of the most incredible feelings of being integrated and whole that I’ve ever experienced, and I basked in the feeling for a while just absorbing and soaking it in. Then she returned me to myself (with a cosmic wink) and I slept peacefully for the rest of the night. Ever since then I haven’t felt the need to ask who or what I am, and I’ve seen my various abilities and struggles in life in a totally new way. C.A.

 

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[i] ‘And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ Genesis 1:26.

Angling

This shows you creating a receptive state of consciousness that allows the deep insights or processes within you to become known. You are literally dipping into your unconscious levels of awareness to bring insights and intuitions to the surface. So you are trying to find spiritual nourishment, ‘fishing’ for ideas or information. You might even be fishing for compliments. See: fish and sea creatures.

When we fish in a dream or usually represents us creating a receptive state of consciousness which allows the us to find things that are usually difficult to ‘catch’ with our normal mind. So it is like trying to bring things up from our memory that we have either forgotten or perhaps never ever realised before. So it is like trying to find spiritual nourishment. It might in some dream show us ‘fishing’ for ideas, compliments or information; seeking intuition.

Fishing rod: Male sexuality; personal power, or feelings of impotence.

Getting a new fishing rod: In a man’s dream might mean feeling anxious about his ability to ‘hook’ a woman. For a woman it could mean a desire to ‘catch’ a new man. In general the rod suggests the means of pulling something out of the unknown of life or your mind. So it could suggest intuition or skill in acquiring creative ideas, or something that nourishes.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are your trying to catch, a partner, inner wisdom, something to deal with hunger?

Have I been looking within myself lately for creative ideas or understanding?

Has anything been caught, and if so what do I feel about it?

What do the events and environment of the dream add to my understanding?

Did you catch anything, and if so what did it make you feel?

Where you trying to hook objects –  if what memories do they link with?

Try talking as to define your dreams meaning.

Twin

There are several possibilities when you dream of a twin or twins.

The first one is that it is part of you that has got split off from your main development. So they can be one of the many polar opposites or splits in our being – the split between waking consciousness and sleep or the unconscious; the split between what we want in our deepest desires, and what we can allow ourselves socially; the split caused by infant trauma; the split between our sense of eternity and the facts of physical mortality; introversion and extroversion; something of self which has got split off, or perhaps even ‘died at birth’, leaving us feeling only half a person; the lack of balance in our being.

Twins can also represent duality, conflict, or two sides of an issue, but also the emergence of something new, something that was denied, that you were born with, but never acknowledged as part of yourself. It can also be your unconscious relationship with another person, such as occurs in a telepathic link. In some cases though it is about separation, and the feelings you have about that, or about the denied or unrealised part of yourself.

But if you were a twin at birth and you twin died it could be a reference to them and your continued link with them. To quote from http://www.twinlesstwins.org/GRIEF/ProfessionalResearch/TwinBereavement.aspx –

“When we lose a twin, it feels for many of us like the literal end of our lives. That is true, in that it is the end of life as we have known it since the moment of our conception. As one twin explained to me: ‘The day my twin died, the lights went out.’ Another twin said to me, ‘After Daphne died, it was as if I couldn’t breathe. I’d never in my life thought about breathing. I just took it for granted that Daphne and my breath were part of being alive.’ When our twin dies, we must begin to breathe again; we must begin again with our lives, starting with what truly feels like the end.”

“Twins begin their identify formation in the womb. Whether fraternal or identical, they receive different stimuli and resources in the womb environment and, therefore, have different experiences that affect their fetal development. But from their cellular origins, they are ushered into the womb in relationship, both to their mother and to each other. And early on, they begin to show distinct, individual, and also interactive patterns of behavior and temperament, which have been observed and documented by researchers with the use of ultra-sonography. These patterns are often repeated after birth.”

But here is another possibility, explained by man who was trying to find himself.

There is a part of me that he has never actually involved in this present life. It has never been expressed. It has never been incarnated. It is almost as if it was not born with me. It has never expressed through the body. It hasn’t made itself real through the body. So it is almost as if it has been a spiritual or invisible twin, a ghost, a spirit guide. It is influencing his life – God, what a story – and yet is so frustrated. Frustrated all the time because it can’t live its life. It is pushing and pushing me toward what it wants to do, yet it is not felt as wholly me. It is not something I have built into my life and trusts, and so I do not live it in the same way as he lives the other areas of my life. When I look at this question though, I see there is a problem which is a part of my nature. It has created this division. When I was born there was a struggle about incarnation. I didn’t want to be born. I didn’t want to face again the experience of the world. So, a very large part of me was cut off from involvement and expression. It was pulled back or held back. It did not directly build the body or build the experience it might have done otherwise. See Meeting My Baby Self

An amazing conception happened after two eggs were fertilised at the same time in the womb. Both Kylie and her partner Remi Horder, pictured below, are of mixed race. Their mothers are both white and their fathers are black. According to the Multiple Births Foundation, baby Kian must have inherited the black genes from both sides of the family, whilst Remee inherited the white ones. The odds against of a mixed race couple having twins of dramatically different colour are a million to one.

A mixed-race British couple has defied the odds — twice — by producing two sets of twins in which one sibling appears to be black and the other white.

Alive

In some dreams there is a great feeling of extraordinary aliveness, or there is a particular emphasis on the difference between being alive and dead. This usually refers to the dreamers potential of positive feelings and energy. The dream might even compare the two.

Example: I was alone in a house and asleep in bed. Something materialised or landed on the foot of the bed. It woke me a little and I felt afraid. I had the feeling it was some sort of entity materialising and coming for me in some way. It moved up the bed a little. I felt paralysed, partly by fear but also as if the ‘thing’ was influencing me. This made me more afraid of it. Then it moved up higher, not on my body but on the bed. I was very afraid and struggling against the paralysing influence. I managed to shout at it – “I will destroy you. I will destroy you”. As I shouted I pushed at it with my hand. This felt to me as if I were going to will its destruction and use my hand to smash it. I still felt a little uncertain of the outcome but I was very determined to fight it. At this point I woke up or was awakened by my wife. She asked me what I had been dreaming. Apparently I had been pushing her and shouting that I would destroy her. David P.

David explored his dream in depth and describes his insights as follows –

I started by considering the recent nightmare of the ‘thing’ at the foot of my bed. Gradually I began to feel tense throughout my body, with difficulty in breathing. The ‘thing’ seemed at first to be a woman’s vagina. There was a little feeling in this but not much. Then it slowly grew in intensity and I realised the ‘thing’ was death. Recently it is obvious from the mirror that my body is going through another period of rapid ageing. The dream was a dramatic representation of my feelings about this. Death was gradually creeping up on me, gradually overwhelming me and I was fighting it. As the session deepened I saw that in my feelings I felt that death had put its finger on me. The touch of death was like a disease though. Once touched the disease was incurable and gradually took over one’s body. I could hardly breathe as I experienced this, and I understood the sort of emotions that might lie beneath asthma attacks. This struggle with death went on for some time. It was not terrible but was felt strongly. I also recognised that my wife. Deb, has similar feelings about her ageing, and is communicating to me that her body is dying and unclean, especially her genitals, and this is off-putting. I see that when I shout I ‘I will destroy you!’ in a way it is my fear of being destroyed that is behind the emotion.

I began to wonder what to do about the situation. The feeling was that death was claiming me. So, I wanted to face the truth about death, whatever it was. I wanted to walk right up to it and look it in the face and know whether death meant a final end. If it did I would rather know. As I approached death like this by imaging walking toward the THING, my feelings went through an amazing transformation. All the tension left me. I felt good, positive, easy to breathe and with a sense of hope about life and death. This was so surprising and sudden I wondered what had produced it. I needed to be aware of how this change had occurred. So, I retraced my steps to look at death and try to understand why it had lost its power of fear.

At first I saw that my tension and sense of death being or giving a disease was due to a view I had of it. When we look at the world only through our senses, death is obviously a terminal sickness that claims everyone. Someone said on TV the other day – Life is a sexually transmitted disease that produces a 100% mortality. Seen in this way death is the rotting corpse, the skeleton. The path to it is disease or breakdown. But in looking it in the face I saw another view of it. I saw the dead body, the corpse, the skeleton, as a form left behind by the process of life. When I looked at myself to see what ‘David’ is – I cannot separate myself from the process of life. That process leaves behind shells, bodies, tree trunks, but it goes on creating other forms. I am Life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In the dream what attitude allows or creates this feeling of aliveness?

Do I diminish the feeling in any way, and if so how?

In what ways does this differ from my daily sense of myself, and what can I learn from that?

See Talking with the Dead; Near Death Experiences; Life and Death.

 

A Dream Points the Way

Enlightenment Part 12

Tony Crisp

In my dream I was in a prison cell with two other men. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression of having been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self-pity. I had done this day after day while in the prison. Suddenly I realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was myself. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. So I dropped the attitudes behind the anger and shouting and was free of them. Years went by, and one by one I dropped other habits of emotion and thought with which I had trapped and tortured myself. I realised I could be totally free within myself. One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. So intense was it I cried out. The cellmates called a warden. They stood looking at me as I experienced a radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was mad. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Commentary

We are all prisoners of our emotions, of our thoughts, and of our sense impressions. Mostly we live in these as if they are reality. This is a form of confusion, but also of imprisonment. The bars of this prison are often invisible to the person they enslave. Or else the person calls them ‘Me’. We say, ‘That is how I feel. I don’t like this. I am afraid. I am in love.’ Or else we depend entirely upon events and others to stimulate pleasure or pain in us.

The identification between the thoughts, the emotions, and the sense of self is so immense, that no life outside this imprisoning identification is even suspected. Yet here is the source of most human misery.

Drop the identification, as the dream suggests, and immediately a degree of liberation arises. Drop the multitude of other identifications and gradually the bliss of liberation opens.

Link Back to Chapter Headings – Link to Chapter 13

After Understanding What?

Do You Dream

Tony Crisp

Chapter Ten

We may have discovered in a dream greater self understanding, a knowledge of mankind’s origins, new attitudes to outer competitive living, or even suggestions as to what lies ahead. Like the schoolchild, a great many facts and understandings may have been given to us, but the same question must concern us that concerns the child. What am I going to do with them in life?

Remembering the analogy of the instrument panel, we realise that it depends upon us what we do with the information displayed. Dreams, of and by themselves, do not, will not, solve all our problems. Who has ever removed all problems anyway? Those who have found peace and fulfilment in life did not do so through an escape from difficulties. They did it by relating to their problems in a new way. Likewise, we too can use what is revealed in dreams to relate to the old world in a new way, but this can only be done if we bring certain things to the study of our dreams. For there are many who have most profound and amazing revelations, but whose lives remain unchanged. While there are others who glimpse only a passing fragrance of wisdom, but who take it and transform their lives. So one can truly say that it is not the extent of the wisdom revealed which changes a man, but the extent to which a man or woman can use that wisdom in their daily dealings with life, that produces the change.

Through a dream one may see the folly of acting upon desires arising from possessiveness and jealousy, yet one may go on acting from these same parts of oneself. While the same realisation by another person leads them to think twice before expressing them, which changes their life. That is, not repressing these feelings, but simply recognising where they lead to if acted upon. For if we act upon jealousy, it often leads us to imprison another person in our desires, not allowing them their rightful freedom. Thus a child might be prevented from making deep contacts with new friends, or a wife or husband chained to the limitations of one person’s affection and friendship; or we imprison other parts of our own nature.

Obviously, difficulties beset our path, but life has found a way around difficulties since its inception on Earth millions of years ago. If life had not consistently found ways to deal with problems, we should not be here now. Therefore, a problem solving apparatus is built into us, and expresses itself in dreams. But again, if we do not act upon our innate wisdom, how can it be of value? Nor must we believe that there is only one set way to deal with a situation. One person might easily be able to act upon what is revealed, while another may not have the energy or ability to do so. This does not mean that the latter should therefore give in. They are in a different situation, and have to deal with their problems differently. For everybody starts from a different point, and encounters a different stretch of terrain. Instead of feeling inferior because he does not have the same powers as the man who can immediately act upon his knowledge, he should ask himself, his dreams, ‘Well, how do I cope with this? I have seen it is not for my own good to act out of jealousy, but I don’t seem to have the strength to do otherwise. Is there an alternative? Or can I find strength somehow?’ It is such questions, unconscious though they may have been, that have enabled species to survive ice ages, floods, earthquakes, climatic and environmental changes, and famines. The outwardly strongest, the quickest to act, have not always been the survivors; but those who could adapt even their weaknesses to face the new situation, the new challenge, have continued in the face of problems. Men did not say, ‘Ah, the ice age is too cold, we have not fur enough to face it’ – they put on clothes. So we, too, can find an alternative, even for our weaknesses.

One of the first things to be remembered in dealing with dreams is the persistence in searching for a way to use what we have discovered. It lies in applying our new ‘tool’ to deal with life. But it is no good either, being lazy when, with a little effort, we could use what has already been seen, without alternatives. There is always the temptation to forget, and to let oneself slide back into old attitudes, old habits. Certainly nobody can be condemned for doing so. Life is often difficult enough, without the additional strenuous burden of changing our ways; but one has to admit frankly to oneself, that although change is thus avoided, one still has to suffer the limitations of the old way of life, and we must accept the latter if we choose the former. In the end, it is usually a pressing and painful problem, the desire for something ‘more’ or better, that gives us the necessary energy to meet ourselves and face change.

Even if we have accepted this, we still need help, and this is where the ‘art’ forms of interpretation are invaluable. Unless we have given concrete form in an easily understood manner to the understanding we have gained, it may slip away back into unconsciousness despite our interest in it. Therefore, wherever possible, a record should be kept of interpretations. It is adequate even if only in writing, but if one can catch the essence of it and put it into story form, a new symbol, song, poetry or painting, it becomes a much more powerful aid in conscious life. Especially so if it is then easily seen. In this way, a Christian who carries or wears a cross has a constant reminder of religious resolves through the symbol of the cross.

It is not necessary to do this to all dreams. One usually has a series of ‘small’ dreams, culminating in one or several ‘big’ dreams. Here, the size does not refer to length of dream, but to the amount of understanding and help we discover in it. Therefore, it is only necessary to express the big dreams, as they usually collect all the information in the previous ones, and bring it to highlighted meaning.

To illustrate this, let me use a dream which a friend recently sent to me. He teaches art, and says of the dream, ‘My art class gets a little out of hand, the students rebel. I try to discipline them but am confused, though not unduly worried, except that I feel I may have failed in the task of teaching them as they should be taught.’ We will interpret this purely arbitrarily for the purpose of explanation. We can say that it shows that the controlling factor(s) in his conscious life have become ‘confused’. Any crisis makes all our being act together as a unit.

When we are struggling to stop from drowning, the questions of whether we like the scenery, should we marry the person we are engaged to, or is premarital intercourse right, do not bother us. They are all ‘sub-merged’ (unconsciously united) in the problem of survival. Once the problem has been overcome, however, these other issues may ‘rebel’ and become unsettling influences. Similarly, when we are very sure of our direction, doubts, problems are all ‘submerged’. But if we become uncertain, or wonder whether we should not have chosen another direction, all the voices of our other opinions and doubts can rise Up. We then find it difficult to discipline them, lacking certainty ourselves.

All of which suggests that the dream points to loss of certainty in a previously ruling attitude or direction in life. Let us imagine now that he dreams the class is out on the beach. One of the class looks in a dustbin and finds a beautiful and glowing shell. All the class gather round and wish to paint the shell. If this is now interpreted, we see that the shell is something from deep within that one has discarded. In the light of the first dream, the class has left the restrictions of the old attitude represented by the classroom. The discarded feeling or idea is re-discovered and it draws the whole class to a common end again, uniting them in purpose. If the dreamer associates the shell with intuitive feelings he has had for some time, but discarded due to doubt as to their value, the dream falls into place. The intuitive ideas, the dream suggests, are powerful enough, carrying inner light or energy, to unite once more the conflicting aspects of self. If the dreamer now paints this interpretation, he has a constant reminder of the understanding arrived at. This could be depicted as a group of people sitting around a shell painting it If he frequently sees or thinks about the painting, he is thereby often reminded of what he has learnt about himself. This helps him to allow his intuitive feelings to centre or guide his actions, instead of allowing only his conscious fixed attitudes. These last remarks, and the second dream, of course, are purely speculation to illustrate the use of a painting or symbol.

THE MANDALA OR YANTRA

In many books on dreams, where symbols are being mentioned in regard to expressing the essence of a dream, or series of dreams, one finds comment on Mandalas. The word usually refers to a simple or complex diagram or pattern within a circle or square. The pattern of a maze can be considered as a mandala or yantra. Or the interlaced triangles of the Star of David, if within a circle or square, can also be thought of as yantra or mandala. We do not have a word, or words, in the English language that mean quite the same thing. Therefore, to define their meaning, one could say that they are a symmetrical or meaningful diagram, usually held within a circle or square. If looked at, thought over, or contemplated for any length of time, especially under guidance, the mandala or yantra is seen to symbolise or synthesise knowledge we were previously unaware or unconscious of. In other words, the Star of David could symbolise the interlacing of the visible and invisible forces in the universe. If we carried on thinking about it, we could gradually collect, or realise, more and more about the relationship of seen and unseen. The symbol continuously unites in our mind all this information. It also represents all that remains consciously unknown to us.

Therefore mandalas or yantras are powerful symbols in uniting, making conscious, yet reminding us of the still unknown contents of our own conscious and unconscious being. As symbols they remind us of what we have discovered of ourselves, and of what remains to be discovered. They help us to apply what we have learnt, while remaining receptive to further growth. They can also summarise a whole series of inner events which have already happened, while pointing to the unknown but possible direction these events are leading us to.

Having defined the mandala and yantra, perhaps it can already be seen how the idea can be used to synthesise the understanding of dreams. In the dream already discussed, where a painting showing a circle of people painting a shell was suggested, we could make this into a mandala. The purpose being that in a very simple design, the elements are easier to remember, and can often suggest more powerfully than a more complex symbol. Thus, when looking at an ink blot, we can imagine more faces than if a proper face were drawn. This is because it allows the creative function of our imagination more scope. It also gives our unconscious contents a more plastic form to project upon. Therefore, the simpler the symbol, the more of our inner unconscious contents we can continue to bring up and incorporate into it. The cross, for instance, can symbolise Christianity as a whole. When Jesus is added, its meaning becomes more restricted, and so on. Thus, to make a mandala out of the dream example used, we have to look for the most basic elements. In this particular dream, we have the shell, representing the known, the becoming known, and the still unknown of the depth; and the circle of people representing outer creative expression of what has emerged. We can say the basic elements are the shell and a circle. A mandala could therefore be drawn of a shell in the middle of a circle. Or if we wish to cut it down even more, simply a dot in a circle. Despite its simplicity, this would still remind us of all our interpretation, and be capable of integrating further information.

A STEP FURTHER – MEDITATION

Yantras and mandalas are not absolutely necessary. Nothing is absolutely necessary, but each thing is helpful when used in its appropriate place. Nevertheless, some things revealed through interpretation of dreams, call for frequent application. using the arbitrary interpretation of my artistic friend’s dream once more, we see that the need to drop a more conscious attitude in order to be guided by intuition, which sometimes speaks with the essence of our total self in its present situation, rather than parts of our self such as ambition, and desire for creature comforts, then it becomes wise to listen. After all, intuition is probably one of the few means of expression which our complete memory and experience have. We cannot recall much of what we have read, studied, felt, done, seen or heard; we know next to nothing consciously of the biological processes that formed us, and intuition, waking or in dreams, is an expression of them. When the part of us we call our conscious self gets a helpful message from this other self, it is important that we consider it. We have to remember, however, that not all things that emerge from within are good, helpful or true. The dream, as instrument panel, merely tells us what is going on. It is for us to decide whether that knowledge is applicable, and in what way. In the above dream and interpretation, however, where it seems an association with the intuitive factors will be unifying, action is called for. The only problem is, intuition can be so easily drowned out by daily events. What can be done? In answering this question, we have to realise it is about a specific dream. This is done to make the method clear. But it is hoped the general effectiveness can nevertheless be seen in what is said.

It must be reasonably obvious that any idea or emotion we dwell on or experience for long periods of time, begins to channel a great deal of our energy. It also influences our behaviour. When we think of Henry Ford, whose central thought and desire for many years was to produce an inexpensive motor car, we can see how this aim and desire influenced his behaviour, and even his fate. Almost any great name in history, when studied, reveals a similar story. They have held to particular ideas and desires, sometimes of a negative character, and this has channelled their energies and shaped their destinies. When working with dreams, our aims are not so much to become an historical figure, as to become a happier and whole person. Nevertheless, we can still learn from the example of the famous or infamous. For our own ends we can apply the method of keeping our attention fixed upon ideas and emotions that are important. Naturally, the demands of each day bring forgetfulness, but if we set aside a few minutes before starting work, or at midday, or before sleeping, then we can make a habit of remembering.

Returning once more to our hypothetical dream, we have reached the point of capturing the dream’s essence as a mandala, or if not this, then we have at least reduced it to the idea of the outer conscious self, directing its attention in a receptive manner to the centre, or intuition. As far as the dream is concerned, this is important, and will lead to uniting conflicting emotions and tendencies. If the dreamer, having got this far, now simply forgets the whole thing, little or nothing will have changed for him. His outer life may continue to be ‘confusing’ and rebellious; but if he spends some time each day practising what has been revealed, then his life cannot help but change in some degree. Even if nothing stupendous occurs the very fact that he practises in itself shows he has changed his attitude towards himself. In and by itself, this makes him a more unified person, for he is attempting to listen to his whole spectrum of desires and ideas, directions and needs, rather than just a portion of self. If he practises this new attitude of mind regularly for a long period, then his energies will gradually be diverted from their old course, and begin to express in this more fulfilling direction.

It is repeated that here we are dealing with a particular dream, and one’s own dreams may suggest an entirely different course; but the rules remain the same, the direction of one’s energies can be slowly changed by practising the new attitude of mind as a meditation. As to how this can be done, and what its results will be, I will now try to explain. All that is necessary is to take the mandala or synthesised interpretation, and consider it for a period of fifteen minutes to an hour, depending on temperament. This should be done once or twice each day. By ‘consider’ is meant to think about its meaning; to wonder whether we have applied it; to try to see its implications and results. But more important than thinking about it, one should practise the attitudes of mind and emotion suggested by it. In this case it means that the dreamer should become outwardly still, quieten his thoughts and conscious desires, and then direct his attention to those feelings or ideas suggested by the shell. For the period of the meditation this should be maintained. Each time the attention wanders or attitude changes, it should be gently but firmly brought back. Very little of interest may occur at all during these periods. In fact they must not be thought of as reaching for the spectacular or phenomenal; but as practice sessions, just as one might exercise the body so that it remains strong and supple. This will require a great deal of discipline, but will be seen, after some months, to be worth while.

It is necessary then, to understand the dream, grasp its essence, and practise this; but such dreams only come very seldom, and so we shall not be constantly practising new attitudes. What usually happens is that eventually, after having dealt with one’s dreams for some time, a dream of great importance occurs, summarising all that has gone before. If the message of this dream is applied and practised as suggested then another dream appears much later adding to our understanding and slightly modifying the practice. In this way one slowly progresses through a very personal and intimate course of instructions in self development.

The man who dreamt of the white mouse, and wrote The Shining Mouse, used the story as a starting point for meditation. The white mouse he associated with contact and experience of his deepest life-giving self. If this was to be gained, certain attitudes had to be changed. As the story shows, the mouse cannot be caught by searching for it, grasping it, longing for it or thinking about it. The dreamer realised that he had to give up trying to ‘grab this inner experience to make me more important or wonderful. I saw that I didn’t even know the dwelling place, or source of this part of me. So I had to give up looking. Because, after all, I did not know where to look. I simply had to be quiet and let the Shining Mouse come to me in its own time and way. When I first tried to assume these feelings, everything in me rebelled, and I often gave up the practice, or thought some other type would be better. But I came back to it and kept on, until gradually it began to be easier and natural, and slowly it began to change certain parts of my life.’

GROUP WORK

Wherever possible, it is of enormous help to work on dreams as a group. This is difficult because many people cannot find others as interested in dreams as themselves. But even two people working together can be of great help to each other; but it is safer, where the two are of opposite sexes, to be part of a larger group, unless man and wife. This is said not out of prudishness, but because a great deal of sexual energy is often released in the process, and can cause difficulties unless understood.

One of the main things about working with others is that their questions make us talk, or allow us to talk. Time and time again, a difficult dream has been suddenly understood through talking to somebody else who is interested in dreams. This is not necessarily because they help us to understand through their greater insight. It is as if the meaning pops up as we speak. As if speaking draws it out. This has to be experienced to be believed, but one can be quite hopelessly clueless one moment, and the next moment the answer is there. Possibly this has something to do with the act of speaking, and thus expressing ideas. The fact that one talks about the non-understanding, and unsatisfactory ideas about the dream, seems to clear them out, and make way for the real answer by making one receptive.

Another group benefit is that several different viewpoints and types of questioning about the symbolism of the dream, are often more helpful than simply one narrower viewpoint. Seeing how other people’s dreams are dealt with, and the difficulties they face, also aids us in gaining insight into our own. At first, any such group are almost certainly shy of each other. This is because dreams deal with such intimate and personal aspects of our lives, that to reveal them to others in dream interpretation is not easy. But gradually, as each person realises that everybody else has similar inner contents, these barriers fall, and a great depth of contact, encouragement and love can spring up. The contact comes because we see each other without our social masks and reserves; naked so to speak. The encouragement lies in the fact that because others have similar problems, and are dealing or have dealt with them, this gives us the courage to face them also. While the love arises through sympathy, and knowing the deep spirit that lies beyond the outer tangle or ‘show’ of each person.

Because another person can stand aside from our own situation, they can often see our dreams better than we can ourselves. We may unconsciously not wish to know or understand, and a group helps us to be honest with ourselves. Sometimes, a small advertisement in the local newspaper is all that is necessary to put us in touch with others thus interested.

PROBLEMS AND DANGERS

It is difficult in this book to give anything more than a hint of the difficulties one faces on the ‘dream journey’. It requires a book itself to map out the various experiences one is likely to meet. But fortunately others have already written adequately on the subject, as in P. W. Martin’s Experiment in Depth. Perhaps we can sum up what he has said as follows:

One of the big perils is releasing more emotion or inner contents than we can easily cope with. We see this in the dream of the bull rushing among the cows, and the dreamer being nearly carried away by sexual desires. It is the old problem of biting off more than we can chew. usually, however, dreams will have given us a method of dealing with this before it happens. This may take the form it did with the dreamer of the shining mouse, where he practises the attitude of quietness and not being moved by doubts, fears or desire. Thus, although not repressing the inner contents, one is learning a technique of calm amidst the storm – of finding a rock to cling to amidst the sea’s turmoil. But unless such methods are practised, they cannot be effective. Martin calls this danger being ‘Swallowed up by the unconscious’. Those who retreat completely from everyday life, to live in their inner world can be classified under the same heading. The balance being a unity between inner and outer life.

Another problem occurs if we start the journey of seriously delving into self, and after a long period, suddenly give it up. For things have been glimpsed, possibilities seen that will not let us rest, but cause us a sense of frustration and loss. Or else problems have been released but not dealt with, and haunt us. Obviously, such events do not occur to those of us who are only mildly interested, and merely try to unravel one or two dreams every so often.

The danger of what psychologists call inflation, or hubris, is also met along the way. Contact with the inner wisdom makes one feel ‘special’, ‘different’ or ‘superior’, and here is the danger. For if we feel superior or different, we may act in the same way. This not only alienates us from all except those who seek a new messiah or leader to follow, but it gives us the false impression of being above normal care and events. Thus it can easily happen that one crashes violently with ‘the bars of experience’ the world provides in the outer life. In other words, physical reality – the facts of life. The person may then either be tempted to retreat from the outer life because it questions or attacks their sense of importance – or else the other extreme is to drop into depths of depression, due to feelings of worthlessness, of having failed because life questioned their ideals.

Martin says that experience is usually the lesson that helps us learn how to keep our balance between the extremes, and walk safely. When we have veered to inflation and depression a few times, we can look back and see that this is not the way. It is not what we seek. To feel ‘on top of the world’ and superior may seem like an advancement for a while. Only its results tell us its real value. Nor does morbid criticism of ourselves and the world satisfy us.

A further danger lies in taking dreams or intuition as oracular, godly, or supernatural truths, instead of pointers on our instrument panel. This makes them as much a threat to our wholeness as acting only out of ambition, or sexual desires. These too must be only a ‘part’ of our life, not the controlling factor. After all, not only truths or wisdom are shown in dreams, but also represented are our murderous impulses, homosexual desires, feelings of power and grandeur, etc. All dreams are truths of the inner life, because they represent what is actually going on inside. But we do not therefore have to act upon them all, or believe that the future is ordained by them. This is all a form of irresponsibility.

A danger to women lies in their ability to enter more fully into their inner world of dreams and intuitions, but not being able to construct meaning and purpose so easily as men. They thus may find a man who sympathises with their inner feelings and dreams; who sees great meaning in them, and helps the woman see how they may be applied. This leads to the danger of making the man into a godlike figure who is the soul mate, or spiritual counterpart. This weakens the woman’s own powers of determination, or construction. But, to quote Martin, ‘This is in no way to condemn the true master/ student relationship, where those less gifted or experienced learn from those having special knowledge or insight.’

While the danger for men is to make of the inner journey only an intellectual experience. The man may read and understand, but refuse to free his emotions from the rein of his intellect so that he can experience it. Thereby the man may never know, he will only think he knows.

These are a sort of basic ‘highway code’ for those who wish to make the journey into self discovery. If we learn them by heart, and attempt to understand them, they may remain rather dry at present, but on the journey they could easily be living realities.

Link To Chapters – Link to Chapter Eleven

Using Your Dreams

Do You Dream

Tony Crisp

Chapter Eleven

From all the dreams and information that have already been dealt with, an enormous number of conclusions can be drawn. It is hoped that many of these do not need to be enlarged upon; but because it may not be clear from what has been said, the subject of purposeful use of dreams will be explained in greater detail. For instance, it was mentioned at the very beginning that dreams have helped such varied fields of research and expression as science, literature, philosophy, psychology, and so on. It has to be admitted that most dreams that have given such service have been spontaneous, and often unsought, but in a few cases people have purposely set out to gain information from dreams that they could not easily get in waking consciousness. Businessmen, scientists, laymen, and doctors, have each looked to the dream for help in their various enquiries. In some cases they did not understand the process of dreaming, and so were handicapped. Others had gained an understanding by analysing previous experience, and were better able to use dreams as tools in their research. How this is possible must be reasonably clear from the other chapters. The dream emerges as an expression of what is happening in all the departments of our being. The unconscious biological processes that have made us a living being – the physical and energetic processes of our body, with its digestion, circulation, metabolism, etc. – the relationships between different parts of our being, such as body and mind, sexual and ambitious drives, self and others, all are dealt with in dreams. Likewise, all that we have ever experienced, read, thought, studied, heard or seen, is all stored in the complete memory of our unconscious. Nothing is lost. This vast storehouse of learning and experience, coupled with the wisdom latent in our very cells, built in from millions of years of life experience, are all available to the dream.

A later chapter will show that we are not limited even to our own vast memory, but can pick up thoughts from others through telepathy or expanded consciousness. Therefore, to have a question answered by a dream, is to receive a reply from the most advanced and best educated computer in the world. Even a new-born babe can rely upon the biological knowledge of its cells, which open to it, as instinct and intuitive response, the wisdom of the ages.

The examples of Robert Louis Stevenson gaining ideas for his writings, Kekule discovering the Benzene ring, the dreaming of Kubla Khan, and the dream foretelling the nationalisation of Iranian oil, illustrate a little of this. Another example is quoted in Dreams, The Language of the Unconscious by Hugh Lynn Cayce. The dream occurred to a member of the New York Stock Exchange, on March 5th. 1929. He says, ‘Dreamed we should sell all our stocks including box stock (one considered very good). I saw a bull following my wife, who was dressed in red.’ This dream was interpreted to mean that a crisis was approaching on the stock market, and all should be sold. Unfortunately the man did not heed this advice, and suffered the collapse of the stock market six months later.

Boccaccio, in his Life Of Dante, gives details of a dream had by Jacopo, a son of Dante. After Dante’s death, it was discovered that the last thirteen cantos of the ‘Commedia’ were missing. This caused much debate as to whether they had been written, and all involved searched everywhere. Jacopo and his brother Piero were induced by others to try their hand at writing the missing cantos themselves, but before doing so Jacopo dreamt that ‘his father Dante had appeared to him, clothed in the purest white, and his face resplendent with an extraordinary light; Jacopo asked him if he lived, and Dante replied, “Yes, but in the true life, not your life.” Then Jacopo asked him if he had completed his work before passing into the true life; and if he had done so, what had become of that part which was missing, as none could find it. To this Dante seemed to answer: “Yes, I finished it”, and then took Jacopo by the hand and led him into that chamber Dante had been accustomed to sleep in when he was alive. Touching one of the walls, he said, “What you have sought so much is here.” Then Jacopo awoke and although still night, called upon a friend, who went with him to Dante’s old house. Waking the present owner, they were allowed in, and on coming to the bedroom and looking at the wall indicated in the dream ‘found a mat fixed to the wall. They lifted it gently up, when they found a little window in the wall, never before seen by any of them. In it they discovered several writings, all mouldy from the dampness of the walls,’ and found them to be the missing cantos.

It can be argued, of course, that Jacopo must have noticed the mat before, even if he had never seen beneath it. Therefore it could possibly have concealed a hiding place; but what is important is not the question of whether or not he had seen this, but the fact that he had not consciously thought of it as the hiding place. Even if he had considered it as a hiding place and forgotten it with the passage of time, the dream still presented him with a new combination of ideas – the mat and the cantos. If this is the limit of dream perception, and I am not agreeing that it is, then it still puts the dream in the position of a competent computer. It still shows it as having entrance to our complete memory, and seeking deductive answers from it.

Having admitted this much, we are still faced by a problem, namely, how can we get the dream life to respond to a particular question? Suppose we are a scientist researching on cancer cure, or an archaeologist searching for an elusive clue in his studies, or a philosopher seeking to understand life; or just you or me trying to understand how best to use our abilities; how can we go about finding an answer to our problem? The two dreams quoted already help us towards an answer, even though they are not induced dreams in the sense that we are seeking. They help us because they are induced dreams in a different sense. They are induced by the dreamer’s interests. For the one dream is by a stock broker who recorded and attempted to analyse his dreams. The dream is induced because his interests in life are deeply bound up with the stock exchange. While Jacopo’s dream was induced by the search and by others urging him to finish the cantos.

From just these two dreams we can see that a dream response can be induced by being emotionally and intellectually involved in the question or problem answered. Therefore, if we are going to ask a specific question, it will have a greater likelihood of producing a helpful dream if we become as involved as possible in it. A person I once met had a mother much given to the study and practice of positive thinking. The man wished to take his wife for a holiday abroad, but did not have and could see no possibility of getting sufficient funds to finance this. His mother persuaded him to live positively, however, and told him to plan his holiday anyway. This he did, arranging all details. As time drew near he still did not have sufficient money, and began to get somewhat apprehensive as to how he was going to pay fares and hotel costs. This situation lasted right up to a week before the holiday began. Then he had a dream of a particular horse winning a race. Searching through the papers the following morning he found such a horse by the same name, and bet on it, which was something he never usually did. The horse won, and he had his holiday.

I mention this because here we see the man not only intellectually and emotionally involved to a large degree, but also financially as well. These really are the ideal conditions to provoke a dream to answer our question or problem. I have used this method myself with some success, one dream being a direct answer to a direct question. At the time of the dream I had been researching on the psychological effects of Yoga exercises or postures. I practised the postures and tried as far as was possible to discover consciously what they did to the emotions, instincts and mind. I then asked myself, just before going to sleep, if there were inner effects I was unconscious of. If so, what were they? In this way I hoped to induce a helpful dream. In fact, I had several, but one in particular helped a great deal. In it I was on an underground train. Two black men were standing in the aisle. The train was nearing my station and I passed them to get to the door. One would not stand aside, even after I said ‘Excuse me’, so I had to push past him. This annoyed him so much that he rushed at me with hands extended to strangle me, but I caught his hands in mine, and gradually forced them down from my throat. As I did so, I thought: ‘This is what Yoga has done’ (i.e. given me the strength to stand against the black man).

The meaning of this dream is not readily understood until it is realised that these black men had appeared in other dreams. In one. he got my throat and began to strangle me, and I could do nothing, but awoke in terror. Here we see the unconscious or black parts of my nature which I associated with my instinctive drives and fears, throttling my conscious life. The second dream is therefore saying that Yoga was developing the strength to face and deal with one’s unconscious fears and repressed urges. There is still a conflict, but at least my conscious self can meet its fears on equal terms, which is a very great part of the battle.

Becoming involved in a question is not all there is to inducing informative dreams. Earlier on I suggested that a baby, even though new born, can draw upon its biological past, the result of which is instinct, but the baby cannot ask the same sort of question as we do. Its questions are all associated with survival, feeding, sleeping, relating to its mother, and so on. Even if it could ask a more intellectual question, such as, ‘How can one make a better mousetrap?’ any dream that did give an answer would be quite incomprehensible to the baby. In short, while our dream producing mechanism may have entrance to infinite wisdom and resources, it nevertheless has the problem of explaining it to a very limited intelligence – namely us! In other words, we cannot ask a question that is beyond our present comprehension. If we did get an answer it would be meaningless. The question and answer are all bound up in each other. Dr Washington Carver, in seeking inner intuitive answers to scientific questions, had the same problem. He had before him the task of synthesising various products such as milk, glue, printer’s ink and oils, from peanuts and sweet potatoes. He had to modify his questions, however, to get understandable replies.

This faces us with fresh information as to how we must approach the effort to induce dreams. First of all we have to exhaust the limits of our conscious research into the question. We should read about it, study it, experiment with it, becoming involved as deeply as possible. If an answer to our problem is not forthcoming from these conscious efforts, then we have to realise that what we seek does not lie in the known areas of our knowledge. With the present information at our disposal, we are not able to arrive at a solution. Most breakthroughs in knowledge or understanding, however, are not explainable with the old facts. So we have to let go of our present conclusions, opinions, concepts and feelings, and admit that these present aspects of ourselves do not appear to hold the solution. Or if they do, we cannot see it. Then we have to sleep on it and watch our dreams.

The result of this might be that:

(a) We have no noticeable response at all.

(b) We have only a partial reply to our question.

(c) We have an amazing dream that reveals the answer.

If there seems to be no response, we have to keep trying, and record any dreams that occur. It might be that the dreams are not properly understood, or else we are more deeply involved in some other issue. If the reply is partial, then further dreams may enlarge upon it. It may be that a total reply would be beyond our present comprehension. This is very noticeable when watching a dream series. As it proceeds, and one has gained understanding of the broad outlines of something being revealed, the dreams begin to portray greater detail, which is understandable in the light of what has been learnt; or else our attitudes and concepts are so fixed in one direction of approach, that we have to be gradually led and introduced to new areas. Then the subject proper can be introduced. In this way, a researcher into the problem of migraine headaches might be directing his experiments along the line of a particular type of chemical, but the dream might hold information dealing with it under a physiological approach. Therefore a change of attitude would have to exist at the very start of gaining what the dream holds in store. We have to be willing to let ourselves be educated by the dream. This can take a long time; but then so does any research, for we need to grow in understanding and ability to the point where we can comprehend and make use of what we are seeking. Leonardo de Vinci designed the helicopter, the submarine and the bicycle chain, but it took technology three hundred years to be able to apply this man’s ‘dreams’.

Some of those whose insight into the hidden process of human life amount to genius, have claimed that intuition is based upon vast experience or education. This education or experience can have been forgotten, or be the result of years long past, or even, as some claim, from past lives. The point is, however, that this knowledge is tapped, not by remembering it, but in receiving a sort of summary of its entire comments in regard to a particular question. As an example, let us say that a doctor examines a young girl, and has an irrational feeling that she has a rare blood condition. He cannot for the life of him think why, but nevertheless sends her for a blood test to check his feelings. Much to his surprise the condition is confirmed. This makes him really sit down to ponder how he knew; and after a great deal of searching he discovers the reason. In college he had read a novel mentioning a strange mark on a man’s body, which turned out to be a symptom of a blood disease. Later, in medical school, he noticed in passing the colour of a person’s eyes with a blood condition. Both incidents were lost to consciousness, but his intuition signals the essence of his knowledge by making him ‘feel’ uneasy about the girl’s condition, and irrationally (i.e. without knowing for what reason) suspect a blood disease.

That is an imaginary example, but there are plenty of real life ones. Seventy years ago, Morgan Robertson wrote a book called Futility. Robertson had been a seaman, and also had an inventive ability, having invented an improved type of periscope. The book he wrote was about a ship named ‘The Titan’. This had a displacement of 70,000 tons, 800 ft long, had triple screw propulsion, speed of 24 to 25 knots, was designed to carry 3,000 people, and had only a few lifeboats. In the book the Titan hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and went down.

To understand what I mean about intuition, I have only to explain that the ‘Titanic’ had a displacement of 66,000 tons, and was 852.5 ft long. Like the ‘Titan’, it also had triple screw, speed of 24 to 25 knots, carried 3,000 people and had few lifeboats. It too sunk in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.

Heinrich Schliemann not only believed his irrational feelings, he did something about them. The son of a poor German clergyman, he educated himself, worked his way into a monied business; then, at a time when all the world scoffed, he set out to discover the mythical city of Troy. Later, he unearthed one of the richest treasures in the world at the Mycenaean Palace in Greece. All this from believing his inner feelings about the ‘fairy stories’ of Troy and King Midas. Schliemann himself says it was due to a past life in ancient times, and his irrational feelings were memories from that time he could not explain with present facts. Whether we believe this or not, his intuition, from whatever source, proved correct.

The prophesies of H. G. Wells also stand in a similar light. Working from his knowledge of his day, he spoke of such things as an atomic war, aerial fighting craft, armoured tanks, air conditioning, intercontinental air travel and television. In a similar vein, as a great devourer of scientific information, Jules Verne prophesied many of the important scientific discoveries and applications that were to follow. One of the most interesting of these amazing intuitive insights into facts is displayed by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels. Written in 1726, the fictional Laputian scientists discover that the Planet Mars has two moons, and one of these travels around the planet twice as fast as the other. It was only in 1877, that Asaph Hall, an American scientist, was able to confirm the truth of this remarkable statement. How Swift came by this information is unknown.

Another interesting case is that of Herr Scherman. As an infant In the nursery he started collecting envelopes because of the various handwritings displayed on them. From then on his consuming passion was a study and analysis of handwriting. As his knowledge of this subject grew, his ability to determine who wrote a particular sentence became more than just a reasoned conclusion; it became intuitive. Cornelius Tabor, a newspaper man who wrote of Scherman’s work with the police in crime investigation, said, ‘I was introduced to him (Scherman) by Dr E.K. I showed him an envelope addressed by a lady he certainly did not know. He glanced at it briefly and then set to work. He described in minute detail the lady’s appearance, her figure, the colour of her hair, her features and suddenly it seemed that she came to life in front of me – he imitated her manner of speech. He seemed to know everything of her character. He told me her life story as if he had suddenly become a part of her very existence.’ (From – My Occult Diary – Rider.) See Intuition – Using It

What has all this got to do with dreams? They are simply used as instances of the unusual knowledge, foresight, inventiveness, and powers of insight the human mind can exhibit, especially in its intuitive side. They are but a dewdrop in the sea of examples that could be given, but as long as they bring home one point, they are enough. The point being, that any thoroughgoing dream researcher will never discard ideas presented, just because they do not fit his or her present opinions. We are always enlarging our facts to fit increased human knowledge and experience. Let us not then cast away an idea because it will not fit the smallness of our conceptions, or because it seems ridiculous or irrational. Neither let us believe it without testing it. Once more, the balanced way.

If we approach the dream with an open mind, an involvement in our question, and the willingness to be educated, we are certainly on the right tracks. If we add to this the constant interest and enthusiasm in our subject that men like Scherman have shown, then we bring to the dream an ever widening sphere of experience and knowledge through which it can express itself.

It has to be pointed out, however, that the past ‘knowledge and experience’ explanation of intuition in dreams and waking does not fully account for it. Scherman’s abilities, for one, do not entirely fit into this. If we read the lives of Andrew Jackson Davis, or Edgar Cayce – Man of Miracles – Neville Spearman, we shall soon see this. A study of their lives does show one interesting fact that furthers our knowledge of dream research. To state it briefly, the question asked, and how it is asked, has enormous influence on the answer received.

This has already been hinted at when mention was made of Dr George Washington Carver and his discoveries. When studying Edgar Cayce’s life, we find that several of the important aspects of his intuitive knowledge were not displayed until someone asked him the right questions. For instance, Cayce eventually began to give personal information on people’s latent capabilities, talents and problems, but this did not begin until a man named Lammers asked him questions on subjects he had not considered before, and so had never bothered to ask himself about.

I once made the experiment of asking a young man of very unphilosophical nature, a series of questions, rather like the Socratic method. Within fifteen minutes, as the questions awoke a realisation of his own experiences, he was talking pure philosophy, but he could not repeat this alone, without the questions.

The issues that arise from this are probably not of importance to the average person interested in dreams, but for the serious investigator they pose a very real problem; for one may have certain information that cannot be illicited because we do not know what questions to ask, or how to ask it. While this may seem of little importance at present, with very little stretch of imagination, a time can be foreseen when the present scientific method will attempt to incorporate the intuitive type of research into its sphere. Then, those found capable of dreaming or intuiting answers, will be as much a part of a research establishment as laboratory workers are today. Therefore, the framing of the question will be a serious undertaking. Basically, it has to elicit a response that remains understandable, but is not bound by preconceptions and already known facts. It must be more in the line of ‘What do I need to know ? ‘H)r ‘What is best to consider?’ rather than a too pointed question arising from already held opinions. In this way we may discover that another intelligence other than our conscious self is working within us, and we can make contact. Of this, Shane Miller tells the amusing story of the little boy who took a pole to measure the depth of the pool at the bottom of the garden. Each day he measured it, and each day it seemed to show a different depth. He pondered on this, and one day found the thrilling answer. There is Someone, or Something, at the bottom of the pool, moving the stick up and down. The boy realises he is not alone!

Working along similar lines, Professor James Bonner of the California Institute of Technology tried to analyse scientific creativeness. He questioned a number of researchers and scientists about intuitive knowledge gained in their work. He then set down his findings as follows:

(1) Define the question. This may itself be a creative act, since to recognise a question that has not been asked before may take great creativity.

(2) Stuff with facts. Once the question has been defined the potential scientific creator must have all the information he can get. He may have to do some experiments; he reads the literature, he gets together all the information that he can imagine bears upon the subject.

(3) Wait. The scientist may mull the facts over; he may worry; but in principle what he has to do now is wait.

(4) A solution pops out. Perhaps many solutions pop out. Often solutions emerge when one is half asleep, or perhaps during a day dream.

(5) Assess the solution. The scientist must now ask himself whether his new creative idea is a useful one or not. Is it good or bad? Does it unify everything that is present to be unified?

Getting down to methods, these should now be reasonably clear to understand. Having worked and worried over the problem, having looked to see what other people have said about it, or what other people have done along similar lines, we now approach the bed, but before actually climbing in, it is best to sit awhile, and consciously go over what you have thought, what you plan, what you hope, concerning the question. Cover the doubts, ideas, difficulties. Try to pierce the veil that hides the answer. If it is a personal problem ask ‘What shall I do? What is the best course of action? Or, how should it be approached ?’ If the question relates to work we plan to do, such as starting a business, investing in a venture, or beginning some undertaking; run through the plans, and ask, ‘Have I missed anything? Are there factors I have not considered? Is this for my best interests? Any suggestions?’ Then drop thought of the subject, get into bed, and go to sleep. When you wake, whatever the time if you remember a dream whether it seems like an answer or not, set it down lest it be forgotten. If you wake and cannot remember any dreams, lie quietly for a while, trying to remember as explained earlier, and ‘Good Luck!’

SOURCES OF DREAMS

If one is sincerely attempting to use dreams as a way of research, one has to realise that dreams may arise from a variety of sources. This has already been mentioned, but what has been said is perhaps not detailed enough if we want to probe deeply. At the very outset of trying to give further information, however, it has to be admitted that the following statements are not made dogmatically. Very little is known about the sources of dreams. The inner consciousness has not been explored and charted sufficiently to make it common territory. For this reason I have collected several explanations of the main aspects of man’s being. Whether these descriptions are true or adequate has to be left to each person’s experience. At least it is hoped they are helpful.

In giving the various theories concerning the dream, we have seen that one of the commonest is that they rise from subtle physical sensations. In some cases, disease has been indicated by dreams some time prior to its appearance outwardly. While A. J. Davis goes into some detail as to descriptions of dreams and their possible sources in the bodily functions, he also says. ‘There are numerous spiritual phenomena connected with the state of sleep.’ That is, he defines levels of consciousness. He says that man’s being is the harmonious relationship of seven principles. If we think of dreams once more as the instruments panel, then just as the oil gauge of a car connects with the oil pump, and the thermometer with the Water, so dreams can be indicators of these seven modes of being. Davis lists these as the ANATOMICAL, which relates to the body as matter, and its form; the PHYSIOLOGICAL, which relates to the function of the form; the MECHANICAL, which is the energy or force behind the function or form in matter, and can be termed movement; the CHEMICAL, which is decomposition of form and substance, as in catabolism; the ELECTRICAL, which expresses as combination, or anabolism, or the combination of simple chemical or organic substances into more complex ones; the MAGNETICAL, which is the law of harmony allowing the other principles to relate together harmoniously; the SPIRITUAL, or that which relates to attenuation, or growth and development of more extended aspects, or that relates to all other manifestation. Therefore, a dream could arise from any of these departments of ourselves.

Davis, like many other philosophers, gives the over all forces within man as LOVE, WISDOM and WILL. Others express it as Love, Wisdom and Power. As general classifications these include many seemingly separate functions and capabilities of the human being. They may be better understood if we say that Love covers such diverse activities as physical attraction of the opposite sexes; emotional attraction and harmony between any sex or age group; the grouping together of cells and chemical substances in the body seemingly opposite or antagonistic. In fact the law of love seems to be the bringing together and stabilising of opposites or conflicting factions, whether physically, emotionally, energetically or mentally. Similar general rules apply to the other two classifications. Love may unite, but Wisdom gathers experience, looks for causes, understands direction. Power on the other hand relates to all expressions of energy, of will, of force. In human affairs we may see a loving person who lacks wisdom or power to understand and direct their love; or a forceful person may lack love and wisdom and so be destructive and hurtful. Or a wise person may lack forcefulness and love, and so be a dry, fruitless intellectual; and so on with the other combinations.

Dreams can be concerned with LOVE in its various aspects. Here, perhaps the Freudian type of interpretation concerns itself most with relationships of passion and love. Alder is an excellent example of one who concentrated on dealing with the Power aspect of dreams. His life was spent helping people to direct their ‘will to power’ their ambitions and energies. Without stretching our imagination too much, we can say Jung represents the study of dreams of WISDOM. Such dreams would deal with the desire to understand, to clarify awareness of self, and relationship to life, with its attendant unravelling of the beauty and wisdom of our own and other cultures.

As many other investigators of man’s being have listed seven main principles, perhaps I can summarise these to make them more understandable. For the information locked in Davis’ remarks may lose its helpfulness without a little further commentary; and philosophical systems as varied as Hindu, Buddhist, Hebrew, Alchemical, Christian, Agnostic and Anthroposophical, have all listed these seven levels. As these could naturally take volumes to explain in detail, an analogy will be used to summarise them. In doing this, the failings of using such a symbol and imaginative method must be forgiven. To start with we have to imagine the sperm and ovum as a seed, planted in the fertile soil of the womb. This seed holds in it a great deal of potential, but it is at present all unexpressed.

MATTER OR PHYSICAL BODY

When we plant this human seed let us think of it as a little piece of earth, of matter, only. If we literally planted a piece of earth in a human womb, nothing would happen as far as growth was concerned. In this sense matter represents just a set of ‘materials’. Just as we may use bricks or clay, planks of wood, nails of iron, windows of glass to build a house, so the seed is likewise a collection of materials, which in themselves are inert. This is Davis’ ‘Anatomical’.

FORMATIVE

When we plant our seed under the right circumstances, however, it already has form, and continues to express itself in forming a developing body. Therefore, one of the things latent in the seed was a sort of formative power or process. This same organic formative power, that takes hold of inert matter and shapes it, is one of the first processes of evolution. We see it at work in forming the minerals of our Earth, and the crystals. This is the first of its potentials the seed can express. At its lowest level this formative power is something like the growth of a crystal, of filings shaping themselves round a magnet. At its highest phase it becomes movement such as plants describe in growth. This is Davis’ ‘Physiological’.

SENTIENCY

In the growth of our seed, further levels of potential can express themselves as the lower stage prepares the ground. The plant cannot use sunlight until the leaves are unfolded. So, sentiency cannot express until a sensitive vehicle is formed. In plants, this sentiency can be seen in the growing toward light, or closing of flowers at night. Without this sentiency or sensitivity, one would never be aware of physical or sensual impressions. Naturally, with the development of sentiency, it changes the direction of effort of the previous processes. In this way a plant directs the formative processes to grow to the light, through its sensitiveness to light. At its lowest level this is a chemical and organic response to impacts from within and outside itself. At its highest level it becomes emotion or feelings. This is Davis’ ‘Mechanical’.

PERCEPTION

Just as sentiency could not manifest without form, neither could perception without feeling. Perception means an awareness of sensations. It means the ability to add two and two together. When a dog sits too near the fire and burns himself, he learns to avoid such close contact again. The dog has associated the sensation of burning with the image of the fire. In man, such perceptions become more and more complex. A man can take the ideas of pain and fire as abstractions, and add the idea of prevention, thus producing a fire guard. This is thought. At its lowest level, perception is memory to avoid pain, or direct activities. At its highest level it becomes constructive thought, which has emerged out of feeling. This is Davis’ ‘Chemical’.

KNOWLEDGE

Out of thinking develops knowledge. When we experience a feeling such as pleasure, it is ours alone. It cannot be handed from person to person. It can be stimulated in others, but not given. But Knowledge goes beyond the individual. At this stage a man can look at life and discover that if corn is planted, a harvest may later be reaped. This realisation can be passed on. At its lowest level it is learned response. At its highest level a collection of conscious realisations about life. This is Davis’ ‘Electrical’.

INSIGHT

This level is often listed as intuition, but with careful thought we see that many creatures possess intuition, but it takes a man of a high calibre to possess insight. Insight is the result of a high level of consciousness, a wide knowledge, plus the faculty of intuition. Intuition is the power that takes hold of experience and facts, and puts them into new orders, fresh insight. Intuition reveals deeper meaning in already known subjects of knowledge, producing insight.

Or should we say, insight is the result of conscious knowledge plus intuition. Intuition minus high conscious awareness produces strange knowledge, unexplainable reaction, but it does not produce insight. So here we have consciousness and its contents, Opening itself to the unconscious, resulting in insight, the link between the two worlds of seen and unseen, manifest and potential. This is Davis’ ‘Magnetical’.

SPIRIT

This is the antipode to matter. Matter is the receptive and resourceful womb that spirit enters, and begins to manifest its potentials by using the materials matter presents. A later description will clarify this.

This may all seem very confusing, and, in fact, it is. Such lists of attributes are only a structure which human beings use to hang their understanding upon; but no such structure will stand up to vigorous investigation, and so secondary or alternative structures are built such as the Love, Wisdom and Power explanation. Some thinkers break man’s complicated being into a simpler symbol and instead of seven levels, they list three. This is not to say that they thereby miss out parts given by the others; they put them all together instead. The results, however, seem a lot more understandable. In this category we have the thoughts and investigations of such men as Rudolph Steiner, Edgar Cayce and Spencer Lewis. Steiner calls those three levels Body, Soul and Spirit, and Cayce the Conscious, Unconscious and Superconscious, or sometimes Body, Soul and Spirit as Steiner. Spencer Lewis expressed them as Physical, Psychic and Cosmic. Although these three men had their own individual way of describing these levels according to their own genius, I will attempt to summarise what they said.

PHYSICAL OR BODY

We are all familiar with this. We have to recognise that in this category it is mentioned as the body minus consciousness, as consciousness belongs to another level. Under this classification of Body we have inanimate, unfeeling matter. It represents those parts of our nature that by themselves are inert, without energy, without sensation or feeling, like a dead body. Forces are certainly at work in such a body, such as disintegration, breakdown. This level represents the power of Inertia, of Limitation, of Unconsciousness. These are stressed because they have a power in their own right, and if we do not understand them, we may miss seeing their expression in dreams. If we take the analogy of a stream, using the water as movement or energy, and the stream bed as matter or inertia, we see that matter directs the expression of energy, but in its turn, energy shapes and gives form to matter. Another example is an electric motor, which is itself inert matter, but which directs the expression of energy. So the elements, form and physiology of the body direct the expression of the energy. In turn the energy gives form and function to the body, for at death, when the energy is no longer active, the form disintegrates, and the function ceases.

PSYCHIC OR SOUL

Our psychic life, or soul life, is the world of our sensations, emotions, thoughts. It is the world of our individual consciousness and intelligence. The body cannot feel or sense or know without this soul life. Just as the heat from an electric fire is the combination, or result, of electricity and the inert instruments, so this soul life is the result of a combination between spirit and body, energy and matter. At one extreme of soul life we have alert, concentrated consciousness, with a sense of individuality and self awareness. At the other extreme we have the subconscious, which is a wider consciousness going beyond our sense of being cut off, individual, and touches the next level of being, the Spirit. Cayce calls the soul, the sense of individual activity and decision, the memory of one’s personal activities.

The energy that gave life to man is universal, but if consciousness remained at that level, no individual realisation could take place. Thus the soul is the record and the experience of the individual outside a consciousness of the universal.

This level includes all the levels of a man’s individual mind, ranging from sensual impressions, thought and emotion, memory, and subconscious activities. It is called the psychic because it is the realm that is neither formless as is the spirit, nor bound to form as is the body. Soul experience is a middle way between the extremes, and a dream is a weaving together of formless energies with images to make them understandable. It links the limitation and unconsciousness of the body on the one hand, with all its separateness with the infinite extensions and possibilities of spirit on the other. So man, in his dream life, can dwell in the aloneness of his body, or contact all beings through the agency of his life force.

SPIRIT OR COSMIC

This is that energy which is the very opposite of matter. In itself it represents the infinite consciousness, movement, knowledge, creativity and energy. This is the male aspect of self, while the body is its mate or wife, which it enters and brings forth the child of self consciousness. As consciousness in the body is a mixture of spirit and matter, it likewise blends the two, that is, it has limited awareness. But it can either associate itself with the body, when it takes on more and more of the physical characteristics, such as inertia, unfeelingness and limited knowledge. Or it can associate itself with its energy, which leads to expanded awareness, greater energy and creativeness. The spirit is man’s sense of union or identity with his source. This level of man’s being is the synthesis of all experience. it holds within it the memory of all men, all creatures, all activity, while man’s soul is the record of his doings only. But as the soul is an extension of the spirit, it can partake of the greater wisdom, the greater experience by a harkening to that part of itself instead of only bodily experience, and yet still maintain its individuality, just as a man may learn from others yet apply it differently.

To summarise this description of man’s being in connection with dreams, they may arise from body, soul or spirit. If they arise from body they will deal with the health, or workings, or intricate wisdom that its form portrays due to it being a reflection of spirit in matter. If they arise from the soul, they will deal with the range of human feelings, relationships, fears, individual growth, past memories, desires, and aspects of the individual’s life. If they arise from the spirit, they will express elements beyond the limited desires, aims and knowledge of the individual. Such dreams may carry information about other people, about the meaning of life, or be of universal appeal. People living or dead may be dealt with in a meaningful and usually super logical way. For the dead are only dead in body. The memory, the spirit, of their whole experience is caught in the memory of the Cosmic. Therefore, not only our own past may come to us in a dream, but also the past and experience of the long dead may arise in us, if it is connected with our present life in some way.

One other definition of man’s experience of himself may find a useful place here. This is Jung’s description of man’s four functions.

These he called SENSATION – FEELING – THINKING – INTUITION. These are the aspects of man’s soul life as depicted above. In saying this I am not trying to confuse Jung’s ideas with those of other people. I am merely trying to give a reasonably understandable presentation of man’s being that includes the materialistic and the mystical, the practical and the psychological. Therefore, to define the four functions, We can say that in the function of SENSATION, man’s soul life is directed towards the body. Jung explained that each person had dependence on one main function. Thus a person whose consciousness mainly existed in their physical sensations could be listed under this first function. These are people who are keenly aware of the outside world, and are at home in their physical sensations.

As for the FEELING function, this refers to people Who are ‘at home’ in their emotions and inner feelings. They can cope with relationships on the emotional level easily and constructively, although they, like the others, may be quite lost outside their own sphere.

The THINKING function refers to the man or woman ‘at home’ in their ideas, plans, opinions and the world of thought.

The INTUITIVE function person has the ability to see beyond the rational, beyond the things portrayed by thought, feeling or senses. He arrives at truths that seem beyond the ken of those using the other functions.

If four such typical people walked down a street together, we might say that the one with Sensation as his leading function would notice the houses, their colours and changes made since his last visit. The Feeling person would be aware of the emotions stimulated by the surroundings and relationship with the people. The Thinking person would perhaps be little aware of the street at all, but be following a line of thought. While the Intuitive might know from his perceptions, much of what the others are thinking or feeling.

So dreams may be expressions of some aspect of these functions in our life. Naturally, each of us has the other functions, although we live mostly in one. As these have to some extent been explained under other headings, I have done no more than mention them.

Inadequate as it is, it is hoped that these sketchy outlines of the various schools of thought will at least direct attention towards a constructively analytical direction, For sometimes, even hints help us to unravel a difficult dream.

The next chapter will give examples of dreams from these various sources.

Link To Chapters – Link to Chapter Twelve

 

Your Dream Interpreter



Your Dream Interpreter

In dreams you are freed from the usual restrictions of mind and body, of social rules and personal limitations. But beside meeting your wonderful creativity, you may also meet and transform the shadows of your fears and negative attitudes.

Your Dream Interpreter is available at Amazon USA and Amazon UK.

Sections Include

THE DREAMERS’ WORKBOOK INTRODUCTION – What are dreams? The Amazing experience of dreaming. Recording Your Dreams Where Do Dreams Come From? To Imagine is to Create Mapping Your Dream World Dream Healing: Resolving Conflicts in Dreams Sleep on a Problem Dealing With Nightmares Understanding and Controlling Recurring Dreams Understanding Dreams of Family Understanding Dreams of Love and Romance Relationship Growth Sexuality Understanding School Dreams Understanding Your Work Dreams Looking Into the Future THE DREAM DICTIONARY – An A to Z of Dreams INDEX OF DREAM THEMES AND OBJECTS BIBLIOGRAPHY Publishing History  

America

If you live in America then it expresses your feelings and experiences of the culture and politics you are immersed in. What is  America for you, a land of opportunity and freedom, or a land of subjugation? It will help to define what it is by using Talking As.

If the dreamer does not live in America and is not American: Could associate with opportunity; material wealth; dreams to do with success, whether in love or business; recognition; extremes. See: abroad.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you associate with America?

What is my view or experience of it?

What are the events and setting of the dream saying about my relationship with America?

If I take out the word America from the dream and write down what my feelings are, what would I say?

It might help if you use Processing Dreams.