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LOW ENERGY: Where can we source the drive to take action? · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Hi, everybody. This is Joseph on this Jungian Life podcast,
• 0:42
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• 1:03
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• 1:07
  Speaker 4: This morning, we are going to talk about energy, energy
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: for life, psychic energy, physical energy, emotional energy, that that is,
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: regardless of who you are, where you are, what you
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: do in the world, how much energy does any of
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: us have for life, for certain activities? Does it wax?
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: Does it wane? What exactly are we talking about in
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: terms of how we get into the world, what we
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: bring to the world, and how we go about various
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: activities in our daily life? What are all the factors
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: that we need to consider when somebody is maybe struggling
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: with something of where's the energy? Where'd it go? How
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: do we find it again?
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: So this is a really important topic. But before we
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: get into it, I just want to remind you all
• 2:09
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• 2:57
  Speaker 4: I can't resist mentioning that we're talking about energy. And
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: this is an energy exchange.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: And so we appreciate and need your energy and support.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: And in return, we do what we can to support
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: you and attend to your dreams and your interests. Please
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: come on board.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: So back to low energy. And I've been thinking, when
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: I was a body worker for many years, and then
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: also now as an analyst, the issue of just vitality,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: the élan vital of a person's body is something that's
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: so substantive and can be such a problem, whether it's
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: chronic fatigue syndrome or some other kind of metabolic concerns,
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: or certainly in our current culture where some people are
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: working 80 hours a week trying to donkey through a
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: very high-powered corporate career. And then of course, all of
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: the emotional tensions that can sap our energy. But we
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: seem to live in a world where more and more
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: vitality is required. And there are more and more challenges
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: to rallying to that. I find it very curious.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting, Joseph, that you said we live in
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: a world that requires more and more. And I think
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: you're probably right about that, which explains this curious thing
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: that I think we've all noticed is, you know, there's
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: some people that just don't seem like they've got enough
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: juice to really make their way through their life in
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: a successful way. And I think that's part of why
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: we wanted to talk about this today, because it's not
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: always obvious why that is. You meet someone, they may
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: be very intelligent. They may have all kinds of things
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: going for them, but somehow they just can't get off
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: the block. And is it, I have wondered, is it
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: because of the way our society is structured, what our
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: culture demands from us? You know, on the other hand,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: I also think it's like, well, I don't know that
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: life was necessarily so easy. You know, if you were a,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: you know, subsistence farmer 100 years ago or 200 years ago,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: you know, that probably required a lot of life energy
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: as well. it is curious to ponder and there are many,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: many things I think in our life now that are
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: just really difficult. Um, maybe not in a physical sense,
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: but in, I spent about two hours this weekend kind
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: of like paying taxes and bills and figuring that kind
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: of stuff out. And it was so taxing. Taxes are taxing. Um,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: that I, uh, you know, I thought, Ooh, huh. That
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: took a lot of energy. So there are many aspects
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: of modern life that I think are really taxing in
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: this particular way.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: Modern life is very demanding psychologically and emotionally. You know,
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't trade places with a subsistence farmer from times
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: gone by, but at least one knows what one has
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: to do. You take your hoe, you go to the field,
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: and You know, you work your way up and down
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: the rows. Whereas today, there are a lot of functions
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: are very, very demanding, very, very complicated. And it's not
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: clear at any given moment that anybody really knows how
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: to do all the things that we're expected to do. And,
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: of course... We have to handle a multiplicity of things,
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: of taxes, bills, household, children, maintenance of all kinds of
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: appliances and cars.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And now the way that technology needs our attention.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: You paid for the streaming service, but it doesn't work,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: so it takes an hour to figure out what's wrong
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly. So we're handling a multiplicity. of needs, demands, requirements,
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: where I'm sure that in times gone by, that kind
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: of stimulation demand was not part of daily life. And
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: I think it really saps energy. I think about all
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: the stuff. I mean, people have coffee and other kinds
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: of stimulants to jack up our energy, psychic energy and
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: mental energy. for what is basically now, for many people,
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: a very sedentary lifestyle. So it's an odd juxtaposition of
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: our physical selves and our emotional, intellectual, and job-oriented selves.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: Sit in front of a screen a lot.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: I think we're in that realm of rapid change. I
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: think prior to the Industrial Revolution, life didn't change very much,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: and There was a psychophysical communication from the community to
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: the children. So if dad was a blacksmith, the child
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: is around the life of the blacksmith and there's a
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: kind of physical transmission. Oh, that's how we stand. That's
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: the rhythm. That's the movement. That's the orientation. And in
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: each iteration, perhaps something new is learned from the farmer,
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: from the weaver, from the fisherman. And then all of
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: a sudden with the industrial revolution and my goodness, now
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: everything is changing so quickly. So there isn't enough generational
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: experimentation for us to inherit any of the coping mechanisms
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: that a previous generation might have experimented with. What that
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: means is it takes a lot of energy to invent
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: a way to sustain oneself in an ever-changing environment. And
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: most of us don't realize that we are trying to
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: create a way to sit for 10 hours a day,
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: trying to create a way to look at a weird
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: little computer screen and pretend that there are living people
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: expressing on the other side of it.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: What you've just said reminds me of when Our kids
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: were little, and there was, you know, take your child
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: to work day. So my husband took our son to work,
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: and at the end of the day, you know, it
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: was sort of like, well, how'd it go? You know,
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: what was it like? And our son said, he doesn't
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: do anything. He just sits at a desk and talks
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: on the phone. Oh. something like that. But your point, Joseph,
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: is so good that if you grew up in times
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: gone by and your father was a blacksmith or a
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: weaver or a farmer, you would be taught. You knew
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: exactly what it was And we are now very much
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: sort of divided from our inherent nature that has evolved
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: over millennia of us as physical beings.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: So wanting to sort of loop back into energy, to
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: life force, you know, one of the reasons this topic
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: is interesting is because of this phenomenon that sometimes in
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: the United States we call failure to thrive, not failure
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: to thrive, failure to launch. But it is a real
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: issue in, for example, in European countries now. I mean,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: I think the youth unemployment rate in Spain is close
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: to 50%. And there's high rates in countries like Italy
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: as well. There aren't good jobs. The good jobs that
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: there are are very hard to get. But the kind
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: of mediocre jobs you could get don't pay very well
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: and maybe are very taxing in terms of the time
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: it takes to commute there or whatever. So there's a
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: sense of kind of giving up and just resigning yourself
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: to the oh well. And I'm thinking about kind of
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: where our energy goes and how fear or overwhelm, maybe
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: is a better word, can really dampen our life energy
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: because it just feels... too overwhelming to figure out how
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: to do any of this. I have some young adults
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: in my life, and I'm just noticing the very understandable
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: terror that they're all facing about how do I figure
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: out a life when I haven't been brought up to
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: see what a blacksmith does. And in that sense, then
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: the life energy can really turn on itself. You know,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: if you're a young, talented person with a certain urge
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to do something in the world, but you're too overwhelmed
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: to figure out how to do that, then it becomes
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: a corrosive inner process if there's no door to self-actualize.
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah. There are too many moving parts. A lot of
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: them are really not at all explicit. You can see
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: what a weaver does. You can see what a blacksmith does.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: There's a vagueness and I think a difficulty accessing the
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: external world. Where are the toeholds? Where's the foothold? Where
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: do I begin? What are the steps along this path?
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: And so I'm just teasing out the difference between what
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: is one's internal life energy, motivation, desire, ambition, what have you,
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: and where does that hook up with something in the
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: external world that says, yes, come on in. Here's where
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: you start.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Jung said something that I think is relevant to our
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: conversation here. And this is in the volume seven of
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: the Collected Works. Libido can never be apprehended except in
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: a definite form. That is to say, it is identical
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: with fantasy images. And we can only release it from
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: the grip of the unconscious by bringing up the corresponding
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: fantasy images. So one of the things that I find
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: really difficult for young people is that there isn't room
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: for them to acknowledge or identify their own fantasy images.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: It's as if a set of values has been placed
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: around their imaginations, which sounds like You need to be
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: able to recoup the cost of your college expenses or
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: whatever the rules are that you're not permitted to fantasize
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: or to allow the unconscious to just talk to you
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: in terms of fantasies. And as soon as that process
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: is alienated, then we're kind of at sea without oars
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: or without an engine because it's the fantasies that move
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: us along. And of course, the fantasies can be metaphoric.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: They don't always have to be literal.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: You know, Joseph, I like a lot of what you said,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: and I want to pick up on embroider on it
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: a little bit. First of all, you read the quote
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: from Jung, and he mentions libido. And we should just
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: say that when Jung uses the term libido, he's not
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: talking about just sexual energy. So often in the popular culture,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: libido means your sex drive. But the way Jung used it,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: it's just the available life force that you have for living.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: And it can be applied in any number of ways,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: including towards sex, but toward life as well. And then
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I just want to kind of second this notion about fantasy.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting that Jung says that fantasy essentially is
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: kind of the channel or maybe the expression of life force.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: I love that. because I think it's really true. And
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: I think it's true for young people. It's true for
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: older people too. I've people that come in and often say, well,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: what's your fantasy? You know, there's something they want. And
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: I'll say, well, what's your fantasy? And some people can
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: do that. You know, this is what I fantasize about.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: But some people absolutely can't. They can't fantasize. I love
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: I love what you said, Joseph, about, you know, fantasy
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: being the way that the unconscious talks to you. And
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: I have to say that I am really good at fantasizing.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: But I can see that it's really served me well
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: because I let myself have these kind of, like, here's
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: something that happened yesterday. All of a sudden I went, oh,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: my God, what would it be like to climb Mount Kilimanjaro?
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know why that occurred to me. But it
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: just did, and it sort of lodged in my brain. And,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: of course, I did a couple Google searches, like how
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: long does it take to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and how
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: much prep do you have to do? And it's just
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: sort of living in there. And I asked my husband,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: and he said, no, thank you, never. But then I'm like, okay, well,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: maybe my kids would do it with me. Like maybe
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I've got to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Nothing I've ever thought
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: about before, but I'm just letting myself have a fantasy
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: about it, right? And that means that I let myself
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: entertain it. I let myself have fun with it. I
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: let myself do some internet searches about it or maybe
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: read an article or a book about it. It doesn't
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: mean I'm going to do it at all, but I
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: allow myself to have the fantasy because who knows what
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: might come of it. It might be that I wind
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: up climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, or it could be that I
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: just take up hiking in a more serious way, or
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: maybe nothing at all. Maybe it was just a really
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: pleasant interlude. But it is, that is a really good example,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: I think, of sort of how energy moves through. I mean,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: I had this idea. And then throughout the rest of
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: the day, I kept on coming back to it with
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: this like little jolt of, you know, which is totally surprising.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: It did not come from the ego at all. But
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: it was like my unconscious talking to me.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm struck by just the vitality in your affect
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: right now.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Just how expressive. But I mean, literally, there's like 20
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: more volts of energy just moving.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: But really, you know, I'm also thinking about to expand
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: fantasy to metaphor of, you know, metaphorically speaking, what kind
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: of mountain might you want to climb? What other kind
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: of task, what challenge is like that? climbing a mountain.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: And that, you know, what we were talking about before
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: is how externally oriented we are in today's world. And
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: fantasy is internally oriented. It's where's your imagination? Where is
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: the capacity for building images? And how do we get
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: in touch in this way with something that's alive inside,
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro? Wow, how would that guide a
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: person to selecting a task, a career, a course of study,
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: a project in the external world if it's not rooted
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: somewhere in the internal world? And that's something that our
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: culture does not value, doesn't mention, and doesn't really teach
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: people how to do.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: What I've come to really appreciate is that the Kilimanjaro,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: it's the beginning of a journey inside of the psyche.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: There's another quote from volume 16, I'll read it very quickly.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: We shall, by carefully analyzing every fascination, extract from it
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: a portion of our own personality like a quintessence, and
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: slowly come to recognize that we meet ourselves time and
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: again in a thousand disguises on the path of life.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: And what I'm interested in is the fascination part.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Someone may come in and say, oh, I have this
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: fantasy of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. And one of the disciplines
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: I've taken on in the office is, well, let's have
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: that fantasy. Well, I climbed Kilimanjaro. I said, no, no, no,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: but tell me where it begins. And they'll say, oh, well,
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: I called a travel agent. And then I'll just keep asking,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: and then what happens? And then what happens? And what
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: happens is after a few minutes, the conscious mind is
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: kind of run out of the beginning of the fantasy.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: But when I encourage them to keep, keep going, then
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: the unconscious starts doing something all by itself. And it
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: will often lead someplace that I would not have expected
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: that is often deeply emotional and cathartic and incredibly interesting
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: and important. So it starts it. Kilimanjaro, or any number
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: of other things. But as the fantasy, as we examine
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: the fascination, which is a Jung quote, it does go
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: someplace unexpected where there's a lot of libido.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: That's really great.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: So it's, so being able to tune into fantasy images
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: and hold them, I want to say the correct way,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: which is taking them seriously, but not literally and is
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: a key to tapping into a vein of energy in
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: the psyche. You know, it's like this wants to go somewhere.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: And it did.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I was having a perfectly lovely
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: day yesterday. But when this idea occurred to me, I
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: was like, whoop, I had a lot of energy. But
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: I wanted to say further and kind of circling back
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: to our topic about kind of low energy. The truth is,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: we all know this, that being able to be in
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: touch with your fantasies is very important. But there are
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: plenty of people who can have big fantasies, and nothing
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: ever happens. So again, there's something about where does that
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: where is that low energy? Where is that low libido?
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: What's that about? You know, the person who always says,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah, I'm gonna you know, I don't know, X, Y,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: or Z, I'm gonna, I'm gonna move next, next year,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at houses, and then like nothing ever happens.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I've just got to get my house ready to put
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: on the market, you know, but nothing ever happens. I'd
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: really like to, you know, get a get a dog,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at different breeds, but nothing ever happens. And
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: it's not that, you know, as you were saying before, Deb,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: it's not like, you know, I can have this fantasy
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and never do anything about it.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: It's not like we have to enact all of our fantasies.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: But there are those people who seem to be able
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: to dream and fantasize, but who remain in a very
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: stuck way and have a very constricted life, who don't
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: seem to be able to marshal that libido toward an
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: end goal in a way that bears fruit.
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: I think we're talking about the connection between the unconscious
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: and the ego, right? And the people who say, well,
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe I think I'm thinking about getting a
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: dog or I'm thinking about moving to a different part
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: of the country. I hear that as a sort of
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: initial offering from ego to the unconscious to say, hey,
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: I'm reaching out. I have this idea about a new
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: project or about a relocation. Hey, unconscious, will you come
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: forward here and meet me? Will you add some juice
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: to this? so that we have some momentum for moving
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: this idea in some direction. And it might not be
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: the specific direction of, I'm thinking about relocating to the
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: other coast. Well, maybe if something hooks in deep within,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: in the interior, that fantasy might sort of shift and
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: move in a whole other direction, and I might wind up,
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: taking guitar lessons, for example. But there can be a
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: divide between what consciousness is looking for and hoping for
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: that is not met by the unconscious, by something that
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: has energy, that has eros, that has love, that has
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: desire of a real want versus ego declaring... Let's do something.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Well, this puts me into Lisa's favorite place of the
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: master and his emissary. I'm amazed that I brought it
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: up first because usually I'm the last person to that party.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: I'm wondering where you're going with this. Well, it's very
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Kabbalistic that at a certain point in the psychophysical evolution
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: of human beings, our ego woke up and discerned that
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: it could make decisions, set intentionalities that we had volition
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: in a way that was not purely stimulated by that
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: instinctive level of the body-mind or not totally stimulated by
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: the environment so that the ego can kind of go
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: off in its own little projects. when we're in right
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: alignment or sometimes in our most potent alignment, that the
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: right side of the brain generates a certain kind of
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: creative image, a fantasy image, so to speak, or an
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: instinctive excitation. It puts it over to that more egoic
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: side and in a sense asks the ego to find
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: a way to actualize something, to use its ability to
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: command resources to satisfy something that's been given to the
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: waking personality from the deeper part of ourselves. So that
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: seems to be more in the right order of things
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: in terms of energy flowing from the deeper part towards
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: the ego.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're talking about the ego self-access.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, just do its own thing. So I think that
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: has to do with the idea of different parts of
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: the brain itself, the ego self-access, and whether or not
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: the ego is just kind of going along on its
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: own kind of party without much of a connection either
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: to instinct or to archetype. And without the support of
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: instinct archetype in the unconscious, it doesn't seem to have
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: the same wellspring of vitality to support itself.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: And I think it's true when we have someone come
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: in who has this kind of low energy profile and
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: the person may feel very stuck. The person may feel
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: very stuck psycho-spiritually, but also sometimes these people come in
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: and they don't have money. They're not able to really
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: find a way to make a living or they're living
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: in a very kind of marginal life. And you do,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: you kind of sit across from them and you think,
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: where's the energy coming And I do think in terms
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: of the ego self axis and these sorts of people,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I'm like, where's the self? When is the self going
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: to constellate and kind of get this person out the door?
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Because sometimes, like I said, these people come in and
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: you can see they're smart and they're, you know, they
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: have a kind of interior life and they may have
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: fantasies of what they want to do, but somehow it's
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: like that connection is just missing. But I do think
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: there's something interesting here because we're sort of making this case,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: which I think is true, that the energy ultimately comes from,
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: let's say, the self or the unconscious, right? That that's
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: kind of where that's the furnace that we're tapping into.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: But I also think when we're talking about low energy
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: or low libido or people who tend to be kind
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: of low-functioning, I'm back in the kind of ego psychology
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: world of just kind of basic ego functioning. You know,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: so that's sort of the ability to do what you
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: say you're going to do. So if you have to
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: call someone to come and help you, you know, clean
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: out your basement, because it's full of junk, you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: can you do that? Can you get yourself to the
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: basement and start going through it? Can you go through
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: the listings online to find someone to come help you?
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Can you make those phone calls? There is a part
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: of it that's just like ego functioning. And sometimes people
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: are not so good at that. And what is that
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: and how do we understand that? So I don't know
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: that this idea of kind of energy is under ego
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: control or comes from the ego. But certainly in high
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: functioning individuals, most of the time, They are channeling their
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: psychic energy effectively through the ego so that goals can
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: get met and things can get done. So I'm wondering
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: about kind of ego functioning. And I think we probably
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: can all think of people that we have in our
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: life or have worked with who just don't seem to
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: have that. And why not? Why do some people have
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: it and some people don't?
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: But Jung really talked about this when he was doing
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: his word association tests. He has a list of words
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: that were very, very common. And then he was timing
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: how quickly people could find an association to a common word.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: So it might be tree, lumber, water, boat, dog, cat.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Obviously I'm complex there. So it took a little bit
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: longer to get that next one. And then he would
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: notice that when there was an interruption in a normal
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: flow of associations, that something was interfering with the flow
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: of energy. towards a common object. And out of that
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: interruption of association, he said, well, that must be a complex.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: And normally there were life experiences or memories that somehow
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: made the associations to that object complicated or diverted or uncomfortable.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: So from the standard point of ego functioning, we could
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: say that when we think about a particular task, as
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: you were saying, Lisa, If the flow of associations is
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: interrupted by complexes, there isn't an easy direct relationship to
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: the thing that we are considering, which goes then to
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: our work of where is the complex that's grabbing the
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: energy and kind of sparking it over to the side.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Like siphoning it away.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: So one way to think of it, which goes back
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: to the ego-self axis is, I think of the ego
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: self-access as sort of goes from the top of the
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: head down as if it's a channel or a roadway
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: where energy can flow from consciousness to the unconscious and
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: to the self. And it goes both ways, up and down.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: And that that channel can get blocked through life events,
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: unfortunate circumstances, patterns of difficulty, neglect. hardship, all kinds of things.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: So instead of having a nice open flow where energy
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: goes back and forth, things are blocked. And that's the complex,
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: so that when somebody reads that word of dog, the
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: person goes, cat, something is blocked. And I think as therapists,
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: as analysts, of course, that is what we do. Where
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: is the energy blocked? Let's see what we can find
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: that is in the way that has to do with history,
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: that has to do with experience and memory.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: But I'm going to make a case that I think
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: there are just differences between people, because there are certainly
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: people who have horrendous life experiences, and their channel doesn't
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: get blocked. And I think they're also, I mean, I
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: think there are people whose channel is blocked. And then
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: I just think there are different, we're all kind of
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: probably born with different levels of energy. We all just
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: maybe are born with a different size gas tanks. I mean,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Murray Stein talks about this in Map of the Soul.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: He talks about Lyndon Johnson, who apparently was just had
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: so much psychic energy, and he just He wrote copious
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: letters every day. I mean, if you sort of look
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: at that man's output, it's just how did one human
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: being do that? You know, I mean, I can say
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: that I have more energy than many people in my life,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: and I drive them crazy because of it. And I
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: certainly know plenty of people with more life energy than
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I do. But I can see how I'm like, oh, yeah, wait,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: let's do this, too. Let's do that. Oh, can we
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: do this? And people in my life are like head
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: and hands like, Lisa, you have to stop. You're exhausting me.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: But then I have people that, you know, I have
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: people in my extended family who are more that way
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: than I do. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: just need to go back to bed. So I think
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: we all just have different energy levels, too. And we
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: have a different ability, maybe almost innately, to access the
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: energy that's there or something.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: I think we also have different kinds of energy.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: You know, there's the Lyndon Johnson energy or your Mount
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: Kilimanjaro energy. And then there are people that have energy,
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: let us say, you know, really for gardening, for working outside,
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: who have energy for a reflective life, who have energy
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: for scholarly pursuits. Which takes me back to what you
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: were saying before, Lisa, about fantasy, of what is one's
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: inherent nature? What was I really built for? And where
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: is my natural source of energy? And that that discovery
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: through having dreams, fantasy, reflection and introspection, can put me,
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: let's say, in touch with the right kind of energy,
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: directing it in a way that is satisfying. That's the
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: individuation process that is really at the core of Jungian theory,
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: that to become the person that you were innately meant
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: to be. So we might imagine that every little acorn
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: hits the ground going, whoa, I want to become an
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: oak tree. We're not all acorns. We're all other kinds
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: of potentials. And the psyche will block energy if we're
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: forcing it to go down a channel that is really
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: not inherently suited to our essential nature.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: And this goes to the very difficult process of discovering
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: what we desire rather than assigning what we should desire.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: Because you can't like something you don't like. Something that
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: doesn't taste good will never really taste good. That we
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: discover that we're attracted to a thing or a person.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: You can't force it. So again, I'll hop on another
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: short quote here. From Jung, there are psychic goals that
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: lie beyond the conscious goals. In fact, they may even
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: be inimicable to them. But we find that the unconscious
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: has an inimical or ruthless bearing toward the conscious only
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: when the latter adopts a false or pretentious attitude. So
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: the unconscious has its own goals. The conscious mind can
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: have its independent goals. And if the unconscious mind is,
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: or rather if the conscious mind is if the ego
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: is hostile to the unconscious, the unconscious will just make
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: your life really miserable and can cut off the power supply,
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: cut off the access to the electricity.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: So let's put this in the context of this kind
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: of failure to launch phenomenon. And again, I know we've
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: all seen this in our lives and in our practices.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Let's say we've got a, I don't know, let's say
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: a young man who is approaching age 30, kind of
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: still living in the proverbial basement. And maybe this person
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: has intelligence and education, but just hasn't, you know, maybe
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: is either not working at all or is kind of
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: really underemployed. How do we understand this person's inability to
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: tune in and marshal this life energy in pursuit of goals?
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: And what can the person do about it?
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: Well, I think that's the process, really, of exploration. And
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: that's where the work lies. But I'm thinking that we
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: have an array here of possibilities that can be investigated
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: and considered of, you know, is there some sort of
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: difficulty with anxiety, depression, some kind of a mood issue?
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: disorder of some sort that is interfering. I have learned never,
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: ever to underestimate physiology, body chemistry, metabolism, and it's worth
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: considering is there some sort of physiological health issue that
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: could be contributing to this. Are there developmental blockages, which
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: we just talked about as complexes, of stages of life
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: where getting out in the world when you were just
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: going to kindergarten or hitting junior high school, that those
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: times of life of getting out and initiating were particularly
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: difficult or marked by some kind of trauma. And has
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: there been constraints upon what's possible for you, either just
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: by family considerations, socioeconomic considerations, external world inhibitors that have
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: prevented Accessing resources, accessing experiences, and opportunities for personal growth.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: are some of the things to consider of uh reaching
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: out and reaching into oneself for what's up with me
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: where is my energy.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah so so a couple of things first of all
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: um Jung talks variously throughout the collected works about the
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: need to sort of sacrifice the bliss of childhood and
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: to get out into the world. And I think we're some,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: and here's a little quote about that. One must give
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: up the retrospective longing, which only wants to resuscitate the
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: torpid bliss and effortlessness of childhood. And in place of that,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: one has to cultivate a heroic attitude. So that is
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: part of the myth of the hero is the hero
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: is going to slay the dragon. And in kind of
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Neumann terms, that is to slay the enveloping, swallowing, devouring
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: mother that pulls us back into the world of childhood.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: And instead, we have to develop this strong ego that
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: can go out into the world. But I want to
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: say that we're also in this notion about the pu-erh.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: you know, the eternal youth, kind of Peter Pan sort
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: of syndrome kind of thing, you know, who wants to
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: stay in this world where you don't have to really
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: do anything. And if, I mean, I think that this
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: occurs probably most often in people who are from families
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: with some means, because often there's a little bit of
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: something that allows them to remain, you know, they're not,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: it's not like, hey, if you don't get a job,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: you're out on the street. It's like, you know, you know,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: mom or dad is going to give you a little
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: money and you can stay in your basement. There is
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: this way that, you know, I don't want to cut
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the cord. I don't want to venture out on my own.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: I'm too overwhelmed. I want to say something else about this,
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: because I think there's been a shift in the culture.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: When I was moving toward adulthood, I felt like pretty
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: much nothing but excitement. I was excited to go to college.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: I was excited to figure out my career. I mean,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: I was scared too. I definitely remember being terrified. But
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: I find that young people on the cusp of adulthood now,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: there's something else going on. I'm sitting with this thought
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: that there's a way that childhood now for many people
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: is more magical and protected than it's ever been. you know,
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: kind of middle class kids in the United States, like
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: everyone gets the trip to Disney. And there's, you know,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: a birthday is always a special occasion. And there's just
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: so much emphasis on the magic of childhood. And then
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: childhood ends. And what have you got to look forward to?
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're looking at your parents, they're stressed, they're bored,
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: they hate their jobs. you're the best thing in their life,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: but is that what we're doing here? It's really hard.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that there are lots of young
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: people now on the cusp of adulthood thinking, this is
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: not a good deal. I don't want to have to
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: give up all that magic and wonder of childhood and
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: just be faced with endless decades of dragging, hauling my
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: ass to work every day to a job that I hate.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: There's one other idea that I'll throw in here because
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: I think it's in the neighborhood and then I'll hand
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: it over to you guys and see what you think,
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: which is this theory about optimal stress. So this theory
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: says that too little stress and you don't feel engaged,
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: you're bored essentially, too much stress and you're overwhelmed. And
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: I wonder if that relates to our topic that we're
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: not in the realm of optimal stress, that people feel
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: actually overwhelmed and so they just kind of shut down.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: So I just threw a lot of stuff out there.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know if any of that landed for either
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: of you.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: You know where it took me is to just reality, necessity,
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: and motivation, and that the proverbial trust fund kids and
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: any financial advisor will tell you it's not a good
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: idea does not half to get out in the world,
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: figure it out, wrestle with themselves and wrestle with a job,
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: because there's a cushion there. You know, Jung says the
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: world has always been a battleground. And, you know, wasn't
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: very long ago that if you didn't work, you didn't eat.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: So I think about motivation and necessity of, you know,
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: sort of carrot and stick. And we've been talking about
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: activating the carrot and in terms of fantasy, desire, you know,
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: one's inherent nature and going forward, like, like you being excited, Lisa,
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: to go to college. But there's also stick of, okay,
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: so you're anxious, you're scared. And we all have been.
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: I was, I couldn't believe when I landed in college,
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: sort of like, oh, my gosh, now what? That's the
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: stick of do it, do it anyway, of something that
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: pushes us out into the world. And that oftentimes we
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: discover when it's sink or swim that, by golly, we
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: can swim.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: I'm sitting with this question. I've certainly experienced myself as
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: a young person struggling to find my map, find what
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: I wanted, and then thinking of, various analysis also. I
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: guess I keep wanting to come back to this idea
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: of fantasy. And again, the fantasy that we start with
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: is not necessarily the fantasy that we end with, but
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: that the fantasy is the thing that beckons. Like the
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: myth of Percival, you know, the glimpse of the grail.
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: It's something that carries enough libido that we're even paying
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: attention to it. And then to get enough internal or
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: external support to continue to relate to the fantasy because
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: the fantasy itself is a set of images that holds
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: and discharges a quantity of energy and it shapes the
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: ego's relationship. So I think many people that are floating
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: on their couches or in their parents' basements, there is
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: an interruption of fantasy. I think one of the terrible
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: interruptions of fantasy is being submerged in images that are
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: generated by the collective. So for instance, if I'm spending
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: 10 hours a day gaming, which is quite a reality
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: for some people, I mean, that is a fantastical world,
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: but it's not a fantasy.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: But in the few times that I've played around with
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: gaming and I'm not very good at it and it
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: doesn't appeal to me, but for about a week or so,
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: I really tried to figure something out. I would close
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: my eyes and I would see those images still parading
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: around in my mind with incredible vividness. And they started
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: moving into my dream world that it was so potent
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: to focus on anything with that much of and immersive dynamic,
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: that much energy. So I think that if I'm watching
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: too much Netflix for that matter, five, six hours a day,
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: the way some people do that, there's a way in
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: which our spontaneous and emergent production of images is replaced,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: but pornography for that matter. So images can come from
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: the outside in and colonize us and take an awful
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: lot of space. But we need to be able to
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: track the images that come from the inside out. And
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: of course that happens every night in dreams. So sometimes
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: just dream work very slowly can put people in touch
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: with just self-generated imagery and to notice things. if they
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: have any kind of an excitory, energized reaction to anything
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: in their dream life. But I am surprised when I
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: ask people to talk about any fantasy, about anything at all.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: Some people literally just grind to a halt. Sometimes they
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: will begin weeping. They'll become irritated or worse. That just
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: The invitation to open the door to whatever is on
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: the move in there is really interfered with. And whether
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: it's interfered with in terms of sharing it with another person,
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: that's one interference. That they've been somehow convinced that whatever
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: is in the treasure house is a terrible thing.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: And they feel shame or something.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: Yes, tell anyone. And if that goes deep enough, they're
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: not allowed to know what it is they want. This
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: can also be a symptom of narcissistic parenting. Because if
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: the child from very early on has been subtly and
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: pervasively convinced that what they're interested in isn't really what
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: they're interested in, what you're really interested in is over
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: here on stage right, because mommy and daddy are interested
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: in that. So there's a constant but very consistent direction
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: away from the child towards whatever that the parent or
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: parents think the child should or could be paying attention
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: to can create such a sense of alienation from that
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: self-generating center that the self-generating center becomes bizarre, frightening, and
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: threatening in as much as if one follows the self-generating place,
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: then one now is alienated from the parental complexes which
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: are associated with survival. So there's so many intricate ways
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: that this can go awry. And when someone is alienated
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: from fantasy, then the promise of anything actually being gratifying
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: is deeply violated. So if we come down to just
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Jung's ideas of instincts, which are generally connected to fantasy,
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: he said, we have five, sometimes six instincts, hunger, sexuality, creativity, activity, reflection.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: And then later in life, he added religion, which is
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: really just a self-created mythology. But all of those instincts are,
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: are millions of years old, maybe even billions of years old,
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: and they know what they want, at least on a
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: fundamental level. Like when you're thirsty, you want water at
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: the very least. If you're hungry, you want food at
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: the very least. But we can see, even in modern culture,
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: how much can interfere with just the simplicity of hunger
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: and eat.
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: So you're really touching on instinct here as something from
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: which we are all too often separated through all kinds
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: of artificial stimuli of screens and video games and other
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: things that come in to us from the outside. And
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: you used the word simplicity, which I like a lot.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: And it made me think about how for eons people
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: worked as shepherds or as farmers and worked pretty well,
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: you know, alone going up and down the rows or,
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: you know, out in the fields with the sheep. And
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: that we were immersed in our bodies, our instincts. the
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: earth and the rhythms of the earth, there was a
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: harmony to our physical life and instinctual nature that has
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: been artificially jacked up. And so, yes, you were talking
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: about people who come in and don't have access to fantasy,
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: don't have access to their own interiority. Because we've been
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: overstimulated with external world ideas, all kinds of stuff. But
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: we have, ultimately, whatever you do, you do with yourself.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: So if you don't have a self to do it with,
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: there is going to be a problem.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: We have been interfered with. And I know that there
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: are also illnesses that people have which make certain things difficult,
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: but If we're looking at the average person who comes
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: in and there's a sense that their body is healthy
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: enough to have a reasonable level of functioning and that
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: somehow is not happening, then the question is, where are
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: the instincts? And often they do show up in dreams,
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: for instance, and we've spoken in other episodes, animals that
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: seem injured or starving. or figures that are acting very
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: strangely or eccentrically, that something has been misdirected or an
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: instinct has been dramatically interfered with. Now, we're familiar with
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: the sexual instinct because Freud created an entire system, which
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: is wonderful that when the sexual instinct is interfered with,
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: he cataloged very meticulously all the strange things that can
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: happen in the psyche and even in the body if
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: something just as basic as sexuality is thwarted, grossly thwarted.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: So Freud's done a great job with that. But things
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: like creativity, activity, reflection, religion, and hunger, very little work
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: has been done to that degree to say, how do
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: we become unwell? For instance, when creativity has been grossly
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: interfered with, the capacity to create.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I'm thinking of this young man that
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: I know just in my personal life who is really
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: extraordinarily bright and creative, but he is having such a
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: hard time kind of finding his way because he has really,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: kind of crippling obsessive compulsive disorder. And, you know, he
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: is now receiving kind of cognitive behavioral treatment for that.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: And I think it's having some good effect. But the
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: thing is that, you know, I know him quite well.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: And my diagnosis of the problem, and of course I
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: could be wrong, but it goes to what you were
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: just saying, Joseph, because he's a very soulful person and
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: a deep thinker. And I think has a kind of
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: strong spiritual capacity. But his upbringing and worldview is such
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: that he cannot admit any of that. You know, he
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: kind of laughs at me for being interested in dreams,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: for example. And at one point, he did share a
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: dream with me that he was living in a really narrow,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: very narrow, narrow house. And to me, what I imagine
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: is that I think this person has an expansive soul
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: and needs a way to relate to the larger order
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: of things. But he's shut that down. And so it
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: kind of comes out through the obsessive compulsive behaviors. I
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: might be wrong, but my fantasy is that if he
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: would take up philosophy, for example, or really kind of,
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: you know, get interested in, you know, the nature of
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: the cosmos or, you know, read a lot of literary fiction,
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: that some of the pressure that his psyche is under
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: might be released a little bit. But I did want
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: to say, you know, so what we've been talking about,
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: you know, if you think your channel is blocked, what
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: are some things you can do? And I don't pretend
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: that this is an easy or quickly solved problem, but
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: I do have some suggestions. When I'm working with someone
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: and I feel like that channel is blocked, here are
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: some questions that I ask them. So what did you
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: want to be when you were a kid? And a
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: lot of times there's a very quick answer to that. Oh,
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: I wanted to be an astronaut or something, but it's like, no,
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, there was like what you told the adults,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: you know, but what, what did you imagine doing? What
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: did you fantasize about doing when you were a kid?
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: You know, and, and oftentimes there's many things and they,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: they might be, you know, sort of strange, but if,
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: if we, if we allow them to kind of take
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: shape and take form, You know, we could be curious
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: about that and sort of see where there's a germ,
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: see if there's something back there that was there before
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: the works got gummed up that we can find. Another
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: question is, what are you really good at? Like, what
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: are you the best at in the whole world of
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: anyone you know, you're the one who makes the best
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: tomato sauce, or you're the one who always knows where
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: things are, or it doesn't have to be like, I'm
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: really good at, you know, Winning law cases, it doesn't
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: have to be that grandiose. It could just be something small.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: It could be, I'm really good at thinking up clever
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: solutions to things. I'm really good at, I'm the one
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: people call when something goes wrong and they need a
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: listening ear, or I'm really good at making people laugh.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: It's like find that thing because often the thing that
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: we're just really, really good at has some connection to
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: our destiny and why we're here. And then the other thing,
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: and I know we've talked about this before on the podcast,
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: is I'll say to people, follow the energy. Like like
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: me with my silly thing yesterday about climbing mount kilimanjaro
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: it's like when that happens when you find yourself you
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: know passing a storefront and you see like beautiful yarn
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: and you're like oh i don't know maybe i'll decide
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: to knit like don't just shut that down i'm not
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: saying you should run in and spend two hundred dollars
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: on knitting supplies but But let that live with you.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: Let that live with you. Imagine learning to knit. And
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: what would that be like? And is there a version
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: of that you want to bring alive in your life?
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: But even just before that, just let yourself have the fantasy.
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: Notice it.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: Value it. Value the fantasy. And see what happens if
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: you start doing that. And just as you go through
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: your life day by day, where's the energy? What are
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: the things, we all have things we have to do.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: What are the things you want to do? What are they?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: I often ask people to just notice what they like.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: And it's surprising that that goes by the boards a
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: lot of the time of, you know, I like going
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: out to lunch. I like that first cup of coffee
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: in the morning. But to start literally noticing and And
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: take a little journal around with you. It could be small.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: It could be anything. But start paying attention of just
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: noting down little random thoughts, a little notation. It says
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: to psyche, I am paying attention. I noticed that. You're
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: starting to practice self-reflection. And, of course, we all do
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: things that we don't necessarily like. But it follows along
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: with what you were saying, Lisa, of, You know, where's
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: my natural energy? Where's the fantasy? What was this little
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: spark of a crazy idea that I had while I
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: was driving to the grocery store of to develop a
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: connection with your own interior? And my other thought is
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: really seems not to fit with a sort of psychoanalytic orientation,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: but is just do something. Just do something. Have novelty.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: Break out of your pattern.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: Do something different.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: Go somewhere. Go for a walk. It seems pretty silly.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, why would you drive downtown and walk around
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: the park? Well, why not? It's like your analogy to
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: walking by a knitting store and having an idea. It
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: doesn't mean that you're going to spend the money on
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: knitting supplies. But have some different experiences because oftentimes things
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: from the external world can find a niche in the
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: internal world, can spark something. So change the channel, get
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: out of a rut, go for something that is novel
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: and see if you like it.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: Deb, that is really good advice because I think another thing,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: we didn't talk about this, but I think it's not unimportant.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: Another thing that can happen when we get in one
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: of these low libido, low energy states is we're actually
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: overwhelmed by our choices.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: And we have a fantasy that there is one correct choice.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: And so we feel paralyzed.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: So we could go to this graduate program or that
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: graduate program, or do we want to study this, or
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: do we want to study that, or should we take
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: this job or that job? And sometimes the choice just
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: feels too momentous, and so we kind of do nothing.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: And I think your advice is, you know, just do something.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, when you're stuck, just do something. Make
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: one move. And don't worry too much about whether it's
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: a move in the wrong direction. I mean, you know,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: as long as it's, you know, fairly low stakes, I
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: wouldn't say, okay, I'm going to commit to this, you know, $ 400, 000
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: graduate program. No, maybe not that. But, you know, do something. Just,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: you know, do something and do something maybe you haven't
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: done before. You know, I mean, there's a kind of
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: exhortation to sort of try something that's a little challenging
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: every day. You know, do one thing that's a little
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: scary or difficult that you haven't done before. And I
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: think that's a good practice.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: It reminds me a little bit of an interesting parameter
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: that some people are riding on. The tension between maximizing
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: an experience versus satisficing an experience. And what they're finding
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: is that because of the multiple options that we have,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: and perhaps the great capacity that people have in the
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: marketplace now to get the best, only the best, or
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: the greatest, or the most gratifying, that if we're looking
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: at having only the best, just the right thing, that
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: that's correlated with depression, paralysis, this inability to take action.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: What they find is that if people develop a criteria of,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: of satisficing. That, you know, I'm going to do an
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: activity that's just satisficing.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: That is a ghastly word. I just have to.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: I know, isn't it? I didn't make it up. And
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: what they wanted to do was somehow step outside of satisfying.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: But what's an activity that would just be satisficing? Well,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: maybe that would be enough to just Take a walk
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: around the block. It doesn't have to be maximizing everything.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. That's really interesting.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: Just a little bit of creativity, a little bit of self-reflection.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: Just what basic body need have I not touched on
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: that would just be satisfying? Maybe I can't give myself
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: a shower, but what if I stuck my head under
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: the kitchen sink and just cleaned my hair with some
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: nice warm water? That sounds odd, but for some people,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: that's kind of what they can get to if they
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: don't even have the energy to shower. But it's remarkable
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: how good that feels if you can't get the other
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: stuff going. So just a little bit of satisfaction in
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: any of these areas can be enough to let a
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: little quantity of energy free up and increase. If that
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: becomes available in the system, then other more dynamic images
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: can gain some energy and we can find ourselves willing
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: or capable of taking another larger, more dynamic step. So
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: just as you were saying, Deb, any activity, if we
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: know that we're looking for action, any bit of creativity,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: any bit of sexuality, which could be something just pleasurable.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: This pleasurable is just running your fingers up and down
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: the inside of your arm to give you a sense like, oh,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: that feels good. That's a nice feeling. I haven't thought
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: about that feeling nice for a long time. And self-reflecting
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: is just sitting there and talking to yourself. The religious function,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: I think, has to do just with indulging the mythic world,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: which for some people might just be reading Rumi's poems.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: We don't have to make a big commitment to the
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: religion of our childhood to be brushing against some kind
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: of a cosmology, some kind of a fantasy about something
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: that's greater than us. But again, I think what we're
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: all saying is just a little taste of something that
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: tastes good. can be enough to just point the compass
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: in a direction and create a little spark, a little
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: bit of vitality. And that builds up over time.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: Well, perhaps we should switch to a dream. And before
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: we do, I'm going to plug Dream School. So we
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: talked this episode a lot about how tuning into your
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: dreams can be a way to get you unstuck. And
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: Dream School is a tool that can help you tune in,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: can help you. We have help in there for recalling
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: your dreams, recording your dreams, and then understanding the messages
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: that come. So dreams are one of the principal ways
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: that I look to when I'm working with someone who's
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: very stuck. You know, I'll say, bring in the dreams.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: Let's figure out what your psyche, what your soul needs
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: you to do. And Dream School will give you the
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: tools to learn how to do that. So we have
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: a sort of special dream today because this dreamer submitted
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: a dream back when the podcast was fairly new. And
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: we analyzed one of her dreams for her. It was
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: in 2018. And then she submitted this dream recently and
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: the dream references our interpretation. So we thought it would,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: it was a great example. There's some common imagery. It's
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: a wonderful example to look at these two very beautiful,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: complex dreams and kind of contrast them and kind of
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: see the shifts in her psyche. So I think I
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: will start by reading the original dream. And this dreamer is,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: I don't have her age then. Let me just see
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: how old she is now. So she's 50 now, and
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: this would have been about five years ago, I guess,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: that we did her first dream. So here's the first dream.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: The dream we have today, as always, sent in by
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: a listener. The dreamer is a 45-year-old woman who is
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: an engineer by training. And here's the dream. I am
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: in a bathhouse, a Turkish bath, and sitting immersed in
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: the pool of warm water to my waist. I am
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: sitting with my back to a rectangle column made out
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: of black granite. I have my arms are stretched like
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: a crucifix and my hands are holding onto the column
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: that is behind me. The pool is made out of
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: green granite. To my left, there is an altar made
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: out of a cubic shaped granite and on which sits
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: a woman who is a sage, a seer or fortune
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: teller or a magician. She is wearing a long dress
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: and is sitting cross-legged. My back is hot and dries
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: the film of water on the column, and as the
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: column dries, my back leaves marks on the column. The
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: marks are magical symbols. They resemble the Japanese Zen art
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: that is done by a water-wet brush on a black rock,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: and it fades as water dries. The woman comes and
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: looks at them, and she is flabbergasted. She has never
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: seen magical marks such as these. In the bottom of
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: the pool and in front of me, there is a
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: piece of green granite with a circular metal inlay and
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: a ring attached to the circular metal. It resembles the
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: remains of a counterweight that would have been used in
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: operating the gates to castles. I look at it and
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: with the power of my mere stare, the rock floats
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: up to the surface of the water and and glides
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: on the surface. Then the rock starts skipping on the
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: surface of water three times and lands on the skirt
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: of the woman who is back on the altar. Ooh, okay.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: That's a lot of archetypal material.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. So here's what the streamer says. I am
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: a survivor. I'm a trauma survivor of a revolution, war,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: and political mass murders that drastically impacted my immediate family
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: in a Middle Eastern country. I migrated 20 years ago,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: and in the past four years, I have been in analysis.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: I am at a point in analysis that I can
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: interpret my own dreams, and I have extensively read books.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: In the past five to six months, I've been having
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: frequent and fascinating archetypal dreams of gods, goddesses, and magical
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: beings and places. Okay, and then what were the main
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: feelings in the dream? She says a pleasant reminder of
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: a Middle Eastern bathhouse, serene environment, its heat and tranquility.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: The magical nature of the dream was puzzling. Okay, so
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: let's see about the new dream. As I mentioned, this
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: is a 50-year-old woman. She works as a judge. She
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: titled this dream Silvery Lake. So this is the new dream.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: I am sitting cross-legged in meditation. I'm sitting against the
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: outside wall of an old Swiss German building with white
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: walls and exposed brown beams. Above my head, there is
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: a narrow porch on the second floor of this building,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: and it is giving me shelter. The porch is also
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: made from dark brown wood, similar to the exposed beams.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: In front of me, there is a vast lake that
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: is silvery color under the beautiful moonlight. As I meditate,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: the moon goes through phases. It is a crescent and
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: then becomes full. I am not sure how long I
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: am here, but when the moon becomes full, there is
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: a high tide and the water rises so that it
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: comes all the way to me. I am submerged in
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: this water up to my waist, and I continue meditating.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: The water is surprisingly warm and is exactly the same
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: temperature as my body, so I don't feel it at all.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: At this point in the dream, I remember a dream
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: from four to five years ago where I was in
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: a magnificent Roman Persian bath. This submergence in the high
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: tide reminds me of that dream, and I even remember
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: the interpretation that this Jungian life had of that dream.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: I continue my meditation and slowly the lake water recedes.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: And to my amazement, I am completely dry. The tide
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: is over. I know that I now need to get
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: up and go and lead my journalist and lawyer friends.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: I get up and go. Now I'm in the old
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: library building. It reminds me of Trinity College Libraries. I
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: can see the ceiling curved or arched beam. I can
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: also see the beams under the floor, which is unusual.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: The beam below the floor mirrors the beams over the ceiling.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: And as though I have laser eyes, I can see
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: inside the building structure. This is the place we work
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: or I am coming to meet my collaborators. I have
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: a file of paper under one arm as I walk
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: along this room. And so here's the context. She says,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: the dream you interpreted in 2018 was remarkably significant. It
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: unfolded over four years of my life as I became
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: very involved with Zen practice. I know this dream is
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: saying something similar and has similar significance. It even made
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: a reference to the bath dream you interpreted. This year,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: I have begun some collaboration with fellow Iranians who are
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: journalists and lawyers, and we are focusing on environmental issues
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: and justice. I recently came back from a Zen yoga
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: teacher training with the same Zen master. My perspective in
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: life has drastically changed over the past year as I
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: embarked on a number of Zen practice retreats with high intensity.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: I am still an analysis and have been for eight years.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: Life is at its most peaceful and happy while not
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: much has changed outwardly. And in terms of feelings in
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: the dream, She says, calmness, resolve, happiness. The silvery lake
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: and moonlight was beautiful. I do think there is something
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: about the Swiss architecture and the lake. Perhaps a Jungian
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: reference or Lake Zurich? Not sure. I have always wished
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: to see Trinity College Library. And in terms of association,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: she says, the moonlight and the silver colors of the
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: lake and the moon are contrasted with the warm glow
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: in the old library and the warm wooden walls and floors,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: which were very earthy. Being washed by the lake water
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: without feeling cold or wet was amazingly pleasant. So I'll
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: just start by pointing out these themes. So there's sitting cross-legged.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: There's obviously being in water up to her waist. She
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: mentions in the first dream that the, the, the column
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: is wet and then as it dries, these marks are
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: left in the second dream. She notes that it's the,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: the thing she's leaning against, I think is dry. And there's,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of kind of strong spiritual
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: imagery in both dreams. Interestingly, one of the things that's
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: really different is there is no sage, magician, fortune teller figure.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 4: It strikes me that this dream that you just read
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: has a real internal consistency that the dream from four
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 4: or five years ago didn't have. We have in the
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: dream from 2018, there is this sage, magical woman, a
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: fortune teller or magician, magical symbols. And then in the
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: second half of the first dream, the counterweight does not
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: act as it should. She says the counterweight moves just
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: from the power of her stare that floats up to
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: the surface of the water and glides on the surface
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: and starts skipping and landing on the skirt of the sage. So,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 4: This is a sort of magical kind of occurrence in
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: the dream that does not comport with what we sometimes
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: call the real-life test of what would happen in real life. Well,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: a counterweight should have weight because its weight is what
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: helps you lift, let's say, the castle door. The weight
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: is needed. Now, this dream, everything is really much more consistent.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: She's meditating. There's water. There's moonlight. The moon goes through phases.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 4: High tide. She continues meditating. She's in sync with the
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: water temperature, which is the same as her body temperature.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: And then it recedes. And then she says, I now
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: need to get up and go and lead my journalist
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 4: and lawyer friends to I get up and go. So
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: I'm really noting that after this experience in the dream,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 4: she engages in a real activity. She's going to engage
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 4: with colleagues, lawyer, and do something in the world. So
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 4: the hint of escapism that I might think of in
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 4: the first dream is absent in this dream.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just to tip our hand here, we have not
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: re-listened to our interpretation of the earlier dream. But I
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: remember that, Joseph, you picked up on the counterweight. And
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: I don't remember if we use this term, but it's
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: basically kind of an image of a sort of spiritual bypass.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: It's all kind of magical and great, but something doesn't
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: have the gravitas it should. And I agree with you, Deb.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: This dream hits really differently. The other important thing is
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: obviously this moon that goes through phases, and there's this
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: kind of tide that rises and falls with it, which
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: really conjures up this image of a kind of process
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: that just needs to take a certain amount of time.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: It's very similar, actually, to the imagery in the fairy tale,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: The Nixie of the Mill Pond. This woman is trying
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: to rescue her lover, I think. And she goes to
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: the mill pond. And at one point, it's just his
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: head that's above the water. And then she has to
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: come back. And I think she has to come back
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: at the full moon, if I'm not mistaken. The next
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: time she comes back, more of him is revealed. And
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: then finally, enough of him is revealed that she can
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: rescue him. I might have some of those details mixed up,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: but it's that idea. So it's this idea of a
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: sort of developmental sequence over a long period of time.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: And that's really portrayed beautifully in this dream.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: I'm going to pull up an image, which we don't
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: normally do on the podcast, but I think it would
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: be interesting. This is the Tarot key number 18, the moon.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: And it depicts a pool of water in the front
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: and a golden path that leads up various hills up
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: to a violet mountain. From the water there is a
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: violet crayfish that passes by rocks and vegetation, passes by
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: a wolf, and then a dog from grassy fields to
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: plowed fields and between two towers clearly built by human
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: beings and above it is a moon that is in
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: various phases, but the power of the moon. So when
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 3: we were listening to the dream, I was thinking of
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: the magnetic power of the moon to draw. And so
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 3: in the dream, it seems to be drawing the tide
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 3: and that as the water or the tide continues to rise,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 3: as she's meditating, that the water meets her and it
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: is the same as her body temperature. So I'll just
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 3: stop at that point. So in Tarot Key 18, what
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: it's depicting is the magnetic draw of evolution, that from
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: the primordial waters, these crustaceans, are drawn forward in some
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: way that is remarkable. Becoming wolves and then wolves refine
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: through human intervention into dogs and then mammals evolve into
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: human beings. And there is a promise that life is
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: continuing to be drawn forward in this evolutionary process to
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 3: the next stage and the next stage. the fact that
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: this somehow is related to her being in a meditative state.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: What that suggests is that meditation for her is in
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: some way facilitating an evolutionary process, which many of the
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: yogic traditions claim to be true. Now, in yogic traditions,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: there is an idea that meditation actually draws a substance
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: up from the base of the spine the kundalini, which
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: just means the serpent force, that there's some kind of
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: a vitality in the body that is released and rushes
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: forward and facilitates the activation of unconscious material and the
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: activation of those latent images puts pressure on the ego
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: to develop. So many people that practice both meditation and
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: kundalini yoga often go through periods of great intensity because
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: material has been activated and now demands accommodation. But there
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: is a path of evolution that is intrinsic to human beings,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: which Jung talks about in terms of telos, that there
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: is a way forward. We might traverse that path slowly,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: but sometimes if we avail ourselves of kind of dynamism,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: we might be able to make that happen faster, almost
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: in the same way that putting a tomato plant in
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 3: a hothouse makes it grow under extraordinary conditions so things
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: come to fruit more dynamically because it's enhanced. So she's
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: in a process where something magnetic, something much larger than herself,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: the full moon, is drawing a tide. And because I
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 3: live at the coast, a full moon can pull the
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: ocean or the bay dozens of feet higher onto the shore.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: And if there's a wind or a storm, it can
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 3: really move enormous amounts of energy. And that seems to
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 3: be happening. The other thing which I find very important
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: is the idea that the water is the same temperature
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 3: as her body. That seems very, very important, and there's
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: two associations. One is with amniotic fluid, and that's really
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: like a cellular memory of returning to a primal, gestating place.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 3: But interestingly, the alchemists also said that their furnace, or
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 3: the athanor, where remarkable transformations would occur later in life,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 3: must be kept at a warm, equable heat. And equable
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: means a kind of homeostasis. And what the metaphor is
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 3: that it too is the human body. That the second
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: alchemical birth happens in the regulating heat of your own body,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: facilitated by this meditational evolution. So I have a sense
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: that she is in a very substantive process. And the
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 3: last image where this is leading, which I just thought
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: was absolutely remarkable, she's granted a kind of magical power
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: that she now has x-ray eyes, laser beam eyes, which
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 3: means that she now can see underneath the surface of things.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: which some people might say is a symbolic attitude, understanding metaphor.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 3: Some people quite literally develop a spiritual sensitivity that their
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 3: intuition is so remarkably attuned that they are able to
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: see patterns and sense things that are happening in the
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 3: soul and even in the community before they emerge into
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: the conscious life. And what she sees is that, that
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 3: which is below is as that which is above, and
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: that which is above is as that which is below,
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 3: which is one of the Hermetic ideas and part of
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 3: the tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, and is said to be
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: this recognition of spiritual continuity. Another way, which was related
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 3: to our earlier podcast, and you were saying this, Lisa,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 3: that there is a demand that the inside and the
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: outside of our personality become congruent and that we might
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 3: become unwell. And this goes to the Gospel of Thomas.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: That if you bring forth what is in you, it
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: has a medicinal value. But if you don't bring forward
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: what is in you, that it will... hurt you. That
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 3: it can become poisonous. So I find this to be
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: just a remarkable spiritual dream. And how wonderful that towards
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: the end that she is meeting her collaborators. The inner
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 3: collaborators could be all of these wonderful inner capacities, inner figures,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 3: the self, the functional complexes, all of her creative capacities,
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: as well as having outer correlates, really finding a community
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: of people that are deeply supporting her in this evolution
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: that she is facilitating through her own efforts. discipline and
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 3: her commitment to align with those magnetic forces that are
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 3: drawing all life slowly or quickly forward in an evolution.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 3: So those are some of my fantasies about this.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: Those are great.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 4: This is an unusual dream, you know, building on what
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 4: you've just said, Joseph. This is a very affirming and
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 4: confirming dream. Most of the time, our dreams offer some
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 4: sort of a corrective. It might be a really contradictory
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: position where the dream maker is saying, nope, you know,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 4: I see this totally differently. It might be some difference. Yeah,
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 4: I agree with this part, but the dream maker says,
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 4: I see this part a little differently. It's unusual when
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: a dream is as unambiguously affirming as this. And it
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 4: really seems to hark to the work that this dreamer
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 4: has been doing in her spiritual and meditative practice since
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 4: that first dream she offered us in 2018.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: You know, Deb, it's true that dreams are not often confirmatory,
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: but I do find that if dreams If you're in
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: a long-term depth process, you have more confirmatory dreams. You know,
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: if you've been working with your dreams for a while,
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: your earlier dreams are like, no, you're not getting it.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: You got to do more of this, less of that.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: But then eventually you sort of sync up with the
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: self and the dreams and we're like, good job.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 4: Good job.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: Pay attention to this. But overall, you're doing good. And,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: you know, and it's interesting because if you look at
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: the resolution of both of these dreams, I mean, there
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: isn't a strong resolution in either. But the first one,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: it's really open-ended, right? It's like the counterweight just lands
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: on the skirt or whatever of the seer. And it's
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 2: sort of like we are just left in the middle
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: of the story. But, Deb, as you pointed out, and
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: I think this is just so important for this dream,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: you really put your finger on it. She has this
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: process in the Silvery Lake. And then she moves into
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: the library. So something is happening. Either she's meeting inner
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: collaborators or she's moving out into the world, maybe both.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: And the library is a much earthier place. There's a
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: sort of dark earth-toned wood than the silvery lake. So
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: we've left the realm of the spiritual. But we've been
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: able to carry that gift into this different environment. And
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: it's a library. It's a special library. So it's a
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: place of wisdom and learning. And she can now kind
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: of access that. So I think that in terms of,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: you know, we should talk sometime on the podcast. I
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: would like to talk about a dream series. This is
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: a series of two. But it does show you how
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: dreams are like a little x-ray into your psychic development
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: to even just compare and contrast these two dreams. And Joseph,
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: I loved what you said about the water and her
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: relationship with the water is really different in these two
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: dreams for one. The first dream, it's a bath. It's
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: a gorgeous bath, but it's a bath. This is a
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: vast lake. Mm-hmm. And also she has this wonderfully pleasurable experience.
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: I love that you brought up amniotic fluid. That's just
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: really brilliant. I also thought of the alchemical aqua permanence
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: or the divine water that she's somehow bathing into. So really, really,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: really lovely. And thank you so much to the streamer
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: for coming back to us with this dream.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 3: I'm so turned on by the dream, I just wanted
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 3: to say a few more things.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 3: The water that does not wet the hand is mercury.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 3: Of course, many of you have seen liquid mercury. It's
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 3: that strange substance. It's a metal, but it actually doesn't
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 3: saturate anything. And when something is surrounded by mercury and
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 3: then heated up, it acts as the great solvent and often...
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: in alchemical work, an ore would be crushed, it would
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 3: be put in a vessel, the mercury would be boiled
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 3: with it, and then the mercury would take the gold,
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 3: separate it out, and then the mercury would vaporize and
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 3: then go into a cooling coil, and then the gold
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 3: would be left coating the surface, the inside surface of
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 3: the vessel. So mercury is the universal... Don't try this
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 3: at home. Don't try this at home because it'll make
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 3: you very unwell. Mercury's dangerous. But in the ancient world,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 3: they thought the mercury had created the gold and then
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: would then exit the chemical reaction unchanged and ever pure.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 3: So to be in and out of the silvery liquid...
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: That's great. That's great. that leaves you dry is very
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 3: much like... the transformative mercury.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: And, and the divine water, the aqua permanence is contained
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: in the vase hermeticum in, in the mercury space. And
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: of course, mercury is, um, Hermes, their, their equivalents.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: So that's, that's brilliant.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 3: So, and I, I would just love to read the
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 3: Emerald Tablet of Hermes before we finish because I think
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: it's like in the space. Deb, you want to say something?
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 4: I'm just noticing the feeling tone among the three of
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 4: us and for this dream, which the dreamer says that
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 4: the feelings in the dream were calmness and satisfaction and happiness.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 4: There's been a contagion effect that we're all resonating with.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 4: To what a wonderful dream. What a confirming, affirming dream.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 4: And that there's more and more and more. Something has
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 4: come toward her and given her this very special dream.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: And Joseph, I want to let you say what you're
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: going to say. But I'll just say that I've had
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: the pleasure of getting to know this dreamer just a
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: little bit because we've corresponded about this. about the first
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 2: dream because anyway, and I know that, um, the time
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: of the first dream, she was, uh, there was some
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: very difficult material and I, I'm just really tickled to
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: hear her say that life is sort of as good
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: as it's ever been. Um, but, but anyway, so, you know,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: even without knowing that though, we, we came to understand
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: that by, by the images in the dream. And I
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: can just confirm it because I know her just, just
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: a tiny little bit, but Joseph, what were you going
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: to say?
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 3: And also, so wonderfully, as she goes into this transformative water,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 3: she comes out and then she goes into life because
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 3: she's going to then lead her fellow lawyers and journalists,
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 3: which is much that process of illumination that somebody is
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 3: transformed but then has a kind of duty to the
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: world at large, which is so fantastic. And you'll hear
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 3: that in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes because as far
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 3: as the energy ascends, it then descends back down to earth. True,
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 3: without falsehood and certain and most true, that which is
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 3: above is as that which is below and that which
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 3: is below is as that which is above for the
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 3: performance of the miracles of the one thing. And as
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 3: all things are from one by the mediation of one,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 3: so all things have their birth from this one thing
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 3: by adaptation. The sun is its father, the moon its mother,
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 3: the wind carries it in its belly, its nurse is
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 3: the earth. This is the father of all perfection or
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 3: consummation of the whole world. Its power is integrating. it
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 3: be turned into earth. Thou shalt separate the earth from
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 3: the fire, the subtle from the gross, suavely and with
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 3: great ingenuity. It ascends from earth to heaven, and descends
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 3: again to earth, and receives the power of the superiors
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: and of the inferiors. So thou hast the glory of
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 3: the whole world, therefore let all obscurity flee before thee.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: This is the strong force of all forces, overcoming every
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 3: subtle and penetrating every solid thing. So the world was
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 3: created Hence were all wonderful adaptations of which this is
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 3: the manner. Therefore am I called Hermes Trismegistus, having the
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 3: three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. What
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 3: I have to tell is completed concerning the operation of
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 3: the sun. So people spend their whole lives unpacking that,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 3: but there's much in this dream which lends to that.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there is. What a beautiful dream. We hope you've
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: enjoyed our extended discussion of it.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to This Jungian Life from our website, thisjungianlife.com.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook,
• 1:39:36
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• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: and submit your dreams for possible interpretation on another episode.
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: We'd like to thank our listener who shared a dream
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: for today's show and hope you'll let us know what
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: topics you'd enjoy hearing more about. Until next time, keep
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: living this Jungian life.