DREAM: IMAGE OF POST MODERN FAITH.... August 31, 2009..edited Nov. 2, 2011

This dream is about reviving the sport of baseball for some 'old timers.' After writing this out I see how similar the image is to the movies Field Of Dreams and  The Natural.  That in no way diminishes the psychological fact that this is a creation of the Collective Unconscious, here and in the movies. The old timers and their sport had declined in value and appreciation by the culture. I had conversation with several of them, some who had been well known and others who had not but were just as talented. I think one was my old childhood friend and outstanding athlete W.L . The image of W.L. has frequently been used in my dreams to represent a shadow side of myself(This in no way suggests anything negative about W.L. personally, quite the opposite for he was an important influence in my young personal life). One's shadow regularly demands more conscious awareness as one continues spiritual development. When a positive  'hero type image' of a person  is pictured the dream source often pictures the shadow side as well. This is the balance-seeking nature of the Collective Unconscious.

'Field Of Dreams', 1989

In the dream I'm pictured as having an inner assurance that we could bring the 'old timers' and their sport back to a grand awareness and value in the whole culture. I had no concrete idea of how I could be an instrument of this but just strongly felt if I kept confidence and engaging others as I had opportunity it would happen. I called a gathering of some of these old timers and told them of my hope. One of them asked, 'do you have access to lots of money for this?' I told him I was confident there were unlimited financial resources if needed. He then was fully on board with a big broad smile. He had been a very popular celebrity at one time.

A day was set for a potentially large crowd to gather in a big stadium. As the time approached I was aware t I was totally relying on 'unseen and unconscious forces' to bring about the change in mass attitude. I was slightly plagued with the question, 'what if I'm wrong? what if I'm wrong?' But I knew I had no real choice but to follow my inner assurance which the dream shows me doing. The day of the grand gathering came. People began to drift in but it seemed unimpressive. Then suddenly there was a huge rush of interest , people of all kinds began filling up the large stadium. Some close to me were asking me what I was going to do with all these expectant people. I just assured them that all was going correctly. After the crowd assembled Spence(Patton Oswalt), from 'King of Queens' came on stage to speak. I was with him. He was charged up and able to say one sentence after the other that inspired the crowd and raised the level of appreciation of the old timers and their sport. I was thinking to myself, 'I have no such list of things to say or speech to give.' Suddenly there was a grand awakening and sense of transcendence, the scene was much like the climax of Robert Redford movie, The Natural, where all were in awe. It was a religious numinous experience for all including myself. The dream ended this way.

Final Scene From Movie 'The Natural.'

REFLECTION: I'm unsure of what to make of this. I consider it an archetypal dream from the collective layer of the unconscious though the images are modern ones.  It depicts to me the spiritual attitude and frame of mind of 'faith'. I'm pictured as experiencing a strong inner confidence of trust in the ultimate source of life. This faith is in tension with what 'can be seen' and what is 'not logical or scientifically verifiable.' This is a religious/spiritual experience par excellence. It depicts me having some sense about the future consciousness of my culture. This inner awareness or belief came with a authoritative expectation that I act on even when I had no logical basis for it or an explanation to give others. This is a lonely but ecstatic place to be as a human being. I see this as nothing to do with real baseball and do not see any reason in the dream to try to relate it to any specific outside event. It is simply affirming the nature and feel of the 'revelatory' /' miraculous'/'ecstatic' experience and state of mind that in any age is called, 'faith.' 

I have been under the influence of a similar sate of mind  especially ever since the 'vision like' experiences of mid August 85. But that state of mind began to develop much earlier. It became  significant by the time I began my second unit of CPE in fall of '83'. The 'miraculous' kind of finality in the dream was not seen by the crowd as something that I or any other person had done. All were obviously impressed by the sense of the ultimate , of God interacting with and in them. Such times evoke from all persons something akin to, "Oh my God,"  I think of Paul's statement that the things of the Sacred should not be seen as the work of human consciousness(which they never are) but as truly and only the 'power of God'. The dream shows all of this as that kind of mass experience. Of course the same kind of dynamics could possess the masses in very negative ways as well, resulting in such things as lynchings, war, exclusive religious beliefs or mass belief in destructive archeytypal images. But this case is the positive, genuinely healthy kind of mass transformation inspired by the Collective Unconscious and experienced as the  benevolent  Sacred. In time some of the people would be able to see the experience as very natural, but no less effective, rather than an 'outside God' intervening into human life against ones will. Such a realization is  possible at higher level of consciousness which makes clear that the Sacred  is experienced naturally via the Collective Unconscious.

The dream is describing a 'value' that has got lost into the Unconscious. It needs to be retrieved. This suggests that our culture is not in need of something brand new but something that has been lost and needs to be retrieved in a form appropriate for our times. Some would too quickly assume this refers to 'values' they experienced in the culture in the recent past. This results in being captured in the 'good old days' syndrome which is always seductive but unreal. This archetypal reference is much more likely referring to values far older in human history. An archetypal dream like this may for example be connected to the 'inclusiveness of all creation' that was more alive and practiced when the earliest human images of God were female. These female deities, at one time so prevalent, are productions of what has been always called The Great Mother Goddess. In that Ultimate Sacred 'Everything Is One' and connected. Such a belief in the 'interconnectedness of all that is' seems necessary for the grandest and most healing, ecstatic, and numinous experiences of the Sacred in human life, the kind of experience described in this dream. I recently read When God Was A Woman. Elaine Pagels has also gathered this material together in some of her writings.

The dream shows the Sacred and Secular crossing and embedded into each other. And as stated above it shows a 'natural' and shared discovery of the God experience rather than a supernatural one. It also shows secular celebrities, 'ordinary' and even 'shadowy' persons as important players in the really big culture changing happenings in human spiritual/social/ psychological evolution. Also life is pictured as a 'game' implying it's capacity to be 'humorous', 'fun and exciting' and 'respectfully competitive.' I think these are concepts one can easily relate to the process of biological evolution and of the nature of the Ultimate Sacred. Jim Hibbett