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We are stuck in an illusion: What’s the Point?*

In a recent nightmare everything is vanishing. I struggle to hold onto something, but the holding only increases the vanishing. 

Why is the society that seemed to support the goodness in ourselves seem to be vanishing? How is it our society is becoming more and more self-centered?

At the core of the problem seems to be fear but not the fear that protects the body but the fear that protects the ego, that which makes us separate from everything else. The beliefs of the Ego-Self are what we use to protect us from this fear and whether they are fact or fiction based they separate us from our fears as well as from each other and the environment around us.

Beliefs are necessary to maintain the illusion of separateness. Without them the separateness dissolves and we become all things. The defense of our beliefs is the defense of our ego, our illusion of separateness. Without them the illusion disappears and we disappear as a thing, an entity separate from all other entities. We will defend our beliefs to the death of all those who threaten them as well as our own death for without our beliefs, what are we but the everything, the whole, the All? And as All we cease to exist as does everything else.

Letting go of our illusions is a form of Kenosis, an act of “self-emptying”. I’m reminded of the story of Jacob’s Ladder in the Christian Bible where a ladder ascends from the earth-bound illusion to the heavens i.e. from the mundane of things to the everything/nothing of the divine.

My ego is terrified for it translates as oblivion as in becoming nothing i.e., no thing. What’s the point? 

It seems that our beliefs not only make us something but also give us a point for being.

This is not to say that one must be stuck in a belief for in a reality of infinite beliefs there’s a lot to experience and just maybe that’s the point.

*This article can also be found in The Book of Dreams blog

Posted on by The Book of Dreams blog

Who am I being or expressing?

Over the last 40 years I have taken the MBTI personality inventory three times (with at least 10 years between them) as a means of ascertaining any life experience effects. Generally, the results have been relatively consistent with some small regression within the expected variation. Having recently celebrated my 80th year I’ve found myself reflecting a little more than usual on my life to this point and what internal points of view have motivated my movements through my life up to now. As I reflect on these internal factors and how they have played out across the years I’ve been most interested in how accurate the MBTI has been in my own journey. Personally, I have always viewed the traits revealed in this personality inventory as a means of defining how the soul is being expressed into my life.

So, what is this MBTI of which I’m writing?

As per the Google search for the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator):

The MBTI is based on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types, which was then developed into the assessment by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers in the 1940s. The test is designed to make Jung’s complex ideas more accessible by assessing a person’s preferences across four dichotomous domains: Extraversion/Introversion (energy), Sensing/Intuition (information intake), Thinking/Feeling (decision-making), and Judging/Perceiving (lifestyle). These preferences combine to form one of 16 possible personality types. Jung proposed that people experience the world through four principal functions: sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking. 

Jung also believed that people have dominant ways of using these functions and that variations in behavior are due to differing preferences. Since the advent of this personality indicator there have been extensive studies that show good reliability in some areas to limited support in others.

In a reading of studies that have looked at my personal personality result (ENFP/INFP) most of the interpretations seem to support my own self-reported experiences (this of course may be biased). The difference between my E (extravert energy) versus my I (introvert energy) scores suggest no dominance in this area (known as an Ambivert) and indicates high adaptability. This rings pretty true for me in that I’m willing to lead if needed or called upon and have been told that I do a relatively good job at it but prefer to remain in a supportive mode and a solitary mode. The context of a situation often dictates what personality is expressed.

Typically, people who fall into this category find themselves highly intuitive (N), feeling oriented (F) and approaching life with flexibility, spontaneity, and openness to new information and opportunities (P perceiving).

We also tend to be highly critical of ourselves and feel as though we don’t belong (a feeling versus a fact), finding it difficult to explain our inner self to others. 

If you’re interested, you can find access to the MBTI at the following link:

 https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types

Posted on by The Book of Dreams blog

When the Waking World and Sleeping World Dreams Converge

(Also posted 6-10-25 in The Book of Dreams blog)

Pedestrian tunnel that runs through the rock mountain in the Peñon de Ifach natural park in the city of Calpe, province of Alicante, Valencian Community, Spain.

[Because this is both a regular dream and also reflects dealing with a nightmare I’m posting it in both blogs.] 

Last night I found myself lost in caves and tunnels filled with salons, beauty shops a Buddhist Temple, and a bubbling brook used for meditation. I can’t find my way out. Everywhere I turn I’m lost. I’m frustrated in that every tunnel I go down takes me deeper into my lostness. It feels as though I’m starting to give up hope.

This is clearly an overwhelming and depressing dream. Because it’s an expression of what I’m experiencing in the waking world where chaos is everywhere and there seem to be few sane people left to turn to. Is there any way out of this nightmare? This dream is urging me to take some personal action, to transcend the tendency to retreat into myself.

The cave is my inner self, my deeper being. The tunnels are resources that I can use to get to where I want and need to be. The dream suggests that meditation and caring for my own well-being (Buddhist temple, babbling brook [calm down in order to see the way, the Tao], and salons) might help if not for the lostness, then for the calm needed to get through the craziness. The dream also suggests that I keep going and keep looking for an answer despite the frustration and helplessness.

Posted on by The Book of Dreams blog

Lost and panic creeps in

Nightmares will haunt you until you pay attention to them. And it’s not only about big traumas pushed into corners of the mind and praying they stay hidden. You can be suffering through some low grade stress and trauma that you’d just as soon ignore and are often able to shove into some corner of your everyday mind and it would stay there if it weren’t for nightmares. But the psyche doesn’t like to be ignored. It likes balance, it likes resolution.

When I ignore my everyday dreams on something that’s annoying me eventually I’ll be visted by a night time panic.

Lately the dark knight begins with me wandering out of some hotel conference into a city I don’t know and after a few twists and turns I find myself totally lost with no idea of which way to go to find my way back. Frequently it’s my car that I’m desperately trying to find or it’s the keys to said car. In either case the dream is suggesting a loss of independence, control, escape, or power.

That’s when the panic begins to swell within and confusion sets in. These are all symptoms of my sense of loss and control over my life and the direction that it’s taking. Lately it has been my sense of justice and what is right and honorable that’s being tested in a world that rewards lies and hate and glorifies ignorance. It’s become a world where violence wins out over love and chaos reigns supreme and its all showing up in my nightmarish dreams.

This kind of nightmare often comes to me more than once and will continue to do so until I deal with it. It is nudging me to pay attention to what is bothering me but not necessarily so that I can work to find a solution but to acknowledge what’s going on in me that I’m suppressing i.e., the first step out of denial toward resolution.

As with all dreams nightmares are there for a reason. They too are there for one’s health and well-being.

Posted on by The Book of Dreams blog

“It’s not about you, Dad!”

After some time, when first hearing this from my daughter (see July 27th posting), it’s come to me that as an individuated soul, she’s right; it’s not about me; it’s about the soul. What I identify as me is just the vehicle. The ego-self (me) adds personalization where there may be none. Most of my upsets aren’t really about me, either. They belong to others trying to navigate their own lives. It’s about their ego interpretations and the daily events that they experience. 

This reflexive need to occasionally interpret the actions of others as being about me can get a bit old, and sometimes, it can get in the way of compassionately responding to others’ experiences and how they are dealing with them.

All too often, I create my waking dream experience in a nightmarish way when there’s little that relates to me directly. Unresolved experiences of earlier similar events in my life still get triggered as though they are current and have little to do with what’s going on with the other person I am relating to at the moment.

As with a sleeping dream, when I can step back to gain another perspective on the events in my waking dream, I can better interpret their meaning and deal with them more appropriately.