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NIGHTMARES: How do I stop awful dreams? · This Jungian Life Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, listeners. We'd like to tell you once again about
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Speaker 1: Dream School and a special offer that is available to
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Speaker 1: you now through the end of the year. And that
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Speaker 1: And if you are interested, as we always hope you
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Speaker 1: are in understanding your dreams, please go to thisjungianlife.org and
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Speaker 1: use the code HOLIDAY2023. Holiday is spelled with a capital H.
0:39
Speaker 1: Take a look. Come on board. As you know, dreams
0:44
Speaker 1: are important.
0:47
Speaker 2: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
0:52
Speaker 2: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
0:55
Speaker 2: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
0:59
Speaker 2: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
1:05
Speaker 3: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
1:08
Speaker 4: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
1:13
Speaker 1: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
1:23
Speaker 3: So today we talked about nightmares and we had requested
1:28
Speaker 3: nightmares from listeners and we got lots and lots of great,
1:32
Speaker 3: I guess they're great, contributions. So we picked out several
1:37
Speaker 3: and spoke about them. We talked a little bit about
1:40
Speaker 3: Jung's nightmare that he had when he was a child.
1:44
Speaker 3: We talked about post-traumatic stress nightmares, regular nightmares, childhood nightmares,
1:49
Speaker 3: and all things nightmare. So I hope you enjoy it.
1:56
Speaker 3: It was so great to get all of your submissions.
1:59
Speaker 3: We put this call out. We kind of had this idea,
2:02
Speaker 3: you know, like let's talk about nightmares and, and just these,
2:07
Speaker 3: we were just inundated with a veritable tsunami of nightmare images,
2:12
Speaker 3: which was wonderful. So thank you.
2:15
Speaker 1: And we have a tsunami nightmare.
2:18
Speaker 3: As we might, you know, as you might anticipate, we
2:22
Speaker 3: do have a tsunami nightmare. So yeah, One of the
2:25
Speaker 3: things that I found so interesting is so many people
2:28
Speaker 3: sent us their childhood nightmares. And of course, when we
2:32
Speaker 3: talk about nightmares, they're very, very common in childhood. And
2:37
Speaker 3: I was impressed with how many people had these memories
2:41
Speaker 3: of these early childhood nightmares. And I think my earliest
2:46
Speaker 3: dream memory, as far as I can recall, is a
2:50
Speaker 3: nightmare memory.
2:52
Speaker 1: In Jung's earliest dream memory, it was a nightmare that
2:56
Speaker 1: we'll get to later.
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Speaker 4: Me too. Nightmare is my first that I remember.
3:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they really make an impression
3:06
Speaker 3: on us, don't they? Which I think is part of
3:08
Speaker 3: the point. You know, I dipped into a little bit
3:11
Speaker 3: of the research about nightmares and their treatment, because for
3:14
Speaker 3: some people, nightmares are really distressing. They make you not
3:18
Speaker 3: want to go to sleep. And I worked with people
3:21
Speaker 3: like this. And so just a kind of quick overview
3:24
Speaker 3: of some of the science around nightmares. First of all,
3:27
Speaker 3: researchers break them into two categories, what they call idiopathic
3:32
Speaker 3: nightmares that are just sort of normal, naturally occurring nightmares,
3:36
Speaker 3: and then post-traumatic stress nightmares, which are very particular. And
3:40
Speaker 3: I imagine we'll touch on those today, but mostly we're
3:44
Speaker 3: going to be focusing on just kind of average nightmares,
3:49
Speaker 3: I'll say. And the researchers that I read up on
3:55
Speaker 3: kind of said like, the content doesn't matter. This is
3:58
Speaker 3: really about anxiety and There's a recommended treatment called image
4:06
Speaker 3: rehearsal therapy, which in some ways has a little overlap
4:11
Speaker 3: with active imagination, actually. But of course, we do believe
4:17
Speaker 3: that the content matters, right?
4:20
Speaker 1: Jung says over and over again, stick to the dream.
4:25
Speaker 1: What does the dream say? The specific image in the
4:29
Speaker 1: dream matters. really matters. There's a difference between falling down
4:35
Speaker 1: a flight of stairs and drowning in a tsunami or
4:40
Speaker 1: a hundred other things that make up the content of nightmares.
4:45
Speaker 4: Because I think that dreams are a form of medicine,
4:49
Speaker 4: I just think that nightmares are kind of bitter medicine.
4:53
Speaker 4: And some medicines are really sweet and cherry flavored, but
4:59
Speaker 4: they're all medicinals. Oh, that's lovely.
5:01
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, sometimes you go to the doctor and
5:04
Speaker 3: it hurts.
5:05
Speaker 4: Yeah.
5:05
Speaker 3: You have to get a shot or, yeah.
5:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. And nightmares are kind of a shot in
5:11
Speaker 4: the arm.
5:12
Speaker 3: Yes.
5:12
Speaker 4: Yeah.
5:14
Speaker 1: Like every other dream, nightmares call us to an encounter
5:20
Speaker 1: with our own psyche. What is going on here? How
5:23
Speaker 1: do I understand this?
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Speaker 4: Well, and that's the rub, right? Because we... When a
5:29
Speaker 4: nightmare is happening, often we're distressed in one way or another.
5:33
Speaker 4: And just as it is in our waking life, that
5:36
Speaker 4: if we're in a state of hyperarousal, that thoughtful part
5:41
Speaker 4: of the brain is kind of taken offline a bit.
5:44
Speaker 4: We get into this fight or flight mode, and that
5:47
Speaker 4: can happen to the dream ego as well. So part
5:51
Speaker 4: of the discipline, sometimes after the fact, is to be
5:54
Speaker 4: able to look at the dream and not run away,
5:57
Speaker 4: even though we might have run away when we were asleep.
6:00
Speaker 1: And as we grow and develop more sense of self,
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Speaker 1: more ego strength, better understanding of how the psyche works, etc.,
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Speaker 1: we are better able to really encounter the content of
6:16
Speaker 1: a nightmare. And with children with their egos still in
6:21
Speaker 1: the process of development, you know, have nightmares. And of
6:26
Speaker 1: course they can't quite confront them, but it's, you know,
6:31
Speaker 1: the contents of the unconscious are coming through in a
6:34
Speaker 1: way that's hard for them, that they don't really have
6:37
Speaker 1: the consciousness to process yet with the stresses and strains
6:41
Speaker 1: of growing up and learning to wait your turn and
6:44
Speaker 1: use good table manners and, you know, not hit your
6:47
Speaker 1: sibling and all the stuff that we require kids to do.
6:51
Speaker 1: I may talk later about a nightmare that I had
6:54
Speaker 1: in adulthood that I was ready to have and that
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Speaker 1: called me to a very important, painful and relieving encounter
7:07
Speaker 1: with myself. So I'm just really wanting to elaborate on
7:12
Speaker 1: your point that dreams are medicinal, even nightmares.
7:18
Speaker 3: Right. And I think that that's the medicine of a
7:23
Speaker 3: Jungian approach in a way, because what can be really
7:26
Speaker 3: difficult about having nightmares is when we avoid them or
7:31
Speaker 3: we imagine, for example, that they're predictive or that they
7:35
Speaker 3: mean we're going crazy. But when we say, no, no, no, look,
7:39
Speaker 3: this is just your unconscious giving you information in the
7:43
Speaker 3: way the unconscious does. And, you know, the unconscious is, um,
7:47
Speaker 3: I always think of the unconscious as very dramatic and
7:51
Speaker 3: it loves hyperbole. And the dream maker will often overstate
7:55
Speaker 3: things wildly, especially when it's trying to get your attention
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Speaker 3: and it feels like you're not listening. And so it's
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Speaker 3: normalizing it, you know, that the nightmare might be frightening.
8:06
Speaker 3: The fact that you're having the nightmare shouldn't be frightening.
8:10
Speaker 1: And that the collective unconscious, you know, the home of
8:15
Speaker 1: archetypes and mythological images, these universals, are very powerful. And
8:22
Speaker 1: nightmares that have to do with disasters and sort of
8:28
Speaker 1: horrible things really borrow content from the collective unconscious. And
8:35
Speaker 1: that can be scary to the ego. But on the
8:39
Speaker 1: other hand, people have dreams where something numinous miraculous and
8:44
Speaker 1: glorious has visited and they go, wow, you know, I
8:47
Speaker 1: had this incredible dream. So part of the problem is
8:51
Speaker 1: egos value judgments about what is a quote good dream
8:56
Speaker 1: and what is a quote bad dream versus this is
9:01
Speaker 1: a dream. It was very powerful. It had a lot
9:03
Speaker 1: of powerful content. It was upsetting and disturbing. Now it's
9:08
Speaker 1: my job to understand it. Mm-hmm.
9:11
Speaker 4: And part of the understanding, which I think is so essential,
9:15
Speaker 4: is to shift out of a literal relationship to the
9:18
Speaker 4: images into the symbolic attitude, which for Jung and Jungians
9:24
Speaker 4: is the primary discipline. But you can also think of
9:27
Speaker 4: it as a vaccination, that if you really hold tight
9:33
Speaker 4: to things being symbolic, it actually protects you from becoming
9:39
Speaker 4: unwell and by thinking every dream image is literal, or
9:43
Speaker 4: as you said, Lisa, prophetic in some fashion, that the
9:48
Speaker 4: symbolic attitude gives us the breathing room to lift something
9:53
Speaker 4: to a metaphoric level. And then as a metaphor, we
9:58
Speaker 4: might find that it's useful in many different circumstances because
10:02
Speaker 4: then it becomes a pattern. And that's particularly important as
10:06
Speaker 4: you'll see today, folks, that there are some dream images
10:10
Speaker 4: that are a little bit gruesome. And if we take
10:13
Speaker 4: them literally, they're just gruesome or horrific and triggering. but
10:19
Speaker 4: taken symbolically, we're able to walk closer to the image
10:24
Speaker 4: than we would possibly have wanted to if it was
10:28
Speaker 4: a literal thing.
10:29
Speaker 3: So should we go to one of these gruesome dream images?
10:33
Speaker 1: Oh, yes. This is a dream from a woman who's
10:40
Speaker 1: in her early 50s and she's an artist. I'm grilling
10:44
Speaker 1: on the barbecue. I anticipate seeing chopped, spiced meat on
10:49
Speaker 1: a plancha-type grill for tacos. I'm hungry and can't wait
10:53
Speaker 1: to eat. But when I lift the lid of the grill,
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Speaker 1: I see charred cats. Their teeth are exposed and their
11:00
Speaker 1: eyes are bugged out. Some are lying directly on charcoal briquettes.
11:06
Speaker 1: I try to move them with tongs and they are
11:08
Speaker 1: stuck to the coals. I try to scrape off some
11:11
Speaker 1: of the charred fur, but it is hopelessly unappetizing. And
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Speaker 1: for context, she says, I'm traveling internationally solo, struggling with loneliness,
11:23
Speaker 1: recovering from the flu. I have a chronic illness and
11:27
Speaker 1: am unable to do many of the things I planned.
11:30
Speaker 1: I'm struggling to process the horrific news of the attacks
11:35
Speaker 1: in Israel in October. During the pandemic, I spent a
11:40
Speaker 1: lot of time out at a cabin in the woods
11:42
Speaker 1: barbecuing with my boyfriend. Fall is my favorite time of
11:46
Speaker 1: year to go there, but this year I went on
11:48
Speaker 1: an extended trip alone out of the country. During the pandemic,
11:53
Speaker 1: I had many dreams about defrosting meat and spoiling uncooked meat.
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Speaker 1: I have joked that my animus is a suburban dad
12:01
Speaker 1: who likes to drink beer and barbecue. The image of
12:05
Speaker 1: the burnt cats was so shocking to me that I
12:08
Speaker 1: woke up in a sweat. The main feelings in the
12:12
Speaker 1: dream were disgust, surprise, and horror. And for further context,
12:17
Speaker 1: she adds, the cats are trussed up and remind me
12:21
Speaker 1: of Egyptian cat mummies. Many of my solo travel Facebook
12:26
Speaker 1: groups are discussing whether to cancel trips to Egypt. I
12:30
Speaker 1: googled cat mummies and found they were sacrificed to a goddess.
12:36
Speaker 1: And I would just note for wider context that Dreams
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Speaker 1: of injured animals, animals falling from the sky, abandoned animals
12:48
Speaker 1: that should have been fed and are wasting away. Animals
12:53
Speaker 1: often show up as a theme in nightmares. And this
13:00
Speaker 1: is a particularly vivid image, isn't it? This is one
13:06
Speaker 1: that makes us all go, Ooh.
13:08
Speaker 4: Yeah.
13:08
Speaker 3: I mean, it's this, you know, their eyes are bugging
13:10
Speaker 3: out and their teeth, you know, but, but it's interesting, right?
13:13
Speaker 3: Because one of the things is that she says, Oh gosh,
13:17
Speaker 3: it's unappetizing. You know, it's not like, Oh, the poor cats.
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Speaker 3: Let me see if I can save them. It's more like, Oh,
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Speaker 3: this isn't, this isn't really what I want to eat.
13:29
Speaker 3: You know?
13:29
Speaker 4: It seems like she is evaluating it as food.
13:32
Speaker 3: Yes.
13:33
Speaker 4: Dreamy goes kind of, gotten past what a cat may mean.
13:38
Speaker 4: And of course, in other cultures, cats, dogs, all kinds
13:44
Speaker 4: of wildlife and animals of different kinds are considered food sources.
13:51
Speaker 4: Here in Western Europe and America, we think of cats
13:55
Speaker 4: and dogs as pets, but of course, that's not true
13:57
Speaker 4: in all cultures.
13:58
Speaker 3: But it is an interesting... place in this dream because
14:01
Speaker 3: the dream ego is not horrified so much, I think,
14:05
Speaker 3: by the fact that they are cats as much by
14:08
Speaker 3: the fact that it's gruesome and they're charred. So it
14:14
Speaker 3: might be a place where we would sort of be
14:15
Speaker 3: curious about the difference between the attitude in the dream
14:19
Speaker 3: and what we might feel in real life. Like if
14:23
Speaker 3: you were at a barbecue and you found out you
14:24
Speaker 3: were going to be served cat, you might be pretty horrified.
14:29
Speaker 3: You know, this is where, I mean, so obviously the
14:32
Speaker 3: highlight here is something like gruesome or horror. But again,
14:36
Speaker 3: drilling down into the specifics, I think, is kind of
14:40
Speaker 3: where the symbolic level, that's where the medicine is. I
14:45
Speaker 3: was struck by the fact that she said it was,
14:47
Speaker 3: you know, unappetizing. And then she said later she's doing
14:51
Speaker 3: this solo trip and she's unable to do the things
14:55
Speaker 3: she'd hoped. So somehow maybe this This trip that she's
14:59
Speaker 3: taken is not as appetizing as she hoped it would be.
15:03
Speaker 3: There's sort of like a reality there. But I'm guessing
15:08
Speaker 3: that there might also be deeper meetings, this image of
15:13
Speaker 3: the cats kind of looking like mummies.
15:16
Speaker 4: Well, I just want to pop up to the beginning
15:19
Speaker 4: of the dream, and then we can pop down. It's
15:21
Speaker 4: very important to me that she says, I am grilling
15:26
Speaker 4: on the barbecue grill. Because even though the dream ego says, oh,
15:31
Speaker 4: I'm surprised there are cats there. I thought there would
15:33
Speaker 4: just be this spiced meat. But the implication is that
15:37
Speaker 4: I have put cats right on the coals previously to
15:42
Speaker 4: cook them. And somehow I had forgotten that. And now
15:46
Speaker 4: I'm surprised at the results. I thought this was going
15:49
Speaker 4: to be nutritious or delicious. And so there's a surprise
15:54
Speaker 4: about something that she perhaps has chosen to do. which
15:58
Speaker 4: goes back to what you were saying about perhaps some
16:00
Speaker 4: ambivalence about some other choice that had been made. But
16:05
Speaker 4: you were asking about the mummified cats, which they find
16:10
Speaker 4: with Egyptian mummies and in the pyramids and tombs very,
16:14
Speaker 4: very frequently. The most commonly found mummified animal in Egypt
16:22
Speaker 4: are cats.
16:24
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that this dream really lifts up the shadow
16:28
Speaker 1: side of something that she typically enjoys, that she likes
16:33
Speaker 1: to barbecue. She spent a lot of time out in
16:36
Speaker 1: the woods with her boyfriend barbecuing. Her joke about her
16:40
Speaker 1: animus is a suburban dad who likes to drink beer
16:44
Speaker 1: and barbecue. And that she was hoping to travel, and
16:50
Speaker 1: she's been traveling. So all these things that are supposed
16:54
Speaker 1: to be good, pleasant, fun, enjoyable, now all of a
17:00
Speaker 1: sudden the shadow side has been lifted up with this
17:04
Speaker 1: gruesome image of the cats lying right on the charcoal briquettes.
17:11
Speaker 1: And that this is a real surprise that all these
17:15
Speaker 1: things that are associated with pleasure have such a dramatic shadow?
17:24
Speaker 4: Holding that, what I want to do is just hover
17:28
Speaker 4: a little higher above the dream and just think about
17:31
Speaker 4: it thematically. So the ego has been preparing something that
17:37
Speaker 4: ideally will give her nutrition, will feed her. I mean,
17:42
Speaker 4: the reason that we cook things aside from perhaps enhancing
17:46
Speaker 4: the flavor, is it makes things edible because raw things
17:50
Speaker 4: are much more difficult to digest. Also, as humans, we
17:55
Speaker 4: learned how to cook for a number of reasons. It
17:59
Speaker 4: preserves things, it kills bacteria, breaks down the protein, the
18:04
Speaker 4: disulfide bonds are broken down, and then your body can
18:06
Speaker 4: get more nutrition out of it. So something in her
18:10
Speaker 4: psyche needs to digest or make the cat digestible by
18:20
Speaker 4: putting it through a cooking process, that raw cat would
18:25
Speaker 4: be too much, too much to take in. So now
18:29
Speaker 4: there's a calcinatio, a cooking process, a heating process that's
18:34
Speaker 4: being done to whatever the cat represents.
18:38
Speaker 1: And it seems like the cooking process has gone to
18:41
Speaker 1: the other extreme. Now it's inedible. stuck to the coals
18:47
Speaker 1: and burned, that Psyche may be working on something that
18:53
Speaker 1: is more digestible, something that is able to be assimilated
18:57
Speaker 1: a little better versus the polarity of raw or burned.
19:04
Speaker 4: What I would like to suggest is that she's taking
19:08
Speaker 4: the cats off prematurely. And this goes to look just
19:12
Speaker 4: a strange reference. In traditional Chinese medicine, which is thousands
19:18
Speaker 4: of years old, there's an idea called the doctrine of signatures,
19:23
Speaker 4: that because there weren't all of these kind of laboratory environments,
19:28
Speaker 4: that discovering what the chemical properties of various things were
19:32
Speaker 4: was kind of experimental. So often you would look at something,
19:38
Speaker 4: an animal, a part of an animal, a plant, a root,
19:41
Speaker 4: a flower, and it became metaphorically interesting. For instance, one
19:50
Speaker 4: ancient Chinese medicinal remedy would be to take a mole
19:54
Speaker 4: and to bake it and then grind it into a
19:59
Speaker 4: powder and then administer it as part of a larger
20:03
Speaker 4: alchemical recipe. Rhino horns. This is a great conflict Rhinoceri
20:11
Speaker 4: are hunted, their horns are harvested. Because of the stiffness
20:17
Speaker 4: of the horn in the doctrine of signatures, it's thought
20:21
Speaker 4: to be an erection remedy. And it's ground down into
20:25
Speaker 4: a powder, and then it's mixed in with other things.
20:28
Speaker 4: So the cat that's being put out, it hasn't gotten
20:33
Speaker 4: to the point where it could be grounded down to
20:36
Speaker 4: a powder, but The association that you pointed out, Lisa,
20:40
Speaker 4: to them being mummified, if they had gotten to that
20:44
Speaker 4: desiccated state, one could actually grind them down. And a
20:50
Speaker 4: little gruesome fact, in the Victorian era, when there was
20:56
Speaker 4: this great pilfering of tombs, ground mummy powder was actually
21:04
Speaker 4: a remedy.
21:06
Speaker 3: You know, and if we're thinking about the cat as
21:08
Speaker 3: a remedy or a cat that needs something that needs
21:10
Speaker 3: to be digested, sort of what are we really talking about?
21:13
Speaker 3: And I did a little research a minute ago on
21:17
Speaker 3: the Egyptian goddess to whom cats were sacred. And of course,
21:20
Speaker 3: it's Bastet. And, you know, she was the goddess of,
21:25
Speaker 3: among other things, pregnancy and childbirth. And I wonder what
21:30
Speaker 3: the relationship here is with the feminine, you know, cats
21:33
Speaker 3: we think of as being feminine. there are goddesses invoked
21:38
Speaker 3: in the imagery. Where is that in the dreamer's life?
21:42
Speaker 3: You know, of course I could go off in some
21:44
Speaker 3: wild speculation, but I will say that it sounds from
21:51
Speaker 3: her associations that she is feeling ambivalent about her solo trip,
21:56
Speaker 3: which I imagine she must have planned and she must
21:59
Speaker 3: have had positive expectations for. And now actually it's plunging
22:04
Speaker 3: her into something different. She's feeling lonely. She's maybe rethinking it.
22:11
Speaker 3: It's not as pleasant as what she did in previous autumns.
22:15
Speaker 3: And is there a link there perhaps to how she
22:19
Speaker 3: relates to the feminine principle? Anything beyond that would just
22:25
Speaker 3: be wild speculation on my part. But I'm wondering if
22:29
Speaker 3: it feels right to veer off and go to another nightmare.
22:34
Speaker 4: This is a nightmare submitted by a 28-year-old female. She
22:40
Speaker 4: works as a psychologist and titles this dream, Tsunami. I'm
22:46
Speaker 4: walking alone on a beach. The beach is pristine, expansive.
22:51
Speaker 4: The overall feeling is peaceful calm. The light is either
22:55
Speaker 4: early morning or late afternoon, I'm not sure. But the
22:59
Speaker 4: light is soft and misty. I was neither hot nor cold.
23:03
Speaker 4: I remember looking out at the ocean, which was a
23:07
Speaker 4: normal open surf beach, but then my attention was drawn
23:11
Speaker 4: to a roaring sound and the ocean started to change.
23:16
Speaker 4: The feeling changed to apprehension. I faced the surf and
23:21
Speaker 4: almost immediately saw an enormous wall of ocean building up
23:25
Speaker 4: in front of me. All I could see was a
23:28
Speaker 4: wave and all I could hear was a roar of water.
23:30
Speaker 4: I felt totally overwhelmed. I could not move. The wave
23:35
Speaker 4: engulfed me. I felt totally alone and exposed. Then I
23:39
Speaker 4: woke up feeling anxious, breathless, my heart pounding. And for context,
23:44
Speaker 4: she says, a dream I had many years ago. I
23:47
Speaker 4: was 28 and pregnant with my second child. My first
23:50
Speaker 4: child was about 18 months at the time. Both children
23:54
Speaker 4: were planned and loved. A supportive and loving relationship with
23:58
Speaker 4: my husband. No external stressors, no medical problems. Healthy pregnancies.
24:03
Speaker 4: Loved being pregnant. was very healthy, but my first child
24:07
Speaker 4: was an emergency cesarean. The feelings in the dream, she says,
24:12
Speaker 4: started as calm, peaceful. Feelings changed gradually through the dream,
24:17
Speaker 4: and I became apprehensive and overwhelmed and frightened and felt
24:20
Speaker 4: totally alone. Some associations she has are with pregnancy and motherhood,
24:26
Speaker 4: both she as a mother and also not having a
24:30
Speaker 4: mother because her mother died at 42.
24:34
Speaker 1: And I just want to note that although she says
24:37
Speaker 1: her age is 28, I think she means she was
24:41
Speaker 1: 28 at the time she had the dream because clearly
24:44
Speaker 1: she's older now.
24:47
Speaker 3: And I think that the context this dreamer gives us,
24:50
Speaker 3: she's almost kind of making a point that there wasn't
24:53
Speaker 3: anything particularly difficult or stressful or distressing going on in
24:58
Speaker 3: her outer life at the time. And this is an
25:00
Speaker 3: interesting point because I think Sometimes we're very, very stressed
25:05
Speaker 3: and we have dreams that are laden with anxiety and
25:08
Speaker 3: can be nightmarish and it kind of comes as no surprise.
25:12
Speaker 3: But sometimes nightmares really do rise up from a deeper
25:16
Speaker 3: place and it doesn't seem connected with any of the
25:19
Speaker 3: real life context that's going on. I mean, you know,
25:23
Speaker 3: this is a common kind of dream, a tsunami dream.
25:28
Speaker 3: And of course, in terms of just a look at
25:31
Speaker 3: the archetypal nature of that image, being unexpectedly swallowed up
25:39
Speaker 3: by the ocean, it's like being inundated by the unconscious
25:44
Speaker 3: in a way that feels absolutely existentially threatening.
25:48
Speaker 4: The primary fear on a symbolic level is of being engulfed.
25:54
Speaker 4: So if we translate that into a psychological feeling, We
25:58
Speaker 4: might feel the tsunami of a new job, the tsunami
26:02
Speaker 4: of discovering we're pregnant or having a new baby, or
26:06
Speaker 4: the tsunami of a spouse saying, I'm leaving. The tsunami
26:11
Speaker 4: of feelings that can rise up temporarily, at least, and
26:16
Speaker 4: we're so full of surprise, shock, and apprehension, it's even
26:21
Speaker 4: hard to think. What's interesting about it being a tsunami
26:26
Speaker 4: is that it is a a general engulfing. The tsunami
26:32
Speaker 4: could be full of a number of things. Anything could
26:35
Speaker 4: float on water, but it's the water itself. So when
26:41
Speaker 4: we're engulfed in the unconscious, it suggests that we are
26:45
Speaker 4: less conscious. We're not able to track the things we
26:49
Speaker 4: would normally track. Perhaps we're also misinterpreting things that are
26:54
Speaker 4: happening around us because we're The unconscious has all kinds
26:58
Speaker 4: of complexes in it. We might feel suddenly that we
27:03
Speaker 4: are in an exaggeratedly dangerous situation. All kinds of uncanny
27:12
Speaker 4: things can occur to us when we're engulfed in the unconscious.
27:17
Speaker 4: But one thing is sure is that we are less alert.
27:21
Speaker 4: We're in that abasement. state, a dimming of consciousness. And
27:28
Speaker 4: that can be scary depending on the environment that we're in,
27:32
Speaker 4: because sometimes we have to be wide awake, and that's
27:37
Speaker 4: not always granted to us.
27:39
Speaker 3: Well, and with Tsunami Dreams, sometimes I think about Jung's
27:43
Speaker 3: quote that an encounter with the self is a defeat
27:46
Speaker 3: for the ego. that this is a real encounter with
27:51
Speaker 3: something of enormous archetypal power. I mean, what we might
27:56
Speaker 3: assume from this dream, we don't see this in the dream,
27:59
Speaker 3: but that the dream ego doesn't survive, or at least
28:03
Speaker 3: doesn't stand a good chance. And that often happens in
28:07
Speaker 3: dreams where there's an implied death, maybe even our own death.
28:11
Speaker 3: And it's important to remember that that's an image of say,
28:14
Speaker 3: the death of the dominant attitude that something has to
28:18
Speaker 3: kind of give way. I mean, we don't have a
28:21
Speaker 3: lot of information about the dreamer's psychology, but she was 28,
28:26
Speaker 3: which as we've talked about before on the podcast is
28:29
Speaker 3: Saturn return. And she mentions that she lost her own mother.
28:33
Speaker 3: We don't know how old she was when that happened.
28:36
Speaker 3: But being a mother and having lost a mother can
28:40
Speaker 3: bring up a lot from the unconscious.
28:43
Speaker 1: I am thinking of the ocean. And as everybody knows,
28:50
Speaker 1: I live on Cape Cod. And I'm at the beach
28:54
Speaker 1: a lot. And we forget that the Great Mother, the
28:59
Speaker 1: ocean that is generative of everything from shrimp to whales,
29:06
Speaker 1: has a negative as well as a positive valence. It's archetypal.
29:13
Speaker 1: Mother nature is both light and dark. And it's so
29:20
Speaker 1: easy to forget walking on the beach in that kind
29:25
Speaker 1: of reverie, which is what our dream ego is experiencing,
29:29
Speaker 1: that it's peaceful and calm and it's soft and it's misty,
29:34
Speaker 1: that this needs to be respected.
29:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point, Deb.
29:41
Speaker 1: It's not just nice.
29:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
29:44
Speaker 1: You know, we've seen the beach too when a huge storm,
29:48
Speaker 1: a nor'easter, even a hurricane is coming and the destruction
29:53
Speaker 1: of the dunes are gone. The dune grass is gone.
29:56
Speaker 1: It floods over everything. that power and that force and that,
30:03
Speaker 1: you know, this is a realm that we live in.
30:06
Speaker 1: What I also want to add is just the importance
30:10
Speaker 1: of the feeling in a dream like this, of everything
30:16
Speaker 1: is okay in my life. I was just walking on
30:19
Speaker 1: the beach. You know, what the heck happened here? Well,
30:24
Speaker 1: what did I do to deserve this? And that feeling was,
30:29
Speaker 1: when we are flooded with those kinds of feelings, may
30:34
Speaker 1: ask us to address our innocence, what we're taking for granted,
30:42
Speaker 1: to just remember that this is the other side, this
30:46
Speaker 1: is the underbelly, this is the other part of reality.
30:51
Speaker 4: I think that maps on to the situation she was
30:54
Speaker 4: in when she had the dream that she'd had a
30:56
Speaker 4: successful first birth, Her child was 18 months old, planned, loved,
31:02
Speaker 4: things are going well. There's a second child. The second
31:06
Speaker 4: child came through an emergency cesarean.
31:11
Speaker 1: No, first child.
31:13
Speaker 4: Oh, excuse me. The first child was an emergency cesarean.
31:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:17
Speaker 4: So as she's pregnant with the second child, the tsunami, one,
31:24
Speaker 4: could be a big upwelling of concern and fear. as
31:28
Speaker 4: the pregnancy is proceeding and will there be another emergency
31:33
Speaker 4: with the birth, because that's pending. But also, as you
31:37
Speaker 4: were saying, Deb, with the tension between being innocent and
31:42
Speaker 4: then something else being in the unconscious, it's not uncommon
31:45
Speaker 4: for people to plan, oh, we're going to have two kids,
31:48
Speaker 4: let's have four kids. Well, you know, let's do another kid.
31:52
Speaker 4: And many times in the enthusiasm and the fantasy of
31:57
Speaker 4: building a family, there's an underbelly of overwhelm that can
32:01
Speaker 4: be present. This is gonna double the amount of time
32:06
Speaker 4: and work, and this is going to be really challenging
32:09
Speaker 4: in many ways. And a lot of times when we're
32:12
Speaker 4: in a euphoric expectation, we're not paying attention to the
32:18
Speaker 4: other challenges and things that can feel very overwhelming, including
32:23
Speaker 4: the possibility of postpartum depression, which could be symbolized by
32:29
Speaker 4: being overtaken by an ocean for some period of time.
32:33
Speaker 4: You had brought up the flooding as well. And the
32:37
Speaker 4: other thing I would say is that the great cosmic
32:40
Speaker 4: floods wiped the world clean, and there was an opportunity
32:46
Speaker 4: for a new start. And yet that's really frightening. So
32:51
Speaker 4: as you were saying, Lisa, a new attitude may be
32:53
Speaker 4: required with the addition of the second child. And that
32:58
Speaker 4: requirement might feel stunning and overwhelming.
33:04
Speaker 1: I also wonder if there's a theme here around motherhood,
33:10
Speaker 1: that the first child, an emergency C-section is alarming. That's like,
33:17
Speaker 1: you know, you're walking along at the beach. I'm having
33:20
Speaker 1: a wonderful, healthy pregnancy with a child that's planned, loved, wanted,
33:24
Speaker 1: and then kaboom. We have to go to the hospital
33:27
Speaker 1: and this is unexpected. We don't know when she lost
33:31
Speaker 1: her mother, but what, you know, new mothers need mothering.
33:37
Speaker 1: And we want our own mothers there to take an
33:42
Speaker 1: interest and help out and give advice, even if we
33:46
Speaker 1: don't follow their advice, that there is a generational link
33:50
Speaker 1: to the mother we had as we become a mother ourselves.
33:56
Speaker 1: And the advent of a second child changes everything. First
34:00
Speaker 1: child changes everything too, but you can be in love
34:04
Speaker 1: with that first baby. And then all of a sudden
34:07
Speaker 1: you have a toddler and a newborn and you're on
34:12
Speaker 1: deck all day, every day, 24 seven. So I'm just
34:16
Speaker 1: wondering about all these themes and how they might play
34:21
Speaker 1: a role in this dream.
34:23
Speaker 4: I'm also wondering about mortality. Her mother died young. She
34:30
Speaker 4: is advancing in age and with a second child. I've
34:35
Speaker 4: known a number, I've had many analysis whose parents died younger,
34:41
Speaker 4: and there is a very strong concern that as they
34:46
Speaker 4: move towards that same age, some ill fate will come
34:49
Speaker 4: to them. So any number of those things could be
34:53
Speaker 4: suggested by the overwhelm feeling, yeah.
34:57
Speaker 3: Should we move on to another dream, perhaps? Okay.
35:04
Speaker 4: So this dream was submitted by a 37-year-old female who
35:09
Speaker 4: is a stay-at-home parent. This is her dream. I was
35:15
Speaker 4: inside a large cave with a clear view to a
35:17
Speaker 4: large opening showing a blood-red sky, the light of which
35:22
Speaker 4: filtered into the interior. casting everything in shades of dark
35:26
Speaker 4: red and shadows. I was lying flat on my back,
35:30
Speaker 4: bound by invisible chains to a metal surgical table and
35:33
Speaker 4: unable to move. I am either still pregnant and about
35:37
Speaker 4: to have my baby surgically removed from my abdomen, or
35:41
Speaker 4: it has already happened and I'm lying there cut open.
35:44
Speaker 4: I can see and hear many other women in the
35:46
Speaker 4: same exact position and situation as myself on other beds
35:50
Speaker 4: scattered throughout the cave. The atmosphere is dismal and the
35:54
Speaker 4: feeling is one of despair and inevitability. There's no fight
35:58
Speaker 4: within me, only a deep sadness and an overwhelming feeling
36:01
Speaker 4: of dread. For context, she says, I was about seven
36:06
Speaker 4: or eight years old in a new domestic violence situation.
36:12
Speaker 4: Her mother had married a man who had suffered from
36:15
Speaker 4: severe childhood abuse, but also was bipolar. After this first nightmare,
36:23
Speaker 4: I had an out-of-body experience on the opposite end of
36:25
Speaker 4: the spectrum where I experienced speaking with God in heaven
36:29
Speaker 4: and then being painfully forced to return to my body.
36:35
Speaker 4: As a two-year-old, I was forcibly held down and later
36:40
Speaker 4: sedated under general anesthesia and mistakenly given iodine, which I
36:46
Speaker 4: had a very bad reaction to. and might even have
36:51
Speaker 4: experienced a near-death experience. They had done this in order
36:55
Speaker 4: to remove a cyst from between my eyes. She says
37:00
Speaker 4: that the feelings were dread, despair, terror, utter helplessness, and resignation.
37:06
Speaker 4: And some associations she had were the red sky, perhaps
37:10
Speaker 4: the bloody womb, perhaps iodine, anesthesia, the earth cave in
37:17
Speaker 4: the female body, both as forced incubators, reincarnation, and then
37:24
Speaker 4: domestic violence and childhood abuse.
37:29
Speaker 3: So this dream brings up a lot of issues, right?
37:33
Speaker 3: This is a nightmare that speaks to trauma. It's not
37:39
Speaker 3: exactly a PTSD nightmare, and we could maybe say why.
37:44
Speaker 3: So maybe this is a good opportunity to talk about
37:48
Speaker 3: PTSD nightmares. So typically we think of PTSD nightmares as
37:55
Speaker 3: rehearsing the exact events of the trauma. So Vietnam vets
38:01
Speaker 3: who repeatedly dream about seeing the car in front of
38:06
Speaker 3: them go over the landmine and blow it up and
38:10
Speaker 3: knowing that it just killed all their buddies. And that
38:13
Speaker 3: was something that happened and to see it again and
38:17
Speaker 3: again and again in dreams. So that's what we think
38:21
Speaker 3: about as being real PTSD nightmares. And there's been some
38:25
Speaker 3: interesting stuff written on PTSD nightmares from a Jungian perspective.
38:32
Speaker 3: But I think it's differentiated from a trauma nightmare, which
38:37
Speaker 3: this is, which references a traumatic event, but in somewhat
38:42
Speaker 3: metaphorical or symbolic language. And I think the key thing
38:46
Speaker 3: with both of these is that the images can get
38:51
Speaker 3: reworked and changed over time. So one of the things
38:54
Speaker 3: that happens with PTSD nightmares is they do gradually become
38:59
Speaker 3: more symbolic as they continue often. And so this dream, again,
39:06
Speaker 3: seems to replay this early trauma from when she was
39:09
Speaker 3: two years old, It obviously is not an exact replica,
39:13
Speaker 3: but it seems to be the psyche's attempt to work
39:16
Speaker 3: through or make sense of it somehow.
39:19
Speaker 4: The primary context in the dream is that the dream
39:23
Speaker 4: ego is chained. We're in a kind of Promethean trap.
39:30
Speaker 4: So the setting, the color, all of those things are
39:36
Speaker 4: the larger setting. But to me, the primary message has
39:41
Speaker 4: something to do with being chained flat on one's back.
39:47
Speaker 4: And she says... dread, despair, terror, helplessness. So then we
39:54
Speaker 4: can also open that in a broader way. In what
40:00
Speaker 4: ways do you feel chained and helpless in any domain,
40:05
Speaker 4: in all domains? People can feel chained and helpless in
40:10
Speaker 4: a career. They can feel chained and helpless in a
40:14
Speaker 4: relationship that they don't want to be in or don't
40:16
Speaker 4: feel they have choices. And even the image that she's chained, helpless,
40:23
Speaker 4: and is somehow an incubator with no regard to her
40:30
Speaker 4: freedom or other parts of her psyche. I mean, that's
40:36
Speaker 4: a very interesting, provocative idea.
40:40
Speaker 3: Especially for a seven-year-old. Right. Which I find that really striking.
40:47
Speaker 3: that a seven or eight year old would have a
40:49
Speaker 3: dream like this?
40:51
Speaker 1: Well, I think it may not be altogether clear what
40:55
Speaker 1: the timeline is. But first I want to loop back
40:57
Speaker 1: to your reference, Joseph, to the Promethean situation. And in myth,
41:05
Speaker 1: in Greek myth, Prometheus stole fire from the gods, power
41:11
Speaker 1: and all the differences that fire made. He gave it
41:14
Speaker 1: to human beings and he was punished by the gods
41:18
Speaker 1: for doing this, by being chained to a rock where
41:22
Speaker 1: every day an eagle came and attacked him and ate
41:30
Speaker 1: his liver. And then every night it would be repaired.
41:34
Speaker 1: And so your association to Prometheus is very resonant with
41:41
Speaker 1: this dream because it isn't clear. There's a two-year-old trauma.
41:46
Speaker 1: There's a seven or eight year old trauma when her
41:49
Speaker 1: mother married a stepfather who was abusive. And then there
41:56
Speaker 1: is her recent trauma of having twins via cesarean under
42:02
Speaker 1: general anesthesia. So there's a lot here that doesn't follow
42:08
Speaker 1: a very clear timeline, but it's all mixed together. And
42:13
Speaker 1: I think the stream is asking her and saying, time
42:19
Speaker 1: to process this. You're ready to deal with it. And
42:24
Speaker 1: what I'm aware of in my own self and in
42:27
Speaker 1: my own body is a huge amount of feeling of
42:33
Speaker 1: grief and sadness and all the things she says, the
42:38
Speaker 1: despair and the helplessness. And maybe this dream is saying,
42:43
Speaker 1: feel those feelings. that it's time to grieve. It's time
42:48
Speaker 1: to really let the feelings be consciously felt and expressed.
42:57
Speaker 4: I would like to also step back in a really
43:00
Speaker 4: meta level because, I mean, what I'm about to say
43:03
Speaker 4: requires a very objective stance, a symbolic stance. So if
43:10
Speaker 4: we remove any of the literalization of the dream, The
43:15
Speaker 4: dream ego has life inside of it, and perhaps there
43:22
Speaker 4: is some problem getting the life that is inside of
43:27
Speaker 4: this person out into the world, and something deep and
43:34
Speaker 4: underworld and phonic. This is the world of the Elysian
43:39
Speaker 4: and Orphic mysteries that she has pulled down. into this
43:46
Speaker 4: ancient mystery, and what is in her is forced to
43:51
Speaker 4: come out. Now, sometimes we have a creative potential inside
43:56
Speaker 4: of us, and for any number of reasons, we don't
44:01
Speaker 4: feel safe enough, it doesn't feel right, we're forestalling, giving
44:06
Speaker 4: birth to something that is very significant inside of us,
44:11
Speaker 4: and for the unconscious to grab you and forcibly bring
44:19
Speaker 4: forth what we ourselves are too depressed, too frightened to
44:28
Speaker 4: bring forth, can be a kind of medicine, even though
44:33
Speaker 4: the demand can seem really frightening at the time.
44:39
Speaker 3: So here's another nightmare that some wonderful listener sent to us.
44:44
Speaker 3: It's from a 64-year-old woman who's retired, and she called
44:49
Speaker 3: it invisible malevolent presence. There are people I know in
44:54
Speaker 3: a room that I enter. I sense a malevolent presence.
44:59
Speaker 3: I ask the people to leave because I think their
45:01
Speaker 3: fear is feeding this entity and making it stronger. I
45:05
Speaker 3: think that I can remain calm and thereby weaken the thing.
45:09
Speaker 3: The entity pushes the rug and all the furniture to
45:12
Speaker 3: one wall. I am swept along with it, now pinned
45:15
Speaker 3: to the wall and beginning to feel a rising panic.
45:19
Speaker 3: It then slams me against the ceiling. Now I am
45:23
Speaker 3: terrified and the entity is getting stronger and coming closer.
45:28
Speaker 3: And she notes that she had this dream when she
45:30
Speaker 3: was 25 and she doesn't recall any major life events
45:33
Speaker 3: at the time. and that she's had versions of this
45:36
Speaker 3: dream occasionally, but never as terrifying as the first one.
45:41
Speaker 3: And the feelings in the dream were she initially felt
45:44
Speaker 3: she had this confidence because she could recognize this entity
45:48
Speaker 3: for what it was and she could remain calm, but
45:51
Speaker 3: then mounting fear, horror, and dread. So I think, again,
45:56
Speaker 3: this is another common type of nightmare, kind of a
45:59
Speaker 3: common theme, just a sense of a kind of malevolent, presence.
46:04
Speaker 3: I know I've had that same theme show up in
46:07
Speaker 3: my dreams. And I thought this was a really interesting
46:10
Speaker 3: version of that.
46:13
Speaker 4: Well, again, if I were to think very metaphorically, the
46:19
Speaker 4: dream ego comes into a room that is known to
46:25
Speaker 4: her and people that she knows. So she's in a
46:28
Speaker 4: familiar part of the psyche. She intuits feels a malevolent presence,
46:36
Speaker 4: and then she asks people to leave because she's assuming
46:41
Speaker 4: other people are somehow feeding this malice. So now we're
46:48
Speaker 4: in the realm of shadow. We do. We may have
46:53
Speaker 4: feelings of malice inside of ourselves. We project it onto
46:57
Speaker 4: other people. We think that they're malevolent, full of malice,
47:02
Speaker 4: and then We dismiss them as the ones who are
47:05
Speaker 4: carrying all of the darkness. But there's a correction in
47:09
Speaker 4: the dream because she dismisses the people, but the malice remains.
47:15
Speaker 4: And its first action is to push the rug aside.
47:19
Speaker 4: So something's under the rug. We have this phrase of
47:23
Speaker 4: sweeping things under the carpet, unaddressed. And so in a
47:29
Speaker 4: very concrete way, is there a sense of, of malice
47:34
Speaker 4: that's in the shadow, that's been swept under the rug,
47:38
Speaker 4: that is for reasons that we don't know, is demanding
47:45
Speaker 4: acknowledgement and that this sense of anger and revenge and
47:52
Speaker 4: ill will is strong enough to really paralyze the ego temporarily.
48:00
Speaker 4: I would agree that her ability to remain calm, which
48:02
Speaker 4: is almost like a mindfulness process, to observe the shadow
48:08
Speaker 4: is really the best of all possible worlds. To be
48:12
Speaker 4: able to watch, not overreact, and to tolerate what we
48:17
Speaker 4: discover inside the psyche. I think she has good reason
48:22
Speaker 4: to feel a little proud that she's able to hold
48:26
Speaker 4: some kind of an objective attitude.
48:28
Speaker 3: It's so funny because I see it totally differently.
48:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, go for it. Let's hear it. Let's hear it.
48:34
Speaker 3: Oh, gosh, because I see it. So she was a
48:37
Speaker 3: young woman at this time. What did she say? She's 25.
48:40
Speaker 3: And I feel like there's a really hubristic, egoic attitude
48:44
Speaker 3: going on here. So she meets something that's bigger than ego.
48:48
Speaker 3: So we might imagine that this is an encounter with
48:51
Speaker 3: the self. And the ego's like, I got this. I
48:54
Speaker 3: can remain calm. I can remain neutral. It's like, no,
48:57
Speaker 3: you can't. This is the transpersonal self. And Joseph, taking
49:03
Speaker 3: a page out of your book, the ego assumes it's malevolent,
49:07
Speaker 3: but there's really no, I mean, we know it's powerful
49:10
Speaker 3: and we know it wants something of her, but we
49:13
Speaker 3: don't actually know that it wants to hurt her. I mean,
49:16
Speaker 3: it sweeps everything aside. It's going to disrupt. everything. And
49:21
Speaker 3: it does. Um, I'm just going to check the words here.
49:24
Speaker 3: It does, um, it does slam her against the ceiling.
49:29
Speaker 3: So it's really forceful, but, but it's, it is, it's
49:33
Speaker 3: a little bit like, um, you know, uh, haul on
49:37
Speaker 3: the road to Tarsus. It's like you're going to get
49:40
Speaker 3: swatted down by the transpersonal force. So I don't know
49:46
Speaker 3: that I agree that it's so good that she can
49:48
Speaker 3: stay calm because I think that that is a kind
49:51
Speaker 3: of hubristic, arrogant attitude on the part of the ego.
49:56
Speaker 4: Good. I love all these different perspectives. Yeah, it's great.
50:02
Speaker 1: I'm somewhere, I think, along the lines of that you've
50:07
Speaker 1: just delineated, Lisa, of the confrontation, a little different, with
50:14
Speaker 1: the confrontation between the ego and something greater. And I
50:20
Speaker 1: also really started to imagine the dream setting and some
50:25
Speaker 1: of the words in the dream. That, first of all,
50:29
Speaker 1: she's 25, so she's a young woman. And she's in
50:33
Speaker 1: a room. So a room has... floor, ceiling, walls. It
50:38
Speaker 1: is a contained, delineated space. She asks all the other
50:45
Speaker 1: people to leave. And she believes, the dream vehicle believes
50:51
Speaker 1: she can stay calm. And then the entity pushes the
50:55
Speaker 1: rug and all the furniture to the wall. So nothing's
50:58
Speaker 1: going to get swept under the rug. Rug's not there anymore.
51:03
Speaker 1: I am swept along with it. So I'm thinking about
51:06
Speaker 1: sweeping things under the rug or, you know, the force
51:09
Speaker 1: that sweeps us along against our will or despite our will.
51:16
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about being pinned to the wall. And what
51:19
Speaker 1: we say was, you know, I was really up against it.
51:24
Speaker 1: The limitation within this context of the house of I'm
51:28
Speaker 1: against the wall, there's no more room. This is the
51:30
Speaker 1: space I'm in and that's all there is.
51:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a real confrontation.
51:34
Speaker 1: Right, versus it could push me out the door and
51:37
Speaker 1: then I was outside and there was more. But it's
51:42
Speaker 1: a small space and there are no other options. And
51:47
Speaker 1: then it slams her against the ceiling. And again, this
51:50
Speaker 1: is my fantasy, but thinking about the glass ceiling that
51:55
Speaker 1: people write about for women, but limitations that might be
52:00
Speaker 1: going on and a 25 year old woman where you're
52:05
Speaker 1: in that stage of adulthood of, of having to navigate
52:10
Speaker 1: the world, uh, within the confines of a room.
52:15
Speaker 3: The other thing I'll say about the ceiling though, is
52:17
Speaker 3: that it's interesting. If someone made you be stuck to
52:21
Speaker 3: the ceiling, you know, if that happened in real life,
52:23
Speaker 3: if you were actually pinned to the ceiling, one of
52:26
Speaker 3: the things that would do would be to give you
52:29
Speaker 3: a broader perspective on what was going on in that room.
52:33
Speaker 3: You'd be, you'd, you'd be forced to look at things
52:35
Speaker 3: from above. So in a way, Joseph, that goes back
52:39
Speaker 3: to your point about kind of being able to develop
52:41
Speaker 3: your reflective capacity.
52:43
Speaker 1: So. But I'm just thinking she might've been in too
52:47
Speaker 1: small a container.
52:48
Speaker 4: Yeah.
52:49
Speaker 1: Too small, too small a box. So she, And I
52:53
Speaker 1: also just want to add, you know, we got so
52:55
Speaker 1: many dreams of childhood nightmares and nightmares from young adulthood,
53:02
Speaker 1: but just years ago.
53:03
Speaker 4: Yes.
53:04
Speaker 1: How these things stay with us and want to be
53:10
Speaker 1: understood of that there's unfinished business in the psyche and
53:15
Speaker 1: sort of like, oh, I had this dream a long
53:17
Speaker 1: time ago, but I still want to understand it.
53:19
Speaker 3: And I think that, you know, Deb, to your point,
53:22
Speaker 3: and I hope we can maybe move to childhood nightmares
53:26
Speaker 3: in just a second, is the way that these nightmares,
53:29
Speaker 3: whether they occur in childhood or young adulthood or 20
53:32
Speaker 3: years ago, whatever, what have you, become a central elucidation
53:38
Speaker 3: or expression of a core conflict in our lives. What
53:43
Speaker 3: we'll see in just a minute when we look at
53:46
Speaker 3: Jung's childhood nightmare is that it becomes the framing question.
53:53
Speaker 3: And somehow, even at that young, young age, there's some
54:00
Speaker 3: kernel of this fundamental question that we must engage in
54:08
Speaker 3: our lives. And so I think you're right. This dreamer
54:11
Speaker 3: had this dream many years ago, but somehow there it is.
54:14
Speaker 3: This is a question that It's still relevant for her
54:19
Speaker 3: in some way.
54:20
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. I liked what you said. It's a framing
54:23
Speaker 1: question that is still alive in the psyche.
54:28
Speaker 4: And one last thing I'd like to say is she writes,
54:30
Speaker 4: I have had versions of this dream occasionally since, but
54:34
Speaker 4: never as terrifying as the first one. So that's one
54:37
Speaker 4: of the wonderful things sometimes is the unconscious is giving
54:42
Speaker 4: us a similar message. It still wants us to hear something.
54:45
Speaker 4: But it seems like the medicine is being delivered little
54:49
Speaker 4: by little so that she's able to metabolize her fear
54:55
Speaker 4: around whatever this transpersonal force is. And of course, that's
55:00
Speaker 4: the right direction.
55:01
Speaker 3: I'm just thinking for a minute about nightmares through history
55:06
Speaker 3: and our relationship with them and how we've understood them.
55:09
Speaker 3: There's that painting that I believe is called The Nightmare
55:13
Speaker 3: that I think we can all call to mind of
55:15
Speaker 3: that woman. lying in deep sleep and there's kind of
55:17
Speaker 3: a demon perched on her. And that actually takes me
55:23
Speaker 3: to the etymology for nightmare. So as far as I
55:27
Speaker 3: understand it, the word mare comes from an old Norse word,
55:34
Speaker 3: meaning a female demon that sits on your chest and
55:38
Speaker 3: suffocates you and brings bad dreams. So the idea that
55:42
Speaker 3: nightmares are brought to us by demons And of course, actually,
55:46
Speaker 3: the Italian word for nightmare is incubo, which calls up
55:52
Speaker 3: the word incubus. So we've got the incubus and the succubus.
55:55
Speaker 3: And I don't know, just jump in and help me
55:58
Speaker 3: out with this. What about these demons who bring these
56:02
Speaker 3: horrific dreams?
56:04
Speaker 4: Well, I love that there's an assumption that these strange
56:08
Speaker 4: messages come from a transpersonal source, whether it's dark or light.
56:13
Speaker 4: But the sense that It's not the ego that's just
56:17
Speaker 4: making it up. And I think that that is very
56:20
Speaker 4: much in alignment with how we think about dreams as Jungians.
56:26
Speaker 1: And in ancient times, dreams were pretty universally seen as
56:33
Speaker 1: messages from the gods. And they could be positive messages
56:40
Speaker 1: from the gods or negative messages from demons. You know,
56:45
Speaker 1: and today we would say it's light and dark aspects
56:48
Speaker 1: of the psyche, but it's powerful. What makes nightmares so
56:54
Speaker 1: powerful is that they do come from a source that
57:00
Speaker 1: carries all the power of the collective unconscious beyond just
57:05
Speaker 1: your own personal experience.
57:08
Speaker 3: And of course, we... You know, we might say that
57:12
Speaker 3: it comes from a dark aspect of the psyche, but
57:14
Speaker 3: it could just be a powerful part of the psyche
57:17
Speaker 3: that the ego experiences as dark.
57:21
Speaker 1: Exactly. And the numinous dreams of inspiration and direction or
57:29
Speaker 1: some fabulous new idea, the ego experiences those as, isn't
57:33
Speaker 1: this wonderful? And the dreams that are, we call nightmares.
57:39
Speaker 1: The ego says, oh, that was awful. But it's psyche
57:43
Speaker 1: light and dark.
57:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
57:46
Speaker 4: So, right.
57:47
Speaker 1: I'm just going to create a segue out of that
57:51
Speaker 1: to take us back to Jung and how he had
57:55
Speaker 1: a nightmare when he was very young that is riveting
58:01
Speaker 1: and powerful. It's in his memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. And
58:08
Speaker 1: here's the dream. In the dream, I was in this meadow. Suddenly,
58:13
Speaker 1: I discovered a dark, rectangular, stone-lined hole in the ground.
58:18
Speaker 1: I had never seen it before. I ran forward curiously
58:22
Speaker 1: and peered down into it. Then I saw a stone
58:26
Speaker 1: stairway leading down. Hesitantly and fearfully, I descended. At the
58:32
Speaker 1: bottom was a doorway with a round arch closed off
58:36
Speaker 1: by a green curtain. It was a big, heavy curtain
58:39
Speaker 1: of worked stuff like brocade, and it looked very sumptuous.
58:45
Speaker 1: Curious to see what might be hidden behind, I pushed
58:48
Speaker 1: it aside. I saw before me in the dim light
58:52
Speaker 1: a rectangular chamber about 30 feet long. The ceiling was
58:57
Speaker 1: arched and of hewn stone. The floor was laid with flagstones,
59:02
Speaker 1: and in the center a red carpet ran from the
59:05
Speaker 1: entrance to a low platform. on this platform. stood a
59:10
Speaker 1: wonderfully rich golden throne. I am not certain, but perhaps
59:15
Speaker 1: a red cushion lay on the seat. It was a
59:18
Speaker 1: magnificent throne, a real king's throne and a fairy tale.
59:23
Speaker 1: Something was standing on it, which I thought at first
59:26
Speaker 1: was a tree trunk, 12 to 15 feet high, and
59:30
Speaker 1: about one and a half to two feet thick. It
59:33
Speaker 1: was a huge thing, reaching almost to the ceiling, but
59:38
Speaker 1: it was of a curious composition. It was made of
59:41
Speaker 1: skin and naked flesh, and on top there was something
59:45
Speaker 1: like a rounded head with no face and no hair.
59:50
Speaker 1: On the very top of the head was a single
59:52
Speaker 1: eye gazing motionlessly upward. He says, this dream haunted me
1:00:00
Speaker 1: for years. Only much later did I realize that what
1:00:04
Speaker 1: I had seen was a phallus. And it was decades
1:00:07
Speaker 1: before I understood that it was a ritual phallus. Jung
1:00:12
Speaker 1: is writing this dream when he's around 80 years old.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: It's so vivid in his mind. And he says, only
1:00:22
Speaker 1: it became clear to me how exceedingly unchildlike How sophisticated
1:00:28
Speaker 1: and over-sophisticated was the thought that had begun to break
1:00:32
Speaker 1: through into consciousness? Was it speaking to me? Whose mind
1:00:36
Speaker 1: devised it? What kind of superior intelligence was at work?
1:00:41
Speaker 1: Who spoke to me then? Who talked of problems far
1:00:44
Speaker 1: beyond my knowledge? Who brought the above and below together
1:00:49
Speaker 1: and laid the foundation for everything that was to fill
1:00:54
Speaker 1: the second half of my life with stormiest passion. Who
1:00:59
Speaker 1: but that alien guest who came from both above and
1:01:04
Speaker 1: from below. It was an initiation into the realm of darkness.
1:01:11
Speaker 1: My intellectual life had its unconscious beginnings at that time.
1:01:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he had this dream when he was between
1:01:19
Speaker 3: three and four years old, right?
1:01:21
Speaker 1: He was very young and What an overwhelming dream of
1:01:28
Speaker 1: this imagery for such a young child. And Jung was
1:01:34
Speaker 1: able to hold it as unconsciously as a child, but
1:01:39
Speaker 1: as an initiatory experience of the bringing the above and
1:01:45
Speaker 1: the below together. And I think that is, I think it's,
1:01:51
Speaker 1: it's beautiful and, and moving and awful all at the same,
1:01:56
Speaker 1: all at the same time.
1:01:58
Speaker 3: He says of the dream that it was to preoccupy
1:02:02
Speaker 3: him all his life. And in some sense, I think
1:02:05
Speaker 3: it does go back to the sense that these early
1:02:08
Speaker 3: nightmares that, that we have. And he does say, by
1:02:11
Speaker 3: the way, that he, he, he woke up terrified and
1:02:15
Speaker 3: sweating and scared to death and was afraid for many
1:02:18
Speaker 3: nights afterward that, to go back to sleep because he
1:02:21
Speaker 3: might have another dream like that. So in some ways,
1:02:24
Speaker 3: this was a very typical kind of early childhood, you know,
1:02:27
Speaker 3: terrifying nightmare. But going back to what I said before
1:02:32
Speaker 3: about how it kind of raises up these core themes,
1:02:36
Speaker 3: there's some deep mystery that he's exposed to with this dream.
1:02:42
Speaker 3: It kind of defies language. Even, even for Jung writing
1:02:47
Speaker 3: much later in his life, he, you know, relates it
1:02:50
Speaker 3: to the ritual phallus and all of this stuff, but
1:02:53
Speaker 3: it still doesn't quite convey the depth of the mystery
1:02:59
Speaker 3: that is hinted at in this incredible image.
1:03:03
Speaker 1: And that that is part of what we call nightmares.
1:03:09
Speaker 1: That there's something that will not get rendered into conscious
1:03:14
Speaker 1: cognitive boxes of, oh, it's because of this and that,
1:03:18
Speaker 1: and here's my complex around that and history, that there
1:03:23
Speaker 1: is this realm. It is fascinating. And it can preoccupy
1:03:31
Speaker 1: us for a lifetime. And even though we may not
1:03:36
Speaker 1: be able to just wrestle it into neat, rational conceptions,
1:03:44
Speaker 1: there's a way in which we can live alongside it
1:03:47
Speaker 1: and live with it and let it live in us
1:03:51
Speaker 1: as a mystery.
1:03:53
Speaker 3: You know, and I want to say, I think all
1:03:54
Speaker 3: of the nightmares that we've looked at today, including this
1:03:57
Speaker 3: one from Jung and some of the ones that I
1:03:59
Speaker 3: can think of that I've had myself, the basic underlying
1:04:03
Speaker 3: theme is that the dream ego encounters something that is
1:04:09
Speaker 3: absolutely overwhelming. That the dream ego's sort of sovereignty or
1:04:14
Speaker 3: ability to manage the situation or sense of, being empowered
1:04:19
Speaker 3: is utterly negated and that we are rendered powerless. In
1:04:26
Speaker 3: real life, situations that render us powerless and overwhelmed are
1:04:31
Speaker 3: often traumatogenic. That is kind of one of the definitions
1:04:35
Speaker 3: of trauma is that which really overwhelms us and renders
1:04:38
Speaker 3: us powerless. But on a psychological level, that experience of
1:04:45
Speaker 3: knowing that our little ego is no match for this
1:04:49
Speaker 3: greater power, whether it's the sort of underground phallus or
1:04:53
Speaker 3: the tsunami or the horror of the charred cats or
1:04:58
Speaker 3: the man who's got his chain to the table. It
1:05:04
Speaker 3: is an encounter with something deeper in the psyche that
1:05:07
Speaker 3: is larger than ego.
1:05:08
Speaker 1: And it's humbling that it is larger than ego. than ego,
1:05:16
Speaker 1: and will elude us in some measure, perhaps for a lifetime,
1:05:22
Speaker 1: the way this dream did for Jung. And it's daunting
1:05:27
Speaker 1: to think that there is Psyche writ large, bigger than
1:05:32
Speaker 1: we are, with its own creativity, darkness, and direction, as
1:05:38
Speaker 1: well as Psyche's incredible powers to accompany us and companion
1:05:44
Speaker 1: us and inspire us.
1:05:48
Speaker 3: So let's take the last few minutes and talk about
1:05:51
Speaker 3: what can you do if you're having nightmares? What can
1:05:56
Speaker 3: you do if you're maybe having repeated nightmares and you're
1:06:00
Speaker 3: overwhelmed by them? What comfort or advice can we offer?
1:06:03
Speaker 4: Well, the first thing that can offer some form of
1:06:06
Speaker 4: containment is to write it down And to write it
1:06:10
Speaker 4: down with as much detail as possible. Because in that process,
1:06:15
Speaker 4: you're allowing that executive function inside of you, the ego,
1:06:20
Speaker 4: which in many ways is a containing force, to begin
1:06:24
Speaker 4: to take hold of the images, the feelings, the themes.
1:06:28
Speaker 4: Freud called it mentalizing, which is really what we know
1:06:32
Speaker 4: about even trauma work. When we mix that regulating part
1:06:37
Speaker 4: of the brain with something that's more primal, structure begins
1:06:42
Speaker 4: to be introduced into it. The second piece that someone
1:06:46
Speaker 4: could try, particularly if it's a deeply disturbing memory, is
1:06:52
Speaker 4: after you've written down the dream, to then write three
1:06:58
Speaker 4: additional endings to the dream that just occur to you
1:07:04
Speaker 4: but would somehow give you a sense of relief. To
1:07:08
Speaker 4: imagine the dream forward in three paths, that is not
1:07:14
Speaker 4: specifically in the hands of the self, but it still
1:07:17
Speaker 4: is interesting. You may think you came up with those
1:07:21
Speaker 4: three other creative steps forward, but often the unconscious is
1:07:27
Speaker 4: whispering something into your ear. We don't know where the
1:07:31
Speaker 4: nightmare is going to go, But when we have a
1:07:34
Speaker 4: sense of options and various attitudes with which to hold it,
1:07:40
Speaker 4: something inside of us might relax.
1:07:42
Speaker 3: I also think that when we think about nightmares as
1:07:45
Speaker 3: a communication from the transpersonal self, rather than, say, a
1:07:49
Speaker 3: sign that we're going crazy or a signal that something
1:07:53
Speaker 3: might be going off the rails, that in and of
1:07:56
Speaker 3: itself is kind of containing. And then if we can
1:07:59
Speaker 3: approach the nightmare on that spirit and perhaps do active
1:08:02
Speaker 3: imagination with it, which Joseph, in some sense, I think
1:08:05
Speaker 3: is akin to what you're saying, you know, but with
1:08:07
Speaker 3: a little bit more of the spirit of saying to the,
1:08:13
Speaker 3: you know, nightmare figure that let's say the malevolent force,
1:08:17
Speaker 3: what do I need to know? What are you here
1:08:19
Speaker 3: to teach me? And seeing what comes up and doing
1:08:21
Speaker 3: this while you're awake, and does that then change the nightmare? So,
1:08:26
Speaker 3: to try to move toward it with curiosity. And we'll
1:08:29
Speaker 3: quote Jung here again that we often invoke this quote
1:08:33
Speaker 3: that the face we turn toward the unconscious is the
1:08:37
Speaker 3: face it turns toward us. So if we're afraid of
1:08:41
Speaker 3: something in the unconscious, it's going to appear very frightening.
1:08:45
Speaker 3: If we take a step toward it and say, wow,
1:08:47
Speaker 3: I'm really curious about this. I wonder what's there. It's
1:08:51
Speaker 3: likely that the The fear component will be ratcheted down.
1:08:56
Speaker 3: And you can do that in journaling. You can do
1:08:59
Speaker 3: that in active amendment. And the technique that we mentioned before,
1:09:03
Speaker 3: image rehearsal therapy, which is not Jungian, but does share
1:09:07
Speaker 3: some common features with what we've just been talking about,
1:09:10
Speaker 3: invites you to come up with an alternative, empowering ending,
1:09:14
Speaker 3: and then rehearse that imagery five to 10 minutes a
1:09:17
Speaker 3: day for a couple of weeks. But I think the
1:09:21
Speaker 3: spirit in that as well is in, let me take
1:09:25
Speaker 3: a step toward this.
1:09:27
Speaker 1: And that is such a classic element of Jungian work
1:09:33
Speaker 1: and theory that we encounter contents from the archetypal realm
1:09:41
Speaker 1: in monstrous nightmares and other images that And it's not
1:09:47
Speaker 1: that we can just put them into little cognitive boxes,
1:09:50
Speaker 1: but what we can do is to personalize those images,
1:09:55
Speaker 1: to do exactly what you were saying, Joseph. Imagine three
1:10:01
Speaker 1: other endings to this story of live with it and
1:10:05
Speaker 1: rehearse it so that some of that archetypal power gets
1:10:12
Speaker 1: lived through. by the ego and in the conscious realm.
1:10:18
Speaker 1: And I think Jung talks about this over and over
1:10:21
Speaker 1: again of how do we become more conscious? How do
1:10:25
Speaker 1: we render the great, you know, sort of dark of
1:10:28
Speaker 1: the side of the archetypal realm? Well, we personalize it.
1:10:32
Speaker 1: We go toward it. We turn that friendlier face toward
1:10:38
Speaker 1: the unconscious. What are you here to tell me? I
1:10:43
Speaker 1: will not avoid you, deny you, or bury my head
1:10:47
Speaker 1: in the sand. I will do something with this. I
1:10:52
Speaker 1: will encounter you.
1:10:53
Speaker 4: The last step that I find really helpful, particularly when
1:10:58
Speaker 4: I'm working with an analyst in the room, is when
1:11:02
Speaker 4: they tell me a dream that's been disturbing, I'm very
1:11:05
Speaker 4: careful to write down all of the words. And then
1:11:09
Speaker 4: I'll ask them to tell the dream with none of
1:11:12
Speaker 4: the ego's assumptions. Because often the ego is bringing its
1:11:17
Speaker 4: own anxiety, but we don't know whether that belongs, which
1:11:20
Speaker 4: goes to how you had interpreted the dream where the
1:11:24
Speaker 4: woman had been lifted to the ceiling. So for instance,
1:11:27
Speaker 4: I'm going to make something up. I come to the
1:11:30
Speaker 4: front door of a building, and I just know that
1:11:34
Speaker 4: there are murderers running everywhere in the building. And then
1:11:38
Speaker 4: I open the door and step in. And then I
1:11:42
Speaker 4: creep into the kitchen. And I can hear people slinging
1:11:45
Speaker 4: knives all around. And I'm sure that they're going to
1:11:49
Speaker 4: chop my legs off. And I walk in. And I
1:11:52
Speaker 4: see six old women who turn around and stare at me.
1:11:56
Speaker 4: And their eyes are like burning coals. And then they
1:12:00
Speaker 4: wake up sweating and crying. Well, if you take all
1:12:03
Speaker 4: the narration out, I walk in a room. I hear,
1:12:07
Speaker 4: chopping block sounds, and then I go into a kitchen
1:12:11
Speaker 4: and there are six women who turn and face me.
1:12:14
Speaker 3: And that's it. Right. That's all you actually know.
1:12:18
Speaker 4: That's the whole stage production that was made. And there's
1:12:23
Speaker 4: a lot of things that could be going on with
1:12:25
Speaker 4: just the action of the dream and not all of
1:12:29
Speaker 4: the story that the ego makes about it.
1:12:33
Speaker 3: Just a little aside on that, Joseph, just to build
1:12:36
Speaker 3: it out for a second. The Science Museum downtown, the
1:12:41
Speaker 3: Franklin Institute, has this exhibit on the brain. And one
1:12:46
Speaker 3: of the really interesting things that you can do is
1:12:48
Speaker 3: sit down, put some headphones on, and you see a
1:12:50
Speaker 3: man in a rowboat. And first you hear this very
1:12:53
Speaker 3: kind of pleasant music playing. And then you see the
1:12:57
Speaker 3: same scene again, but this time with very ominous music playing.
1:13:01
Speaker 3: And I think that maybe you're testing your heart rate
1:13:04
Speaker 3: or something at the same time. And the ominous music
1:13:08
Speaker 3: and this, you understand the scene totally differently depending on
1:13:12
Speaker 3: the music that's playing. And it even creates a different
1:13:15
Speaker 3: physiological response. So I think it's perfect what you're saying.
1:13:19
Speaker 3: I mean, the facts and the dream are the facts.
1:13:21
Speaker 3: You walk into a house and you hear some noises
1:13:24
Speaker 3: and they're the women. And And it's almost like the
1:13:27
Speaker 3: dream ego makes up a different story depending on kind
1:13:30
Speaker 3: of the emotional quote-unquote music. But we can question that
1:13:35
Speaker 3: in the dream and we can wonder, is this just
1:13:38
Speaker 3: the dream ego's perception of things or do we have
1:13:41
Speaker 3: any evidence from the dream itself that there is something, say, malevolent?
1:13:46
Speaker 4: So the dream ego, as we say many times, is
1:13:50
Speaker 4: often the most unreliable narrator in as much as the
1:13:54
Speaker 4: dream ego images are sent to act upon the ego
1:13:59
Speaker 4: and correct its attitude about things. So as you had said,
1:14:06
Speaker 4: when we think of the nightmare as the teacher, the
1:14:09
Speaker 4: wise teacher, and sometimes the self brings a lot of
1:14:15
Speaker 4: energy and intensity to the encounter because it really wants
1:14:20
Speaker 4: our attention, then we can welcome just intense experiences as
1:14:26
Speaker 4: potentially transformative.
1:14:32
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1:14:38
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1:14:45
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1:14:49
Speaker 2: We'd like to thank our listener who shared a dream
1:14:52
Speaker 2: for today's show and hope you'll let us know what
1:14:55
Speaker 2: topics you'd enjoy hearing more about. Until next time, keep
1:14:59
Speaker 2: living this Jungian life.