dreams – Mesmarriah Miracle

14. Dreams—Let’s Get Practical, Practical.

I know a lot of people don’t want to take dreams seriously. Many will say they never remember their dreams. I’ll tell you now that when you make the conscious decision and intent-to-grow as far as you can, searching for your true Self, seeing what your life is truly about—dreams will be the instrument of communication.

Here’s my Cliff Notes version of things I learned that were helpful in recording and interpreting dreams. This will also help when you come back and review your dreams in a week, month, year or years later.

From experience I know that reviewing your dreams almost always sheds more insights. There was the time when I was in much emotional pain from ending a relationship that was unhealthy. Lamenting my pain to a friend, she advised me, “Look at your dreams a year ago.” And sure enough, a year before it had all happened, was a dream in which ‘on a dark road (in the dark/unknown) a man had fixed my car (the way I go thru life), then left with two children (the man in question had a boy and a girl). I was grateful for his help, sad that he was leaving, and when he left, I said: “I hope you will come back.” Having the whole scenario played out, a year before it happened, gave me an understanding and then acceptance one year later that the man had done what he was supposed to do, and that was all. Acceptance brings relief from pain.

So here’s a practical practice of using dreams—shorthanded:

Write down THE DREAM no matter how weird or convoluted it seems, as much detail as you can—main characters, places, background, weather, colors, odd things, all of the details.
Write a SHORT STORY LINE or overall one-sentence-type theme to the dream which may give you a reference as to the meaning. Edgar Cayce says to check to see if the opposite is true in your life. If so, the dream may be letting your know you need to find the happy medium between the two opposites! (See Compensatory Dreams below.). Watch for a (many times humorous) play on words, “all wet,” “the stronger the wind, the higher I can fly,” “something ‘bugging’ you,” “something under your skin,” “let go of the baggage,” “in over your head.”
Give a brief overview of the EVENTS OF THE DAY before because you learn that most dreams are reactive to something conscious or unconscious that was stirred in the previous day’s activity. An emotion perhaps that flashed for an instant but you tamped it down. Your dream wants you to recognize/acknowledge that emotion. Plus it also gives you context if you come back to review your dreams a month, a year, a decade later.
What were the FEELINGS in the dream? Do they relate to a like-feeling from the day before? Or to something that is happening in your life now? Sometimes dreams will take a feeling, especially a scary one and construct a scenario around it to show you just how afraid you are (whether you want to admit it or not) and help you acknowledge/face/accept/deal with it.
First consider if it is a PHYSICAL WARNING in some way? For example, I had received notification of a recall on my car for something in the front suspension. Busy life. I didn’t want to be bothered to take time off work and go to the dealership, yet I was wondering if I was feeling something symptomatic in my car or just imagining it. I had a dream that showed my car wobbling as I was driving it. This dream was enough to make me act, and, indeed, the car was in need of the repair.
Note the MAJOR SYMBOLS in the dream. What did you choose in set-dressing your dream? Describe what the symbols mean to you specifically (even just writing adjectives helps). If that description brings to mind any “incidents” or memories, (called associations), note those, too. i. e. That ‘symbol’ or that ‘feeling’ reminds me of the time ________. Dream interpretations can be non-linear, too. Sometimes just remembering this ‘association’ and ‘that story’ all of a sudden fits the two together and you feel “aha” or “ooohhh” coming out of your mouth before you even know it.
Also know that some symbols contain specific meaning for you, like Mr. Stewart, my favorite teacher, father figure. Others are of the ages, from the myths, the psyches of all humans over our entire evolution. When from the ages, the symbol carries more than just the obvious—it is the best possible symbol for your unconscious to communicate to your conscious self. Writing adjectives to describe each symbol may help identify what issue or part of your psyche you are dealing with. (I remember one person explaining, “try to describe the symbol as if you were explaining it to someone not from this planet.”)
If it is a ‘series dream,’ repeating a specific symbol or location or even an entire dream— try to see the differences in the dream. How are you doing—disintegration or improvement? Or is it trying to bring home a point that you just are not getting or acting on?

“Dreams which are not interpreted are like letters which have not been opened.” The Talmud

Learning to interpret dreams is an-ever-progressing lesson. You’ll get recurring symbols, like Blake Book (for my art), or my high school teacher, Mr. Stewart, who always affirmed there was a “lesson” in there somewhere or he was starting a new class or I was failing my ‘test.’

You learn that your house means you, your life. Dream of your house? Describe the house. Does that sound like how you feel/see your life? Are there new rooms that you didn’t know were there that seem happy, intriguing, you’re pleasantly surprised to find and want to explore? (That’s all you!) One time in my dream, my house was completely destroyed (representing a year that was so financially distraught that I feared I would lose my house). Yet in the dream, it dawned on me that I would now be able to rebuild it any way I wanted. The dream identified my biggest fear and gave me an entirely different approach and outlook to my fear. (You may also remember the lesson I learned from the Catalyst: When you are irrational from fear, determine the worst that can happen, come to accept that even if that happened, you would still survive, be you. It takes you from irrationality to being rational enough to focus on thwarting that outcome.) This dream did that for me.

Windows in a house? Probably your “outlook.” I saw a big garbage heap from one window. Was that the way I saw my world at the time?

Your car can represent your life and the ‘means by which you go through life.’ Sometimes my car would be lost, stuck, sitting in a parking lot, have flat tires. I called these “status” dreams—they were letting me know how well I was (or was not) doing.

Flying dreams are by far about the best. I came to learn they usually referred to my ‘spirit soaring’ because I’d made a discovery or had a realization the day before. Think of the exhilaration that soaring gravity-free must bring—gravity-locked no more!

Flying is usually related to the ‘mental’ aspects. Many times my flying dreams would encapsulate the “free” feeling of joyousness when I had realized something that ‘elevated’ my life, my way of thinking, my insights into The Big Picture.

In most of my flying dreams, flying was a mechanical focus. It required body control and torque, arms out for stability. But one notable dream, I made a startling new discovery—a shortcut to flying! I dreamed all l I had to do was ‘think’ and I ‘dissolved into the air’ is how I described it, yet it felt as exhilarating as flying—even moreso because I had discovered a new way to fly.

After writing down the dream, I went to record the previous day’s events (#3 Above) and realized that amazing dream was capturing the elation my soul was feeling.

The previous day, my good friend and I had been with my ex-husband who was showing her a new house. He took us to dinner, and there he related to my friend that what I had done to claim a life of my own had been a very brave thing to do. He explained that he would not have learned some of the things he did if I had not left. He, whose heart I had broken, called me brave. The dream held the depth of the exhilaration I felt to hear such acceptance and affirmation from the father of my daughters.

Dreams Can Spell It Out for You.

Occasionally you get a pretty obvious dream. My journaling notes: “When I had this dream, there was this subtle urging—“you should remember this dream”…it was like I understood the symbolism while I was dreaming it. From my journal:

“House in the background—it belonged to me and the man I was with. The two of us started to soar, up above everything but I couldn’t see a landscape. I was hanging on to some ‘baggage,’ heavy cumbersome suitcase-like thing. I’m not sure exactly ‘what’ it was, but I was holding on behind it, being pulled through the air. The man was sorta leading, encouraging, reassuring me that if I let go, I could soar even more. I finally ‘let go’—releasing the ‘baggage’ to really let myself soar—and I gleefully and proudly proclaimed, “I finally let go!” There was a little jerk like you might feel if you jettisoned something heavy, but I recovered stability immediately. I was proud of finally ‘trusting’ to ‘let go’ like a kid learning to trust your balance on a bicycle or trust floating in water.”

“Let go of the baggage, I could SOAR!” (I’d even packed ‘all my stuff’ conveniently in a bag!) I finally let go and trusted! (Trust had been a highly suspect emotion in my experience!)

This dream came seven years after I had encountered The Catalyst (kissed awake). I had been working to claim my life for my own—which included integrating the Animus/masculine attributes of independence. Was the ‘encouraging male’ who said if I just ‘let go the baggage, I could soar’ my Animus? (If indeed my Animus, I described him as ‘older, wiser, a mate, comfortable, low-key, quiet, assured. I’d like to think my perfect opposite would be just like that!)

One flying dream was interpreted as I flew: “The stronger the wind, the higher I can fly.” I took that one to heart. It gave me courage to face whatever was blowing me about in my life at the time, and to see strong headwinds as merely the opportunity to soar even higher!

There is also a category called, Compensatory dreams. You can have a dream that is pretty much the extreme polar opposite of what’s happening in your life. It’s for the purpose of recognizing you need a balance between the extreme in the dream and the extreme opposite in your life. The human mind seeks balance and equilibrium. Your dream Maker is the communicator between your conscious existence and what your unconscious needs for your best life. I have to confess that sometimes in my lowest, hardest, most painful conscious life, many times I would have a compensatory dream that woke me up laughing! I needed balance.

I’ll also confess there were some dreams I just had to record and hope for further clarification at some point. Hence why we need to press the Pause button from time to time and ‘look back.” Sometimes it would be weeks, even years later, I’d be reviewing my dreams from a bigger picture and perspective view-point, and the meaning would ring clear as a bell.

We modern day humans try so hard to quantify our lives—numbers, years, net worth, fixed dogmas, final answers, five-year plans and retirement plans. Objective at the expense of the subjective. Discount and discard what we cannot see or grasp. Working with dreams connects you with a feeling that there is something inside each of us, working with us— something more than just numbers and things and stats—something that wants us to fulfill our soulful yearning for a meaning to life, our life.

“If one watches this meandering design (of dreams) over a long period of time, one can observe a sort of hidden regulating or directing tendency at work creating a slow, imperceptible process of psychic growth –the process of individuation.” Carl Jung “Man and His Symbols” p. 160

If you want more detail and depth on working with your dreams, besides buying books, I found this site: https://cafeausoul.com/dreams/inspired-by-dreams/dream-expert-kari-hohne She has incorporated both Freud and Jung in dream interpretation and has a very easy-to-read, practical approach which can be quickly helpful.

If you’re new to Mesmarriah Miracle, it’s best to start at Post #1 and continue in numbered sequence, like Connecting the Dots.

13. Dreams—A Little Help from Our Friends

The Self can be defined as an inner guiding factor that is different from the conscious personality and that can be grasped only through the investigation of one’s own dreams.” Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols” (MAHS) p. 160

There are sooooo many books written about dreams, what they mean, how to use them. I have a whole shelf of books specifically about dreams and their interpretation. Yes, I have read and highlighted them. But I will disclaimer that my input can neither be academic nor even encompassing. It is experiential, my experience from what I have lived and learned.

My wish is to convey how useful and insightful and comforting and knowledgeable dreams can be to aid you in everyday living—and, moreso, in finding a raison d’etre (a reason to be) for the life you are living. Dreams are the navigational buoys in the sea of life and Life.

“(Dreams) work to accomplish two things. They work to solve the problems of the dreamer’s conscious, waking life. And they work to quicken in the dreamer new potentials which are his to claim.” “Edgar Cayce on Dreams” p. 9

The first thing to know about our dreams is that We are the “producer.” Some part of us—our psyche, our higher Self, our piece of the Eternal, ‘the One Within Who Knows,’—the part that holds the Schematic. Always wanting to get us on the true track of our Life.

Also, we play all the parts. Dream about your daughter (or son), think about the daughter (or son) part of you. Dream about your mother, think of the ‘mother’ in you. Dream about a “character,” write down a description and see which part of you they might represent. Dream about a scary, dark character—that may be your Shadow that wants you to recognize it. Face it. Look for the Anima/Animus (opposite sex) to see what additional aspects or attributes of your personality you need to incorporate. See what your starting status is and watch as you deal with each of your Parts and Pieces to get to your true Self. Dreams will let you know if you’re gaining or losing and how to fix the problem. They can also give you guidance for most every issue you face in life.

I know, I can hear you saying, “I don’t remember my dreams.” The best way to press ‘Start’ on remembering and getting help from your dreams? Buy a blank book and start writing them down. Once dreams see that you are taking them seriously, they’ll make themselves remember-able.

I began with ‘little’ blank books, the cloth-bound versions—save your money. Go for the 8 1/2 x 11” letter-sized books or even spiral notebooks (stock up when they’re on sale for back-to-school supplies!) Once you apply your sincere energy (the operative word, energy) and effort to follow that built-in urge toward growth, it will see that dreams, answers, synchronicities, books, friends, strangers, even podcasts, will keep you going forward.

What some call a “numinous” dream may even hold ‘the Call’ that begins a person’s search for their true Self. “Numinous” meaning it is a ‘BIG” dream; it holds some sort of divine, spiritual or something-Bigger-than-you-and-I feeling. It sorta demands that you pay attention to it and wonder on it for a while.

I had what I’d call a “voice of God” dream a year or two after I had been awakened by The Catalyst. It was before I had that intuitive feeling that ‘dreams might be important,’ but when you think you might have heard ‘the voice of God,” you’re gonna remember that dream without writing it down!

What I remember is that the night before I’d been watching what is called an “oater” in crossword puzzles—an old western movie, may have been John Wayne and a wagon train setting as I recall. Later that night I had a dream that I was with a wagon train and we were being attacked (dreams do like to play with recent tv fare). Our backs were to what felt like a big rocky cave and I was on the ground furiously directing and helping people pile all our belongings/”stuff” up in front for protection. Working frantically and furiously, all of a sudden…a disembodied voice, maybe coming from the cave, and striking silence all around, quietly announced, “You Will Be an Organizer.” That’s all. And it sorta ended the dream—or at least it woke me up.

My first reaction, again, was, “Whut?” What does that mean? And, again, all I could do was say, “OK. I’m listening.” What am I supposed to organize? I decided it wasn’t any project I was working on at the time. Voice of God seemed a little overkill for a tv project. All I could do was file it away (and wait for some other clue) because I sure couldn’t figure it out…or forget it. It did sound like what I would have thought the “Voice of God” would come to us like, so I did pay attention and wonder on it. Then all I could do was wait.

Fast forward 12-14 years later (remember, 12-14 years doesn’t even equate to the Eternal part we’re dealing with). Here is the description of a “non-descript piece of a dream” I recorded in my journal. “There were lots of mundane on-going dreams, but they were faint, not much registered or stayed with me. I remember thinking about/realizing I had this dream, seemed boring, just sluffed it off during the night til this morning when I realized it was a wagon train—and it was the wagon train I was with/helping out when I had the “You Will Be An Organizer” dream years ago.”

Again, “Whut?” I had almost forgotten about that ‘Voice of God’ dream.

In this dream, the wagon train was starting up again, moving on down the trail. I set about picking up odds and ends of our “stuff” and throwing it into various wagons as they pulled out. I didn’t want anything to be left behind. Twelve to fourteen years later—I was still organizing.

Here’s where I caution that you have to be awake to Dots dropping so you can connect them later—sometimes much later.

Remember the classmate who wrote the book I felt was an ode to his Anima? In this dream he was the one who “woke me” that the wagon train was starting up again. What is even more bizarre was that that classmate had been a recurring theme in my dreams for over four years leading up to a class reunion. His name was used as word play on the changing status of my ‘art’. Although his name was Art (so I wouldn’t miss the clue), let’s call him Blake Book. (In the beginning he was handicapped but I loved him so much! Probably a very apt description of my “art” at the time.) When I dreamed of BB, it was usually an update on the status of how well I was progressing in my “art.” BB many times showed up in a “Reunion” setting which made me more determined to go to the class reunion which I rarely-to-never attended.

After Blake Book was identified as the recurring symbol for my art, it was my dreams that led me to locating him after having been absent from my home town for a couple of decades. (As they say, ‘that’s a whole ‘nother story, Montel’) Four years of BB being the symbol for my art, then I attended the actual class reunion. The real BB and I talked over 18 hours. I gathered one item from him that ended up in my pertinent pocket. His theory of Marginal Multiples. I really thought his theory had merit, not to mention a little bit of humor, and… alliteration. MM.

(A quick note: if you understand that when an aggrieved or abused personality splits into “multiple personalities” for survival, BB had extrapolated and shared his theory of “Marginal Multiples.” He felt all of us take on borderline (on the margin) adjuncts to our personality—nothing too serious, just some oddities to our normal nature that pop up on certain prompted occasions. I already knew that when a child is traumatized—emotionally, physically, or spiritually—at an early age, there will always remain a child of that age (thinking and acting) in the adult’s personality. Hit a trigger and that young-aged child may stomp, yell or react in his now-adult body! Here BB had come up with a name—Marginal Multiples. (has a lightbulb gone on yet? MM?)

It was three years after that reunion that I had the dream that BB (symbol for my ‘art’) woke me up to tell me that the wagon train was starting up again.

Long time to be remembering Dots dropped, right? They neither drop linearly, nor do they drop conveniently close together. But if they are ‘pertinent to your survival’, you will. That’s why eyes, ears, heart and soul must be open, alert, and waiting (writing down helps, too). I’m pretty well convinced that the Self/Unknown/Eternal that we are dealing with really does not do well in our constriction of the time/space continuum. Time just isn’t factored in the same way. Or maybe it’s all just to teach us patience.

So how do we use our dreams?

Let’s get Practical, Practical.

If you’re new to Mesmarriah Miracle, it’s best to start at Post #1 and continue in numbered sequence, like Connecting the Dots.

9. Landing in a Plane Backwards.

Connecting the Dots (or a brief chronology).

The encounter with The Catalyst and the feeling that I’d just woken up.

Wandering and wondering, I lean into some inner leading via feelings mostly and active searching for an answer to what am I supposed to do—is it the man, or something more?

Five years of that and I have a ‘feeling’ that dreams are important and start writing them down. Within weeks I find Carl Jung whose psychology incorporates the importance of dreams as a communicator for that inner leading.

The next synchronicity coming up—I ‘happen’ upon a book that answers the persistent “Why?” questions. (Remember, every answer to a “Why” question can always solicit another, “Why?”)

You may remember how I found Carl Jung synchronistically. My trip down the Natchez Trace for a day off, the intriguing mystery of Meriwether Lewis’ death, and off to visit the library for a book to decide for myself if Lewis was murdered or committed suicide. Then seeing Carl Jung among all the other A to Z biographies in that section, and pulling his book off the shelf. The reading of his bio, “Memories, Dreams and Reflections” bringing a feeling of ‘elation’ as I read what had been happening to me in the previous five floundering years.

That fateful trip down the Trace was a Thursday, August 22. A note in my journal shows that I started reading the Jung bio on Friday, August 23, with the note, “Elation!” On August 28, less than a week after my sojourn down the Trace, I had this dream:

(From my dream journal) “After starting to read Jung’s autobiography: I had a remember-able dream about going to some foreign country, an “S” country—I just remember it as “S” and cold/white)–and landing in an airplane backward (the tail section first) and thinking it funny with the people I was traveling with—or was sitting beside in the plane—looking out the window and realizing the plane was tail first streaming down the runway. Seems like my travel or seat mates were an older man (Jung?) and an older woman. When I got into the airport/customs area, I realized I had no passport/credentials to enter a foreign country and started to feel dismayed until brightly I realized I would still be able to get into the foreign country. It would just take me 45 min to 1 hour longer to get cleared. A young girl, helpful, efficient, personable, tall, set about clearing me. I was never worried about it at all, just confident it would work out even though I was ‘breaking the rules’ and not doing it like everybody else. It would just take me longer.“

It would be the first of many directive, insightful, instructive, and encouraging dreams that I would have.

From Jung:

“To me dreams are a part of nature, which harbors no intention to deceive, but expresses something as best it can, just as a plant grows or an animal seeks its food as best it can.” …I regarded the unconscious and dreams, which are its direct exponents, as natural processes to which no arbitrariness can be attributed and above all no legerdemain. (trickery or sleight of hand) Carl Jung “Memories, Dreams, Reflections” (MDR) p 161

Apparently my subconscious works on getting me to understand while sleeping. For the nights following the plane dream, it was like I would only feel about half asleep, the other half working subconsciously on figuring things out. I’d sorta figure out parts of things, then semi-wake up to realize it, cement it in my memory. (I’m thinking that probably the subconscious can work better with the rigid, objective mind when it is half asleep.) My interpretation became pretty clear on September 2.

This from my journal:

“I was trying to be admitted to a “foreign land” without the proper “official credentials.” (In real life, I was trying to understand a foreign area—the unconscious…Jung’s psychology) S-country could be Switzerland, Jung’s country. Without the proper official papers—a degree. I was happily confident I would be admitted: it would just require a very small, pleasant, (patient) unruffling delay. Is the foreign land the unconscious rather than just Jung’s psychiatry? The unconscious feels to be the avenue I need to approach now…to see “where” the really “big picture” comes from.”

I may have already mentioned that when you delve into the unknown, time warps, maybe elongates. So I wondered how long the “45 min to 1 hour time” depicted in the dream would take to be “admitted to the foreign country.” Relatively speaking, 45 min to 1 hour delay in Customs didn’t seem too unreasonable. I would later learn that the Unconscious was oft depicted as a ‘foreign land.’

The Unconscious, you may note, has now taken on a Capital “U.” Important.

Is it the Unconscious that is doing the leading here? How long would it take for me to be “admitted” to an understanding of Jung’s psychology? Or would it be the Unconscious itself that would take the time? What is the Unconscious and how does it affect me?

The next synchronicity was just around the corner. I’m driving home from work one day and on a last minute whim, I whip off the interstate to hit up a bookstore. (I remember slashing across two lanes of traffic to make the exit in time.) Whims can be dangerous. This one was worth it. Once inside the store, just browsing, seeing what attracted my attention. I see a sale table. Nice. I like sales. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb through…and there…oh-oh, a big Jung book, “Man and His Symbols.” Hmmm…might as well…if dreams are communicators of the psyche, best to start learning about their symbols, right? And at a sale price!

I would learn that I was neither a singular, nor an anointed case.

No specialty required to get synchronicities or dreams or books dropping breadcrumbs. Jung’s Psychology of Individuation assures that these things happen to anyone who opens themselves up to something bigger than outward appearances. To the hero and heroine who enters the forest on his or her own path to search for the holy grail, their true Selves.

“The Self can be defined as an inner guiding factor that is different from the conscious personality…how far it develops depends on whether or not the ego is willing to listen to the messages of the Self.” Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols, (MAHS) p. 162

Jung’s psychology came from his lifetime of having lived all that he writes about… understanding the human psyche, recognizing how the myths that mankind laid down are pathfinders, and following his own unknown leading, In his bio, “Memories, Dreams and Reflections,” Jung tells about his experiences as a doctor, psychiatrist, and scientist who submitted to the leading of his Unconscious.

He writes,

“…my life has been singularly poor in outward happenings. I cannot tell much about them, for it would strike me as hollow and insubstantial. I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life.”“…my life has been in a sense the quintessence of what I have written, not the other way around. The way I am and the way I write are a unity.” Carl Jung, “MDR”

Aniela Jaffe writes in the forward of the book:

“I often asked Jung for specific data on outward happenings, but I asked in vain. Only the spiritual essence of his life’s experience remained in his memory, and this alone seemed to him worth the effort of telling.”

He retained that which was pertinent to his survival.

Jung’s entire life and life’s work was committed to understanding the human psyche. His early experience with schizophrenics and the mentally ill led him to recognize that many of their delusions were rooted in ancient symbols and myths which he then steeped himself in so that he could understand them. It was his own dreams that gave him answers and clues leading him all the way back to the Alchemists and the Gnostics. This commitment many times caused painful separation from his colleagues, including his break with Freud, but he felt a conviction to stay true to his internal leading. He persevered to provide an answer…that I needed to find many decades later. I particularly loved this line because it plucked a string of my heart and soul, and validated a thought I’d already had in a poem, “Phantom Questions.”

“I also think of the possibility that through the achievement of an individual a question enters the world, to which he must provide some kind of answer.” Carl Jung, MDR, p.318

Be All That You Can Be

Jung’s psychology: The Process of Individuation. I’ve shorthanded it, “the process of becoming whole.” The Army copped it and made a slogan out of it: Be All That You Can Be! (Who knew the US Army was Jungian.) Whole. Becoming Whole. That sorta intimates parts and pieces need to be put together to become whole. Parts and Pieces are next up, but first, here’s why and what the process entails.

“The actual process of individuation—the conscious coming to terms with one’s own inner center…the Self—generally begins with a wounding of the personality and the suffering that accompanies it. This initial shock amounts to a sort of “call,” although it is not often recognized as such. On the contrary, the ego feels hampered in its will or its desire and usually projects the obstruction onto something external.

Or perhaps everything seems outwardly all right, but beneath the surface a person is suffering from a deadly boredom that makes everything seem meaningless and empty. Many myths and fairy tales symbolically describe this initial state in the process of individuation by telling of a king who has fallen ill or grown old.

One is seeking something that is impossible to find or about which nothing is known. In such moments all well-meant, sensible advice is completely useless—advice that urges one to try to be responsible, to take a holiday, not to work so hard (or to work harder), to have more (or less) human contact, or to take up a hobby. None of that helps, or at best only rarely. There is only one thing that seems to work; and that is to turn directly toward the approaching darkness without prejudice and totally naively, and to try to find out what its secret aim is and what it wants from you.” Carl Jung, “MAHS” p. 166

Can you feel the excitement that I must have felt reading those words? The call. Breaking of the heart. Boredom. Turn directly into the approaching darkness. What does it want from me? This was me. This was my life. This was my answer!

I’d been bucking the ‘good advice’ of friends and family in an effort to find my answers. No one had understood my dilemma because it was un-understandable to anyone but me. It was my individual path, my path to find, my path to walk. I had started the Process of Individuation, to become the real me. My first step after ‘awakening, I was learning about and incorporating the animus as one of the parts and pieces to become whole. Would I be led to find the other parts and pieces to becoming whole?

I had lived some distant day into another answer. What amazed me was that, the universal description that Jung gave…it couldn’t have been more personalized exactly for me!

“…symbolically this points to the fact that often the urge toward individuation appears in a veiled form, hidden in the overwhelming passion one may feel for another person. (In fact, passion that goes beyond the natural measure of love ultimately aims at the mystery of becoming whole, and this is why one feels, when one has fallen passionately in love, that becoming one with the other person is the only worthwhile goal of one’s life.”) Carl Jung, “MAHS” p. 206

Jaw-dropping disbelief, that shaking of your head back and forth when you just can’t fathom what you’re seeing or reading! Universal. For the ages. For every human. My exact circumstances! Validation. Explanation. Exultation!

Synchronicity led me to the book, “Man and His Symbols,” and it turned out to be underscore, underscore, underscore. The Dots were connecting so fast there was an audible clicking! Breadcrumbs? Listen to this (and I’m going to go bold on the things that underscore what we’ve been talking about):

“The individuation process is more than a coming to terms between the inborn germ of wholeness and the outer acts of fate. Its subjective experience conveys the feeling that some suprapersonal force is actively interfering in a creative way. One sometimes feels that the unconscious is leading the way in accordance with a secret design.”

Whew! And, yes, there’s more:

“…in order to bring the individuation process into reality, one must surrender consciously to the power of the unconscious, instead of thinking in terms of what one should do, or what is generally thought right, or of what usually happens. One must simply listen, in order to learn what the inner totality – the Self – wants one to do here and now in a particular situation.” Carl Jung, “MAHS” p. 163

“The ego must be able to listen attentively and to give itself, without any further design or purpose, to that inner urge toward growth.”

I had listened to that little inner voice that ran like a sentence through my head and heart. I chose to give my self, without any further design or purpose, to an inner urge that turned out to be growth. It may not be the easiest, quickest road or follow-through, but it is perhaps the most satisfying. Just look at the encouragement you tap into that comes to keep you reinforced, armored up, and excited to get the next clue! To find the next part of You…to become all that You can be…were intended to be…that you planned for You to be!

Parts and Pieces—Getting to Know Me!

3. Mesmarriah Was Born in a Dream

There came a point in my searching for answers to my Big Questions of Life that I started having these little subtle feelings that dreams were important, so I’d been writing them down for a while. Didn’t know specifically what to do with them, but I honored them enough to go out and buy blank books to write them down. Drilling down, I started reading other books on how to record and explore my dreams.

And I had this dream…

In this dream, “I” had just joined “the circus” and was just about to meet some of the other people. It seemed like it was dark, which I came to find out means “in the dark” or “not known to us at this time” so that seemed apropos. Some of the circus people asked me, “What is your name?” (This is how dreams are funny) I realized I did not know what my name was, and I needed to listen to see what name I spoke. I heard myself say, “My name is Mesmarriah Miracle, M-e-s-m-a-r-r-i-a-h.”(It seemed very important they understand it was Mesmarriah with two “r’s.”) “You can call me Marriah.” There’s not much more from the dream except they seemed likeable people to be around.

Even in the dream, I knew what a very special name I had been given. I mean, first of all, I’ve always loved alliteration, MM, mmmmmmmm—what did it mean? Where did it come from? Who was the “I” who had to listen to see what her name was? What was I to do with it? Why would I be given such a beautiful and special name in a dream? Was I to do something special with it? Surely there had to be a purpose for my being given a name I could not possibly have heard or read about.

I didn’t know. I felt all I could do was wait and see what presented itself. That’s what I’d been learning how to do—be patient, wait, Just. Let. Life. ‘Flow.’ Mesmarriah Miracle did seem like a Dot dropped for sure. Would there be a Dot to connect it to? Would I recognize it? How long would it take?

Waiting. Patience. Not my strong suits. But how was I to do otherwise? Who can you scream at to get an answer, “why the heck was I given such a special name and not know what to do with it, for criminy’s sake!”

Nobody.

Nothing to do but just wait. And wait. And wonder. And revisit. And wait. Yeaaarrs.

While we’re waiting, I’m going to back up for just a moment. Now, this ‘feeling” that dreams were important? Where did that come from?

Close your eyes. Super tight. You’re in pitch black darkness. Not a dust mote of light seeping through your eyelids. But in life, you’re moving, always moving so you must keep walking. Move slowly. Feel your way. Feeling is the only thing that will guide you, will save you, and enable you to go forward. Slow, cautious progress perhaps, but movement forward nonetheless. When you first wake up to Life with a Capital L that is what you do. Feel your way. Feeling that dreams were important was reason enough for me to step forward.

I’d been traversing that pitch black darkness aka unknown territory for almost five years before I’d felt my way to the feeling that “I think dreams might be important.” Feeling my way day by day, emotion by emotion, one feeling to the next. What had started the journey into the Unknown?

A feeling that I’d just ‘woken up.’

When you feel “I just woke up,’ the natural question you ask is, “When did I fall asleep?”

A Dot. ‘Waking Up”

I woke up at the age of 35. “Waking up” requires a catalyst. A very strong one. A strong emotional, many times heartbreaking, devastating, crippling catalyst to jolt you awake. That’s Part A. Part B is you must heed the challenge you have now been given to investigate “why,” look inside, dig deep, face feelings, conquer uncertainty, and not succumb to the fear or pain it might threaten. It’s what the mythologist Joseph Campbell calls, “The Hero’s Journey,” and heroes face and conquer awesome challenges, don’t they?

From a book called, “Passages,” by Gail Sheehy, I retained the breakdown of our life’s passages. Roughly (and I’m paraphrasing my own concise view): our 20’s, 30’s we’re acquiring—family, careers, all those plans we have, we’re working hard to bring them into fruition. Late 30’s, early 40’s we start some assessing: is this where I wanted to be, is it what I thought it would be, is this what I want? Then comes some time of possible re-assessing. Late 40’s and 50’s are when people make major changes in careers, lifestyles, life goals, life ambitions if their reassessment comes up short for feeling a purpose in life. (Believe it or not, we all crave a purpose in life.)

Many times the reassessment of original goals and aims uncovers a feeling of malaise, discontent, melancholy that has seeped through all the striving and doing. By the time we’re in our 60’s, we’re probably on the way to beginning what I call concretizing. Wild changes in thought, attitude, actions are null; the ones we have at that time are beginning to harden, perhaps stultify.

Basically, I was right on target, 35.

My catalyst was an encounter with another human being, a person I’d never met before and yet I knew immediately.

“Breaking the heart opens it. “

(Retained as pertinent to my survival from one of Alice Walker’s books.)

The inward journey is portrayed in the Myth of King Arthur which stories man’s (woman’s, human’s) psyche—the part where ‘each knight of the round table must go into the forest on his own path searching for the Holy Grail.’ That is the metaphor for an inward, dark foresty search for our ‘holy grail,” our true Selves. Every hero enters on his or her own path. “Seek and ye shall find,” sayeth the Bible.

The impact was a bomb crater in my life as I knew it. Hurt and heartbreak for me and those I loved most of all. A tearing apart of the life I was living. Yet I knew with some unknown knowledge that all of it was for a purpose that had deeper meaning than what the surface attraction, turmoil and anguish showed. It required that I not fall into the trap of thinking the surface circumstances were the reason or the end-all-be-all. I had to navigate my way through it only with what I felt was the leading of something bigger than mere logic or feelings or desire, something inside rather than outside. Following that leading, I started a search to understand why I now felt I had just woken up. That search would take me inward, now outward.

When I ‘woke up,’ the feeling was more a puzzlement than an amazement. I was more curious about, “when did I fall asleep?” I searched back over my life to see if I’d ever felt a feeling like this before. Was I ever awake that I could recall? Fell asleep somehow…was it from boredom, monotony, the mundane?…and then all of a sudden kissed awake? (Sound familiar?) I had to conclude that I somehow must have been asleep all my life and was just now awakening to it.

What did that mean, ‘to wake up?’ Honestly, I didn’t even equate this ‘waking up’ feeling to ‘Wow! All of a sudden I know what my purpose in life is. I know what Life is all about!” Nope. Feeling that I was waking up from a sleep was all I could explain. Was I living a real life version of Sleeping Beauty? Why not? Myths are the contents of (hu)man’s psyche! The story had to have some spark of origination in reality.

Feeling my way in this new state—what it meant, where I needed to go/learn/do next—was like stepping into that blind darkness of the unknown. Who knows what lurks in the scary darkness of the unknown? Who is hero(ine) enough to step into the darkness and look?

Well, that’s where my quirky (and sometimes irritating) trait of forever asking, “Why” would pay off! I was (and have always been) curious as to “Why.” It’s just a question that rolls naturally off my tongue, no matter the situation—much to the chagrin of family, friends, bosses, especially. And for every answer to the question ‘Why?” you can continue to ask “Why?” yet again ad infinitum. Even though I felt hesitant and tentative, I also felt compelled to go forward, lay trepidation aside and follow through as many “why’s” as I could find the bravery to do so. The Mesmarriah Miracle dream came a few years after The Catalyst. Was she the new life I had just awoken to, symbolic for my true Self? In that case, I had just joined the Circus. I could then only assume it was The Circus known as Life.

I decided I must stop clinging to being asleep and let the river take me where it knew I should go.

Clinging I Shall Die of Boredom