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More on the Dark Night of the Soul

There are many ancient myths of those who entered the underworld to save a loved one e.g.  The Sumerian myth of Queen Inanna-Ishtar who went to save her sister, the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice who wanted to bring back his wife from the realm of the dead, and Adonis who was sent to Hades by his mother who then recanted and had to make a deal with Persephone of the underworld to retrieve him.

These myths are examples of the dark night-of-the-soul activity that is archetypal of all humans where we descend into the darkest parts of the psyche to retrieve disowned or lost parts of oneself. In a way, this descent into the darkness and process of resurfacing is represented in the death and resurrection of Jesus that Christians celebrate during Easter named after the Proto-Germanic Spring Goddess Eostre who brought the world out of the cold death that is winter.

One’s nightmares also serve this function: they come from the dark unconscious mind seeking the light of consciousness. 

The dark night of the soul refers to a painful period in one’s life, a sinking into the darkness i.e., depression. Depression can often bring nightmares to one’s dreams. However, as with most dreams, they come in the service of one’s health and well-being. When one takes on or confronts one’s nightmare there can be resolution and healing which is why I use the play on the words ‘Knight’ instead of ‘night’ in the title of this blog.

The process of individuation that Carl Jung saw as the process of self-realization and discovery of life’s purpose on the way to knowing and living who we really are is often forged during these dark-night ventures in both our waking and sleeping lives. Though I don’t usually experience nightmares, when I do I try to engage rather than flee from them to get an idea of what they are trying to bring to consciousness so that I can deal with the issue(s).

Occasional Nightmares can offer renewal or even the ‘rebirth’ of your core self and sometimes a spiritual rebirth through introspection and reflection. Note that one’s descent into this darkness can be quite scary and should not be taken lightly especially if one is experiencing frequent nightmares. If having two or three or more nightmares per week over many weeks one might seek professional help to assess meaning and develop a healing strategy.

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A Nightmare: Dream Paralysis

The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli

I had a nightmare last night where I experienced a human skull biting my foot and though I tried shaking it off violently it would not let go. As I tried to wake up I found myself barely able to breathe and paralyzed.

Sleep paralysis, though scary, isn’t abnormal in that the body motor system tends to shut down as you enter REM sleep and as you come out of it. REM or rapid eye movement sleep is the primary dream stage of sleep though one can have dreams during the other four stages of sleep as well but often not as vivid. This stage occurs roughly every 90 minutes or so after entering the first stage. The body shuts down the motor functions as a form of protection so that you won’t hurt yourself while thrashing around in your dream. 

Though normal, if you awake during this stage the paralysis can be quite disconcerting and may be, if experienced too often, a sign of some sleep problem or neurological issue.

As with any aspect of a dream, paralysis can suggest a feeling of being out of control, signify coping issues, a resistance to change, or a feeling of being trapped in some situation in your waking life.

Being bitten may have something to do with feeling vulnerable to someone or some situation that you haven’t dealt with adequately. For me the whole dream sequence may represent what I’ve been feeling regarding all the hate, lies and cheating going on in my country today as well as the out of control feeling associated with all the gun violence in my country and the wars being fought in various parts of the globe. I no longer have a sense of safety and belonging in my own country due to the hate and disruption coming from the extreme right wing of the social-political-religious spectrum. This stress and anxiety show up in my dreams as a nightmare from time to time.

Though the biting of my foot can be about an attack on my ability to stand firm on my own two feet and even refer to my own penchant toward self-criticism it may also have been an artifact of some neuropathy I’ve been experiencing lately and need to see a doctor about.

The truth is that a dream can reflect several different layers of meaning simultaneously. Our job is to analyze and parse the meanings out.

_____

*Meanings and information on sleep paralysis and REM sleep comes from Morpheus Speaks: The Encyclopedia of dream interpreting.

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Situational nightmares vs. replicative trauma nightmares

I’ve written many blog postings about nightmares over the years (see a listing at the end of this article) and dedicated sections on both my website and a section in the book, Morpheus Speaks: The Encyclopedia of Dream Interpreting.

But I want to draw a distinction between nightmares that are born of the need for our health and well-being and those that are reenactments of trauma e.g., the kind many people identified as suffering from PTSD. How you treat them is significantly different.

Nightmares come from the unconscious psyche trying to gain your conscious attention usually because there are events and stressors going on around you or at a subconscious level that you are not paying attention to but can affect you negatively if you don’t act on them. Frequently this kind of nightmare will show up repeatedly until you finally act or until the danger has passed. This type of nightmare can often, though not always, be adequately dealt with by going back into the nightmare while not fully awake or enlivening them after one has awakened, gleaning their meaning and hidden message(s) and or changing the narrative and bringing them to a more satisfactory conclusion. This can be done either on one’s own by looking for the positive in the dream or looking for the environmental triggers that may bring them about. Often this can be done with a friend or even in a dream group.

Being continuously bathed in negative images from TV shows and the news media can often be triggers for recurring nightmares. Limiting one’s exposure to these triggers can prove cathartic and helpful in lessoning or eradicating most recurring nightmare sequences or reduce the number of nightmares over time.

However, those who have suffered extreme trauma e.g., having been physically attacked, raped, intimate partner violence, repeated psychological or physical abuse, experience of extreme events of death, near death, or causing the death of another, or extreme uncontrollable and recurring chaos can sometimes relive these traumas over and over again ad infinitum and require medical and therapeutic help to deal with reoccurring and unrelenting nightmares. These relived or replicative moments of trauma through almost nightly nightmare dreams are symptomatic of those suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress and require professional help in dealing with them. To continually relive them can become physically and psycho-emotionally debilitating and fall into the category of a disorder.

Website:

http://thedreamingwizard.com/nightmares_304.html

Blog postings:

Nightmares
Nightmares, Night Terrors, and fear in dreams
Walking the Dark Night
There be Dragons out there: Sailing into the imaginal
The attack of a nightmare often leads to awareness and an opportunity for healing
A drowning dream brings relief
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Animals in Dreams: The dark and light sides of the Wolf

          The Wolf Moon

At 10:54 PST on the 25th of January the full moon, known as the Wolf Moon by the ancients because the wolves would howl at it during this time, filled our skies with its eerie glow.

Animals in dreams generally speak to ones drives and feelings about events and people when the usual social controls are lifted. Frequently they reflect one’s attitudes about them i.e., whether one loves or fears them. Animals can also reflect our soul and its condition.

The wolf has been a mysterious and savage beast of the forest showing up in fairy tales, cult mythology, and dark legends. Men have been turned into werewolves transformed with every full moon. Legends go all the way back to the story of Gilgamesh in 1800 BCE where a woman turns her cheating lover into a werewolf.

Werewolves can also suggest the need for or announce the oncoming of a transformation in one’s life or that one’s personality is cycling between affable and prickly.

In Greek mythology the Wolf-God was Apollo and to the Romans the wolf was sacred to Mars, the god of war. It was during these ancient times that gods and monsters roamed the earth. One of the most fearsome of the wolf monster tales was the Norse myth of Fenrir who was so powerful that he threatened all the earth and had to be bound up by the gods.

As a power symbol they can reflect one’s own power and the need to use it or use it less.

Wolves also show up in our dreams and not just as nightmares, though they can speak to our darker natures. The wolf can represent our wildness and represent freedom and independence. They can represent loyalty and be guardians and even spirit animals i.e., a messenger, guide, or teacher that comes to us in times of need. To the Native American Zuni of the Southwest the wolf is a pathfinder and trailblazer. 

The image of a wolf in a dream can also suggest the need to work together as a team. As a teacher animal in a dream look to see what it is doing. Is there a lesson to be learned or some lesson that needs to be taught? As teachers they can open one to their inner nature and intuitive sense. They can be messengers of one’s need to pay attention to this intuitive sense and be more conscious of one’s environment and what’s going on around them. 

Though wolves are pack animals and thus represent family they can also be loners as in a “lone wolf” or reflect the need to be more social or inclusive of others.

When interpreting, consider phrases like “The wolf at your door” (financial issues); Cry wolf (A false alarm, making up stories for attention); keep the wolves at bay (Fight against trouble or someone attacking you); Wolf whistle (rude and unwanted attention); Big bad wolf (evil/trying to eat the good or create havoc). 

________________

*Dream meanings come from the book Morpheus Speaks: The Encyclopedia of Dream Interpreting

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Is this all there is?

My nightmarish dreams of late seem to be ones of struggle, fear, turbulence, upheaval, escape, and are full of disappointment and limited solution and purposelessness. What’s the point of life I’ve wondered?

Over the years I’ve had these mind-blowing epiphanies, seemingly profound insights, spot on intuitions, dreams of the divine, imaginative stories, and magical moments. I’ve suffered, experienced joy, been hurt, soared with success, and fallen into the dark abyss of failure and loss. I’ve lived my life to the fullest I knew how. So what?

And try as I will, I can’t answer the ‘so what’ question. I guess I expected something to happen that never did, that there would be a profound understanding at the end. But nothing? I didn’t see that coming. Paul of the bible walks down a road and has an epiphany that not only changes the direction of his life but creates a whole new religion. I have an epiphany, several actually, and nothing, ho hum, just another day at the office.

What the hell!

I have what by accepted definition are profound life altering mystical experiences and what do I get? Nothing, nada, nichts. Everything’s the same as always only I no longer see the world in quite the same way, but the joy effect eventually wears off even if the change in perspective doesn’t. The only difference is I now don’t seem to fit in anywhere. And my so-called mystical experiences amount to what? I can’t even claim to be a mystic. Again, so what?

Here I am at the end of it all and all I’ve got is a big so what. I remember a Peggy Lee song where she sang, “Is that all there is?” wherein she exclaims, “Then let’s keep dancing.” Like for Peggy, I find myself disappointed but it’s a disappointment only because I thought there was some secret purpose to it all, but it seems that the dance of life has only one purpose and its not enlightenment, or to gain deep knowledge of the mysteries of the universe. The purpose may just be to dance, and to experience it as I go for no other reason than to dance. Maybe this is all God wants me to do. Who knows why? But I spoil it when I try to make it something else. 

So, what am I learning through these musings? Well, could it be to sing while I’m singing, cry when I’m crying, and dance when I’m dancing? Can it really be that simple?

Maybe we’re all just God having an experience that can only happen through a body and every experience acknowledged or not is what God wants from us and what it wants from itself. In this way how can I/we disappoint? How can any of it be disappointing? 

Once again, it seems that it’s the ego-self that likes to overthink things and create a ground of being for disappointment, but even that too may be part of the purpose for our being. Hell, we/I can’t lose!

It appears that the ‘what’s so’ of my life is also the ‘so what’ and together they make up the whole of life.

Then let’s keep dancing.

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The Dream: Trapped in my stifling negative inner dialog

Trapped in my stifling negative inner dialog unable to breathe, move, or escape I force myself to wake.

I do myself great harm with this unrelenting waking narrative of self-criticism and thus cut myself off from the sacredness of my soul.

The wisdom of “Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” is fundamentally a directive to do no harm to the sacredness of life, including oneself. I spend far too much time chewing on my shortcomings and insufficiencies and too little with my strengths and resourcefulness. “I am sufficient”, though I don’t yet fully agree with that statement, I do know that at my core I am whole. However, my expectations for how to realize the fact of my wholeness gets in the way of my acting sufficient.

So I feel trapped, trapped in my own judgments and self-criticisms, feeling as in the dream paralyzed, breathless, and unable to move or escape the negative narrative.

The dream is also saying to me “How do I transmute these leaden thoughts into the golden core of my real self”? In the dream I see what I have sunk into and I pull myself out and awaken to my real self, my real life. “Be mindful” says the dream.

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When the mask is removed

The nightmare:

I’m sitting on the floor in some strange place I’ve never seen before. It’s like a tunnel or underground bunker/cellar. A man comes out of nowhere and reaches behind my neck and rubs something on it. Why am I being targeted, what are they going to do to me? I know that I will soon be unconscious, so I slash his throat and start to run off to find some place to hide.

Interpretation:*

Do I not feel safe from my own inner dark side, my own unconscious mind? Do I need to protect myself? Am I letting myself become too vulnerable? Do I need to pay better attention to the darker parts of me? Do I need to focus more on the brighter aspects of myself and avoid burying myself too deeply into my darker aspects? Am I killing myself, my psycho-emotional self i.e., my self-esteem? Do I need to be more positive about myself and reign in the self-critic? What am I running from?

The underground is often symbolic of our unconscious mind trying to communicate with our conscious ego self through our dreams. Death in dreams is often referring to the end of something or the ending of a way of being. Being threatened often comes from feeling vulnerable or helpless.

Running away and trying to hide is an avoidance response to some action, danger, or event. Being myself, what some would call the authentic self, often results in me worrying about being rejected. But keeping the crafted persona or the mask on can be stultifying and limiting. 

The slashing of the throat could be about regretting a communication and wanting to cut off communication or the fear that some communication has threatened me or should be ended in the future. The throat or neck is the connector between the intellect and the body or heart. Slashing it severs the communication between heart and head, the fearful thoughts and the loving heart. Out of the fear of being rejected this what the head wants to do.

Recently I shared with a group of men parts of myself that I know are not necessarily acceptable or embraced by most people and after having hit “send” I almost immediately regreted having made myself so vulnerable and began to beat myself up for having shared so deeply. I tried to center myself but found that this wasn’t working. I read and reread the message I sent out trying to convince myself that this wasn’t a giant mistake. It wasn’t working either. The dream seems to be a response.

This kind of dream often shows up when I make myself vulnerable or spend too much energy criticizing myself and worrying if I’ve presented myself with too much information. When the mask comes off is a very scary place to be, freeing, but scary.

*some of these image interpretations come from Morpheus Speaks: The Encyclopedia of Dream Interpreting

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Imagine that!

Reading the Science section of the New York Times* this morning while sipping coffee I chanced upon an article detailing an astronomical observation of a supernova, a dying star that exploded and whose light and existence we are still witnessing one billion years later. Imagine that! We can look back through time and see something a billion years in the past right now in the present moment as though the star, its planets, and living things, if any, were still here with us. Imagine that!

Now I know that what we are seeing is the gross radiation of the star that in its own space and time no longer exists and the resolution is nowhere near what it would need to be to discern its planets and their life. However, this got me to thinking what if the resolution were powerful enough to see not only the star and its planets but the people on one of those planets and to be able to follow their emanations across their life cycle? We would be witnessing individuals who are living and being across a billion years of history as though they were still here. Beings a billion years old, Imagine that! Imagine someone from a galaxy millions and billions of years away with the technology to watch you live your life.

At some level we are all just data expressed as a living entity. But this data never ends when we end. The data from each of our lives outlives us by unimaginable time spans. A scientist would tell you that this data might not be cohesive enough to stretch that far across time and would become hopelessly corrupted to be almost unrecognizable. Even though the first law of thermodynamics suggests that energy cannot be created or destroyed and that according to the second law it will over time increase in its disorder, at the point of observation we may be witnessing what was so a billion years ago. A single life may be witnessed yet again a billion times over. Imagine that! 

From the perspective of some imagined observer our actions whether they be good, evil, or stupid will live forever. Our hate, self-centeredness, self-righteousness, bigotry, ignorance, grief, joy, compassion, passion, and love will be projected outward into the universe for all time to see.

From the perspective of a creator of the universe, if there be one, our existence can live on indefinitely. I think we’d better shape up if we’re going to be around that long.

____

*page D2, April 18, 2023

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An Anxiety Dream

Young student in front of blackboard istock photo

The Dream: In a classroom having missed a test I was told to solve the problem written on the board. Try as I would, I could not solve the problem. In fact, I didn’t even understand the problem or how to break it down into its simplest form. It was as though I had no understanding of the math involved, too stupid to even get started. Finally, embarrassed, and greatly saddened, I admitted before everyone and the teacher that I didn’t know how. I knew that by admitting this I had failed and my career as a student would end. I awoke depressed anxious, and agitated, a failure and loser. The teacher consoled me with “that’s alright”.

Comments on the dream: Oh my! I thought, “I hope this dream was not confirming my constant worry that I am stupid and everyone around me knows it”.

I then remembered an earlier blog article* that I wrote on the purpose of life. When I write on such things, I always worry that these explorations of life are sophomoric and reveal my ignorant and immature nature (my apologies to college Sophomores a period of my life that I enjoyed immensely and seem in many ways to have never grown out of).

In the article I packed it all under the rubric of “Mystery” that basically I love a mystery because I don’t have to have the answer or be able to parse the meaning. I can just enjoy my ignorance and play the Fool even if others think me stupid. By aligning myself with the great mystery that is life I can’t really be wrong. As the dream says I am not a student of answers but of questions and mystery. And the dream also reveals that admitting my lack before everyone is the first step in the acceptance of self. The teacher in me says that that’s just fine. 

_______

*2-27-23 The Book of Dreams blog

Why? What’s the purpose?
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Soul Crying: Dreams have your six*

One can hardly miss the craziness of our “leaders” and the number of deaths and shootings, police beatings and shootings, extreme weather damage, and unprovoked wars inundating us from the media. I’ve tried to moderate the amount of craziness by what I read or watch on TV but it’s all so pervasive that it’s almost impossible to screen out.

The craziness, mayhem, and fear also show up in my dreams or when I’m just watching a show.

Sometimes it just gets to be too much, and I find myself having a grieving response, a shoulder shaking response with no tears and no sound coming forth through my wide-open mouth, but real grief, nonetheless. Sometimes I’m bent over in grief unable to stand upright before it. Sometimes it all feels so helpless and hopeless.

But sometimes a witnessed act of love and kindness will trigger the grief response and I’m made to realize how much I long for kindness and love in a world that seems to have so little of it to go around.

However, when any of these grief responses want release from what I normally try to control, my dreams often suggest that I just let go and let the grief flow. I know that my dreams always have my back, my six as they say, my well-being. My dreams often recommend that I let my grief just fall out of me back into the ocean of tears that can be the world sometimes. For some it’s letting those cries for help fall into the open arms of God.

When awake I know that when this soul urging comes that it’s not what I’m reading or watching that is causing the need but that psychically I’m being touched by the event and that this moves me strongly. By letting go of the control and letting the feelings flow and knowing that it’s safe to do so, and that I’ll come back when it’s done, I find it releasing and cathartic, sort of like the old “primal therapy” technique of screaming and punching the pillow type of coping and healing. For some, doing this with a trusted friend or therapist can be very useful.

And that is what happens when I let go, when I let my soul speak for me, it heals or begins the healing of the psychic damage that life through ego-self humanity is causing. It loosens all that scar tissue that has built up over the years.

I’ve always known it; dreams can be about healing and well-being but listening to them now is even more important in order to deal more effectively with the self-serving human chaos spreading across the world.

Opening up to a good cry if that is what the soul is urging and then do your part to heal others through your enhanced listening and help to make room for love to come through is often the meta message of my dreams and perhaps to the dreams of millions more if they were to look more closely.

_______

*This post can also be seen on https://thebookofdreamsblog.wordpress.com