Tiger, Tiger …

An awareness of the connection between our shadow and our dreams can be valuable in gaining useful insights into our identity. The following story is an example of how an experience I had one day showed up in my dreams along with an archetype representing my shadow and how I was able to use both in the creative process. I had begun thinking about preparing a sermon I was scheduled to give at my church. The theme chosen for the month by the ministerial team of which I was one of six members was “The Shadow.” At the time I was just becoming aware of this aspect of my personality and felt I needed some help to prepare a meaningful and stimulating talk to set up the small discussion groups that followed the Sunday service at my church.

As I was preparing for bed a few days prior to the Sunday that I was scheduled to speak, I asked what I called the “programming question.” If I ask myself a question before I fall asleep, I will often get an answer in a dream or in the hypnogogic state that same night. As I was about to fall asleep, I remembered an event that had happened the previous year. I had received a phone call telling me to go quickly and turn on the NBC evening news to see an interview with my son an orthopedic surgeon. I caught the last half of the interview where he was relating an event that had happened the previous day.

A man had a caged adult tiger in his back yard. His three-year-old nephew wandered into the backyard and stuck his arm in the tiger’s cage. My son received a phone call to get to the hospital to meet his surgical team to re-attach the arm of a young child. My son is a remarkably skillful surgeon and he successfully reattached the child’s arm.

About a month after this incident he spoke at a medical convention in Colorado Springs. At a dinner with family and friends we all had the opportunity to ask him questions about the dramatic incident. He related that the tiger in a reflexive reaction had actually “batted” the little boy’s arm off of his body. The relatives had the presence of mind to retrieve the arm and pack it in ice. I did not know why the memory of this particular incident was returning to me on this evening, although that was about to be made clear to me.  But first I needed to go to sleep.

In my dream that night I found myself in my house alone listening to strange noises in my basement. I walked over to the closed door at the top of the basement stairs and placed my ear against the door while trying to identify the noises. I heard the click, click of what sounded like the claws of a large animal striking the basement floor. The sound of the claws became louder as the animal came closer to the bottom of the stairs. The floor beneath my feet and the frame of the door began to vibrate. This was a very large animal! Suddenly the sound of the claws stopped and the floor vibrated again as the animal lowered itself to the floor and began to purr very loudly. This was a very large cat. I imagined a tiger.

I walked away from the door with more than a little anxiety and began a conversation with the still, small voice within. It said, “You need to go into the basement to see what that animal is.” “Why?” I replied. “You need to let the animal get to know you and you need to get to know it,” came the answer. “Why?” I asked again. “You need to have patience and tame this animal because eventually you must bring it out of the dark basement into the light,” whispered the insistent director of my dream. “I don’t want to,” I said with obvious fear. “Why should I?” “Because if you don’t, it is going to keep getting bigger and eventually come crashing through the door at the top of the stairs when you least expect it, wild and furious and you won’t like the results.”

I realized the truth spoken by the voice of my inner wisdom and the inevitable action I had to take. Slowly I began to walk toward the door.

Sorry, but the dream ends here even if the story of me and my shadow does not.  The energy of my fear grew so intense that I woke up and was greatly relieved to find that the animal in the basement was a dream and I didn’t have to go down into the dark to tame it. Or did I?

“C.G. Jung denoted many recurring archetypes of the symbolic unconscious—the holy child, the crone or wise woman, the wizard, lovers, the hermaphrodite, death, [wild animals]—many of these symbols of states of consciousness emerge in the dream unconscious and have been portrayed in Tarot decks, alchemical engravings, and surrealist paintings.”

Jung called repressed archetypes “complexes.” In my dream I had preferred to keep the “tiger” archetype in the basement of my subconscious. In my waking life I would then tend to project the unwanted aspect of my identity onto others “out there” rather than acknowledge that it was part of my identity. Few of us have the commitment to awakening that would give us the strength or courage to open the basement door and confront the complex.

One example is gay bashing which is really a not so obvious attempt to keep the basement door tightly closed on one’s own homoerotic complex. We will hopefully realize one day that projecting is self-destructive because trying to control a complex in this way by putting one polar opposite against another has the opposite of the desired effect by energizing the opposite that is suppressed. In other words, we are feeding the very tiger that terrorizes us. Ultimately, the tiger will emerge from the basement unbidden and with vengeance. We see the effect of millions of angry tigers around us every day.

By finding the courage to face our complexes in a realistic context and a sophisticated practice for creating consciousness, we bring both polar opposites into the light of awareness where compassion can heal the conflict. Humanity cannot long survive denying the existence of and repressing its collective or individual shadows.

Our personal reactions and our dreams will tell us what hungry cats we have in our basements and yes, we have lots of them. It was immediately apparent that my dream that evening was about my personal shadow, so I got up and made enough notes so that I could recall the dream that was to become the centerpiece of my Sunday sermon. The more we know about approaching the cages of wild animals the less we have to lose and the more likely we will be successful in availing ourselves of the energy and wisdom of a “tamed” shadow.

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References and notes are available for this essay.
Find a much more in-depth discussion in books by Roy Charles Henry:
Where Am I?  The First Great Question Concerning the Nature of Reality
Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival