We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
— Shakespeare, The Tempest
Beginning within the context of psychology and Jung’s definition of dreams we have: “Dreams are defined as irrational fragments of involuntary psychic activity. Though dreams refer to a definite conscious situation, their roots lie buried in the unconscious. The unconscious is seen to have a compensatory function in relation to the conscious mind; i.e. it acts to balance any one-sidedness that may occur in the conscious sphere. Thus the analysis of dreams is an invaluable aid in freeing a neurosis which results from a psychic imbalance. Another function of dreams, which expresses itself in the symbolism of a long dream series, is to aid in the individuation process. Such dreams spring from the collective unconscious, which is replete with mythological motifs that guide the individuation process.”[i]
Dreams, according to Jung then have the dual function of healing and of individuation or guiding us to P-A. The “guiding” attribute also becomes available in our intuition or what in Simple Reality is the “feeling” function.
Because our P-B experience can create so much fear, we often engage in a lot of unhealthy distractions, denial, and repression to avoid those experiences. “But these contents that are incompatible with consciousness will at some point gather enough energy to press through into the awareness of the sleeping person in the form of a dream. Often they carry with them the energy or the emotional charge of the original impression, but they have cryptic ways of expressing that charge, through images and symbols.”[ii] Our dreams tell us that we cannot escape the reality of our choices.
“In the first half of life dreams generally concern themselves with the ego and its strengthening of the main inborn attitude and the functions of the individual’s typology, as well as development of the persona and the shadow. We deal with these issues to establish ourselves in a suitable niche in society.”[iii] Unfortunately, this false-self survival strategy, is also the source of our existential suffering.
“The prime reason for remembering dreams is to gain access to an aspect of our psyche that we need to assimilate and integrate into ego-consciousness if we are to live our lives in a fuller, more satisfactory fashion.”[iv] “From the standpoint of spiritual growth, the purpose of dreamwork is to tap into the deepest resources of yourself in order to bring up hidden potentials and integrate them into your working life.”[v] Dreamwork can complement The Point of Power Practice in changing our behaviors from reactions to responses.
Dreams can support the paradigm shift as we begin to create a new narrative, a healthier context to support the creation of a new identity. “The symbol-making capacity of the psyche, this ability to synthesize pairs of opposites into a symbol, Jung calls the transcendent function. By “transcendent” Jung does not imply anything metaphysical; rather he wishes to show that the symbol-making capacity facilitates a transition, a transcending from an old, possibly negative attitude to a new and different one.”[vi]
Rocco Errico, a student of the Bible and of the Aramaic language spoken in the time of Jesus supports Jung’s first contention. In all three Semitic languages, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic, the root word for dream KHLM means “to heal.” “Evidently they understood the process to be some sort of healing, guiding, and integrating mechanism of the mind, as many psychologists and psychiatrists of today have recognized.”[vii]
Seth describes the healing function of dreams in greater detail. “If there are chemical imbalances they are often corrected quite automatically in the dream state, as you act out situations calling up the production of hormones, say, that would be summoned in a like waking situation. The role-playing in the dream drama would be one in which you creatively worked out the problems that caused the imbalances to begin with. Dreams of a strongly aggressive nature in this context may be very beneficial to a given individual, allowing the release of usually inhibited feelings and freeing the body from tension. By such constant dream therapy, both body and mind regulate themselves to a large degree. So your flesh is affected by your dreams.”[viii]
Now let’s turn to the guidance function of dreams which may help us to transcend P-B. First, dreams can warn us of the perils of remaining unconscious and continuing to express self-destructive behaviors. Even a person as unconscious as Adolph Hitler couldn’t ignore the vivid alarm that his dreams were sounding during World War I. Laurens Van der Post relates the story. “Hitler said only one thing that struck me as real, and that was: ‘I go the way fate has pointed me, like a man walking in his sleep.’ According to Hitler, he was asleep in an advanced salient of the German trenches when he dreamed that he was about to be engulfed in an upheaval of earth and mud. He broke out of this nightmare with the utmost difficulty. Feeling suffocated and fighting for breath, he stumbled out of the dug-out for air. He had hardly got clear when an enemy shell hit the post and killed all his companions.”[ix]
Obviously, dreams can be a useful source of information to aid the intellect in self-understanding. The intellect, however, can be a major obstacle to attaining the experience of the present moment. In that case our dreams can make a kind of “end run” to get past the neurotic mind. “Sometimes it’s only in a dream that we glimpse a plausible solution. Perhaps because reason is fearful; it can’t fill in the gaps and achieve completeness, which is a form of simplicity; it prefers complexity, with all its gaps, and so the will entrusts the solution to dreams.”[x] This insight by Tabucchi on how dreams can function describes a valuable aid in problem solving. It’s important that we recognize and affirm all of our resources to combat the illusion of P-B and Seth reminds us of this in the next paragraph.
“You may have dreams urging you to move in such and such a direction, or pointing out areas in which corrections should be made. Often such dreams bring about behavior changes whether or not you remember them in the morning. You may request dreams in which proper direction is given, and you will receive them. If you ask on the one hand, however, and do not believe in the therapeutic nature of dreams on the other, you will short-circuit any such activity. In such a case you are not being honest with the contents of your conscious mind. Instead you are saying, ‘I will have a dream to help me, and yet I do not believe I can have such a dream.’”[xi]
Dreams in the final analysis are products of the realm of the relative (P-B) and as such are part of the illusion of P-B. They can help us sail more successfully on the sea of illusion but ultimately, we must abandon that sinking ship and shift to P-A where the skipper is the still, small voice and where the charts that guide us have always been available in the cabinet of the heart. Sailing on that celestial sea, we have transcended all form, physical and mental, including the helpful, interesting and sometimes entertaining land of dreams.
Simple Reality is for most of us an elusive experience because we have no way to measure the difference between reality and illusion. Chaucer asked “Am I a man who dreamed I was a butterfly or am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man? And Walt Whitman, himself a poet/mystic in search of truth and beauty commented on his evolving sensations, “I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before or else I am awake for the first time and all before has been a mean sleep.”[xii] Understanding the distinction between paradigms A and B is a good way to distinguish illusion from reality.
We close this article with Buddha speaking about the illusory and dreamlike nature of P-B.
Stars, darkness, a lamp, a phantom, dew, a bubble;
A dream, a flash of lightning, and a cloud:
Thus should we look upon the world.[xiii]
[i] Jung, C. G. Abstracts of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Rockville, Maryland: NIMH, 1978, p. 41.
[ii] Singer, June. Seeing Through the Visible World: Jung, Gnosis and Chaos. San Francisco: Harper, 1990, p. 169.
[iii] Pascal, Eugene. Jung to Live By. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1992, p. 230.
[iv] Ibid., p. 24.
[v] Schwartz, Tony. What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America. New York: Bantam, 1995, p. 269.
[vi] Pascal, op. cit., p. 228.
[vii] Errico, Rocco A. Let There Be Light. Marina del Rey, California: Devorss & Company, 1985, p. 37.
[viii] Roberts, Jane. The Nature of Personal Reality. New York: Bantam, 1974, p. 200.
[ix] Van der Post, Laurens. Jung and the Story of our Time. New York: Random House, 1975, p. 19.
[x] Halpern, Daniel. The Art of the Story. New York: Penguin, 1999, p. 547.
[xi] Roberts, op. cit., p. 132.
[xii] Fisichella, Anthony J. Metaphysics: The Science of Life. St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1984, p. 68.
[xiii] Campbell, Joseph. Occidental Mythology. New York: Viking, 1964, p. 366.
