Finding the Center Within: The Healing Way of Mindfulness Meditation. (23 page)

love, disappointment lies in wait for us down the road unless we can successfully negotiate the transition from seeing the beloved archetypally to having a solid, human, nourishing, realistic, and down-to-earth relationship.

As a therapist, I hear the relatively candid and uncensored thoughts and feelings of men and women about each other. I am amazed at the disappointment and bitterness of women regarding men and of men regarding women. Since romantic love is one of the few ways our culture allows for spiritual, ecstatic experience, it takes on great importance in our lives—more importance, in fact, than it can actually bear. This raises expectations for relationships to an ever higher degree of impossibility and absurdity. This split between our expectations and reality can only be healed when we withdraw the projection by coming into relationship with our own anima or animus, allowing those we love to be real people, with faults and foibles, rather than gods and goddesses who magically make everything easy and wonderful.

One of the most important practices in dream work is getting acquainted with your animus or anima. Once these figures appear, you can foster a relationship with them by working with them actively, talking with them, and drawing and painting them. Such work heals the split in ourselves so we in turn can heal the split in our relationships, ending the bitterness of overexpectation.

Become Acquainted with Your Shadow

The shadow is a part of ourselves that we view from a conscious perspective as weak or inferior and that we therefore push out of awareness into the unconscious. The shadow is not evil per se, though sometimes we think of it that way since it is incompatible with our ideals and aspirations. Shadow figures generally appear as a person of the same sex as the dreamer.

Sometimes the shadow appears in a dream literally as one who follows or “shadows” us as we move. The shadow generally exhibits qualities that contradict our cherished views of ourselves. If consciously we take pride in our intellect and learning, our shadow may appear as a drooling idiot. If we take pride in our physical appearance, being thin 06 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:53 AM Page 143

Contact Your Wise Old Man/Wise Old Woman

The first things to surface in dreams are aspects of us and our lives that are difficult or disturbing in some way. This is usually the first layer to become conscious, because these are the aspects that need to come to the light of conscious awareness to be healed and integrated before anything else of value can happen. Unfortunately, this means that many people give up on dreams or dismiss them as nonsense, since these images are disturbing. But for those who persist, treasure awaits. One such treasure is the figure of the wise person—generally of the same sex as the dreamer. When such figures appear, you will naturally want to seek more contact with them. You can talk to them and benefit in many ways from their wisdom. They are, in fact, your own wiser, inner self. 06 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:53 AM Page 144

144

Work with Your Dream Characters

Once you have learned about anima, animus, shadow, and the wise old man or woman, you may be tempted to feel that you have said something important by labeling these dream figures when they appear.

“Oh, I know what this is—it’s just my anima up to her tricks!” But don’t do this. Remember, these are forces of nature. If a funnel cloud is coming your way, you would not just say to yourself, “Oh, that’s just a tornado,” and then go about your business! These characters are to be dealt with, interacted with, respected, and, as much as possible, understood and valued for the gifts that they bring. Jung made the mistake early in his explorations of considering such dream figures as infallible, crediting them with a wisdom in all ways superior to that of the conscious mind. He later revised this opinion, concluding that the perspective of the conscious self and that of the unconscious are of
equal
importance. Each has an important role to play in the ecology of the psyche.

We can benefit from Jung’s experience. While unconscious figures may dazzle us with their wisdom and insight, we should not abandon our conscious viewpoint quickly. If Madame Anima advises you to take a course of action that runs contrary to the moral point of view of your conscious self, do not be too easily persuaded. When you dialogue with her, fully represent your conscious feelings and reactions to her point of view. The conscious mind is a precious gift of evolution and should be respected as a fully equal partner in such exchanges. The process of moving toward wholeness works best when both the conscious and the unconscious mind do their full part.

Look beyond the Personal

While on the one hand, it is absurd, given the personal nature of dreams, to think that you can profitably work with them by simply looking up their contents in a dream book, on the other hand, since dreams do come not just from our individual selves, but also from that in us that is collectively human, there are some regularities in dream symbols and motifs.

06 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:53 AM Page 145

Be alert for round objects and square objects in dreams. These might not be immediately obvious or emphasized in the dream material. For example, a hat may be a representation of a circle. A city laid out in a square shape may be a similar symbol, or a square-shaped peanutbutter-and-jelly sandwich. Jung used the Sanskrit term
mandala
in describing such dream symbols. Mandalas are common in Eastern spiritual practices. A mandala is a sacred circle or square that demarcates sacred space. These are healing symbols in dreams, representing wholeness, the harmonious tension among and integration of opposites. Such symbols often emerge in dreams when we are under stress, and represent the possibility of resolution of the conflict in a new pattern of wholeness and well-being.

The circle tends to indicate unconscious wholeness; the square generally represents a more conscious wholeness. Explore the Transformation of Dream Characters

Aspects of ourselves that we deny and run from come back at us with increased energy. For example, if you are pursued in a dream by an aggressive dog, this may represent part of yourself that you have disowned and that needs to be reclaimed and integrated. As you interact with this part by speaking with it, arguing with it, forming an alliance with it, or fighting it, you bring this aspect into a new relationship with your conscious self. Often this aspect then transforms in future dreams into something less threatening. For example, I once had a dream about being pursued by a crocodile. After working with this material and interacting with it actively, in subsequent dreams the crocodile changed itself into cuddly, cute, friendly little puppies that ran playfully after me.

In fairy tales, when the princess kisses the frog, he is transformed into a handsome prince—his true nature or Buddhahood. Transformation is the “kissing frogs” aspect of dream work. When we embrace the aspects and energies of ourselves that we find least acceptable, they become handsome princes, revealing their true nobility and beauty. 06 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:53 AM Page 146

146

Jung studied medieval alchemy for what it revealed about processes of psychological transformation. Ostensibly aimed at transforming base materials into gold, Jung saw in alchemy a symbolic representation of change, transformation, and wholeness that was less about literal gold and more about the transformation of ourselves. Alchemical symbols emerge in dreams when we are undergoing transformation. For example, if the color gold or yellow occurs, this may symbolize the culmination of a transformative process. Since gold was viewed as connected with the sun, symbols and images directly and indirectly connected with the sun may have similar meaning. Crocodiles, for example, were worshipped in Egypt as divine beings connected with the sun god Ra. Of course, not every instance of the color gold will have this meaning. But you should be alert to such a possibility.

Look at the Meaning of Journeys

Life itself is a journey. When we think of journeying, it may evoke older images of people on pilgrimage, setting out on foot for distant, sacred places. In such a context, the meaning is clear to us. We can sense the meaning of such a theme. Be prepared, however, that the unconscious may borrow more modern versions of this motif. Instead of setting out on foot with a pack on your back and a wooden staff in your hand, you may dream about taking planes and trains or driving in your car. Explore Water as the Boundary

of the Unconscious

Water is the source of life. We are made mostly of water and we are born out of water. The rite of baptism, for example, connotes birth as a spiritual being.

Water in dreams also often stands for the boundary between conscious and unconscious aspects. This is probably one of the reasons the Egyptians revered crocodiles, since they dwell on the boundary between water and air, and can live on both water and land. Towns along the shore have a similar meaning. The sea or ocean tends to mean the unconscious; a river connotes movement of energy, as in the

“stream of life.”

06 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:53 AM Page 147

Sometimes when you record a dream or describe it to someone, it becomes clear to you that dreams often employ visual or verbal puns. For example, I worked with a man whose wife had died. He was quite angry with her for leaving him. In a dream, his deceased wife smeared feces all over his bathroom walls. The meaning of the dream “clicked” when he described his wife’s death as a “dirty trick” she had played on him. Transform the Animals

Animals represent instinctive energies that are necessary to maintain vitality and creativity. If we get overly civilized or restrained, our dreams may try to heal this imbalance by connecting us with animal figures. If the animals in a dream are threatening, developing a relationship with them can transform them into less threatening images. Eventually they may become human, showing that we have “humanized” this energy or taken it up into our human life in some way.

Schools, Tests, and Exams

Sometimes we revisit schools we attended, or we have dreams of taking tests or exams, perhaps not feeling prepared for them. Behind such images is that sense that life itself is a form of education, with its own tests and exams. Such dreams indicate that, from the perspective of the unconscious, it is not mere words when we say things like, “Life is a learning experience.”

Trees as a Symbol

Trees are a rich symbol. You might think, for example, of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. The appearance of a tree in a dream may indicate a new life or a rebirth. Eating fruit from a tree may be a reference to the “forbidden fruit” on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This may refer to sexuality, but it can also be much broader—

an expansion of conscious awareness.

06 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:53 AM Page 148

148

Children: A Dream’s Symbol for New Beginnings

Children may, of course, simply be themselves, particularly if they are children who are important in your daily life. But they can also symbolize anything new or young in our lives. For example, a child of five may symbolize a business venture or marriage or anything else that is about five years old. If an unknown five-year-old appears in a dream, ask yourself what began in your life about five years ago. Cross Rivers and Borders

Such symbols show entering a new area or phase of life, a transition. Ask yourself in what way you have entered new territory in your life, whether internally or psychologically or externally. Recognize the Divine

Whatever one’s beliefs about God’s existence, God is a psychological fact, an archetype. That is why all cultures have some notion of a god or gods, which they in some cases even arrived at independently. From a Jungian perspective, the archetype of God is the equivalent of the archetype of the self, of all that we are, of wholeness. The psyche is polytheistic. Dreams show many divine and quasidivine beings as having psychological reality. Of course, symbols always have to be understood contextually—in the context of what is happening in the life of the dreamer. But when such universal symbols appear, it is worth considering whether the symbols have a collective, universal meaning.

Value Synchronicity

Western science focuses on causal relationships between events. Jung’s work with dreams, on the other hand, led him to believe that some events are connected in a different but equally meaningful way—in an acausal way. In
Memories, Dreams, Reflections,
Jung relates that a 06 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:53 AM Page 149