These two dreams on successive nights present what I take as view of the present state or emphases of what Jung terms the 'Self.' This is the psychological equivalent of what humans through the ages have referred to as the Sacred or God or Godhead. Going further back than our Western religious traditions it can be seen to refer to The Great Mother or the sources of all that is or can be. So I take these dreams to be a summary of what is most importantly on the agenda of what we can call The Mind Of God. Surely this is something worthy of my serious attention. These dreams came more than 2 1/2 years ago. And the state of our world would indicate that these are still interests and dynamics that are very much active.
DREAM: January 14, 2010
1. This was a very encouraging dream
lasting a big part of the night: I was observing first my own young
children and then other families of children were added. I watched
them as they played and interacted. Some typical problem would arise
where one of more child was feeling neglected or ignored or some
child was being a problem for the rest of the group. Typically in
such I dream I would feel upset and responsible to correct or solve
the problem by intervening. But in this dream I marveled at how the
children managed time and again to find solutions within themselves
to get past these obstacles and continue to play and interact in
constructive ways. I felt extreme relief and delight as a parent to
see my own children being able to make such adjustments to each
other. I had the sense that finally, " I can see that they
really are going to be O.K. in the world." That feeling was
multiplied when I saw how the same kind of social and moral progress
was possible when more children were added to the community.
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| Children Cooperating With Each Other |
2. I was a religious teacher working with a family of three. This was in a poor foreign country. The people were dark skinned. I had an
outdoor class-like time with the wife and young child while the
husband attended a class with some other men. I was comfortable
giving practical instructions to the woman and child. We were
concerned that the man would not like his teaching situation and
would be resentful of efforts to change him in some way. When he came
out of his class he appeared to be engaged and paying close attention
to his teachers. He came and joined us on the ground. He was quiet
and gentle and said thoughtfully, 'this will take some time.' I
admired that he was being so thoughtful and careful in how and what
he learned. I was also having strong reservations , asking myself if
we teachers really knew what we were doing. I wondered if the man's
class was just another presentation of 'facts to believe' rather
than helping this man to find his own genuine inner truth regarding
spiritual and religious matters. I felt rather helpless at being able
to protect him from being a victim of religious propaganda aiming to
have him take on some group mentality. I knew I would do what I could
to respect his own very personal
search for truth.
3. I was with a black performing
group. We were doing song numbers on a stage. I did not know what I
was doing but they seemed to be glad to have me be a part. I don't
recall ever actually singing but it was about preparing for when we
would. The group kept moving from the stage back down to the floor . I
was told where to stand several different times. Once they were
talking about the history of black music. I mentioned a movie I had
seen about parts of that history. One man rolled his eyes with
approval , indicating that the movie told an important part of the
story.
4. The image of a Vagina and an
erect Penis side by side. There was nothing pornographic about
this. Below the image was the inscription in all caps, 'HIM'. I felt in the dream that once I had known what this stood for but now I had forgotten. I'm so
wired by my culture and religious heritage that I too recoil at first at
sexual imagery from the Unconscious. Most adults these days are objective enough to know there is nothing alarming about sexual genitalia biologically but we are not so comfortable with the idea that these are also strong spiritual symbols and have been from the misty beginnings of human history. Adults who pay much attention to their nightly dreams usually discover this quite early. We
should expect that the two aspects of humanity -male and female- and
their being the origin of physical life and survival of the species
to never be far from the spiritual messages from the Collective Unconscious.
This is especially true of the the psychological/spiritual aspects of human sexuality of which there is yet so much to discover. Recall the Christian story begins with an obvious symbolic sexual encounter
between the virgin Mary and the Sacred Holy Spirit. Why do many not see it even there where it is so plainly spoken? This says worlds about our levels of unconsciousness and repression regarding such matters, unfortunately not just our modesty.
REFLECTION: I've come to see these dreams as an expression of the
consciousness now achieved by the psychological 'Self' or
religiously of the 'Divine Mind'. In review, Jungian thought is
that the ultimate Sacred , the source of all that is, presses its own
contents , along with its undifferentiated opposites including Good
and Evil, Body and Soul, Matter and Spirit; into the human ego consciousness.
There, through suffering that the Sacred also experiences, those
opposing opposites are gradually perceived and integrated or
unified to produce spiritual meaning. This task the ultimate Sacred Ground or God was not able to
do within itself. Once done in the human consciousness this also
becomes part of the consciousness of the Sacred. This process
continues over and over in both the suffering individual and in the
human collective suffering. Our culture is replete with the stories of such
suffering as are our own human lives.
This dream series seems to me to be
sort of a 'state of the Self' ; where the Sacred, the Self or God
presently is in its own development. The progress, as can be seen in
history, of this process has been much speeded up the past 200 years
and even more so in the past 30 years. The conscious experience of
Western wars, the persecution and discrimination of women and
minorities are parts of recent sufferings that have given quantum
like leaps to the consciousness raising process. Each dream image
here reflects an area where both human and Sacred consciousness has
progressed and gives a view of where the mutual consciousness of the
Self and collective humanity is presently.
1.) This dream states that humans have a
natural tendency to be able to accept each other and to behave fairly
and justly within human societies. It is only the split opposites
and one sided spiritual and psychological development that
interferes with those natural processes. With some of the opposites
more united that long kept humans living out a 'we-them' world and
of the 'evil always being seen in the other', these natural
processes of living in mutual acceptance and support are beginning to
be set more free. The dream in essence is saying that 'God is
pleased' to see humanity and God's Self reaching such a new level of
awareness and consciousness. It shows God 'delights' to see than
more and more of the human family can be learning to cooperate. As
long as such a vision was not significantly alive in the Sacred than
the energy of the collective unconscious was used to support humans
living with a tribe mentality such as is often reflected as the
nature of Yahweh in the O. T. for example. The time of God being
that way is quickly diminishing as both the Sacred and human
consciousness reap the hard won benefits of reconciling many of the
kinds of opposites that once were unconsciously unreconciled in the
Sacred itself. Jung points to the story of Job as an account of the
human beginning to take into itself these unresolved warring
opposites and to do the suffering work of reconciliation. The result
of such work is then 'seen' and experienced in the Sacred and
becomes a part of the raised consciousness of God as well as of the
collective human. Jung cites the work and life of Jesus as being a
central , if not game changing , example of such human effort and
accomplishment. But he would deny that 'Jesus only' and Jesus alone
accomplished the present progress or that the project was totally
completed by him. It necessarily continues but the dream says that a
huge amount of progress has now been made compared to pre Jesus days.
2.) This dream shows the same kind of
consciousness raising 'teaching' and learning process happening.
Surely formal teaching efforts can be tools for genuine consciousness
raising. It may be at times one culture has gifts to teach another
that help the process of resolving the opposites to move forward.
It is easy for us Westerners to acknowledge that we have gifts of
learning to share with the East. The dream acknowledges this also
as it shows Westerners sharing their learning with Easterners. I'm
confident the collective unconscious is just as ready to show how
much learning has already happened and much more needed where it is
the West being a student of the East. The past fifty years has shown
an eager need of the West for religious sensitivities of the East as
the Western dominant religious dogmas have lost more and more of
their effective appeal. Jungian thought itself is steeped in
Eastern ideas of reality, as were parts of the earliest
Christianity. Jung was seeking always paths to heal the opposites
involved in the East-West split. The dream highlights that the
Eastern male is willing to risk learning from the West, but if the
West only gives him orthodox sets of facts to believe the outcome
will not be good. It says that God is now determined and conscious
of the need to let individuals discover the God within them as
contrasted to gods that have placed upon them from without, so
typical of Western culture.
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| East And West Learning From Each Other. |
3.) This dream is showing the heightened
consciousness that is now present in the collective unconscious and
thus in the 'mind of the Sacred.' regarding the opposites that are
expressed regarding racial and ethnic difference. Color and ethnicity
has been the instrument of much suffering in humanity from its very
beginning. Until those divisions of 'otherness' are healed in the
divine consciousness they cannot possibly be healed in the real human
world. The dream encouragingly shows this is one of the important
areas where such an increase of consciousness has already occurred
in the source of all that is, that is God. The dream pictures a white
person becoming more conscious of the contributions of black humans
to world culture. It depicts a white person being guided and taught
by blacks. It depicts the importance that minority groups receive
feedback from the majority that their culture is being truly
understood, valued and preserved. This now is what the Sacred
expects also of humans in their relationships with each other. These
dreams seem to be a picture for our day of the general 'will of
God.' The dream implies that the 'mind of God' has only practiced
with what the cooperation of ethnic groups might actually become in
reality. That means that this area of human evolution and
cooperation is only getting started. Our lifetimes have seen much
progress in this area but as the daily news shows we still struggle
with what it means to not be prejudiced and bigoted. We are learning
it can't be legislated nor defined by political correctness what it
means to to really 'sing the song' of ethnic equality and
cooperation. Here we have a picture of the new Sacred priority
regarding such matters.
4.) Other than the opposites of 'good
and evil' the opposites of 'male and female' are surely at the
heart of reality and their lack of unity is the cause of untold
suffering in the human/Sacred connection. It is a cliche in Western
culture to acknowledge the pain and unhappiness related to what is
even called the 'battle of the sexes'. It should be unfathomable to
all by now how long half of humanity has been second class in nearly
all human cultures. Can we hardly believe that in our American
democracy women have only been voters for less than eighty years?
Marriage is a great chance that couples take with the evidence clear
that there is a high risk of it failing, not only in the sense of
lasting but of yielding a high level of intimate human joy. The importance of this whole theme has been grasped from the dawn of history in the Eastern image of the Yin and Yang--male and female equally integrated and equally dependent on each other. We've yet to see that reality in our outer world. We have much to look forward to.
I will not go deeply again into the
problem of how the 'anima' factor in males , to the extent 'she' is
not conscious to him, is projected upon the women in his life.* This
means that at any time the woman he considers he 'knows' is likely to
be as much his projection of her as she is her real self . This
same dynamic is equally at work in how well a woman 'knows' her man.
Of course all of this is unconscious in early adult life and sadly
often remains that way to a high degree even until death. This is what
gives rise to the notion , often expressed in comedy, that men know
nothing about women. Sadly, it is more true than most imagine.
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| Yin And Yang, The Eastern Symbol Of Opposites United. |
This surely is an opposite deeply
seated in the source of all that is. The ancient sacred texts often fully support the devaluing of woman when interpreted as historically literal. This reflects the
problem that has been alive in the Sacred with respect to man and
woman. But the dream presents an image that indicates that the
'equality of the sexes' has become a very conscious reality in the
'mind of God.' The vagina and the penis, the most obvious physical
differences of the sexes, are presented side by side. There is
nothing to indicate that one should be able to dominate or be of more
value than the other. This, the dream says, is the sound and settled
will of God in our day. And I think most observers would agree we have moved much in that direction in recent decades. The Collective Unconscious in this dream
series, and in uncountable other ways in all our experience, is
clearing the path now for humans to incorporate the equality of the
sexes with all of its implications. This image is parallel to the
Genesis statement that 'God made them in God's image , God made them
male and female.' This is actually a strong statement of equality
unlike the 'second' Genesis description of man and woman that
pictures woman as an after thought for the pleasure of the more
cherished male. Human history shows graphically the suffering and
injustice such a theology and anthropology creates in real human
life.
Again the dream insists on the
importance of the erotic aspect of human sexuality. For millennia the
erotic aspect of sex has been considered as everything but Godly. It
has been considered the curse for both women and men. It is implied
in the Adam and Eve story that it was the erotic aspect of sexuality
that is the heart of original sin and the most serious of sins
since then. It is the erect penis that speaks to this aspect of
sexuality. At first, even for the small audience that will read
this, I nearly refused to say the penis was erect in the dream.
This is a clear indication that I retain a tendency to repress the
importance and naturalness of the penis in its erotic expression.
That eroticism is more visible in the male but is just as much a part of
female sexuality as it is of males. How important for our culture to come to understand that the erotic is not centered in
the 'desire to do sex to another' but, as Tillich stressed, it is the
longing, the yearning to unite that which has been separated. It's
dynamic, when more fully conscious, is actually a deeply spiritual
avenue for the highest level of spiritual Sacred encounter between
humans. But where that longing is considered an unfortunate mistake
at best and something totally ungodly at the worst , what is the
chance of Eros being a full participant in a balanced human attitude of life and love?
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| Union Of Opposites--Male and Female |
I take the emphasis in the dream on the opposites of
sexuality as having to do with how partners of either sex are attracted
and couple in experiencing the commitment and joy of sexual erotic
love. The typical argument made to not be supportive of LGBT
committed relationships is not supported by the higher Genesis statements of equality of 'male and female' or the Jesus Story accounts regarding sexuality and
certainly not by dreams like this.
So the dream is saying that the 'male
and female' opposite pair is now consciously united in the collective
unconscious. The sexes are equally valued and empowered and the
Erotic aspects and desires of both sexes are to be made more fully
conscious and more honored in daily human life.
DREAM: Jan 15, 2010
5. B. W., a childhood friend, asked me to drive his
nice boat down the waters I was familiar with as a teen. As we
headed out I began to notice the water was becoming shallow. There
was a lot of sludge and garbage. I realized the creek was very
polluted and neglected. I was afraid we were stuck and the boat
damaged. We managed to get out of the bad area and into deeper water.
I was made sick by what I had seen.
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| Polluted Water Ways. |
6. I was Cleaning and weeding a
garden that belonged to someone else. I pulled a lot of very large
weeds and vines out. Then came to an area where a lot of junk had
been dumped in the garden. I began pulling out old clothes, garbafe and other
kinds of trash.
7. L. G., a former parishioner , asked me for church papers. I told him I had never had them. He
said he had for sure given them to me for safe keeping. He was very
upset. I did not find the papers but found my clergy hand book which
I use for liturgy prayers, readings , weddings etc. It was torn in
half on the ground in the dirt. It was destroyed. I could hardly
recognize it and felt a great loss.
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| The 'Gates of Hell' Will Not Prevail Against Sacred Intent. |
REFLECTION: This seems to be part two
of the previous night's dream images. I take these also as reflecting
the 'Sate of the Self' or of the Sacred, of the collective
consciousness. Jung in numerous ways said that at least three things
had been split off from the image of God by present day orthodoxy.
In a sense Christianity 'had' to make these separations to serve the
spiritual/psychological need of the times. Before opposites can be
reunited they must be first clearly separated and seen and
experienced as opposites. They will be experienced as such extreme
opposites that the human mind will interpret them as having nothing
in common with each other. One will be held in highest value and the
other will be denigrated and considered as worthy only of
extermination. This is the way opposites are viewed when fully
differentiated. Such opposites are not differentiated in the Mother
of All , the ultimate origin of all that is. The Mother Goddess is
the source of the Trinity and other images of God. In the Christian
Trinity the opposites are made clear. The Father and Son are
opposing opposites there along with many other pairs. The three
things that Christianity split off from the sacred that must be
included for a present day whole and balanced understanding of
reality are matter, the feminine and the demonic or Evil. The
opposites of these that have been highly valued are Spirit, Male
and Good. These three excluded dimensions have nothing in common
except that they have been split off and are greatly undervalued.
Because they are split off they have come to often be associated with
each other. One result is that woman is considered evil. She is
depicted in Eden as the temptress and also as materialistic desiring
the forbidden fruit. In popular song she is a 'man eater' to not be
trusted. This recent dream series is like a report saying that much
progress has been made in bringing the opposites together and in
bringing back to honored places the contents of life that have been
split off.
5.) This image is declaring the high
value now that the Sacred consciousness places on nature. God is
fully aware and thus humans are also becoming fully aware of the
damage that has already taken place to the water, soil, vegetation,
creatures and air of the earth. The time has come for humans to take
a very different approach to how they use the resources of the earth.
Humans must cooperate with nature in recycling all matter that is
used and discarded by humans. Ecosystems supporting the various life
forms must be honored and protected. Professor E.O. Williams has
made a strong appeal to religious conservatives in behalf of the
stewardship of nature. His key book written to religious people is
called The Creation. An Appeal To Save Life On Earth . There
seems to be a genuine desire presently in the conservative religious
movement to be earth's activists.
6.)This image is parallel to the first
one. The earth must be valued and nurtured and not used as dumping
place for toxins. Things that the earth cannot recycle must be given
special attention by humans and not just 'covered up.' Also food
need to be grown in truly natural soil and not filled with chemicals
that increase harvest but decrease the nutritional value. I am told
that 'grain feeding' animals may have resulted in our meats
contributing to a highly inflammatory diet for Westerners. I'm also
convinced that sugar and Fructose Corn syrup so common in American processed
foods is a strong contributor to poor health. Unhealthy ways of
growing and processing food must be determined and discontinued the
dream image implies.
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| Illegal Irresponsible Dumping By Individuals and Corporations |
7.) My Presbyterian church man is
counting on me to preserve and perpetuate outdated religious
concepts. I find, in the dream, that I have unconsciously already
gotten rid of religious materials, ideas and dogmas that no longer
serve the real spiritual needs of people. The loss and destruction of
my liturgy book further and strongly states that the Sacred has moved
on to a higher state of consciousness than these once helpful and
partial truths. The image of God and humanity and morality reflected
in the orthodox liturgy, hymns and traditionally interpreted sacred
writings are no longer able to serve the extended consciousness of
God and human. They must also be returned 'to the soil' to be a
part of the resource of a new , widened and more sympathetic
consciousness. The extended consciousness now emerged sees how
essential it is to unite the opposites that have prevailed and to
include those parts of reality that have been split off and excluded.
It is not like the new consciousness will forget these important
stepping stones but will put them into perspective , as being time
bound, not eternal. It hurts to let old things go but this is what
Jesus means when he says, ' you cannot put new wine into old wine
skins.'
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| Wineskin.....old or new? |
8.) A statement attributed to Jesus is
that 'the gates of hell will not prevail against truth'. The
Battle Hymn Of The Republic heralds that the 'truth is marching
on.' Both of these statements have been used to create the illusion
that present truth is eternal truth. They actually mean the
opposite. Truth marches on by being added to, corrected and by
reaching new states of Sacred and human consciousness. And the
'gates of hell' which can be thought of as stagnant truth claiming to
be eternal 'will not prevail' against the continual demand of the
Sacred that new levels of consciousness must be forged. And so no
'gates of hell' or any self defending religious creed or political
ism will be able to stop this natural spiritual/psychological force
that drives the progression all creation, seen and unseen.
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| Gates Of Hell--William Blake |
The dream shows the human at first not
seeing any way through such barriers. They seem to him overwhelming.
What is needing to pass through this hole is simply not able to fit,
it always appears at first. But then comes a higher more enlightened
view of the situation and the human ego is able to say(what God has
always said), 'Yes, we can. All things are possible with God.' And
it becomes true again that the 'gates of hell shall not prevail'
against the onward march of the increased consciousness that comes
from the mutual creative suffering together of the Sacred and the
human.. This turns out to be a pair that , when united, are truly
unstoppable. The total picture is truly a glorious one, one worthy of
the human being's willingness to worship such a God. And no doubt a
God who has often said to the human, ' Thank you. Thank you so much.'
Jim H.
* http://jhibbett.blogspot.com/2011/07/anima-dream-about-serving.html
* http://jhibbett.blogspot.com/2011/07/anima-dream-about-serving.html
