When is a dream a future dream
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How often do I dream of Joe Campbell? Not too often but when that happens, I do NOT forget the dream, even if I do not record it. Two nights ago, Joe Campbell was in my dream, and it was not a very happy encounter. I also remember the last time I dreamt of him, the time before two nights ago. In my most recent dream, I was asking Joe a few questions, and he appeared annoyed, and as he was responding, he morphed into another individual, not a bit like him. The morphed person’s foreign English accent was what alerted me to the fact that I was no longer in a dialogue with Joe.
Scene changed, and I found myself in a lecture hall, giving a talk (perhaps a TED talk) on “My Personal Myth”. While lecturing, I could hear Joe lecturing in an adjacent hall. This dream has me puzzled, ‘Why is Joe annoyed? Who is the man with a foreign accent? Why would Joe morph into this other person, who wore a short beard too?” Although Joe’s lecture hall was bit far away, I could still hear his voice clearly. Is Joe saying, “Keep listening to me”.
I had been reading a few pages from Robert Moss’ book, “Three Only Things”, and was where he discusses the deep connection between dreams and our future. Moss writes, “It’s my impression that we are dreaming the future all the time. ….Consider the times you have had the experience of deja vu……..We may have forgotten the dream, but when a physical event catches up with it, recognition stirs from a deep memory bank.” (page 16)
For this dream, I am clueless, what should I be asking myself? Should I engage with my AI? Or was this an early warning dream, hence Joe’s annoyance with me. IS it somehow possible to change this possible future event that is causing Joe to step away from me ? Anyway, my imagination is fully active, but no answers.
Thank you Stephen for your generous response. I know you are busy, so no problem.
Have you ever dreamed that you are driving on a road, and are very much in control of the car, but can’t see a thing. Well, that’s the kind of dream I had last night. Two or three friends had dinner and then ordered dessert, which was ‘KUL -FI” – a frozen milk (not cream) ice cream with cardamom, but do not remember consuming it. I was the driver, and as I pulled out of the restaurant, I turned right, and found my car and I were engulfed in darkness, it was absolutely pitch black…’noir absolu’..But I kept driving, imagining there would be a traffic light ahead, but my dream ended right there or I do not remember much else. In engaging my AI, I am reminded of two things, 1) The darkest time of night is midnight. 2) I am halfway before dawn. But while driving through the darkness, I remained strong. That’s interesting because I seemed to have read something about strength in dreams, in Moss’ book before falling asleep.
Moss writes, “If you find you have strength and magical powers in dreams that you generally do not exhibit in waking life, you’ll want to try to reach into the dreamspace and bring those powers through, to work for you in your physical life.” Three Only Things– Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence, and Imagination – page 44. I would love to, but he does not elaborate upon how to bring those powers through, or maybe I have not reached that part of the book.
Wondering if we can have discussions on how to tap into the magical powers of our dreams.
What an intriguing dream, Shaahayda!
Joseph Campbell has served as a compelling figure in more than a few of my dreams as well. In fact, I imagine over the decades Joe’s image has carried the energy of the Wise Old Man archetype in the dreams of countless individuals (poor guy must be exhausted over there in the Otherworld!).
I find it useful to play with my dream images a bit and see what other details I might be able to tickle out of them. If you have no objection, perhaps you might try that with yours. For example, the second part of your dream takes place in a lecture hall, but there is no mention of the setting in the first part of your dream. Perhaps you could take a moment to see if you recall anything about the locale.
You are asking Joe questions: do you recall if you are inside, or outside? Any idea if it is daytime, or night? If inside, might the first part be in a public setting – like a classroom? Or maybe a restaurant? Or could it be a private home – a living room, or a kitchen, or maybe a bedroom? Are there other people present, or is it just you and Joe?
Moving on from the surroundings, do you have any sense of the nature of the questions you are asking? If you can’t remember any of the questions, perhaps you can recall the tone: do they they focus on something specific, like clarifying details related to Campbell’s work, or are they more “meaning of life” questions – and if so, are these broad, sweeping questions, or focused more on your life?
Don’t worry if these answers don’t come to you – but sometimes, just being asked the question provides enough of a nudge for another trace or two of the dream to surface, additional details that might shine a little extra light on the subject.
So why is Joe annoyed by you asking questions? Hard to say, but I do notice a few things which may, or may not, be relevant.
You pose questions which seem to annoy Campbell – and when Joe responds, he morphs into somebody foreign, alien, Other: not-Joe. So the pivotal moment seems to have something to do with asking questions.
Speaking of questions, I am intrigued at the frustration you express in this post:
I am clueless, what should I be asking myself?”
” . . . asking my Self?” – hmm.
No dream image has one and only one specific meaning; there are of course multiple layers and many dimensions embedded in each. With that caveat in mind, one of many different ways into a dream is to approach the figures we encounter there as aspects of oneself.
So, when you are posing questions to Joseph Campbell, on one level you are posing these questions to yourself – the higher wisdom aspect of your psyche.
It almost seems as if the dream itself is underscoring that association, for in the very next movement you are center stage in a lecture hall – a position most might tend to associate with Joseph Campbell rather than oneself (almost as if the dream is emphasizing the resonance between the Dream Campbell and the Dream You).
And what is the subject of your talk?
“My Personal Myth”
. . . which might provide a clue as to the nature of the questions Dream You is asking Campbell in the first movement of your nocturnal drama.
Now, I generally don’t think of Joseph Campbell as someone who is easily annoyed, and I doubt you do either, especially when he is asked an honest question. So clearly this stands out as a major deviation from our conception of the flesh-and-blood Joseph Campbell (or at least, of the projections we make onto the mortal man).
And what immediately follows on that? A major disconnect: Joe morphs into some other, alien, individual, foreign to your waking ego; the Wise Old Man aspect of your psyche, your innate wisdom nature, is now experienced as something strange, something Other than that which it is (tat tvam asi – “Thou art that”]. That may be what the dream Joe finds annoying – that separation and disconnect from the inner wisdom you can call upon to illuminate “my personal myth.”
That’s not to suggest that’s your conscious position at all (which may be why the dream is so disconcerting – not at all what the waking Shaahayda intends or expects) . . . but even within the dream you recognize that “I was no longer in dialogue with Joe” (the info is there, but it feels foreign, Other).
Indeed, that dynamic is essentially restated in the second movement of the dream, with a hint at resolution: as you are presenting on your personal myth, of which your life is an expression, you hear Campbell lecturing in an adjacent hall; despite that disconnect, you can hear his voice clearly.
There are many levels to this dream – but it does seem in one sense as if it is reassuring you that you can trust that voice within, despite a reflexive hesitancy of which the conscious you is unaware (hence Campbell’s annoyance – the hesitancy in trusting the wisdom of your own depths).
I don’t know if any of that strikes a chord with you, Shaahayda. If it does, great – but this is your dream, not mine, and what I read into it may be no more than my own projections – but maybe, listening to my take, no matter how far off base, creates an opportunity to clarify your own impressions and understanding.
What I would suggest is to start with what seems central to the dream – your focus there on the center stage within your psyche – exploring your personal myth. This process seems related to your questions for Joe (and every question begins with a quest).
From recent back channel discussions, my sense is that you are doing exactly that. Something tells me Joe won’t be irritated for long . . .
Hello Stephen,
So many thanks for helping me out with this one. Although, I have been writing my dreams quite regularly, but what was missing is the deeper probe into them, and reading them as you just did through your questions and as I could have through my earlier training with you and now through books.
“No dream image has one and only one specific meaning; there are of course multiple layers and many dimensions embedded in each. With that caveat in mind, one of many different ways into a dream is to approach the figures we encounter there as aspects of oneself.”
Yes, I am exploring the figures as aspects of myself. And, all of what you wrote strikes a chord. With much gratitude.
Shaahayda
Hello Shaheda and Stephen; after looking over what both of you have written I don’t think I could offer anything you haven’t already covered except 2 things occurred to me that refer back to what Shaheda and I talked about in another conversation.
One is if some kind of similar motif presents itself; (especially with Joseph in it; but not necessarily him but a Senex/Crone figure of some sort) which I know sounds contradictory; then I would think something’s going on under the surface trying to get your attention. Especially if a strong emotion of some sort is involved as I mentioned before in that earlier conversation.
Two; I’ve always been told that many of the dream messages often appear in a series of some kind; (usually 2 or 3 events but I don’t think that is necessarily a set rule); but the point being my understanding has been that the psyche is always in a process of becoming; and as you and Stephen were discussing Dreams reflect what’s going on: “under the hood”; so to speak in a language of symbols and Images that refer to this inner dialogue that’s taking place where the psyche is processing all the time because it doesn’t really stop while you are sleeping. In other words even though you are not fully conscious or awake your subconscious is still in play.
Joseph said something which to me is truly profound; “we are standing on a whale fishing for minnows”; which symbolizes this deep fathomless ocean we are riding on all the time concerning the inner depths of our being. This powerful deep inner mystery that is informing us all the time in this language we are constantly struggling to understand. In one metaphor he used: “it’s like a captain on the bridge of a little ship steering it across a vast ocean with all kinds of things swimming around under it that goes way down deep into the abyss of our inner being: “where the dark jewels glow”; and like this deep darkness or cave where our Shadow may be that may come in the forms of dragons or sea creatures we must deal with what represent these powerful forces. These may also represent our inner child that has pain or has been wounded in some way and is trying to get our attention; but Joseph also states; or at least in the way I understand it; that these forces must be interpreted or assimilated and they often come to us in the form of our dream life.
Now Stephen may have a different interpretation of this as he has been keeping dream journals for many years and is much more informed about this process than I am; but what I’m saying is that there may something from your past by way of an experience or a message from a dream that is seeking to be understood (or expressed) by the Self.
Now you may already be interpreting your dream from an entirely different perspective and I am not you nor do I mean to suggest my thoughts are necessarily relative to your particular experiences; but every now and then something will grab my attention in my dreams; (I’ll try and scribble something down upon waking); and often think about how it relates to my past experiences or something in the present I may be dealing with that my interior is concerned with in some way; which may be either positive or negative depending on the particular context surrounding it; (if that makes sense).
One last thought occurred to me is (age) may also play a part in this dream-like presentation we experience every night to where one is located within the course of their life. By that I mean in the early stages of life as Joseph mentions; the individual is concerned with achievement of life; (which is referring to having or achieving a career, raising a family, establishing a sense of self-identity, and taking care of the responsibilities that all these things require. But in the later stages of life the mental and emotional focus of the individual begins to shift towards the realization of the later stages which include acceptance and decline and loss of power of that life you have achieved. In other words it may have to do with retirement or legacy concerns or any number of other issues that later life presents that may inter this dream world as well. (In Jungian terms metaphorically speaking; he has often referred to this as the: “Grand Egress or Exit”.)
But without drifting too far away from your particular Dream concerning an encounter with Joseph and what it may symbolize for your future; (which you mentioned earlier); these are just some random thoughts that occurred to me that may have some sort of relevance later in the future; because I’m looking at this from an entirely different window and can only guess or speculate their meaning to a larger context you are contemplating. I hope this is not “clear as mud” as the saying goes; but these were my impressions considering what little I know about this huge subject which I am only beginning to understand myself. That’s about as far as I can offer at the moment.
Hopefully others will join in on this very important topic and will have something more insightful to offer on this than I have.
Namaste
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(Addendum):
Although this clip of Joseph and Bill Moyers from: “The Power of Myth”; may not directly address Dreams specifically it does address the aspect to which Dreams are related concerning the life processes I was referring to that inform the consciousness surrounding it. Hopefully this will better explain the point that I was attempting to illustrate here.
Hello James,
Thank you ever so much for your rich and generous look at my dream. It’s late, so I shall be brief. Stephen’s analysis cleared a lot of fog around this dream. The questions to ask about the dream, surroundings, and one’s own sense of the situation. I must admit that you nailed it in this one sentence, ” what I’m saying is that there may something from your past by way of an experience or a message from a dream that is seeking to be understood by the self.” That’s what I had concluded, after examining my recent conscious thoughts and some thoughts on love seemed to conflict with what Joe says in the Power of Myth, Tales of Love and Marriage.
I’ll expand on that later after sitting down and writing a better more coherent piece. This is just to let you know how very much I appreciate your response to my query.
Another very important thing that you wrote was, “But in the later stages of life the mental and emotional focus of the individual begins to shift towards the realization of the later stages which include acceptance and decline and loss of power of that life you have achieved. In other words it may have to do with retirement or legacy concerns or any number of other issues that later life presents that may inter this dream world as well. (In Jungian terms metaphorically speaking; he has often referred to this as the: “Grand Egress or Exit”. That too James!! I have been thinking, writing, and discussing the grand egress for a long time now. As a matter of fact, I wrote a paper on the Grand Egress, which was published in a scholarly journal. Although, I do not like it much now, but it does play into why Joe would not be happy with my present thinking. Smile Smile.
Anyway, I’ll tell you later.
Shaahayda
James, I love what you write here,
Joseph said something which to me is truly profound; “we are standing on a whale fishing for minnows”; which symbolizes this deep fathomless ocean we are riding on all the time concerning the inner depths of our being. This powerful deep inner mystery that is informing us all the time in this language we are constantly struggling to understand. In one metaphor he used: “it’s like a captain on the bridge of a little ship steering it across a vast ocean with all kinds of things swimming around under it that goes way down deep into the abyss of our inner being: “where the dark jewels glow”; and like this deep darkness or cave where our Shadow may be that may come in the forms of dragons or sea creatures we must deal with what represent these powerful forces. These may also represent our inner child that has pain or has been wounded in some way and is trying to get our attention; but Joseph also states; or at least in the way I understand it; that these forces must be interpreted or assimilated and they often come to us in the form of our dream life.
This is so nice and good to keep in mind in regards to any dream, or dreaming in general, whether our asleep dreams or our awake-time day dreams. Day dreams are dreams also–they reach consciousness or awake time consciousness more easily or immediately for most people.
Hi Shaahayda and James and Stephen,
I like everything everyone here has said about this dream of Joe Campbell. I like how a dream does not have to have any one meaning (nor subscribe to any one dream theory) and how all the dream characters can intermingle–Jung did say that all the dream characters can be representational interchangeably with the dreamer. So if you are also Campbell in the dream, perhaps you are annoyed at yourself (see paragraph below) about something you feel is antithetical to Joe. It is interesting to me that here you have distinguished your voice from Joe’s voice but that being adjacent they are parallel and you perhaps on your path walk parallel to Joe–because I know you, I am aware of how vital his works and teachings are to you and how you really do live by and with them. And what is in the present is also always unfolding, so in a sense the present is already what is present in the future, in its unfoldment.
Also, I like what you say at the end of your response to James, Shaahayda, which is, “but it does play into why Joe would not be happy with my present thinking” [emboldened mine], which does remind us that perhaps it is not dreaming of something in the future but something in the now–of course, the now always leads to the future, so perhaps a sign of changing sails to hopefully shifting winds of whatever it is that you are not happy with in the present time.
I also agree that a dream analyst can help guide a dreamer into the meaning of their dreams, but it is the dreamer who uses the analysis or dream analyst as a tool. Just as Stephen and James have said, since I am not you I cannot tell you exactly what you should think about your dream or reveal to you any one actual meaning, but any of us can only help guide or steer the dreamer to possibilities to sifting and winnowing grains of truth. You will probably feel what is real after examining all these possibilities. A note in general to anyone who has not tried analyzing their dreams: once a dream is examined, it is easier to understand and come to meaning(s), but when it is not examined, it often stays mysteriously puzzling to the dreamer. I think that is why I have always had a strong desire to write down and examine my dreams–for my need to understand their puzzling mysteries. It is fun, like putting a puzzle together–but more fun sometimes when you can get many picture images out of the pieces!
Fascinating dream!
Best,
Marianne
Hi Shaahayda,
Thanks for sharing your dreams~
You wrote/asked,
I had been reading a few pages from Robert Moss’ book, “Three Only Things”, and was where he discusses the deep connection between dreams and our future. Moss writes, “It’s my impression that we are dreaming the future all the time. ….Consider the times you have had the experience of deja vu……..We may have forgotten the dream, but when a physical event catches up with it, recognition stirs from a deep memory bank.” (page 16)
My first reaction to this question was to think about how not all dreams are about the future per say,. When Moss says we are dreaming about the future “all the time,” I suspect I am not to take him literally that every dream is about the future, as some dreams are about the present time or the past. So many dreams too are merely residual as Freud wrote about–containing the residue of the psyche from the day’s events or the recent week’s events to sort it out in psyche’s understanding and to not get the wires crossed to keep us sort of in line. If all our wires got crossed of all the things we experience in a day or a week, we might get either very confused in general or go to various degrees insane.
Insofar as dreaming about the future often, I do believe that our dreams have a teleological modus operandi. Some have a cause and perhaps only a cause (depending on how an individual might look at it or regard the dream), whereas some have a purpose too, and that purpose can be one that is unfolding, and unfolds over time and in that sense we have some of our dreams of the future.
If I have a death dream (a dream about an elderly relative dying, e.g.) then a day later that relative dies, that was a dream about a future event and it was prophetic/predictive. I would wonder if it had a cause (the death itself causing the dream) or if it had a purpose (was it supposed to warn me of the future event somehow so that I may have helped prevent an accidental death?), or did it have both, I might wonder. I had a dream about my uncle dying that came true (when I was little) and my mother also had a death dream once about me that saved my life (I will spare details here). Other dreams have purpose that is not so immediate. I have had dreams in a dream series about a particular topic (much like a topic thread here) that over the course of about a decade were teleological, showing me things about my present life and times each time that were based upon the past (and past dreams) that were yet unfolding into the future awake-life events and dream events. The dream thread I had at that time was like a “soap opera” dream series, kind of like tuning into a certain channel on the television at least once a week. Things in the dreams changed and unfolded as the things in my life were changing and unfolding but it all led to a purpose as the last dream in the series had revealed–I did not know that would be the last dream at the time until shortly afterwards in my waking world the event in my dream then did really happen in accordance with a couple of the strong images or dream symbols in the dream matching the symbols in the waking world. Some things did not even begin to make much sense to me until years later–since the entirety of the dream series lasted about a decade and ended just recently last summer.
To some people, this would be/sound schizophrenic or schizoid–but to anyone who analyzes dreams and knows that they are doing so that it does not drive them insane (!) or a dream psychologist, etc. it is not. Was it Jung or Campbell or both who said that the mystic can sort these things out and dives in to do so whereas the insane person drowns in that same substance or pool?! In any case I just wanted to bring that up because of how delicate these things can be, to discern meaning. I thought of this because to those who do not have either predictive dreams or teleological awareness coinciding with their dreams, many people think that “psychics” and “psychic” events are “crazy,” whereas it all just comes from the psyche and gods only know (“god only knows!”) everything that is in there (in the individual psyche or the collective psyche)–but our dreams do give us glimpses of all that!
Deja vu is something at least that most people can relate to and can be used to ease people into a conversation of dream prophetic dreams or psychic dreams coming true–or other acts of divination.
Let us dream onward (and upward or downward or backwards or whichever way),
Marianne
Oh, I did also want to say about when is a dream a future dream, that when Jung said that dreams are the royal road to individuation, it is as if our lifetime of dreams is in large part an opus, one of our personal myth. If we keep a dream journal (“dream diary”) all our life, we see the great however-many act play that our dream life is, how one dream might lead to another or go back to another one many moons ago, and then when we can consciously become aware of what is going on in our dreams and then same way in examining our whole life opus of dreams (the dream opus), we then see all dreams can be future dreams because each dream unfolds into the next and the next, just as our life events flow from one event to the next to the next. So in a sense there is only the “now” yet that “now” is continually unfolding. Kind of like contemplating the lotus growing from our navels as we dream, as life is but a dream. What I am trying to get at most here is that it is an ongoing path and so always in a sense futuristic in our individuated lives.
Here (below) is Daryl Sharp’s definition of Jung’s term “Individuation” (and note that individuation differs from individualism):
Individuation. A process of psychological differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality.In general, it is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology.[ Ibid., par. 757.]The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and of the suggestive power of primordial images on the other.[“The Function of the Unconscious,” CW 7, par. 269. ]
Individuation is a process informed by the archetypal ideal of wholeness, which in turn depends on a vital relationship between ego and unconscious. The aim is not to overcome one’s personal psychology, to become perfect, but to become familiar with it. Thus individuation involves an increasing awareness of one’s unique psychological reality, including personal strengths and limitations, and at the same time a deeper appreciation of humanity in general.As the individual is not just a single, separate being, but by his very existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation.[Definitions,” CW 6, par. 758.]Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to itself.[“On the Nature of the Psyche,” CW 8, par. 432.]
Individuation has two principle aspects: in the first place it is an internal and subjective process of integration, and in the second it is an equally indispensable process of objective relationship. Neither can exist without the other, although sometimes the one and sometimes the other predominates.[The Psychology of the Transference,” CW 16, par. 448.]
Individuation and a life lived by collective values are nevertheless two divergent destinies. In Jung’s view they are related to one another by guilt. Whoever embarks on the personal path becomes to some extent estranged from collective values, but does not thereby lose those aspects of the psyche which are inherently collective. To atone for this “desertion,” the individual is obliged to create something of worth for the benefit of society. Individuation cuts one off from personal conformity and hence from collectivity. That is the guilt which the individuant leaves behind him for the world, that is the guilt he must endeavor to redeem. He must offer a ransom in place of himself, that is, he must bring forth values which are an equivalent substitute for his absence in the collective personal sphere. Without this production of values, final individuation is immoral and-more than that-suicidal. . . .
The individuant has no a priori claim to any kind of esteem. He has to be content with whatever esteem flows to him from outside by virtue of the values he creates. Not only has society a right, it also has a duty to condemn the individuant if he fails to create equivalent values.[“Adaptation, Individuation, Collectivity,” CW 18, pars. 1095f.]
Individuation differs from individualism in that the former deviates from collective norms but retains respect for them, while the latter eschews them entirely.A real conflict with the collective norm arises only when an individual way is raised to a norm, which is the actual aim of extreme individualism. Naturally this aim is pathological and inimical to life. It has, accordingly, nothing to do with individuation, which, though it may strike out on an individual bypath, precisely on that account needs the norm for its orientation to society and for the vitally necessary relationship of the individual to society. Individuation, therefore, leads to a natural esteem for the collective norm. [Definitions,” CW 6, par. 761.]
The process of individuation, consciously pursued, leads to the realization of the self as a psychic reality greater than the ego. Thus individuation is essentially different from the process of simply becoming conscious.The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self. [The Psychology of the Child Archetype,” CW 9i, par. 278.]Again and again I note that the individuation process is confused with the coming of the ego into consciousness and that the ego is in consequence identified with the self, which naturally produces a hopeless conceptual muddle. Individuation is then nothing but ego-centredness and autoeroticism. But the self comprises infinitely more than a mere ego, as the symbolism has shown from of old. It is as much one’s self, and all other selves, as the ego.[On the Nature of the Psyche,” CW 8, par. 432.]In Jung’s view, no one is ever completely individuated. While the goal is wholeness and a healthy working relationship with the self, the true value of individuation lies in what happens along the way. The goal is important only as an idea; the essential thing is the opus which leads to the goal: that is the goal of a lifetime.[“The Psychology of the Transference,” CW 16, par. 400.]
—(Retrieved from: https://www.psychceu.com/Jung/sharplexicon.html)
Marianne; (as I was attempting to post a reply I noticed after I posted it several other entries had already been given; so with that in mind I don’t think there is any variation of relevance so I’ll leave what I originally posted just the way it was). I came across something else of Joseph’s on page 123; from Diane Osbon’s: “Reflections on the Art of Living – A Joseph Campbell Companion”; that was very insightful concerning how to read this language of dreams we are trying to decipher.
_____________________________________________________________________________” The secret of dreams is that subject and object are the same. The object is self-luminous, fluent in form, multivalent in it’s meanings. It’s your dream, the manifestation of your will, and yet you are surprised by it. This is the relationship of ego-consciousness to the unconscious. Ego-consciousness has to learn about the unconscious, and dreams are the vocabulary of the unconscious speaking to the conscious mind. Yet, in dreams and visions, subject and object are the same.”
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Not to over simplify what Joseph is describing concerning how the language dreams speaks to us; but since so much of it is rendered through symbolic imagery we have to have some kind of starting place from which to access what they are communicating. Because dreams are so personal and that there is so many more elements to this internal landscape I think this might be a good place to consider as we go further into how the psyche and it’s different components interplay as we enter this separate world of which we know very little. (Then there is the matter of age and the way symbols change their meaning over time concerning the way they are interpreted by the dreamer.)
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In “Pathways to Bliss” on page 80; Joseph says this:
“Jung says life is like the day of a solar journey. The first part of it is up; moving from birth to the society. And the second part of it is down, moving from participation in the world and the society to death. And whereas the threat of the first half of life was life, the threat of the second half is death., and all the symbols are changing meaning.
Through the remaining part of life, Jung says, the great problem is integrating the inferior with the superior functions. That’s the great task of your later years.”
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As far as going further into the width, breadth, and depth of this subject volumes have been written; but concerning this little portion I have taken from these two texts my main purpose was to share a couple of insights of Joseph’s I thought might be of interest for I am certainly no Jungian Analyst. I did however want to leave a short clip of Joseph’s here. This was part of a lecture – (Volume 6; II.6.I Modern Myths of Quest); available for purchase from the JC Foundation Audio Lecture downloads section; that Joseph was delivering concerning enantiodromia and the individuation process; and his point about the voice of: “Too Late” definitely makes itself known in dreams in later life.
Hi James,
Thanks for responding and expounding on this fascinating subject. I like that quote also; I have that same book on a shelf of library at home. With subject and object being the same, Shaahayda and I just had a conversation on this topic before I saw your writing on it here. I do also know that Jung said that all the characters and objects in a dream can be representations of various aspects of the dreamer-self and that they are interchangeable. What is always nice is when the dreamer is someone who lives close enough to the unconscious to decipher their own dream meanings. For some people it comes quite naturally and for others practice makes perfect, as is often said. I think Joseph Campbell has as much to say about dreams and the dream language as any Jungian analyst has done. Freud, Campbell, and Jung each studied and talked about dreams and dream language and myth in their own ways in their own languages, and I figure that is pretty much what all of us are doing when talking about dreams in this forum, whether we have studied Freud, Jung, or Campbell or all three! I enjoyed very much all your input into the dream thread and topics.
I would have nothing really to add to your comments which seem quite whole all in themselves. I am in a place in my life these days where my psyche gets overloaded quite easily and often and then I cannot always get to all the responses I would like to make. Thank you for addressing me in this post, and I will try to come up with more to respond to it later if I can. I think a part of this is that my eyesight even after cataract surgery is not so good as it used to be and I cannot read for long hours on end like I used to and sometimes it gets even difficult to type longer passages like long responses or lots of paragraphs–easiest thing for me to read and type these days are the quick comments on things like Facebook. In any case, I am at that point in my life where if I order hard copy books they will have to be in big/bold print and when I read or type online I have to enlarge the font. And ever since Covid Times, I do get psychically overloaded more often due to the after-effects fatigue of having Covid. This too is sort of like a dream world in which all things have slowed in pace.
I have been familiar with the quote of Jung which you quote Campbell as repeating,
Jung says life is like the day of a solar journey. The first part of it is up; moving from birth to the society. And the second part of it is down, moving from participation in the world and the society to death. And whereas the threat of the first half of life was life, the threat of the second half is death., and all the symbols are changing meaning.
–I forget where it is in Jung’s Complete Works, but I retrieved this from your post.
Many people when older and retired or more semi-retired find more and more of their life being lived in more and more of a dream world–myself included. Also, to me “dream world” includes what I like to call my “day dream world.” Even waking life feels much like a dream these days, and I wonder how much more that way it has felt for most all of us during “Covid Times” of social distance, more isolation, staying home with family members or even staying home alone, etc. I think it possible that our dream worlds are very important if not vital to us all right now. I hope to write about my pre-Covid and Covid dreams at some point.
Reminds me of the Australian “Dream Time” myth in a way, walking the dream-lines, our dream-paths, our paths of individuation each in our own dream worlds but also in the collective.
~ Marianne
Dear All,
Here is a video on You Tube that may be of interest to anyone looking into the dream world. The speaker does mention Campbell and The Power of Myth.
Journey into the Dreamtime with Aunty Munya Andrews
Best,
Marianne
Marianne and James,
Marianne. Thank you for your generous and wise words on this dream thread. Passages from CW of Jung were especially big eye-openers. I read all that you wrote, and went over some online discussion of the same that is “Difference between individuation and individuality, the collective aspect and the non-conformity to the collective. “
Marianne, You wrote “what is in the present is also always unfolding, so in a sense the present is already what is present in the future, in its unfoldment..” Now this brings me to a question, don’t dreams just mix up our sense of time. We can dream about our childhood events, home or school, years and years ago, and then in quick new scene we are sitting in front of a TV that happens to be just where we are in present time. So, as past events link us to out present, our present leads us into our future. A dream is a wonderful whole package – A psychological and historical self, displayed via scenes of symbols and stories.
James, this passage from Joseph that you quoted, brought in a whole new dimension to the dream self – a self that is deep and mysterious and yet a product of one’s own psychological and historical state, Quoting from your post, “Joseph said something which to me is truly profound; “we are standing on a whale fishing for minnows”; which symbolizes this deep fathomless ocean we are riding on all the time concerning the inner depths of our being. This powerful deep inner mystery that is informing us all the time in this language we are constantly struggling to understand. … “
Joseph also states; or at least in the way I understand it; that these forces must be interpreted or assimilated and they often come to us in the form of our dream life.” Thank you James for this passage.
This morning I awoke to the cawing of my favorite crows near my bedroom window. They had sensed that my desire to hike the mountain has a lot to do with sighting them, and cawing back to them. Here is a picture:
Maybe they come to this tree around the first three days of spring, but it’s only the last two years that I have started noticing them.
James, regarding “in the early stages of life as Joseph mentions; the individual is concerned with achievement of life…… But in the later stages of life the mental and emotional focus of the individual begins to shift towards the realization of the later stages which include acceptance and decline and loss of power of that life you have achieve” Unfortunately, I paid very little attention to my dreams in the early stages of my life, but now in my later stages, I am into them, writing them, looking at them, asking for guidance on a physical level. It’s in my later years that I am fascinated with crows, and they come to me in my dreams and guide me to my childhood homes and courtyards that I hold so dear. Truly a fascinating adventure.
Talking about fascinating adventure, I love this quote, “In “Pathways to Bliss” on page 80; Joseph says this:
“Jung says life is like the day of a solar journey. The first part of it is up; moving from birth to the society. And the second part of it is down, moving from participation in the world and the society to death. And whereas the threat of the first half of life was life, the threat of the second half is death., and all the symbols are changing meaning.
Through the remaining part of life, Jung says, the great problem is integrating the inferior with the superior functions. That’s the great task of your later years.”
I am sad that I paid no attention to my dreams when I was young, or as Jung puts it the first part of one’s life. If the first part of life is up and around our mid thirties, it would be fair to ask, did you Marianne and James ? I know Stephen has been devoted to his dream world much before his mid thirties. Wondering if this would have somehow shaped a different trajectory? Wondering if this would have guided us in recognizing our soul mates, wondering if we could have made the right choices then? Just some thoughts. Marianne, do you encourage your daughter or your grand daughter in recalling their dreams? I do encourage my son, now and then, but it does not make much of a dent.
Much to follow later.
Shaahayda
Shaahayda,
I am here replying to your question plus observations,
Marianne, You wrote “what is in the present is also always unfolding, so in a sense the present is already what is present in the future, in its unfoldment..” Now this brings me to a question, don’t dreams just mix up our sense of time. We can dream about our childhood events, home or school, years and years ago, and then in quick new scene we are sitting in front of a TV that happens to be just where we are in present time. So, as past events link us to out present, our present leads us into our future. A dream is a wonderful whole package – A psychological and historical self, displayed via scenes of symbols and stories.
I also believe what you say here is so true. I love your questions and observations on dreams, about this dream you had you tell here and about dreams in general. I can add here too how much I loved Stephen’s interpretation of your dream abotu Campbell, which I did not mention earlier.
I guess sometimes it is fun to answer questions with questions. I say this because of course I cannot know the truths to all the mighty workings of the universe; however, if we look at how in dreams there are so many times in which everything can be in “the now,” or ask the question does it seem usually that all dreams are in the NOW at the moment we dream them? then I would say, probably, yes, that dreams mix up our sense of time. But then I can ask too if we always experience our dreams that way, since at the time they may not seem to be mixing up our sense of time at all but just appear to be fine in the NOW of the experience. I think that when we experience the NOW of something we then have WON it in our own right, because it is then we OWN it. (Just some fun with word-play here.) Same thing with TIME. Another word scramble: TIME= EMITS. Time emits things, things are emitted through time–what does this really tell us? It takes time sometimes for things to be emitted, yet we have the NOW in which all things at that moment that have emitted are there, and “here” is within “there” (another word game for meaning) showing that what is there can in time be carried or emit here, in its passage of place through space and time. So here I was just having some fun with this question! And then what is the present is pre-sent, so it has emitted through time, so if the present is now, then now has been pre-sent prior to now. So then we can ask, “but from where? where did this pre-sent present come from?” I guess the answers can be numerous. Did it come from the future? Can we go back in time? Did you ever have a dream as a child that now that you are an adult you can see that as a child the dream was a precognitive dream of your life now? This has happened to me several times–looking back, I can see where my childhood dreams were sometimes teleological or predicting things or states of things from out of my future. So I often wonder if I am in the NOW, in the center of things in the NOW, then I am surrounded by past and future and perhaps these things go back and forth through the now, and that the same thing happens in dreams. I guess this helps me understand precognitive dreams, futuristic dreams, or looking back at past dreams that turned out to be precognitive or come true.
Just a few thoughts–
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