self-worth – The Dark Knight of the Soul

Posted on December 30, 2020 by The Book of Dreams blog

My shadow

In good times and bad you are always there. You’re not a fair-weather friend like Mr. Good Guy Feeling Good About Himself because when I start to feel like I’m him you’re always there to remind me of why I shouldn’t but when the going gets rough Mr. Good Guy will often throw me under the bus and run and hide.

When I start to think that I may actually have a talent you’re always there to tell me that I don’t really at least not any more than most others.

I used to think that you were not very helpful that I’d just as soon you were gone, dead, and buried but you never take a hint because you’re always in the shadows and waiting to pounce.

I’ve read once that you are a part of me and that I cannot ever get rid of you or even train you to behave yourself and that in order to lessen your power over me I need to bring you out into the light because as everyone knows shadows can’t exist in the light. But you and I know that’s not true because just as light needs the darkness the darkness needs the light. To have one is to have both.

So, because you’re always going to be there, how do I accept you in all your warty glory?

How if I cannot get rid of you do I learn to hold you as a friend because I’d much rather have an agreeable relationship than one that is not.

I suppose that if it were not for you I would not know where it is that I would need to grow to be a better person, like where I need to be less arrogant, more accepting of differing points of view, less reactionary to fear and hurt, more giving, more understanding, more open, more loving, and less judgmental.

I also need you to point out that I am no different to those people I hate and judge to be less than and that my attitude about THEM also contributes to what is not working in the world.

You can also help me get my needs met by pointing out what they are through their absence like belonging, being accepted as I am, being useful to others, and being acknowledged. It’s as though I’m always trying to BE that is, to exist and to have me be acknowledged for that. Somehow acknowledgement makes me feel real and you in all your incessant critique makes me at least feel real. You are always there to tell me that I leave a lot to be desired but that I am at least here making that negative difference.

I really do need you because you seem to care that I am here and care what it is that I do and don’t do while I am here. How can you not love something that cares that much about you and something that is constantly kicking you in the pants to be better and more than you are being?

Okay, I guess you can stay because I think that after all this time I don’t really know what I would do without you because you really are an important part of me, the part of me that makes me strive to learn, to accept, to act outside of my safety zone, to challenge my inherent laziness, to identify and strengthen my weaknesses and to care for others. You do all that by never letting me rest on my laurels or by never really letting me have any to rest on. So, the Good Me reluctantly accepts your friendship but don’t get all mushy about it.

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*For more on the shadow self type in the word shadow in the search box near the bottom of this page.

Posted on April 11, 2019 by The Book of Dreams blog

Awakening, alienation, and Schizophrenia—a connection?

Imagine for a moment that everything we see and hear is but a dream a waking dream if you will where all seems real and following a rational and very linear approach to the world around us. Unlike this waking dream* what if the sleeping dream were to present a reality that was the mirrored image of the waking dream where everything seems real but seemingly irrational and non linear? The experience of the reality of both worlds comes from the individual experiencing them and is projected by the dreamer and is an effect of the inner world of their psyche. In either world as experienced the dreamer cannot be sure they are awake or dreaming.

It is said that if one pinches themselves and it hurts then they are not in a dream but what if feeling in a linear dream world feels like pain and in a nonlinear dream world feels like sadness or the color red? One world follows linear rules of cause and effect while the other does not. Are these worlds any the less real because one does not look like the other?

In a linear world we sleep and then we wake up. It is said that we are becoming conscious from a state of unconsciousness. But could it also be that we are becoming conscious of the unconscious? But perhaps they are mirrored forms of one consciousness.

While pondering this little thought experiment I settled down to meditate on it when a question formed in my mind that wouldn’t go away and shanghaied my focus (this happens more than I like). It went something like this: If a person were living within a waking dream, what would happen if they actually woke up?

As I sat upright I began to imagine what might happen. If most of what drives our vision of the waking world is effected by our personal and collective unconscious material that includes many archetypal symbols shared by all humans both in dreams and in what we call consciousness, what if we were to awaken from this shared symbolic vision and find ourselves functioning with a different symbology? This would probably affect our linguistic system, visual and mental interpretation of everything around us.

Those around us who were still living in the world and asleep would see us behaving in a most peculiar way and we might be confused what with not being able to communicate adequately with those around us. Even our experience of objects and people around us might be altered and our relationship to these might look somewhat delusional to others.

Looking closer at the possible behaviors of this theoretical “awakened” person, I noted the similarity with the diagnostic pattern of schizophrenia. I also remembered an article I’d read years ago that discussed the similarities between those with schizophrenia and shamanism. The seemingly bizarre philosophies and insights of many religious mystics also come to mind.

R.D. Laing, a Scottish psychiatrist during the 1950’s through 1980’s, suggested that Schizophrenia was triggered by what is known as a Double Bind situation, what is sometimes called the “Incompatible Knot” caused by extreme and prolonged different, or incompatible messages and an attempt of the psyche to resolve these**. Laing also suggested the possibility that when experiencing this double bind situation the ego and the self cannot express themselves and that can cause a very personal symbolism that is meaningful to the individual and incomprehensible to all others—diagnostic of Schizophrenia. He also reasoned that quite possibly the actions of those identified with Schizophrenia may actually be in the process of trying to avoid the losing of the self.

For Laing Schizophrenia may be a transformative process like the Shamanic Journey where one might enter a state where they encounter insights which make them more grounded perhaps in an expanded reality.

Might also some of those who experience schizophrenia be on a shamanic journey and among the “awakened,” or they who have experienced a shift in perception? This is hard to tell especially when some doctors use a medical model, or even a behavioral model based on biologics. Dr. Laing suggested that behaviors such as those exhibited by those with Schizophrenia, can both conceal or expose experience. Is it possible that the Schizophrenic is trying to communicate the experience of the shift in awareness, but have lost their connection with the world around them?

But this connection of which I speak between awakening and schizophrenic behaviors is only rumination on my part, or at most, speculation in that there is no evidence for a connection nor for that matter is there any evidence for the Waking Dream as a reality. If the connection is true, I’m not sure I want to be awakened though the prospect and mystical promise is tantalizing.

There does seem to be some experiential evidence, however that society has created a context for behavior that may be antithetical to normal, or natural behaviors e.g. where there is encouraged and unnatural split between inner and outer experience—we are, generally speaking, not aware of our inner selves and thus most of us experience a pervasive alienation from one another and a general misunderstanding of reality. Under extreme cases this may lead to extreme forms of alienation e.g. Schizophrenia.

“For without the inner the outer loses it’s meaning, and without the outer the inner loses it’s substance.”

R.D Laing, The Politics of Experience, 1972

“For nature, as we know, is at once within and without us. Art is the mirror at the interface. So too is ritual, so also myth. These, too, bring out ‘the grand lines of nature,’ and in doing so, re-establish us in our own deep truth, which is one with that of all being.”

Joseph Campbell, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, p. 132

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**Laing, R.D., The Politics of Experience, Ballantine Books, Inc., N.Y., 1967

Posted on March 29, 2019March 29, 2019 by The Book of Dreams blog · 1 Comment

Deciphering two disquieting dreams reveals an even more disquieting reality

Dream image: 1) An inverted evergreen tree hanging from the ceiling in a grand foyer. This caused much confusion and concern. Though not a nightmare it was very disquieting i.e. it just wasn’t right.

The card Players by.- Michaelangelo Caravagio

2) In another dream two men are cheating a younger man at cards. He is clueless as to what’s happening. They are manipulating and taking the younger man from all his worth i.e. they are stealing his self-worth. It feels evil.

What to make of these two disquieting snippets of dreams? When I break down the dreams into their component parts I begin to decipher the meaning of these dreams and their import becomes all too obvious both in my treatment of self and in my observation of how the nation as a whole is being treated.

upside down: Confusion as in “Everything turned upside down”. This could also be a metaphor for an antithesis i.e. something in opposition or thinking differently about something or someone. Are you being illogical?

Perhaps you need to see something from a different perspective.

trees: These can represent the structure of your inner being your self-portrait, how you see yourself psychologically e.g. your connection with the family and your past as in your roots.

Trees can represent your personal growth or the stages of your life.

Power, strength, patience, steadfastness, and quiet centeredness seem to be the attributes the trees offer and that I most admire and desire.

ceiling: This could be about your upper limits i.e. what you use to protect your identity. There’s a possibility that your old way of being is breaking down and there’s a need for new coping strategies. Have you reached your limit?

foyer: The main access to the vast inner self. It can also be a space where one may be ready to make an announcement about themselves or reveal something new.

evergreen tree: This could be about growth, eternal knowledge, happiness, immortality, or wealth and even immortality. It could also represent hope in the midst of despair.

Possible interpretations: On a personal level the image of myself may need to be righted in that is has been turned upside down to what is actually there. For example, my self-criticisms have turned my view of the world both in and around me upside down and is breaking down my self-confidence.

Alternatively, my world and the way I thought it was has been turned upside down and makes no sense anymore. My portrait or understanding of self has been inverted. I cannot trust the “rightness” of things.

There may also be a desire to correct the out of balance nature of the inversion and to wade into the confusion created by this out-of-rightness both in myself and in the world. But first the self because it is only from there that one can tackle the rest.

The second dream may reinforce the idea that I am cheating myself of my own worth. Things are not right and need to be corrected in this dream as well.

On a national and world level there are those who are stealing our self-worth and self-image as well and we are cluelessly letting them do it. In the dream the young card player is literally being “Trumped” at every turn. A symbol not lost on those who are following the insanity playing itself out in the American government right now.

We are allowing a small number of people to steal our sense of self and of what we have always said that we stand for both as a people and as a nation. We must stand up to these bullies whether they be our own critical inner voice or the illegitimate voices of our politicians, our so-called leaders, our President.

Our national self-portrait has been turned on its head by an insane and self-serving bunch of crooked people who are turning our deeper natures against us by turning us against ourselves and this must stop or nothing will be right side up again.

In fighting ourselves we are also distracted from the theft of our country and our livelihoods. This is to make us ever more clueless.

They are taking away our traditional good nature and replacing it with suspicion and hatred, they also manipulate us by feeding us misinformation and by destroying our sources of honest information and substituting them with what is essentially a State run media outlet. This is pretty much how it’s done in Russia and China or in any country bending toward autocracy.

This is how one takes over by shutting down honest media and thus controlling the dialog. And these dishonest fellows are masters of controlling the dialog. They say and do outrageous things to hide what they are doing behind our backs e.g. stacking the deck in their favor.

But when will enough of us catch on and refuse to play the game? Will we wait until they’ve taken all that we own? Because if we wait too long to do anything we’ll have nothing with which to stand up to them.

If it is true that there is both a sleeping dream and a waking dream we’ll see how bad the dream gets. Our waking dream is not quite a nightmare yet but moving disquietingly in that direction.