[Shaahayda Rizvi]

Hello Stephen,

Thank you for such a beautiful post that wraps the personal myth, the dream world, your personal dream, and your understanding of your dreams as they unfold and help you resolve a personal crisis.

“…. Certainly this dream series addresses the personal level Campbell mentions to Moyers in The Power of Myth (e.g. “Will I marry this girl?”); nevertheless, the archetypal level is represented as well. Notice how mythological themes play through the dreams, and how, though details of an image may differ from dream to dream – depending on what is being emphasized – the underlying motif remains in play: the snarling Doberman, the aloof timber wolf, and the playful golden puppy are all different inflections of the same archetypal pattern (Cerberus/Anubis; dog as psychopomp or guide of souls, etc.); similarly, the warehouse, the subway, and the storm drain all suggest the Underworld …”

Your dream images followed by your interpretation, both at personal level and at the mythological level helped me sort out my dream world and dreams that I had two nights ago. Your  personal interaction with the Doberman, the silver wolf  – a creature or I should say creatures,  more in tune with nature were present in my dream too. While the silver wolf chased me in an underground tunnel, and I found myself running at super speed, and as the scene changed, the world outside became immensely peaceful with other nature birds flying overhead. There was a gorgeous bald eagle circling overhead, the sky was a beautiful blue, and just below the bald eagle was a golden eagle, also in flight. My conscious  and the unconscious are not in sync, I thought. The underworld is scary, and I seem to be running away from something but the outer world promises peace, strength, security. So, I am hoping to do some AI work tonight and incubate another dream. “Dreams are indeed the royal road into the unconscious”   And, they speak to us of our private myths.

“To know that you are a sparrow and not a swan; or, on the contrary, a swan and not a sparrow…gives a great security, stability and quality of harmony and peace to the psyche,” Joseph Campbell wrote in Kyoto in 1955, drafting a convocation address for his students back at Sarah Lawrence.“Iyer, Pico. A Beginner’s Guide to Japan (p. 90).

With much gratitude for sharing your personal myths and personal dreams here and of course, always  in such a poetic manner.

Shaheda