Posts Tagged ‘exploring my dreams’

Active Imagination

Do You Dream

Tony Crisp

Chapter Seven

Also see Active Imagination and Dreams

The most necessary personal quality to interpret dreams is imagination. By imagination is meant the ability to find or group associated ideas and images round a given subject. If I write the word HORSE, what ideas or associated images can we link with it? It can be big, small, brown, black, stallion or mare. It can be weak, strong, old, young, tame or wild, friendly or aggressive. A horse links with images of saddles, reins, bridle, cart, whip, jockey, race-course. It can run, jump, pull, trample, bite, kick, plunge, buck. We can ride it, be thrown from it, mount or dismount, sit easy or with difficulty. It can carry us or a load, and so on. This all links with what has already been said about association of ideas. But there is another aspect of imagination which can be used as a sort of ‘diver’s suit’. By this I mean that its use often enables us to dive deeply into ourselves, and contact parts of us difficult to reach by any other means. It cannot be used for all dreams, but where indicated, its results are sometimes in the light of revelations to the person using it.

This method is called active imagination; and although often mentioned in various technical or popular dream books, a detailed description of how to do it is seldom given. Yet once it is grasped it is one of the simplest types of dream interpretation or methods of self discovery possible. But before we deal directly with the method, it is necessary to take a further look at imagination.

Earlier we looked at some aspects of memory, and which attitudes of mind inhibit or release it. These attitudes of mind also are largely responsible for the fullness or poverty of imagination. Not that what was said covered the issue very well, or that it can be covered adequately in this book, for many other factors act upon memory and imagination. These range from diet to atmospheric conditions, glandular balance to social influences. All affect our memory and imagination. In the consideration of active imagination, however, for a working knowledge of the technique that follows, a few further remarks on memory are necessary. Earlier it was said that by correctly conditioning our state of mind, we can often remember dreams that had never before been conscious. Possibly re-member is the wrong word, because the dream had never been consciously known, to be forgotten. But at least we are recalling an experience had by us at a different level of consciousness. It was also said that some dreams are difficult to recall because they portray parts of our nature we are ashamed of, guilty about, or frightened of. These factors also control our imagination.

It is therefore fairly obvious that our code of morals also has an enormous influence on what we allow ourselves to remember or imagine. The reader may have grave doubts about this, believing that they are free agents as to what they think or imagine; but this is wishful thinking and its falsity will be demonstrated as we proceed.

Memory and imagination are almost one and the same thing, for we cannot imagine without memory. But imagination is the forming of images and ideas into new arrangements or previously unthought of relationships. Sometimes imagination simply appears as what one generally calls ‘fantasy’. That is, we may see ourselves meeting the Queen or President, and giving them vital information about the country, for which they reward us and honour us. Or else we see ourselves facing up to some bully or superior in work or life, and ‘wiping the floor’ with them, or really telling them a few home truths about themselves. If we are honest we call this wishful thinking. It is, however, a form of imagination. It is also a safe means of letting off steam, releasing emotions or aggressiveness, or hopes and longings, if we afterwards have the honesty to smile at ourselves.

On the other hand, imagination can be creative. We may be faced by the problem, as my small son was, of keeping two tall canes upright to support a badminton net, yet not be able to push them into the hard ground. He remembered, however, that nearby were bricks with holes in them. In his imagination he saw that the canes could be held upright through pushing them into the bricks. This he did, and created a new relationship he had not seen before. Most creative imagination is an extension of this ability to place the ‘known’ into new and useful relationships.

Active imagination is not quite like either of these two. It is not simply memory; it is not wishful thinking, nor is it only creation of new and useful relationships from known facts. It seems to be a combination of them all with another factor thrown in the intuitive discovery of the unknown. Its activity is conditioned by our ability to be receptive as already described, and, as far as possible, in temporarily putting aside our morals, preconceived ideas, fears and desires for self. Because of this, and despite its simplicity, many people find they cannot do it until much of themselves has already been realised and in some degree dealt with. If used correctly though, some dreams will release their meaning to almost anybody. Having said that, let us look at the technique itself. Let us slowly delve into the strange inner realm disclosed to us.

If the reader conscientiously tried to do the exercise of expressing thoughts in images instead of words; or if the idea that prior to speech mankind probably thought in images, was well understood; then this was the first step in understanding active imagination. Also, when our conscious self expresses dreams in story form, poems, drama, paintings or modelling, this also can be a type of active imagination. But, and this must be clearly understood, it is only active imagination when, during the creative procedure of writing, painting, or modelling, one feels as if the dream images have somehow come alive and are directing the course of events. At such a time there is a feeling of being moved by something other than conscious decisions or will. Not that one is powerless to stop the course of events. It could be interfered with, and that is why active imagination cannot be experienced in any great depth by those who have not learnt to sit back and watch. While a person persists in controlling and interfering with this spontaneous expression of their inner self; while they constantly block its expressions through their moral principles or preconceived ideas, then this work cannot take place. Yet with the right attitude, one is not possessed by this unconscious direction, but works with it as a partner to create new understandings, new forms, new life in oneself.

The contacting of this spontaneous outflow of the innermost being, has always been the highest aim of the world’s great religions. It was possibly the driving energy behind all the new forms of art at their inception. In our own social scene we see that the use of LSD and similar drugs have also been undertaken by many because of their ability to release in some this same contact. Sometimes the contact is expressed in body movement, such as the dance; sometimes vocally as in drama, oration and singing; sometimes through the hand, as in art, sculpture, love; sometimes in realisation, such as religious experience of bliss.

When we think of the early Quakers, we see their ‘Quaking’ as an expression. The first Wesleyans often knew similar effects. While today we have the Latihan experience of Subud; the spontaneous movements of Reichian therapy; and LSD. All of them, to be effective, require the attitude of mind already mentioned. All of them also are a co-partnership between the deep self and conscious self.

As for how we may contact this influence through our dreams, we must begin with simple experiments to obtain correct understanding. Let us start by building up an image of driving a car. To understand what is being explained, one must sit without distraction and with closed eyes and imaginatively enter into driving a car. As you imagine this, see yourself driving down a very steep hill, with a steep drop on the left. As the car goes down and down, the bends in the road swing this way and that, and suddenly a bend comes up and the car is going too fast to make it. There is a terrible slope, and the car goes right over the edge.

Before you read any further, please go through this whole sequence in imagination, noting carefully what happens. Then read on.

One of several things may have occurred.

(a) You may not have been able to imagine it.

(b) You saw it but it went before the car crashed off the road.

(c) You went right along and the car crashed down the hillside.

Without making any comments yet, I now want you to do the whole thing again. But this time, as the car goes off the edge of the road to smash down the hill, you must try to make it simply fly up into the air gracefully and land safely lower down the road. Try this before reading on.

Once more, several things may have happened. Basically, you will probably not have been able to control the car once it went over the edge of the road. It either crashed, or you could only slow it down. If you could control it then it shows a high degree of direction of your images. But why have we done all this?

Really, to show how difficult it is to produce the image, and then to control it once we have got it moving. Also, most people’s car will have crashed, even when they try to stop it. Yet these are simple images of which we are supposed to be in control. We see in this the conscious working of the because factor. Are we then, captains of our own mind?

With a little thought, the reason we cannot make the car do as we wish is obvious. The image of the car is moved by our desires and wishes. Therefore, because our fear of crashing is involved, it takes hold of the image and crashes it! In other words, because we cannot master our fear of crashing, it controls the image we have produced. Having realised this, we can then learn to face fear and move the image where we wish, until another fear or desire is involved. I do not have to spell out the tremendous meaning and possibilities of that. It is enough to say that through the manipulation or observance of our own images, we can discover, trace, change and live in our own innermost processes. This is not done by simply following the line of least resistance, as in day-dreaming, fantasy or wishful thinking. It is done by attempting to manipulate, trying to face, what is revealed by spontaneous fantasy or dreams. That is the therapeutic side of active imagination. The creative side lies in the sphere of discovery and expression of our own latent possibilities, wisdom and emotions. The fact that we may discover a ‘fear of crashing’ through indulging in the above experiment is important enough, but, even greater significance lies in the experience of not being able to stop the car from crashing even if we wish to. This shows that our fears or apprehensions, those subtle often unknown parts of our nature, are constantly influencing our behaviour. This may seem exaggerated until we realise that such fears control our thoughts. They control our memories and our imaginations. It is our thoughts, memories and imagination that are the basic causes of our actions or inactions in life. When not interfering in our actions, they are certainly modifying in many ways the manner in which we respond to outer circumstance.

It is difficult, by means of the written word, to hit on an image that will definitely show us how we are controlled in the way we think, do and respond. Many people may easily deal with the car situation in their imagination, or else not be able to see the point of it. But if we could experiment, we would probably find certain images which are terrifying or loathsome to attempt to deal with. Some we may not even wish to think about. Yet they are only mental images; nothing is being asked in the actual physical realm. All they involve are our own emotions, fears, prejudices and morals. Therefore, if the car fantasy has not provoked any feeling, try imagining sexual intercourse with one of your parents. Being such a taboo thought, it is almost bound to negatively involve much of our inner life. It is sufficient, however, if it is clearly understood that these images have a life of their own because our feelings, morals and fears are involved. To condense things we can call these parts of us our ‘psychic’ life, or soul. Therefore, if we realise that our soul is involved in the fantasy, we can take the next step in understanding active imagination. It is also hoped that through what has been done with the experiment of imagination, the forces that produce dreams are also more clearly seen. For if we cannot imagine something while conscious and bending our will to do so; the images that arise while this will is sleeping, come as direct results of the interrelationship of our different fears, hopes and psychic life. Just as the car crashing is a direct expression of our fear, and inability to control it, so in a dream, a car crashing would be just the same.

Although this subject is of enormous interest and application in many realms, such as child education, creative art and personal relationships, we have to explain it here, only in its connection with dreams. What is most important to understand, is what type of dream we can use it with effectively, and how to use it with such dreams. Very generally, it is the dream that faces us with problems we cannot get beyond; or figures in the dream we do not understand. While the way to use it is to put ourselves back into the dream situation and consciously move along with it, or manipulate the symbols.

Earlier in the book, while dealing with dream series, a dream was mentioned where the woman saw herself entering a tunnel. She then met and passed a ‘rather frightening little animal’, then a larger animal, and finally a ‘real monster, rather like a 60ft caterpillar with a lion’s head and fore feet’. This last was not passed, but she only got half way along, and woke. Literally, she woke in the middle of it. This was explained as of ‘possibly sexual nature’ due to the shape of the symbol. The fact that it was too big to get by, or cope with in the dream, makes it an excellent subject for active imagination. The size of the creature represents its emotional impact on the dreamer. Such ‘big’ emotions often need our conscious co-operation to deal with. The dream, by itself, might not find a way out of the difficulty. The speculation about the meaning of the symbol also invites us to try to realise its implications in active imagination.

The woman in question did use active imagination on this dream. She waited for a time when she would be undisturbed, made herself comfortable, and then tried to get back into the dream using her imagination. Her description is as follows:

‘Several things surprised me, To begin with I could not re-create the feeling of fear. I stood where the dream had left off and waited. Occasionally I saw the end of the tunnel and it opened out into light. Occasionally I saw a small white light just above and beyond the caterpillar’s back. Then I decided to climb on to its back to see if that produced any results. None. So I decided to crawl towards its tail. As I went along I found that its fur was full of an unpleasant slime; but I couldn’t decide exactly what it represented (apart from filth). I tried to decide what it meant and what I should do, but all the while now the far end of the tunnel was becoming lighter, and so I concluded that I had failed to discover anything useful in this experiment. The only bit that had come alive was the slime on the caterpillar’s back, and my revulsion at having to put my hands in it.’

At first sight this appears to be almost a failure. However, it shows that the tunnel’s end is in sight, and anyone trained in interpreting dreams would see that the discovery of slime on the caterpillar’s back is very important. But we do not have to speculate over this, as the very next day the whole thing ‘comes to light’. In fact, the caterpillar episode was very near to the ‘light of day’, or consciousness. The woman says, ‘I suddenly saw the meaning of the slime on the caterpillar: it was semen. It brought partial memory of the four year old’s sexual shock. I was somehow trapped, probably in the rather crude open-air toilets in the recreation ground, by a man who exhibited himself and almost certainly made me touch the phallus with my hands during ejaculation. Being small I had to reach up. My hands were ‘soiled’, and my face could have been. I am pretty sure I must have been sick. When I remembered the above I shuddered again and again and at last broke into tears. I’ve surely released a lot.’

Yes, she had released, and realised a lot; because her conscious self had sufficient courage and receptiveness to go along with, and investigate what her unconscious self was pushing up for her notice.

A similar experience of active imagination is shown in the following dream, by a young woman. In the dream she walked across the Rye, which is a large park, in a new ‘Maxi’ coat. The ground was like a bog, but she did not sink in, although she knew she had come to commit suicide. She lay on top of the bog, quite happy and ready. Then she saw a man walking towards her, only his legs visible. She knew she must now die, and thrust herself through the bog.

The first part of the dream was fairly easy to interpret. She had recently had an emotional shock through seeing her husband kissing another woman at a party. This was terrible because although such an action was not uncommon to her, she always felt very insecure emotionally, and her husband’s action was a blow to her security. The Rye was a place where her early courting took place, and represents her own sexual feelings, and the bog that underlies them. The ‘Maxi’ was a thing that she did not own, but hoped for. She was taking her outer hopes and life, on to the thin surface that covered the threat of her sexual feelings of insecurity. She was willing to face these feelings, though her old self might die in doing it. This much was understandable. It was the man’s legs that could not be fitted into the interpretation. They could have been interpreted as a threat of sex. but this did not provide a satisfying picture of the dream. Therefore the woman sat quietly, imagined herself back in the dream, and saw the man’s legs approaching. She was then asked to look up at the man’s face, and see who it was. She did so, and with great surprise said, ‘It’s my father!’ The realisation of which helped to show the part her father had played in shaping her emotional background.

Another example of how active imagination can help us to understand a symbol is again shown in the following dream and the active imagination.

‘I had, or was, a deformed baby, having four eyes, and a somewhat “not normal” face. The eyes were operated on, two being removed. But the baby grew up to be a dwarf, very lonely and shy.

‘The dwarf and normal I, were one, yet somehow separated. He lived downstairs and would often climb the stairs and stand outside my door, hoping I would see him and befriend him. I, inside, vaguely felt his presence, but whenever I got near the door, his shyness made him retreat downstairs.

‘Then I met him on a footpath between steep meadows. I asked him why his other two eyes had been removed, and he said, “Because I could see too many (confusing) things with all my eyes.” That is, too many images were presented at once, and could not be interpreted clearly.

‘He said, “Now I can see differently.” Pointing at the meadow he said, “Really there are no cows there at all.”

‘I looked and saw a lot of cows, and struggled to understand what he meant. While I was pondering he walked along a bit and said, “No, I was wrong; there is one cow there.” I looked and saw a very beautiful cow among the herd.

‘The next thing was that a large male dwarf, and two female dwarfs came along the footpath. The two men (whom I now was) recognised they were deeply related to each other, and ran into each other’s arms with great love. As they held each other they (1) felt that two incomplete parts had now found each other.’

Trying to interpret this rather long and involved dream without outside help, the dreamer found it difficult. He therefore held a picture of the dwarf in his imagination, and talked to it. Here is the record of his conversation.

Q. Why were you born deformed?

A. I am the part of you born deformed. Your sins from the past. The sins of the parents.

Q. Why did you have four eyes?

A. Because I looked for too many things. Through trying to look in too many directions there was confusion.

Q. What does it mean that you stood outside my door?

A. It means that we were so close all the time, but did not meet.

Q. Why was there only one cow?

A. There is only one cow because all the others are reflections, false images of the one. The others have no soul. You see the cows, because you have not lost the eyes as I have done. I can only see things with a soul, real things.

Q When you met the large dwarf, what is that?

A. Now we have met. You are but a larger, not complete dwarf. Together we make one person. The large dwarf is two thirds grown; I am only one third. Together we are complete.

When reading this one may feel that some of the answers are as confusing as the dream. It has to be realised that the conversation takes place within a particular person, between two parts of himself. This is something we do all the time, but not as consciously as in active imagination. If one wished to emigrate, for instance, but had aged parents who needed help, the desire to emigrate, and the desire to stay, could be represented as two people in a dream. These could talk and discuss their different desires, trying to find an agreement. But this conversation uses the education and background of the person. Therefore, a history professor might easily use terms foreign to a bricklayer, when talking to himself. The answers are therefore meaningful to ourselves, or become meaningful with a little thought. The man in question was helped to realise certain things about himself. As a child he had been extremely shy and lonely. At thirteen this had become such a problem that he took up various interests and activities to alter himself. In this way he developed the ability to meet people even more confidently and successfully than most; he spoke in public, and so on. So he felt, before the dream, that he had developed beyond his shyness, but the answers the dwarf gave him made him realise that in fact he had learnt to shut his shyness out of his life, ‘downstairs’ in the unconscious. For years he had not met this part of him due to the very differences in these two parts of him. But he could now see that his frequent blushing when certain topics were mentioned, that his conscious self had no ‘feelings’ about, suggested this other part.

This shy part of him had looked in so many directions for ‘real’ relationships with people, only to find confusion and dissatisfaction. So much so that he had had to ‘cut out’ his looking, to stop being hurt. While the cow is explained by the dreamer in these words. ‘I didn’t properly understand the bit about the cows, even after the dwarf had spoken to me. I knew that in India it is regarded as a sacred animal, and I thought of it as a sort of mother figure. Then I realised that it is a source of sustenance and motherhood. Milk is our first food, our first contact with mother. To see so many false cows was to see false sources of security and sustenance that a mother provides. I had made false ‘cows’ out of my desire for love and affection. But my shy, sensitive part, because only the real thing could satisfy it, could see through these shams.’

The same man had another interesting experience of active-imagination that demonstrates several of the other principles involved. As can be gathered from the above, he had been dealing with the relationship between himself and his mother. That is, not his present relationship, but the effects of his relationship as a baby and child. In this instance he did not use a dream as the focal point of the active imagination. It is important to understand this, as when we start working on dreams, some feelings, emotions, or memories, are unlocked by what we are doing, and may attempt to come up outside of our dream life. Unless we know how to deal with these ‘risings’ the development of our work will be much delayed. Here is the man’s account of the experience.

‘I was quite alone in the church; just sitting trying to allow my thoughts to become quiet. Usually, this was fairly easy for me, but on this particular day I could not keep my thoughts from turning to a woman I knew. Eventually, realising that some inner unrest must lie behind this constant desire, I gave myself over to it. I suppose it is meaningful that I had previously been contemplating a banner with the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus on it – the mother and child. In any case, as soon as I let my thoughts go where they wished, I saw myself at the woman’s breast. For several reasons I immediately drew my thoughts away from this. Firstly, I came to church not to fantasy sexual feelings, but to find something that helped one through the mire of personal relationships. One could go on and on fantasising sex. I had nothing against it, but such imagined scenes gave neither satisfaction, nor did they ever end. No satisfaction = no end. Also, I was married, and sexual fantasies with other women involve the very feelings that are needful to make one’s own married life complete. They divert the very emotions that are necessary in making a good home for wife and children.

‘Due to my past experiences in this realm, however, I felt I ought not to push these things aside out of hand. It was better for peace of mind to let such fantasies come up and out, rather than be bottled up inside. Therefore I put my reasons and morals on one side, sat back and watched. Immediately I went to the woman’s breast, as a baby might to its mother. There was a tremendous feeling of satisfaction and fulfilment, and gradually without trying to push it away, the whole scene lost its potency and faded; the emotions and desires having found release through the fantasy.

‘For a moment all was quiet. Then a thought came to me of its own accord. It was.’ ‘But that was only a substitute!” I naturally asked myself, “A substitute for what?” immediately the reply came, “Your mother’s breast.”

‘It is impossible to describe the flood of realisation or revelation this brought with it. The many women I had longed for outside of marriage, now took on the form of substitutes for the love and affection, fulfilment and satisfaction I desired at my mother’s breast. Realising this, I thought, “Well, I will imagine myself at my mother’s breast. Again, the shock of revelation is difficult to describe; because, the simple fact was, I found I could not do it.’

On this revelation of not being able to imagine himself at his mother’s breast, despite all his efforts, this period of active imagination ended. Later sessions, carrying on where the last left off, gradually revealed that it was feelings of uncleanness and rejection that prevented the image forming. This, in turn, led to the man reliving, during active imagination, a babyhood memory. In his own words, ‘I could not understand why I should have such strong feelings of uncleanness and rejection about an imagined picture of my mother’s breast. In fact I couldn’t get the picture. But by simply allowing these feelings to develop fully, as I had done with the original “substitute” experience, it began to move. Suddenly I was at my mother’s breast. I was a baby, I was re-living it. There I was in her arms, and I loved her so much, so enthusiastically, that I was sucking and expressing my pleasure by my body movements. I realised that a baby experiences infantile sexual feelings while at the mother’s breast. They come as a sort of blissful oneness with the mother.* But then my mother smacked me, or scolded me, (it must be understood that a baby does not separate the different parts of its being. Its emotions are not distinct from its thoughts, or its thoughts from its sexual feelings. When it does something, even as simple as shaking a rattle, it does so with all of itself, emotions, sexual feelings, hungers, etc.) because she felt that such feelings were unclean. I can understand this, as she still cannot accept my father’s feelings in this direction. And that, in a nutshell, is where my own sexual conflicts began, which now try to find substitutes outside of marriage for my sexual feelings. For I saw that a man replaces his mother with a wife, with whom he now shares and gives his deepest feelings. But his wife is his new mother. If he could not give himself to his mother because she made him feel unclean, then the same feelings of uncleanness pervade his attempts to give himself to his wife. It must be a problem that many men and women face, all begun at the mother’s breast, because the mother feels that sex is filth.’

The important thing to note in this description is the need to ‘go along’ with the images and feelings being released, without passing judgement on them. This allows them to rise, and reveal their source, which may be an event in early life, or a relationship between parts of oneself. The willingness to plunge again and again into unsavoury emotions and images, can also be seen as a necessity. The beautiful is often hidden in the dirt, or grows out of it. It is only when we see that beauty grows out of dirt that we realise dirt is not ‘filth’, but earth. It is the basic stuff of life, the material all growth emerges from; the stuff that our life forces transform in the process of growing. But if we are out of touch with the earth of our nature, our energy has nothing to transform into the flower of our manhood or womanhood. In the East, the lotus growing out of the mud has always been a symbol of this.

No attempt has been made in this description of active imagination to show its use in art, poetry and dance. This is because the chapters on dreams and poetry, painting and stories, cover this. It is also hoped the reader will, by grasping the general principles, be able to express what arises in his own way.

Link To Chapters – Link to Chapter Eight

The Archetype of Rebirth or Resurrection

The symbols of rebirth are: The cave; an egg; spring; the tree; the cross; dawn; emerging out of the sea; the snake; the bird; a seed; arising from the earth or faeces; green shoot from a dead branch or trunk; phoenix; drinking alcohol or blood red wine; flame; a pearl; the womb.

Rebirth is the Death of the Old Life

Rebirth is as difficult to face as death. It holds within it not just the memories of the struggles and difficulties of our own physical birth and growth, but also the challenge of becoming the unknown future, the dark possibility, the new. The dream of Andrew in the underground cavern below, is an example of positive rebirth. After realising himself as bodiless awareness he emerges from the cave, and finds himself near a tree.

Example: ‘A tremendous jolt of power poured into me from the tree. I saw that we had arrived at a place where a line of trees, about a 100 yards in length, stood very close together in a slight semicircle on the top of a bank. The trees had great spiritual power and the place was a holy temple. Two spiritual beings were there – an ancient Earth Being, and Christ.’ Andrew.

The next example is of a dream typical of meeting memories of physical birth. As can be seen, the experience is powerful enough to cause physical shaking.

Example: ‘All I can see of what I enter is a very narrow space with a light showing through. But immediately I enter I realise I have made a mistake for I am being forced swiftly through a dark, very narrow tunnel. I feel pain as I am dragged along and I hear loud banging noises which frighten me, but although they are loud they seem to come from inside my head. I feel terrified and breathless and very relieved when I wake before reaching the end of the tunnel. In fact as I write this account I am shivering.’ Female. Anon.

We usually face a deeply felt experience of death before encountering the archetype of rebirth. Neither the death nor the rebirth or resurrection are things that happen quickly. There may be dreams, waking subjective experiences or a short period in ones life when death or rebirth are felt very strongly – but the process as a whole is a psychological one which may take years to unfold and stabilise. With many experiences of archetypal nature, such as entering puberty and meeting the process that unfolds manhood or womanhood, we are working out psychic growth which involves our entire nature. Puberty is an excellent example of how an archetypal human process works in us individually, yet is very unique for each of us. At the same time however, while puberty is a well worn path which virtually everyone travels, some aspects of human possibilities, like death and rebirth, are not universal. Only comparatively few people really manage these points of growth.

Here is a very clear example of death and rebirth. It occurred when the man explored a dream of entering an old house that was lived in previously by his ancestors. Puma was a great cat that had leapt on him as he started his journey. Lurch was a figure representing the guardian of the threshold:

 I started by imagining myself standing in the shadows of the house with Puma and Lurch.  Then we walked together into the darkness.  The subjective images took on a life of their own and I saw we were walking in a large underground space like great catacombs.  The light was dim but we could see our surroundings, and not very far into the cave like space was a tomb on our right.  It had the form of a low wall about a foot high in an oblong, and the wall surrounded a long stone in the centre, which was roughly body shaped.

As we drew level with the tomb an enormous change occurred in me.  Suddenly I became a woman.  It was no longer imagination.  I was now completely experiencing myself as a woman whose tomb we had approached.  As such I was torn by an immense pain of loss.  As my complete identification deepened my body curled up with the pain as I was torn by wretched crying.  Suzanne told me my voice changed as I cried out again and again for release from the pain of losing all my children, my husband, even my parents.  My hands were clawing my legs in an effort to express the misery, and I was screaming that I could not bear to live any longer with such pain.  I cried out to God to take me, for there was nothing left for me to live for.  “Why?  Why did this happen to me?  Why has everything I loved been taken from me?”

There was no response to these awful cries and tearing sobs.  But slowly a shift began.  It seemed to me as an observer witnessing this awful pain, that by entering this place the spirit of that woman had woken in me.  But as she had died in such unresolved agony of loss, that is what was met when she awoke.  But gradually she realised she was alive again in a new way.  She began to recognise that I was holding her within me.  Because I was not frightened of pain and emotions, the misery could play itself out in me.  And because my understanding of what was happening flowed into her awareness, she slowly saw and felt her loss in a different way.  In fact we were both realising she was experiencing resurrection, and that in turn meant there was no final death as believed by many.  Therefore there was no loss as she had originally felt it.

At this point something truly incredible occurred.  She and I both realised she was one of my past dwelling places – past lives.  But for her the viewpoint was slightly different; for she saw me as a continuation of a life that she had failed to be a part of because of the awful pain of loss. It had kept her from flowing into what was her future as my life.

From my perspective she was one of the past dwelling places the spirit that was at the core of my present personality had lived in and as.  She was not one of my lives, because the personality that I am was unique and had not lived that woman’s life, but my spirit had. Because she was now part of me and me of her I asked her what she had brought into my life. Her reply was, “A woman’s love”.

Example: I’m imagining Christ emerging from the grave. Who is he now? Not the man he was even if he looks the same and more or less has the same qualities which you do and you don’t. So I think death needs to be factored in whenever there’s a break in the reality that you knew, and it’s not just you have to know it, but everyone around needs to know it. I’m reminded of after my father died, that when I met people, I felt I couldn’t be with them until I said that my father had died because that had changed everything and they couldn’t possibly know I was without that. So in the same way, anyone who’s died and come back is not the same.

I suppose I can say that whatever happens to you, even if the worse happens, you have something that can re-grow you, if you’ve lost everything, that means you haven’t lost everything, that basic clear quality, maybe it’s a new form, maybe it has gone on a few steps, but it’s still there if you listen to it. Don’t struggle with it unless it is a struggle, let it happen, don’t make it a big fight because you may be fighting against what is emerging.

The Great Cycles of Life

The cycle of death and rebirth happen mostly to people passing from adult maturity to old age. It connects with physical and psychological changes to do with altered relationship with life and society, and with ones own body and self image. The cycle may appear in young people however, if they face death, physically or in a deeply psychological way. In ageing ones relationship with children or procreation alters. Whereas they were at one time consuming and motivating drives, they are no longer sustaining or motivating. Work and ones relationship with society may also undergo a similar change. The identity one gained from having a place in society, and connections with other people through being a mother or in ones work, falls away. The personality, the attitudes, the hopes and ambitions built from the many years of life as a procreative, creative person meshed into society, dies through the lack of a relationship with the world that sustains it. This ‘death’ may be very painful, creating a great and sometimes crushing sense of pointlessness, of having no value in the world, of having nothing to live for. In some cases these feelings are triggered by the onset of menopause in women, or impotence in men – but also for men the absence of a sexual life or family life, or simply the process of ageing.

One man described it as, “The feeling of being paralysed, or being unable to move. It is not so much a physical impediment, but a sense of having no motivation, no ability to want anything, no drive to reach out.”

Fears may arise as to what is happening. Such fears are based on concepts we hold regarding ageing or death. The loss of identification with oneself as a procreative and higly motivated person may seem to be a sign of emerging incapability or even senility. The fear then sets up a conflict with the process of psychic growth.

A woman who had worked as a nurse, describes her experience of this as, “‘The feelings I have about dying, about losing my drive to live, link with ideas of being incapable as one is in hospital. Those are feelings or ideas I connect with it. Those images have made it – or are making it – hard to meet.”

However, such a felt death is only a precursor to the experience of resurrection, and this leads toward a new relationship with oneself and the world. The attitudes and way of life that was necessary as a procreative, work oriented individual whose self image was largely based on family background, physical looks, sexual potency, ability to get the goods of the world or gain power, steadily shifts. It moves toward a sense of self that is centred more on what there is on ones existence that is more timeless and less ravaged by change than the body, the emotions, ones intellectual concepts and the social scene.

Have I Lost Everything?

The change that takes place in this experience of an inwardly felt death, may at times feel like losing everything, shedding the past, becoming completely insecure. It usually leads to the realisation in ones life of parts of oneself that were never lived before, or never allowed expression before. There is not in the end a loss of anything, only a gaining that requires one to let go of the dominance of what was previously important. From this arises a feeling of wholeness and connection with the world and self in a new way. In her book about the individuation process, Jolande Jacobi says, ‘…. transformation is an integral component of the individuation process, which in turn follows a line of development whose goal is psychic-totality.’

Example: Last night, I very vividly had a lucid dream, where I saw a pregnant (very pregnant) women hanging from a rough rope in a bathroom. The bathroom was unfamiliar to me.

A dream expressive death and rebirth. The rope was death, the pregnancy was rebirth.

There is however, no final death or rebirth. The cycle is a fundamental process in nature, and therefore active too in the physical and psychological nature of humans. It is not only old age or approaching death causing the experience to arise. It can also happen during profound personal growth, when old fears, traumas and habits fall away and allow a completely new relationship with sexuality, with work, with being alive.

See: Life and Death.

The Night Journey – the Search for Self

Each of us are constantly gathering information about who we are, what we are capable of and what the meaning of our life is. This is often put into an archetypal form as the great quest, a journey or the great pilgrimage. For many it is expressed as the search for God, Allah, or the many names people of the world give to what they experience as the Great Unknow Mystery, and the often extraordinary efforts people make to grow beyond the pain of childhood or adult trauma. In some it becomes the quest for knowledge when one truly tries to understand rather than simply remember facts. It is seen in artists attempts to go beyond themselves in creative acts; in the spiritual quest for the imperishable; the search for real love or even the way some people manage to transcend the limitations of their body. They are all aspects of this search for self. The journey is endless because it is a journey through infinity.

I am a wave on a shoreless sea.
From no beginning
I travel to no goal,
Making my movements stillness.
Constantly I am arriving
And departing,
Being born and dying.
I am always with you
And yet have never been.

Throughout history we have examples of how such quests were lived out. Mohammed for instance, describes his massive breakthrough into what he felt was a cosmic revelation as The Night Journey, which occurred in a dream. Siddhartha, after years of discipline and privation, finds a new way of experiencing life in what we now called enlightenment, and became the Buddha. Jesus transformed from a carpenter to the Christ at baptism through an opening to a new type of awareness. Thousands of people in today’s world have followed in the footsteps of those early pioneers and experienced for themselves the meeting with what Jung calls The Self – the emergence into an experience of greater wholeness or completeness; the falling away of the defences, resistances and fears that have held us back from our fullest and most profound experience of ourselves; an experience of enlightenment. It is not a case of developing an attribute we didn’t already have, but of bursting through the personal or culturally imposed barriers that have walled off this greater expanse of self from easy access. See Enlightenment

In a sense, every dream is a part of this huge journey which is our life. Each dream is a facet of what is met in experiencing – meeting – our own existence. There are definitely highlights in our many dreams – times of critical and arduous difficulties, such as we find in the great quests such as Jason and The Golden Fleece, and the Odyssey. The journey is one we are all on, and our dreams and archetypal images are but ways of depicting aspects of what we meet, the enormity of the ordinary, the hidden depths of a problem we encounter, the wonder of possibilities awaiting discovery, the way into the trackless realm beyond collective norms. The journey is from dependence toward independence, from being a part of collective humanity to the actualisation of our own unique identity. This journey to oneself is, paradoxically, also the journey to the universal, to merging of self with the One. See: archetype of the hero/ine; Inner World

Example: I was in the army. We were going to fight the Germans. We collected together in a large flat, the Germans coming also. We came to know each other not as enemies but as people. I was so moved by the feeling of brotherhood I nearly wept.

Then I was on a ship. It was night. Ahead loomed land, some miles away. On the left, high up in the hills, flashes of guns could be seen. The captain explained that the guns were bombarding and terrorising people. It was our mission to stop them. As this was explained I felt, for the first time in my life, a real feeling of being a part of a group, and being willing to risk or give my life for my people. It was almost a religious feeling. T.

This is a typical ‘night sea journey’ dream. The dreamer was starting to delve into himself and the dream shows him ready to give his life to dealing with his internal conflicts. It also shows the love and courage necessary to make this journey.

There are grand stages or points on the journey. Most of the great religions attempt to depict these stages, although there can never be a final definition. In Christian symbols for instance we have the annunciation, the divine birth, the recognition at the temple, the baptism, the teaching, the marriage; the trial and crucifixion, the death and the resurrection, and finally the ascension. All of these depict psychological events in the process of meeting ones own depths, of the growth to ones own maturity and wholeness. Other cultures define these stages in other ways. The Hindu teachings give them as four major stages. Namely the student, the householder, the retired person, and the fourth is the ascetic (also known as a sanyassin or a sadhu). See The Inner Path to Christ Intro

Example: I remember leaving some place and embarking on a journey at night. I’m frightened but I want to make this journey. I approach a stream with a very narrow bridge. It’s dark and I’m afraid I may fall off the bridge. But to continue I must cross the bridge. R.

This extract from R’s dream is typical of the starting of the process of uncovering ones own unconscious darkness and the night of the unknown self we are journeying to. This is the beginning of what is often called the Night Journey and the facing of fears. The Night Journey is itself an archetype involving the search for self. It is called a journey in the night because the person enters into what was previously dark, hidden and unconscious. They enter into awareness of the unconscious. Carl Jung’s frontispiece to his book Man and His Symbols is the entrance to an Egyptian tomb, leading into profound darkness.

Example: My dream is of an endless journey, which takes a road that turns into a circle or maze that is endless. There is cloth covering the sides of the pathway. I have to take sticks of wood to try to lift it out of the way. J. P.

Example: Then imagery came and I was walking in a beautiful forest. The trees were very big and widely spaced, so it was light and giving the impression of quiet space. I felt as if I were beginning a journey and the forest was my starting place. As I walked in the forest I heard a sound coming from somewhere. I had the sense of it beckoning me or attracting me so I go off in search of it. But although it beckons it is difficult to know exactly where it is coming from. There is a sense that it is coming from higher up, from the mountains that stand beyond the forest.

I am experiencing something the imagery is of being in the midst of a tribal group perhaps they are like people from New Guinea or South America. I seem to be lying on the ground and they are in front of me in a long column, all males. They are not threatening, but they seem to be expressing masculinity, perhaps even the source of strength that would go into being warriors. I am apart from the group, an old male. I feel it is something about facing death.

Now they have gone and the women of the tribe are dancing in front of me. They are bare breasted and their dance is about being female. My sense is that they are calling my masculine energy, raising or rousing it in preparation for something like an initiation I am about to pass through. I am the elder and they are readying me for a further initiation. What they are doing is traditional, and it is to set the scene for what I am to face or confront.

Now the preparations have ended and I am to go off alone up the mountains to meet whatever waits for me there. Now it feels as if something is flowing into my body. I am now experiencing a state or condition that has been very marked or strong in my life lately. My breathing became very slow, it seems even at times as if it has stopped, and everything becomes very still. It feels like being dead. My body becomes so still it disappears and all that is left is awareness submerged in enormous emptiness or space. There is a paradox in this experience because it feels as if I, my sense of self, has melted away, and yet there is still a very definite experience of existing. I suppose what has stopped is what I have called movement. The movement of thinking, of feeling, of longing or hoping for things.

There is this huge reality confronting us all the time. We call this reality death. And often that has an awful face for us. But I am feeling it as joy, a most wonderful joy. It is here in the darkness I am experiencing – that joy. The waves of this gentle joy flow through me. It is like floating in a subtle ocean and my consciousness, my being, is gently lifted and moved by the waves of this quiet joy.

Here the waves of that joy were big, lifting me high in a coloured spectrum of rippling, vibrating radiance. My being was the waves. I was myself waves of rippling sparkling radiance. At the same time my awareness could switch back to what was happening with my body, and it was shaking, vibrating with energy flowing through it. As this happened it really seemed as if my body was being absorbed into the energy. This felt to me as if my body was melting and becoming part of the emptiness that was rippling through me, that was me. The great waves of life were absorbing my personality. It was being broken down just as our body breaks down food we eat and digests. It was drawing me back into itself. Living or dying is a joy. I love you life. I love you death. You are both the same beauty. Beautiful mystery. I cried out with the wonder of it, “Oh my Darling.”

Our dreams often insist that the journey is everlasting, not even ending with death, but moving through the great cycles of the universe. Only by making the journey can we find our own wholeness and our own place in life with any awareness. The term probably arose with the description of Muhammad’s experience of enlightenment which he called The Night Journey. Jung called it the Night Sea journey.

Paul Levy writing about this says: “This process can be so extreme, so radical, that the ego experiences it as death …. This experience is related to the shaman’s and Jesus’s descent to the underworld as well as the archetypal journey of the wounded healer. See Vibrate Vibrating

Example: As I walked among them I saw their lined faces, bent backs, and thought/wondered whether this could be healed and released. Now their doctor/priest came to them. A big man who seemed to have a slightly lame right (I think) leg. He had penicillin on his hands – to heal the many sores his people had. He then laid down in the small channel seen in cowsheds to carry of the urine and cow shit. It had been cleaned, but a cow had shit in its slightly. He asked for blankets to lay on. These were brought. He lay down and prayed. This was the inner strength his people needed.

This is an example of the wounded healer.

To quote an ancient alchemical text “…the Tincture, this tender child of life…must needs descend into the darkness of Saturn (which symbolizes the point of lowest descent, of death), wherein no light of life is to be seen; there it must be held captive, and be bound with the chains of darkness.”

Mythologically the night sea journey is described as being swallowed up by a sea monster and thereby carried into the depths of the sea – the story of Jonah. Psychologically it is the experience of ones life energy turning inwards and descending back toward its root or source. In doing so our poor vulnerable self awareness, our tiny spark of consciousness is carried beneath the protective boundary of waking awareness into its own depths. This is akin to travelling into the darkness of sleep with awareness. Sleep, after all, is a strange country in which our waking self seldom if ever travels. Imagine, if you have not already made the journey, delving into the level of yourself where your eyes no longer see, your body sense of form or size and touch have disappeared. There is no hearing of the external world. You are sinking into the country of what we call the mind or consciousness, the world of sleep, death and dreams, in which the usual boundaries of experience are taken away. Here you meet – given form by your fears and cultural symbols, as if with real bodies – your own fears, the pains buried deep in your past, the residues of all past actions so far unredeemed.

But you also meet the wonder of an enormously enlarged awareness, the sparkling immediacy of questions answered, the splendour of bodiless life linking in love and mind with an infinity of others. Here you experience the vision of the spirit’s journeys into time and space, and its life in eternity. Here you are the genderless consciousness of angels.

Example: This is when I entered into the house of God. At first I saw the image of a huge cathedral or church with a magnificent domed roof and I knew that I was in the house of God. I felt the utopia, I felt like I have never felt before, so very good, so excellent. I knew all things. I didn’t have to read the bible or any kind of teachings because the answers are all here in the presence of God. In this state I could ask any question and know the answer. I knew God, yet I was God because there was no separation. Neal C.

Example: Suzanne Segal in her book, Collision with the Infinite, says, There is no one I could instruct to do something to make you the vastness. That’s already and always who you are.

There is no end to all of this, just as there was no beginning. There are constant “bus hits,” as I now call them, in which the infinite expands yet again and again. The substance of the vastness is so directly perceivable to itself in every moment that the circuitry at times requires another adjustment phase to get used to more infinite awareness. When asked who I am, the only answer possible is: I am the infinite, the vastness that is the substance of all things. I am no one and everyone, nothing and everything—just as you are.

And before you say you think that is all preposterous think about this – you can see Less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum and hear less than 1 % of the acoustic spectrum. As you read this, yon are travelling at 220 kilometres per second across the galaxy. 90% of the cells in your body carry their own microbial DNA and are not “you”. The atoms in your body are 99.9999999999999999% empty space and none of them are the ones you were born with, but they all originated in the belly of a star. Human beings have 46 chromosomes, 2 less than the common potato. The existence of the rainbow depends on the conical photo receptors in your eyes; to animals without cones, the rainbow does not exist. So you don’t just look at a rainbow, you create it. This is pretty amazing, especially considering that all the beautiful colors you see represent less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum. See: The Next Step.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I consciously made the decision to take the journey of self revelation?

If I am on this journey what stage am I at? See: individuation for stages.

Am I meeting, or have I met the dying of self – if so what changes is it bringing?

Also it is worth reading Levels of Awareness – Jesse Watkins Enlightenment – Methods of Awakening – Meditation with Seed – Life’s Little Secrets – Dimensions of Human Experience