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SHARK: Elemental Symbol of Our Will to Survive and Ravenous Hunger for Experience · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  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
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  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.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod. Today,
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: we are going to talk about sharks. And as listeners
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: are well aware, I live on Cape Cod. where sharks
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: are of great local interest. We have many of them,
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  Speaker 4: a population of hundreds of great white sharks off the
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: coast of Cape Cod due to our enormous seal population,
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: partly because of a government act protecting them, partly because
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: of a break in the outer barrier So we have
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: what sharks most like to eat, which is seals. Mmm, yummy.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Says our favorite Jungian shark lady.
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  Speaker 4: And there was a fatal shark attack here in 2018.
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: But more than that, more than the outer world reality factors,
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: which are interesting and many, what happens in the inner world?
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: That gets lit up in us when we think about
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  Speaker 4: sharks and what might be lurking in the water that
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: we want to go in for recreational purposes. But what's underneath,
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: below the surface, with teeth?
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  Speaker 2: So Deb, I just want to ask you, do you
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  Speaker 2: like see sharks from time to time?
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  Speaker 4: I have never seen sharks. I have never seen a shark.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Like a thin crusting of the water. Okay.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, the famous image from the movie Jaws. So there
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: is certainly an outer world reality factor. But our mission
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: here today is to maybe to explore the interface between
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: some of the statistics and facts about sharks and what
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: happens in the inner world that sparks interest. Such a
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: terror of going into the ocean.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Don't go in the water.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: I was, I'm not going to say exactly how old
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I was, but I was pretty young when Jaws came out.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: But I remember what, but I remember it. I remember
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: what a phenomenon it was, that movie. And it is
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: still such a good movie. I go back and rewatch
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: it every few years. And, you know, sometimes they put
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: it in theaters around this time of year. And it is, damn,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: that's such a good movie.
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  Speaker 4: It sparked three sequels. And Peter Benchley wrote the book
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: and then Steven Spielberg made the movie. And they've actually
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: expressed some regret about having hyped this to the extent
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: that they did. Because the actual incidence of shark bites
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: or people being killed is extremely low. Like, you know,
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: by 2018 or something, I think five people worldwide have
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: been killed by sharks. So the chances of serious injury
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: or death in household accidents, car accidents, a hundred other things.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Tripping over your laundry basket. Exactly.
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  Speaker 3: That most lethal of all dangers.
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  Speaker 2: I read that once, though.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: How many people every year die of laundry baskets?
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  Speaker 4: Laundry is very, very dangerous to your health.
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  Speaker 3: I've often tried to convince people of that, yes. Death
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  Speaker 3: by laundry.
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  Speaker 4: But isn't it interesting that we consider all kinds of
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: things that are potentially much more dangerous. like driving in
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: your car. We just hop in and out. We take
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: our kids, the baby, everybody, grandma, but no one, oh,
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  Speaker 4: I shouldn't say that. We're all very leery of going
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  Speaker 4: in the ocean side water on the Atlantic. And the
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  Speaker 4: beach that we go to now has an emergency kit
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  Speaker 4: as you, at the very entrance to the beach, the
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  Speaker 4: path goes to the beach and then down to the water.
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  Speaker 4: But If somebody were to be attacked by a shark,
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  Speaker 4: by the time you ran across the beach and figured
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  Speaker 4: out how to open the emergency box and utilize whatever
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: is in the emergency box, it seems like it would
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: be way too little too late. Nevertheless, that's the extent
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: of the awareness and, let me say, anxiety about sharks
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: on Cape Cod. You know, and we joked about their
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: ponds on Cape Cod and we can swim in the bay.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: I'm like, is there a shark in that pond?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Or only snapping turtles? Are they migrating? What about swimming pools?
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  Speaker 4: They'll be there soon, I'm sure. Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Or they come up through your pipes into your toilet, sharks.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes little kids are afraid of that.
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  Speaker 4: So isn't that something, it's about, it takes me to
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  Speaker 4: two things. One is anxiety disorders, but the other one
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  Speaker 4: is teeth.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Just want to remind all our listeners that we have
• 6:21
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• 6:24
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• 6:27
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• 6:30
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• 6:33
  Speaker 2: we answer a question from one of our patrons about
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: the dynamics between the negative mother and the negative animus,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: and she gives us two short dreams that have to
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: do with a seeming collusion between these dark forces in
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: the psyche, and we consider what that might possibly mean.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: There really is something different about sharks. I know I've
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  Speaker 3: talked to you guys before, but I have a sea dew,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: and I spend all summer long out on the water
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  Speaker 3: with the sea dew, which is a very intimate kind
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  Speaker 3: of encounter, and I have encountered a swimming bear. I've
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: encountered alligators.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: But I have to tell you, which is exciting, but
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  Speaker 3: the two times that I've seen a shark's dorsal fin,
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  Speaker 3: which is very different from a dolphin's, a shark's dorsal
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  Speaker 3: fin kind of cutting through the water, there is a
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  Speaker 3: kind of primal terror. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Seeing even just that dorsal fin cutting through the water
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  Speaker 3: in the way that it does, it could have not
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  Speaker 3: even been a very large shark. But it hits my
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  Speaker 3: nervous system in a very different way. It's much more frightening.
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  Speaker 2: I think that's one of the reasons why, just to
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  Speaker 2: go back to Jaws for a second, I mean, in
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: a way, it's not really about sharks, right? It's about
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: the confrontation with the other thing from the depths.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: No, but that really was an encounter with a shark.
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  Speaker 3: That's its own kind of horror, but symbolically, yes.
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  Speaker 2: But you're talking about the way it hits your nervous system.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: And I think there is something that is particularly fascinating.
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  Speaker 2: I want to say even, I mean, terrifying, you know,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: if you're out there in the water. I mean, this
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: is silly, but I was playing around in the water yesterday.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: occasionally bull sharks will come in from the Atlantic and
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: go up the river.
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  Speaker 3: They're aggressive.
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  Speaker 2: And, and I was like, someone said that. And I
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: was like, so scared. And I was like, this is ridiculous.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Like the chance that, you know, actually what I was
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: doing there was I was hunting for fossil shark teeth,
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  Speaker 2: which is really cool. And we could talk about, you
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  Speaker 2: can find a megalodon to the size of your hand,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: you know, which is just amazing. But, um, But I
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  Speaker 2: think they really have this fascination for us because it's
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  Speaker 2: this primal power. It's ancient. There's no relationship, right? They're
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: just a hunter. And they're so, so, I mean, you
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  Speaker 2: feel how ancient they are. And they live in the
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: depths and they could come up and bite you. And that,
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  Speaker 2: you know, we are afraid. of ancient things that swim
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  Speaker 2: around the unconscious.
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  Speaker 4: And sharks are something like 400 million years old. They
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: predate trees. That's how old they are. They're torpedo-shaped. They
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: have these black beady eyes. I'm thinking about great white sharks.
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  Speaker 4: They have thousands of teeth that are flexible and that
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: grow back. They can lose them and replace them. And
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  Speaker 4: they are curious. They have an aura, especially popularized by
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: the movie Jaws, of intelligence and purposefulness and strength. stalking
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  Speaker 4: and intentional predation. So we have all of these things
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  Speaker 4: that are all combined in the image of a shark.
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  Speaker 4: So it's the perfect monster.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Exactly. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: The leviathans of our lives. Exactly.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes.
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  Speaker 4: Let me add to that, because it sort of segues
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  Speaker 4: into this, that there is a diagnosis in the DSM,
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  Speaker 4: which is the Mental Health Diagnostic Book, the Diagnostic and
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  Speaker 4: Statistical Manual. So fear of sharks is one of a
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  Speaker 4: big class of anxiety disorders, and it's called galliophobia. Galio
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  Speaker 4: is the word for shark and phobia, the word for fear.
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  Speaker 4: And the definition is marked and persistent fear that is
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  Speaker 4: excessive or unreasonable, cued by the presence or anticipation of
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  Speaker 4: a specific object or situation such as, and they name
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  Speaker 4: four things, flying, animals, heights, receiving an injection, or seeing blood.
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  Speaker 4: I guess that's five things. So shark's touch on all
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  Speaker 4: five of those general categories.
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  Speaker 2: It's an animal.
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  Speaker 4: It's in the natural environment. It involves blood. It's situational.
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  Speaker 4: You have to be in the ocean. And so it
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  Speaker 4: hits on all those things that we are wired to
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  Speaker 4: be fearful of in the first place. So that's another
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  Speaker 4: way of just highlighting that it's the perfect monster.
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  Speaker 3: Sharks are the phlebotomists of the marine world.
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  Speaker 2: But, you know, talking about the stalking quality, which I
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  Speaker 2: think that is a big, I mean, that's certainly in
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  Speaker 2: every movie, right? Is that you see the fin and
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  Speaker 2: then it starts to circle. I don't know if that's
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  Speaker 2: how it really is. I don't think it probably is
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  Speaker 2: not how it really is. But that is part of
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  Speaker 2: the experience, the imaginal experience of the shark attack. And
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  Speaker 2: there is a folklore belief about sharks that they know
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  Speaker 2: when someone on board a ship is going to die.
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  Speaker 2: And so they follow the ship awaiting the sea burial.
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  Speaker 2: This is kind of an ancient folklore belief.
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  Speaker 4: The following the ship, of course, was the great image
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  Speaker 4: of Moby Dick and Herman Melville's classic novel that this
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  Speaker 4: great white whale had intentionality and purpose and was after them.
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  Speaker 4: And Moby Dick was a white whale and sharks, great
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  Speaker 4: white sharks, of course, are actually they're more sort of
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  Speaker 4: dark colored. But sharks are great white sharks are warm blooded,
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  Speaker 4: which was my sort of surprising fact of the week.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't believe her until I had to look
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  Speaker 2: it up myself. I didn't believe it.
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  Speaker 4: But it makes them even more sort of intentional and
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  Speaker 4: predatory that they're not cold blooded. It invests them with
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  Speaker 4: a sense of fellow mammals or fellow warm bloods, intelligent
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  Speaker 4: and curious. It upgrades the shark quality in our psyches.
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  Speaker 2: You know, are they intelligent, though, or are they just really, like,
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  Speaker 2: perfectly evolved killing machines?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know that anybody's figured out a way
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  Speaker 4: to give them an IQ test. But I think we
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  Speaker 4: tend to associate both a primal malevolence.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
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  Speaker 4: And we know that the unconscious has purpose and direction
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  Speaker 4: that's not always accessible to consciousness. So we can project
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  Speaker 4: that onto sharks, too, whether it's intelligence, quote-unquote, or some
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  Speaker 4: kind of purposeful, directed, instinctual or intelligent predatory pursuit.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that, you know, look, I feel like
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  Speaker 2: I have a lot to say here. I hope I
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: can make it all make sense. I mean, so Jaws is,
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  Speaker 2: it's a very similar story to Moby Dick, which is
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  Speaker 2: a story of an encounter with a numinous archetypal content
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  Speaker 2: from the collective unconscious that we must bow before. Of course,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: the way the film ends is we kill the shark,
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  Speaker 2: which is very much the sort of modern dilemma is
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: that we have gotten so much control over so much.
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  Speaker 2: We're so kind of ego heavy in the way that
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: we relate to the world that often we can, uh,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: be impoverished by our defenses against contents from the unconscious
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  Speaker 2: that are kind of too good. So we don't get
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  Speaker 2: the life-giving protective quality of the sort of shark imagery.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, the interesting thing is if you look at
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  Speaker 2: shark mythology, which occurs in places like Hawaii and Fiji,
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  Speaker 2: you know, sharks are fearsome in these cultures, but they're
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: ultimately protectors So in Fiji, for example, the shark god
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  Speaker 2: there is named Daku Waka. And he was a god
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  Speaker 2: and the protector of the island. He initially was going
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: to attack the island, but he was subdued by a
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: goddess who fought him in the form of an octopus.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And using her eight arms, she was able to tear
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: out all of his teeth. And then he was the
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  Speaker 2: sworn protector of the island. And that is a very
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  Speaker 2: kind of common theme that these fearsome animals, if we're
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: in right relationship with them, they serve as protectors. And
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: you see this in Egyptian mythology and Native American mythology.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: And another piece about the shark thing in these kind
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  Speaker 2: of Pacific cultures is that the shark god has to
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  Speaker 2: be propitiated. So if the shark god swims near your
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  Speaker 2: boat and threatens to upset it, you're supposed to pour
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: in a libation into the water and that will quiet
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: the shark god and propitiate him so that he won't
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  Speaker 2: harm you. But if you think about this as an
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  Speaker 2: image of how we relate to these powerful archetypal forces
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  Speaker 2: in the unconscious, we don't try to conquer them. We
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: don't try to get rid of them. We don't try
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  Speaker 2: to befriend them. We have to honor them. We have
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  Speaker 2: to be in right relationship and kind of recognize that
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  Speaker 2: this is a defeat for the ego.
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  Speaker 4: The psychological parallel that you're espousing here, Lisa, is so
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: right on that what do we do with the dark forces?
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: in the human psyche, in the natural environment, that these
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: are realities. And how do we live in right relationship?
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  Speaker 4: Not thinking we can just overpower it, but a quality
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: of acknowledgement, recognition, and acceptance. And that sometimes all we
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: can do is to bow and pour a libation to
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: something that from the ego's point of view, and it's
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: very real, can be awful, simply awful in life.
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  Speaker 2: And Deb, you talked about malevolence, which I think is right.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: I think that's the way consciousness experiences sharks. But of course,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: a shark is not evil. The shark is this magnificent
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: creature that just needs to eat, right? So it's the
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: way that things look evil from the perspective of the ego.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: But by that same token, that kind of inner shark
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: energy in the collective unconscious isn't actually malevolent, but it
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: might pose a threat to ego.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: One of the things that I'm always interested in in
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: this kind of archetypal imagery is when we encounter it,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: whether it's in the outer world because sharks do exist,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: or whether it's on the inner world, is how.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Does the ego function after the encounter? Because then we
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: have a sense of the telos of the encounter. So if,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: for instance, in a dream, every image we encounter in
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: the dream, ideally, kind of taps the ego in a
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: particular direction, which is visible by its choices and or
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: its feelings. So if I sit with the idea of
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: the shark and my own experience of encountering that a
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: little bit, Yeah. I think that these kind of monstrous creatures,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: if we take them as kind of divine portents, and
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: they can seem very brutal to the ego's perspective, is
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: also spirit's way of rousing up out of lethargy. Because
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: I got to tell you what, when I was on
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: that jet ski and I saw that shark fin, I
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: was wide awake, 100%, and not anxious because I wasn't
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: like fretting. I think of anxiety as kind of confetti
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: in the air. But When something that big happens, you are, again,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: lethargy leaves, you are very awake, very ready to act
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: and in motion. So I think of sharks as a
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: kind of medicine for lethargy, one way that I'm toying
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: with it.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: In our book, Dreamwise, Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: We have a whole chapter explaining how the self shows
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: up in dreams. Here's a brief extract. Dreams featuring images
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: of the self may offer a rapid release of tension
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: and fear, a lightning flash of clarity about a particular problem,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: or an overwhelming wave of deep solace. Self dreams catalyze healing,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: even when the self visits us in a negative or
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: frightening form. Jung was very clear that encountering the numinous
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: is the thing that heals. In a letter he writes,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Most modern people won't encounter the divine on a holy
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: pilgrimage or through fasting and prayer. Though we may no
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: longer have access to numinous experience through these traditional methods,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: we still have an immediate, personal, and nightly doorway to
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: the deep wisdom of the self in our dreams. Find DreamWise,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams, wherever you buy your books,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: or follow the link in the show notes.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: What sparked for me in what you said is that
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: sense of an encounter with the unconscious writ large in
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: the shape and symbol of a shark. That there you
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: are out in the middle of the sound, and there
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: is a huge fin. You know that it's a shark.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: You're wide awake, but not fearful. It's an encounter. It
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: goes beyond the ego, or does it?
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Well, I want to say that there's a difference between
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: fear and anxiety in my own thinking. I think of
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: anxiety as a defense. So when I'm anxious, I'm fretting,
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: I'm distracting myself. I actually am not paying attention to
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: the correct thing. I'm kind of fluttering around. When I'm
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: in fear, I am very clear, very focused, very awake,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: very alive, very attentive. And of course, when you're on
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: a jet ski, because the water is turbulent, you can
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: fall off a jet ski very easily. And so, like
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: the game, the encounter, it has many dimensions. And the
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: call is not to be fretful, but to be marvelously
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: awake with a kind of immediacy. And it may very
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: well be that in these other environments where massive unconscious
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: content begins to move, you know, under the surface, it's
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: also a call for us to be Very, very attentive
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: and non-avoidant.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's this attitude of like respect, like you respect
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: that shark when you saw it, Joseph. And I'm thinking
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: that the way you've just formulated it, it really makes
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: sense that these shark gods in these specific cultures were protectors, right?
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Because that sense of being very awake, that is a
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: protective impulse.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I think you're absolutely right. The other thing that strikes
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: me about sharks, and we all have sharks in us
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: on a cellular level, to me, sharks embody this uncompromising
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: will to survive and this kind of relentless hunger for experience,
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: this hunger for what is needed, this fearlessness about being
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: in alignment with who we are and what is required
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: of us.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about this quality of what I'm going to
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: call arousal, that there is a sense of aliveness and
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: being present to the moment that we don't often experience
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: in today's very modern world. Here we are. There is
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: the shark. So what I'm thinking about, Joseph, in the
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: context of what you just said, is the quality of arousal,
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: of there you are on the jet ski. You are
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: entirely focused, completely undistracted in that moment, in that encounter,
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: in a way that we don't very often experience in
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: today's modern world. That in the face of something greater,
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: there is an encounter. And every particle of your being
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: is right there in the moment.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And how rare that is and how even in
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: terms of synchronicity, I mean, for me to be right there,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: you know, going 50, 60 miles an hour in a
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: jet ski and to look over, you know, at a
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: certain degree and in that moment to see this dorsal fin,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: you know, the dolphins have this arcing motion, but the
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: sharks have this straight line. moving, there's an uncanniness to
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: the meeting of those moments as well, which I think
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: has a lot to do with the call to be awake,
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: that the self is saying, wake up, Joe.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: And, you know, the other thing is that sharks have,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: you know, you're talking about being awake and alert and
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: in the moment. And sharks, and Deb, you can say
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: more about this, they have this incredible ability to to
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: perceive even just a drop of blood in a large
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: amount of water, or they can sense vibrations in the water.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: So they are also that quality of alertness and a
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: fine-tuned sensibility to what's going on in the world around them.
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they can sense one drop of blood in something
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: like 100 liters of water. So I'm trying to think,
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: like a swimming pool or a big swimming pool full
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: of water. And they have this electromagnetic ability to detect
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: that kind of field so they can feel things. And
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: they feel things with their teeth. Their teeth are flexible,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: so they bite things in order to sense what it is.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: So they are alive in these ways that we don't
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: possess today. as humans. And I'm thinking about maybe this
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: pertains to things like people who do rock climbing or
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: skydiving or, you know, a hundred other things that are
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: really very dangerous, that in that encounter, there is also
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: aliveness and utter focus and utter being in the moment.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: That It has energy in it.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: And part of the aliveness is the immediacy of it.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: And I think that sometimes in dreams, when the archetypal
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: image comes forward, there's also that call to immediacy, even
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: if we have overwhelming and intense feeling.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: And there's a wholeness. You know, we're not ambivalent. We're
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: not thinking about other things. We are in that moment,
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: our heads, our hearts, our spirits, our bodies, it's all
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: aligned and all alert and united. There's a totality of
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: being in a moment like that.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: I want to just pick up on another quality, another
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: sort of archetypal quality of the shark in our psyches
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: that we've touched on, but I want to lift it up.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: it's that they live in the depths. They are so other.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: And I think that explains part of our fascination with
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: them is that we go swimming and we are in
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: their world. And, you know, we are a stranger in
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: their world and these depths. And of course, the ocean
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: is a pretty good symbol for the unconscious. And here's
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: this creature that is so at home there, kind of
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: the the master of that realm, really. And we need
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: to respect it and pay attention because it could come
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: out of the depths. We could have an encounter with
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: something that is so alien to us that it doesn't
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: necessarily see us as food, but it could hurt us.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: And I think that it's a kind of chilling thing
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: to think about, but it does describe sort of something
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: about this that explains why you know, the sense of fascination.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: I remember my son when he was very little. We
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: used to play go fish and we had these cards
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: where the suits were like, I think they were like sharks, octopuses.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know. They were like different sea creatures. And
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: he was like young enough so that he only wanted
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: the shark cards. Like he wasn't, you know, and if
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: I picked up one of the shark cards, he would
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: go crying from the room. It would just make us
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: howl with laughter. you know, silently because he was so
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: upset because he wanted the sharks. But he was old
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: enough to have been bitten, so to speak, by this
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: fascination with this incredibly powerful force that is other. It's
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: so alien to us.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Speaking of sharks and children, somebody's got to explain to
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: me Baby shark, ba-dum, ba-dum, bum-bum, mommy shark, daddy shark,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: grandma shark, grandpa shark, doo-da-doo-da-doo, run away, doo-da-doo-da-doo, safe at last, doo-da-doo-da-doo, over. Like,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: every modern parent has, like, had their brain turned to
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: mud listening to that baby shark song.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: For the first four years of life, you know? And
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: I can't explain it. I can't explain it, except that
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: sharks are fascinating.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Clearly, clearly.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: There was back in, you know, the days prior to
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: World War I, when I was a young parent, there
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: was an analogous song of I'm being eaten by a
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: boa constrictor.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember that song.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: And first these get your toes, then this, then that,
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: then that. So there maybe is some way of encountering
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: in a In a mild form.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: The force that could devour you, the force that's fierce.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: And it's just fun. We make it sort of fun.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're right, Deb. That's it. It's the devouring
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: nature of it. You know, in that sense, it's an
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: image of nature herself, right? It's the great force. It's
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: the great mother that both gives life and takes it away.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: and can and will eventually devour all of us.
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: And we're mediating in sort of an archetypal force of,
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: you know, kids are aware they're small and vulnerable and
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: the world is big and grownups are big and they're
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: pretty one down as far as power structures go. So
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: we take something archetypal and we metabolize it to something
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: that's fun and innocent and playful in order to help
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: the child's ego start to adjust to it, to mitigate
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: the terror by making it something relational and fun and
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: a little upbeat and playful.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: So I was saying before about, you know, the story
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: of Moby Dick, which is this archetypal epic of an
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: encounter between the ego and and the self, and it
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: ends as it should, according to what we know about
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: the psyche, that is, an encounter with the self is
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: always a defeat for the ego. Captain Ahab and everyone
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: except Ishmael perish at the end of Moby Dick. And
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: then we have our modern version of Jaws sometime later,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: and they shove an oxygen canister in the shark's mouth
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: and shoot it, and the shark goes Boom. So very
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: different ending where we've now conquered the unconscious, which of
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: course is kind of a dangerous thing. So I want
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: to offer a different story that I think, I don't know,
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: it maybe gives me hope of finding a different way
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: to relate to these things and finding the balance. And
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: that is the story of Mike Kutz, who was a surfer.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: I think he was kind of an Olympic hopeful. He
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: was a very good, serious surfer. And when he was 18,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: he lost his right leg above the knee to a
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: shark attack. And he was bereft at not being able
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: to go back in the water, so he did very quickly,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: and he found a way to continue surfing. But he
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: also became a shark photographer and conservationist. And if you
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: look him up, first of all, his book Sharks has
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: these incredible photographs of sharks. And there are also these
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: pictures of him online of him sort of kneeling down
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: at the ocean floor with a camera and his prosthetic
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: leg photographing the shark. So I think it's such a
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: beautiful story because here is someone who met the shark god,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: sort of was diminished by it, and has been able
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: to express that humility, and reverence for this creature. And
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: that is the attitude that we need, if I may,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: toward the planet and toward the psyche.
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: It's really lovely. He came into a new and different
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: relationship with the sea and with nature. He went from
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: being a surfer to being a student and an observer
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: of the sharks. He found a different way to do it.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Well, he does still surf.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: And he surfs. Yeah. But it really expanded him.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: In shamanic tradition, if we are attacked or wounded by
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: an animal, then that becomes your power animal. That's perfect.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: So if you're mauled by a bear... then the bear
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: has chosen you. If you're bitten by the serpent and
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: you survive, the serpent has chosen you. So bitten by
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: the shark, the shark has chosen him, and he, like
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: a shaman, has also chosen the shark.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: And to master the thing that has presented itself to him.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: It's an old, ancient tradition. And to survive something that
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: most people wouldn't also.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Puts you into the world of the uncanny, that you
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: become as uncanny as the thing that has mauled you.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: And that's also true in the inner world, to be
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: marked by an archetype, to be a child of Dionysus,
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: to be a child of Diana, to discover the Leviathan
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: in your dreams, which I had a dream of. It
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: was terrifying. I was in a very small boat, and
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: I was maybe 100 feet from a dock, and I
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: looked down, and there was an enormous black fish with
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: glowing spots on the top of it. And as I
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: was desperately trying to get myself to the dock, that
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: this huge leviathan was moving in absolute coordination with the
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: small ship that I was in, that we become uncanny
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: as well. And this is also something that Freud wrote about,
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: He called it umheimlich, which means uncanny.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: God bless you.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much. There's a little shark cartilage in
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: my throat there. Which is the psychological experience of something
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: that is both alien and intimate, that provokes dread and
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: cognitive dissonance. So here's a quote. The uncanny is in
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: and old established in the mind and which has become
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: alienated from it only through the process of repression. So
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: Unheimlich is the name for everything that ought to have remained,
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: but the hidden and secret and has become visible once again. So,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: sharks which most of us know what a shark is
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: and by virtue of television and movies and a damn
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: baby shark song like it's you know most everybody knows
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: something about sharks so it's it's it's ubiquitously familiar and
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: at the same time we fight against it because it's
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: terrifying we repress it so it makes it um uncanny, unhomely.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: Like all repressed material, by the way, becomes uncanny and disturbing.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. Because I think that's really true. Because
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: when we repress it, we start to fear it. And
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: that's why many fearful images and dreams are actually just
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: something you used to be friends with or could have
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: been friends with. trying to come back and get your attention,
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: but are perceived by the ego as dangerous. So that's
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: really helpful, Joseph.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: I think maybe where we're winding up is your great description, Joseph,
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: of something that is alien and intimate. And it makes
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: for the uncanny, makes for our fascination, and it calls
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: us to right relationship with something that is both of
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: those things.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Perhaps it's time to switch to a dream. Before we
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: start to talk about our dream today, I just want
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: to remind everyone that we have Dream School, which is
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: our 12-month online program. It's a rich community of really
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: amazing people, I have to say, who come together at
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: live events led by me, Deb, and Joseph, to discuss dreams.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: And there's audio material and written material and exercises for
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: you to try and suggested readings. And I always say
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: to people, it's like a buffet. You can come and
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: get just the main course, but there's lots of other
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: stuff on the buffet. So if you have just a
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: little time, you can come and just listen to the
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: audio lecture that we give. And if you've got more time,
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: there's live events, there's dream art on our community. There's
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: extra credit where we help you read some key Jung
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: texts on dreams. So check it out. Come over to
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: our website, thisjungianlife.com and check out Dream School.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: Our dream today is from a 65-year-old male who works
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: as a content moderator and titles his dream at the
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: bottom of the sea. And he tells us, this dream
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: occurred when I was 9 or 10 years old, but
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: it remains as vivid today as it was 55 years ago.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: And here's the dream. We were sailing on a ship. However,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: the ship had anchored in a harbor. When I looked around,
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: I realized we were at the bottom of the sea,
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: yet the sea was parted, just as in the story
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: of Moses dividing the waters. I could see into the
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: sea on both sides, each side clear as glass, and
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: then I saw it. A huge shark swimming towards us.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: I knew instinctively that if the shark broke the surface,
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: it would shatter the parted sea and the entire ocean
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: would collapse around us and we would all drown. I
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: ran around in panic, trying to warn everyone, pointing out
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: the great shark approaching. I was in total terror, shouting,
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: We have to leave! If the shark breaks the surface,
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: the ocean will fall and drown all of us. But
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: no one listened. Not even the captain. He just said, I...
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: Don't worry. We'll leave soon. The last thing I remember
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: before waking up was staring into the mirror-like surface of
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: the sea. From the bottom, I could still see the
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: sharks swimming towards us. I knew it was only a
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: matter of time. At the time, I was living in
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: a children's home. Looking back, I've often wondered whether this
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: dream reflected the feeling of being torn between the home...
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: and the larger institution, perhaps even the larger world. The
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: sense of terror and hopelessness in that dream has never
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: left me. For context, he adds, at the time I
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: was in a children's home, separated from my home, I
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: was mobbed a lot in school, so I would run
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: away from the home. It was a transitional period. When
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: I was eight, I would run away and manage to
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: run to another town for days, and they put up
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: my picture on national TV. I would sleep in boats
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: and steal food from shops. The main feelings in the
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: dream were helplessness. And as for associations, he adds, I
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: think the divided sea represent my parents on one side
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: and the authorities on the other. I think the shark
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: was the people mobbing me and that I had the
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: feeling that no one could really help me.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: So this was a recent dream, but I did go
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: looking for a shark dream. So this dream came in
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: a few days ago. So we had a recent shark dream.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: So the way I picture this dream, and you guys
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: tell me if you have the same image, is that
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: it's almost like the waters have been parted and there's
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: kind of almost like a glass-like finish on this water
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: over here and on this water over here, and he's
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: at the bottom. Like an aquarium. So he's sort of
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: You know, which if you think about it is an
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: image of incredible vulnerability because you've got these two giant
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: walls of water on either side that any moment could
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: kind of fall in upon you. To me, it's a
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: real image of dissociation. One thing has been split from
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: the other and the ego is being kind of kept
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: in this kind of precarious place. Between these giant forces. And,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: you know, he's essentially, the dream is about trying to
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: keep that wall of repression up. And this giant shark
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: is threatening to collapse that wall of repression.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: That makes sense. And then if the repression or the
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: suppression is ineffective, then he might drown in horror, fear.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: any number of intolerable feelings that a child in that
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: circumstance might very reasonably be experiencing.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: I think you've formulated it really, really well, Lisa, and
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: I concur entirely. The other part that I can lift
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: up here is our dream ego running around trying to
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: warn people.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: And no one pays attention of, of how alone relationally
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: the dream ego is, just as it appears he was
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: in waking life, being shuttled into some kind of children's
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: home and running away and the fear of not having
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: a good alliance with either his parents or the authorities,
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: that there's no one supporting him, no one even listening.
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: And this archetypal force from the depths, he's under the
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: water heroically trying to maintain these walls of repression, but
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: the monstrous force is coming.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: And I want to say that, you know, while, you know, Joseph,
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: you referenced the kind of inundation that will happen when
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: the repression wall is broken, and it could be just intolerable,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: big feelings. It could be that he might be sort
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: of swallowed up by the unconscious. But, you know, there
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: is medicine in having that repression wall broken. Because as
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: we know, when we've worked with trauma victims that The
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: repression is something that kind of saves you, but also
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: later really cuts you off from life. So I'm seeing
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: that giant shark swimming toward him as both a threat,
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: but eventually that would be exactly the thing that would
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: need to happen, is that the two parts of the
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: ocean would need to be reunited.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, and as an adult, at nine, you need your
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: defenses because you've got to make it day to day.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: But coming back to it now, and I would imagine
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: one of the impetus to even share the dream with
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: us is because now's the time to have this shift
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: inside of him. There's also a couple of different medicines,
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: so to speak, in there. One is that the captain.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: The captain is representing, I think, a progressed attitude inside
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: of the child's psyche saying, don't worry. We're going to
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: leave soon. Don't worry. The children's home, the orphanage, is
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: a temporary place. We're going to leave soon. We're just
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: on a voyage right now. You're going to be okay.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: The dream ego can't take that in at nine, but
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: it is still present in it. The other image of
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Moses parting the sea is to have a path of escape.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: And he does talk about that, you know, so in
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: a sense, you know, parting the oceans, you can run
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: out of the children's orphanage and off into the town,
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: which is also an ambivalent thing because in one way
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: he feels like he's getting away from a place he
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: doesn't want to be, but he's also running into great
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: danger as well as a child, you know, roaming around
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: in other cities. It's remarkable that his instincts kept him
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: safe enough Nowadays, we know that when children are on
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: the streets, within hours, you know, the sharks of the
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: community are picking up kids and trafficking them. So he
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: was able to ride his instincts and kind of be
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: okay enough to be retrieved without devastating effect. But the
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: dream does have, you know, the magical protection of Moses.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: We do have the captain, the salt captain who's reassuring him.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: He's running around wanting everyone else to be terrified with him,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: but the psyche is resisting that. It's not good for
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: the whole psyche to be terrorized. That's not a good state.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that a lot.
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: The image of the captain is really very significant. That
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: somebody is in charge, that kind of archetypal undertone to
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: the captain of the ship, and poems about Captain, my captain.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: He's there.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: And, you know, from what we know about this person,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's survived. We know that. We don't know
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: much about what kind of life he's had, but he's,
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: you know, kicking around and listening to the podcast and working.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: And the captain was right in a way.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: He was right. And I want to just add one
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: more amplification is St. Patrick. referred to God as the pilot.
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: So the captain, the pilot of the ship of his life,
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: comes to him. We could even say that God comes
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: to him in the form of the captain and says,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: don't worry, we'll leave soon.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: That's great. Just as God showed Moses.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: Yes, as God shows Moses. And Jesus comes to St.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: is that Julian, the anchoress in Northern Europe, she's on
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: her deathbed and she's praying and there doesn't seem to
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: be any response. And Jesus comes and says, yes, that
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: there should be sin in the world and evil, but
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: all shall be well and all shall be well and
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: all manner of things shall be well. And then the
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: saint is miraculously healed. So the, The self as the
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: great comforter, as the reassuring force in the psyche when
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: the ego finally is laid totally bare with nowhere else
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: to turn. The captain comes. Jesus comes. God comes. The
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: angel comes. And the talking tree comes. And sometimes the
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: shark comes.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an
• 52:09
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• 52:14
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