Self – Mesmarriah Miracle

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.

12. Parts ‘n Pieces–The Anima/Animus: Why Opposites Attract.

Anima and Animus for Everyone

Next up, the Anima and Animus, which we’ve already touched upon in my particular journey. The Anima/Animus are the opposite attributes of what your physical make up is. We have both male and female chromosomes, why wouldn’t/shouldn’t we be utilizing the best of both? Sounds like wholeness to me.

A man must recognize, honor and incorporate his Anima–the feminine strengths of nurturing, compassion, and emotions. Emotions. Aaargh, say many men.

If you know anything of the decades of the 50’s and 60’s, there was a very strict delineation of female roles and male roles. A man just would never take on the responsibility of a ‘house husband’ with all the dirty diapers that entailed. Yet, that is exactly what has come to pass/evolve with the ensuing generations. More and more men are taking on nurturing, caretaking, housebound duties and roles. This is the male incorporating the nurturing feminine attributes of the Anima. Makes me happy.

Ode to the Anima

A long ago classmate of mine wrote a book sharing his journey into (and subsequent return from) the Land of Cancer. He had never married, lived alone. He was quite methodical in his detail of each of the precise radiation treatments and the young female technicians who attended him. He readily admitted that over the course of his treatments, he developed a strong, yet reserved attraction to one of the young ladies. He was quite naked in baring his innermost thoughts of her, eloquent in describing her kindness and caring, risking all with his bravery to finally confess his feelings for her, and her ultimate denial of like feelings. All I could think of as I read was, “She is your Anima.” I think his book was as much a manifestation to honor his Anima as a chronicle of his journey.

Rosie Leads the Way

For a woman, she works to integrate her Animus, masculine strengths. She must recognize, honor, and incorporate the Animus into her psyche—those masculine traits of taking care of herself, having her own opinions, being independent, and standing up for herself. While many suffragettes planted the seeds of Animus infusion, I believe it was the global circumstances of World War II that heralded the beginning of actual integration of the Animus. Rosie the Riveter breached this barrier for women and we’ve been pouring through it ever since. Women were forced (or allowed, whichever way you wish to look at it) to take on masculine roles and along with that the masculine attributes of strength and independence. That outpouring to independence through the 60’s was demarcated as ‘women’s liberation.’

Speaking of women’s lib, I really have to share this quote from Orson Welles that, to me, spoke volumes of what men were feeling after women shook loose their bonds. It was from a relatively unknown movie that I ‘happened’ upon who knows where or how, called, “Someone to Love,” written, produced and directed by Henry Jaglom. (somehow I stuck the Dot in the pertinent pocket!) Orson gives this dissertation:

“That brings us to the greatest revolution of our times which is the liberation of women. But by liberating women we are freeing the last of our slaves. And for fifteen, twenty thousand years there has never been a civilization, there has never been a single civilization, which has not been maintained by slaves. There’s a tremendous diminution to men’s energy. It’s partly because men are sympathetic to the new revolution and partly because we are scared to death of it.”

Unfortunately, since fear is not a manly thing to display (or recognize), men flung it into the Unconscious/Shadow, There, it ‘acted out’ in a scary, irrational spate of backlash against women that is still simmering in smoldering volcanoes for men who cannot face the Shadow and accept it.

Still, not all women chose to venture onto the field of liberation. Freedom can be a daunting prospect. When their time comes, if it ever does in this lifetime, they will need the armor of the Animus, I believe.

The short version of the job of the Anima/Animus:

“Woman’s sacrifice is in freeing herself from entanglements of personal relations to fit her for a more conscious role as an individual in her own right.”

“A man’s sacrifice – which is the surrender of his sacred independence. He becomes more consciously related to woman.” Carl Jung “Man and His Symbols (MAHS)”

Man must sacrifice his independence. Woman must sacrifice relationship to find her independence. Opposites sacrificing opposites in order to find completion/wholeness.

In dreams, the Animus and Anima usually appear as a ‘shadowy’ member of the opposite sex. Many times in real life, the call to recognize the Anima or Animus is projected onto a member of the opposite sex who is seen as an end-all-be-all love that must be attained. Here, one must become very attentive and discerning—the actual person may not be the end-all-be-all. It is their masculine (or feminine) attributes that your psyche needs to embrace and integrate on its way to wholeness. (Been there, done that!)

Opposites Attract for a Reason

Balance. Women need to recognize and incorporate some of the strong, independent masculine traits they see in their beloved. Men need to incorporate some of the feminine traits of nurturing softness they admire in their beloved.

Psyches contain the Opposites…both the dark and the light; the male and the female. The opposites of all things. And all things have an opposite. We just don’t like to acknowledge the dark, scary, bad-rep parts, but we need to. How can you possibly be the whole you with only half acknowledged? By recognizing them as a part of you, you bring light to their darkness, and wholeness to your being.

The Microcosm and the Macrocosm.

Jung also felt that what the individual (microcosm) undertakes in the process to become whole is also played out in the evolution of humankind (macrocosm)—(i.e. The Animus being integrated by women everywhere after WWII and women’s liberation. Then the Anima being integrated in men incorporating the role of nurturer/caretaker)…a whole ‘nother realm yet to be explored.

What about the Shadow? Is the Shadow what we are seeing projected on ‘the Other’ in our drastically divided nation right now? Is the American psyche having to recognize those things we ‘hate’ in the “Other” as being a part of ourselves and accept them? Incorporate the Shadow?

For those who dare enter the dark forest on their own path to seek their holy grail—their true Self—dreams can become your on-board, in-house, fully-involved consultant.

Dreams—A Little Help from Our Friends

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!