Conversations with a Soul (8 page)

Several years ago, when my children were young, we had a pet bulldog. At every opportunity the children brought the dog into the house and included her in their games. Each time I found the dog in the house I opened the door and shoed the dog outside. This continued for some time until one day my wife asked me, “Why do you always chase the dog out of the house?”

Without me even thinking about it I replied, “Because dogs have fleas!” She stared incredulously at me and then we both started to laugh. I had never consciously thought that our pet had fleas and therefore needed to be outside. Yet as I heard myself speak the words I remembered my grandmother, addressing me as a child, and telling me not to bring her dog into the house
because the dog had fleas!

Over the years the incident with my grandmother receded from my memory but the lesson had become lodged in my unconscious. Without knowing why, when I saw the dog in the house, I simply acted out of that bit of unconscious flotsam. When I recalled the incident, it became possible for my bias to migrate from my unconscious world to my conscious world and now I could make much saner decisions about the dog being in the house. (However, being a slobbering bulldog, I still preferred the dog outside but not because of fleas!)

Such experiences, both comic and tragic, are common to all of us and surely hint that our conscious awareness of any given moment is by no means all that there is to our being. Somewhere, like a vast storehouse, or perhaps better still, like a huge vibrant repertoire of human experience, our unconscious world constantly feeds us with information, not all of which is amenable to rational manipulation.

Sometimes that information is no more profound than the warning that dogs have fleas (!) but the range of human experience we each carry within us is vast, timeless and immensely powerful.

Buried in my unconscious world are the frightening places where I experience the demonic and give a face to the Prince of Darkness. Fortunately, here too, I find nourishment from my Wisdomkeepers, bearers of virtue, and hope and the unconquerable power of love. Rooted in this mysterious universe lies the source of my greatest strengths and also my most fatal weaknesses. Here I hear the whispers that seek to undermine my self-confidence and here the secret gift of assurance that I am loved and I am capable.

From some part of this parallel world come the warnings and shibboleths, disguised as wisdom and passed on from generation to generation upon which we bestow huge amounts of power and authority - with little reflection. Few wars have ever been fought without politicians and generals couching their messages in the language of images fed to us by our unconscious world and every cleaver advertiser has made use of the same technique.

My unconscious world is a mystical place which enables me to understand realities about which no one ever taught me. When you tell me that you are terrified, or that you have fallen in love, or that you are experiencing depression, I understand the meaning of these words, not simply because I have read about them but because I too have experienced terror, love and depression. Furthermore, there was never a time when we did not know about these things. We were born with this knowledge and it is firmly lodged in a repertoire housed in our unconscious world. All we manage to do as we grow up is to give the experience a name.

The ancient Platonists and the Romantics claimed that children were born from another world and entered this world with infinite knowledge. Slowly as the baby grew this psychic knowledge disappeared into the unconscious. Be that as it may, you and I know we share a common repertoire and that enables us to understand each other. It has been well said that we could not engage anything in the world
“out there”
had we not first encountered it in the world
“within.”

If for, a moment, one assumes the existence of parallel universes we are immediately presented with the problem of communication. How do these mysterious, invisible worlds interact with each other? And more importantly, how do we create a bridge across which they might engage one another?

Unfortunately our unconscious universe is infinitely more powerful than our conscious world and the best we can do is simply to be open to a dialogue initiated by that unseen world.

And the dialogue happens!

Sometimes for no logical reason an idea is born or a flash of insight is offered. As far as I can tell it came from
within
me. It sometimes feels as though one part of me, unfettered by logic or limitations, has made a gift to another part of me! Then I wonder if that unconscious universe is one that yearns to engage in dialogue! Even the demonic aspects of my unconscious world seek redemption through dialogue, brokered by my Soul. My
unknown
world wants to become a
known
world.

Then, sometimes that unconscious world addresses my conscious world in myth and symbol most powerfully through the experience of the dream.

Like the mythical village of Brigadoon and the mystical, peaceful valley of Shangri-La, our unconscious mind lies hidden from the probing, analysing, categorizing processes of the conscious mind. However, unlike Brigadoon and Shangri-La, which could only preserve their unique qualities by remaining hidden, our unconscious mind, usually under cover of night, engages us in dialogue. Night after night emissaries from the mysterious sphere of the unconscious make their way to us and deliver, in symbolic language, a message. My undiscovered self is seeking to become a
discovered self
and engages in dialogue as potent and as persistent as any you care to name.

Carl Jung, in particular, argued that the language of the dream was the language of symbol, and that the dream was the unconscious mind’s attempt to communicate with the conscious mind. He called the unconscious, “The Undiscovered Self,” and throughout his life’s work placed great emphasis on the importance of the unconscious. In this sense we are all alive in parallel universes.

A good starting point in trying to come to terms with the dream world is to recognize that dreams are
always friendly
but their message is not always clear or obvious.

Some years ago I had a dream of immense power which continues to address my being. I am sure I am not the only witness to the power of the unconscious to invade sleep and leave us bewildered as we try to understand the messages that come from the unconscious, the land beyond thought.

The dream started with me having to squirm through a dark and frightening corridor. Then I arrived at a set of stairs that became narrower and ever narrower. Finally the stairs gave way to a small opening which appeared to be the entrance to a tunnel. I am quite claustrophobic about small, tight spaces, but my dream required that I squeeze myself into the hole and thence into the tunnel.

I might note that when I have shared this uncomfortable experience of claustrophobia, I have frequently had persons interrupt me with stories of their own dark tunnel which up to that point they assumed was limited to them alone.

Soon I found myself standing outside an unlocked door. From beyond the door I could hear music, beautiful music. At the same time I started to feel terrified, but I slowly pushed open the door and saw someone sitting before an organ console with his back to me. I recognized the organ player. In my dream, it was me! I was both the player and the listener.

About this time I found I was holding a wire coat hanger, similar to the hangers on which shirts are returned from the laundry. A nameless fear gripped me and I knew I needed to get away from that place, so I tried to wire the door closed. Then to my horror, I found that the wire had entangled itself around my wrist and I was now bound to the door, beyond which organ music continued to be played. In desperation I screamed for the police but no one came to rescue me. Instead, I found I was holding a revolver, which I decided to empty into the back of the organ player. But I was unable to pull the trigger, for that being, the source of my terror, was also me.

I awoke in a cold sweat, but I decided to try to stay with the imagery of the dream. The more I thought about the frightening tunnel, the more it seemed to me that this was an experience of birth. Perhaps my actual birth had left an imprint on my unconscious mind, or perhaps I was being reborn to some new truth. Whether this was so or not, the imagery of birth could not be shaken.

Opening the door to what I feared and from which I wanted to be free; yet at the same time, the wonder of the music and the certain knowledge that it was I, myself at that console creating a thing of beauty, left me feeling that my unconscious mind had presented me with a paradox that went right to the very core of my being. Further, being tied to the door meant I was unable to escape the paradox and needed to deal with it.

The next morning the dream was as vivid as it had been the moment I awoke and in the months that followed I periodically returned to the dream, to puzzle over the strange message with which I had been presented. A good year later, while reading Carl Jung I came upon these words and with them a light went on:

In actual life it requires the greatest discipline to be simple, and the acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook upon life. That I feed the hungry that I forgive an insult that I love my enemy in the name of Christ – all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself - that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness – that I myself am the enemy who must be loved – what then?
²²

What then indeed. Well, the 'what then' is to learn how to embrace the beggar who stands at the gate, or in terms of my dream, who plays music behind a closed door. I need to learn through a life time how to love the unlovable parts of myself which could only be made whole through an embrace and through acceptance. No matter our accomplishments and achievements, outside of self-love we all live haunted by the enemy within. Jesus himself pointed out that the love we extend to others is limited by the love we show to ourselves.

Robert Frost said it well when he wrote:

Something we were withholding made us weak until we found out that it was ourselves.
²³

From time to time I return to the memory of that dream convinced that there are truths that escape me now but which invite further reflection. There are no 'dream interpreters' other than ourselves.
We
have to spend time with our dreams and, withholding judgment, allow the dream to speak to us. A part of the difficulty we encounter is that dreams are 'written in code' and that code is the language of symbolism.

Not all dreams are the bearers of important and critical matters. Sometimes dreams afford us the pleasure of a little guilt free romance, sometimes a bit of humour, sometimes they consist of matters no more weighty than the office water cooler gossip. Such communiqués from the unconscious mind are, after a few moments of enjoyment, safely and quickly forgotten. Yet some dreams are of an entirely different order for, arising, as they do from deep within the unconscious mind, they have about them echoes of eternity.

I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet

Around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places

Where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes

And lives a while in my sight.

What it fears in me leaves me,

And the fear of me leaves it.

It sings and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.

I live for a while in its sight.

What I fear in it leaves it,

And the fear of it leaves me.

It sings, and I hear its song.
²⁴