In a strip-bar like environment. Bill O'Reilly (of Fox news)had people idolizing him. I had no position or friends here. He was feeling and glorying in his celebrity. He was surrounded by 'yes Bill' people. I stood up and made a reasonable charge questioning his character and he became enraged. He turned bright red with anger. He threatened me. I realized I had a rather powerful enemy. I began to be careful but stayed in the same area. Suddenly there was a part-woman who had been killed. I saw her body on the dance floor. She had been in the bar room in scanty dancing clothing. She was woman with an animal head. It had a long nose, snout and her tongue was protruding from her mouth. Someone reported that she had been found having sex with a young teen girl. I had the worst of fearful and confused emotions as I observed her. I was wondering what possible good can this kind of creature bring into the world?
I was with a young man going to use the bathroom in this large older building. As we entered the door a large lion was coming in with us. We both tried to keep her back but she angrily persisted. At that point someone arrived and took the lion away.
REFLECTION: These dreams are about the dark side of human/divine life. The second is a reminder of the fact of the darkness of nature. Nature is not always a pretty place when observed closely. For there it is the right thing to do, to kill anything for food. Lions are animals of prey. The horror felt in the lion's presence is to know you may be its next meal and she will have broken no moral rule. It is astonishing to recall that God is the author of the natural world. But evolution is not against God, it is the result of the presence of God in nature. And we have such animal in us. But humans are called to participate in redeeming the down side of our animal instinct. Only with humans can animal instinct, unguided by love, be understood as tragic and sinful. It is essential that we have had such animal in us or we could never have evolved in the first place. So as in the second dream most of us manage to not think of such survival horror among animals as 'evil.' But we know it is a strong real dimension of all creatures, including humans, who can suddenly be without morality or love toward ones fellow creatures and the whole creation. This should prompt us to 'consider carefully'(Latin meaning of 'religion.') the forces and personalities of the Unconscious and unseen realm. For only there in those dark places lie also the forces and powers of potential redemption and latent capacity to actually be transformed from only animals to genuine 'lovers' of humanity and of nature.
The first dream affects me at far more than just a level of fear and survival. It tends to disgust me.( I must say this dream hopefully does not characterize the actual person Bill O'Reilly at all. I am aware that his expression and demeanor on T.V. have sometimes given me such an impression. I have not watched him regularly for many years for that reason. I again stress the dream source selects actual persons as the best way to catch the dreamer's attention. And the dream depiction of a real person likely has nothing to do with that person's true personality.) First is pictured how obnoxious a person can become when they feel they are at the top of the pyramid as a human. When they are filled with pride and self aggrandizement. When they are so full of self righteousness and seek to judge and belittle those who have less wealth, power, acclaim and clout than they do or who simply dare to disagree. They love to gather around them those who will, on the surface, adore them and say 'yes' to their relentlessly hungry egos. Just the sight of that causes me, in the dream, to utter a truth of some kind that shatters such false glorifying ideas about oneself and ones righteousness. And his response is uncontrollable anger. A false view of himself has resulted in the rug being pulled out from under him in the presence of his admiration society. This is humanity at its saddest. Such a nature is not so much a successful harmer of others as he is a distorter of his own character and reality. He has totally lost touch with his humanity. In desiring to be superior he has lost touch with both the divine spark and his humanity.
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| Female Mythic Monster- Medusa,Tongue Out, With Lion |
This poor half-woman creature. I nearly sicken. And not just that she is this strange weird 'other' creature but that somehow there was probably something potentially good about her? She represents the negative side of Eros. She has participated with others in detached Eros, Eros without any agape or phileo toward its object. This is lust for lust sakes, not lust for reuniting with the spirit of another. This is lust without love. Receiving without giving. The word concupiscence comes to mind. The bar scene, dancing clothes and report that she has had sex with a young girl are all building this sad image. Yet, she is close to being a definition of the anima. The anima of dreams is thought of as part human, part divine. She is also a creature of deep nature. She 'bridges' the gap between the deep dark natural earthy 'Collective Unconscious' with the fragile human 'ego consciousness'. I had no idea until just now that the female Mythical monster Medusa was sometimes depicted with her 'tongue protruding' and accompanied by a lion.
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| Rejected Negative Anima Figure |
Is this part-woman the downside of the anima function I've come to have such appreciation for? Is this perhaps what can happen to the anima when she is rejected, ignored, not heard by a human person? If so then this sad creature in the dream has come to be this way partly because of the present day human tendency to ignore and not accept the reality of the 'unconscious'. She may be an image of the 'collective anima' who seeks revenge for being ignored by a culture? There is no excuse for this attitude but it is very prevalent still. It is an attitude that seeks to prevent the continued evolution of humanity and it does so by, usually unintentionally, releasing horrendous evil into the world via the rejected Anima. Does the dream show that humans are indeed partially responsible, even if unconsciously, for the deep things of nature and the spirit world going very wrong? The part-woman in the dream knows the importance of human sexuality but here she does not know how to guide it to its real goal of the highest expressions and experiences of the spiritual, of the sacred, of the ecstasy of mature responsible love. When the power of the anima function and force gets lost, like it has in this dream, a very horrible thing has happened. Something capable of being precious and tender and loving has been diverted into something that is ugly, destructive and evil. And sadly it is not fully to blame. It seems that a lack of openness to the unconscious and thus an unwillingness to become conscious by humans is what always sets open the path to much modern day evil, whether that evil be a part of the human or a part of the Godhead.
It seems God has decreed that the salvation of the creation depends on a raised mass consciousness among humans. We now stand at the brink. Which way will we go? This dynamic must now be especially played out in American culture, religion and politics. Most people who say we are in a culture war have little idea how true that is, that it parallels the war that is happening now where the Collective Unconscious is seeking a fuller path into the mass consciousness. I am hopeful because my experience with the unconscious has been over all positive and life enhancing. Also the dream says someone interrupted the lion's growing displeasure with us. I also recall during the dream I knew the lion was dangerous but I did not think she was going to hurt me. I do not expect the outcome to appear as if one political/religious side or the other was right and the other wrong, but it will seem that both sides had to exist for the new state of consciousness to arrive. That being said I am grateful to be generally on the side of the social/political/religious issues that I am on. Thirty years ago I would not have been here. Perhaps my personal change is an individual example of such raised consciousness happening? That is how it feels to me. I certainly know how important, and how indebted I am to, my conservative religious/political foundation has been to whatever raised consciousness I have later experienced. I think every important emotional issues needs to be experienced from both sides in order for the incompleteness of both to be transcended to something more functional and healthy. Religiously this has definitely been for me an experience of grace.
Jim Hibbett
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