I had a very strange dream the other night, and it went like this:
I was with a rather short and pudgy old black man. We were outside and all of a sudden a cold snap fell on us. It was literally sudden, like a bunch of frost suddenly formed on everything. And almost in that same sudden moment, the black man I was with let out a breath that I could see (because of the cold) except that it didn’t really come out of his mouth but emanated off his whole face–in fact, it took the shape of his face, with holes for his eyes and mouth.
Sometimes in my dreams, I know the symbolism when I see it. In this case, the face-shaped breath that he exhaled represented death–the soul leaving the body–the man I was with was soon to die, and it was because of the cold–he had caught something, almost immediately, something like pneumonia or some cold related illness.
The next phase of my dream features the man’s struggle with death–only now he was a she. Same short pudgy stature, still black, but now female. Death was immanent–it would happen in a matter of seconds. She was struggling, but the struggle wasn’t against any kind of pain or discomfort, and it wasn’t a struggle for life, but an inner struggle, a struggle against demons. It was almost as though in these last seconds before death, she had to struggle with certain demons in order to determine her fate in the afterlife.
But the strange thing was–and this again is just something I somehow new in my dream–they weren’t her demons, but mine. She was struggling with my demons on my behalf, and it wasn’t clear whether the outcome of this struggle would determine her fate in the afterlife or mine. It was something like in the last scene of the Exorcist where father Karras orders the demon the take him instead of the girl. I also knew by this point that the woman was a shaman.
At the very last moment of the struggle, it seems she gets something out of the demon (or the struggle). Before she dies, she vehemently utters out repeatedly “Map! Map! Map!”
Cut to the third phase of my dream: We’re on a school bus out on the highway headed for the mountains (this is just West of Calgary, my home city). There is a bus driver and a child sleeping on one of the back seats. The child suddenly wakes up shouting “Map! Map! Map!” The bus driver stops and hurries to the back: “What did you say?” The child repeats “Map.”
I may be wrong, but I find the black male and female to be animus and anima dealing with the prospect of death or disease. The child in you reiterates the need for direction–a map, a guide. It is interesting to note that the man, woman and child are on the same page.
The anima/animus thing rings true for me, Ierrellus, but I’m 99% sure the map represents something a bit more specific: I’m fairly certain it represent my theory of consciousness. I’ve always thought of it as a bridge linking Western spirituality and Easter spirituality, and in my dream it came through as a map instead of a bridge. Like I said, I sometimes see the symbolic meaning of my dream content at face value. However, you could still say the need for a bridge between West and East is still needed by many who seek direction and guidance in their spirituality.
Though it is unfair of me to reply you here and leaving my thread behind, but i can not succumb the temptation to use a little time that i have right now.
To me Sanjau, the east west divide implicates a current philosophy forum on the self and it.s construction after it’s deconstruction. The east personality subsists far more on conscious constructions of identity. It is a given and fcr the east the west does not present a bridge.
You seem to be quite attuned to your subconscious. In my experience with dreams, they don’t really provide the solution/answer, they only highlight an issue that one may not be very aware of. So, for example, if you dream about ‘direction’, it’s only that, a highlighted ‘need for direction’, I don’t think the answer will be there, in the dream (in my case, anyway, it usually isn’t). Also, I don’t think the cause will necessarily be shown as well, so it would be up to you to ‘dig deeper and further out’, especially if the dream caused a strong reaction in you. In fact, the cause may be nowhere in sight in a dream, only surfacing of inflamed symptoms. It’s possible that primary cause is not very related but something in your life (aggregate of circumstances) triggered it to surface. In my experience, the dream will show you what is happening now, not why it happened or how. The rest would be up to you to figure it out, and that depends on your personal history.
Thanks for the alternate interpretations, Sanjay, but I knew what the symbolism meant as I was dreaming it.
Right, and the “map” shows this.
I would think this is true from an Eastern perspective.
obe, would I good paraphrase of that be that the West objectifies consciousness whereas the East keeps it subjective?
Not all my dreams are like this. But sometimes I have these dreams where I’m kind of aware that I’m making it up as I go. It’s different from a lucid dream where you suddenly realize you’re in a dream. It’s more like day dreaming in that there’s always this immanent sense that you’re making it up, or that it’s all under your control (i.e. you don’t ever confuse it for reality), yet at the same time you don’t ever consciously think to yourself “I am making this all up right now” (like you would in a lucid dream).
In that way, I know where I’m drawing the symbolism from–like in the case of “map”–but then there are other symbols like the breath that emanated from the shaman’s face that felt “given” to me (though still aware of the symbolic meaning) and not from my own personal inventory of mental content.
Then there are dreams I have where the symbolism isn’t obvious at the time, but an interpretation readily comes to mind as soon as I wake up. These feel more like true interpretations in that I can’t say I know that’s what the dream meant, but it does seem to jump out as obvious. My dream last night is an example: I had a dream I was jogging while at the same time drinking beer. I had it in one of those disposable red plastic cups. I’d just carry it along with me and sip from it every few seconds. Upon waking up, I thought: I want to have my cake and eat it too–my health (jogging) and my drugs (the beer). I’m also reminded of a bit of Freud I read a long time ago relating tails of how some of his patients dreamed of food in times when they were famished. Well, I’m currently taking a hiatus from all drugs and alcohol, and I dearly miss them.
Well, I can’t really trace the dream content, nor its underlying meaning, to anything obvious that’s going on in my life right now, if that’s what you mean, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any connection. Something for me to ponder, I guess.
In both the days of Emerson and Watts Eastern religious philosophy has influenced Western thought. Those influxes of wisdom are proof that something more is needed in the human psyche than deterministic naturalism. So, once your dreams have spelled out common archetypes, they move on to the prospect of a reconciliation of things seen as opposite.
“East is East and West is West
And never the twain shall meet”–Kipling
But Kipling was not speaking of the human psyche. The whole purpose of dreams, other than throwing out mental garbage is the process of reconciling supposed opposites.
The child was just a receptacle for the message. “Map” was just the most information the shaman could get out of the demon, or that the demon wanted passed on, before death was finalized.
Still, it is a Child.
anyway, you are being driven in a bus and the Child (and the woman, shaman Before) call out map. A kid on a schoolbus does not make decisions about where one is going. Here you are being driven towards the Mountains(?) ((I’ve taken that drive with my aunt and uncle. Man, I loved seeing those Mountains)) and you Wake up and scream out map. Perhaps you want to look at a map. Where are you going? As a Child you are going and making choices and having choices made for you that you may not realize the impact of or even that they are choices rather than the only thing to do. Waking up from this and Calling out map, seems to me a Calling out from both the Child in you and your anima to see where the fuck you are going. What choices are being made now that you may not realize the impact of?
I Think it is very important that the woman is carrying your demons. I Think men do this A LOT. The women carry the undercurrents and fears and even anger sometimes, especially of nice men, and can seem well, a tad, irrational, when in fact the men are looking at their own irrationality.
I would take a good look at what irritates you about your wife. Come up with an abstract summation of it: She just focuses on what she wants. Or one what SHE wants. Or she gets all worked up over nothing. Or, whatever.
Then imagine what you would be like if you only focused on what you want. Or what would you get worked up about that others might see as nothing.
(note those were just a couple of random suggestions for what I see women holding, often, for their men. Your situation may be different. But the key is to bring her extremes back into your persepctive and see what you would do if you were like her. It is likely that the woman you have a kid with is going to be somewhat like your anima, hence the suggestion.
I Think also having not so long ago having had a kid may be a factor in the Dream. When you have a kid, you are put on a bus. It narrows the directions you can take a trip, literally and metaphorically. A lot of the map is no longer possible destination.
I Think the Dream is about not being your own driver, feeling like it, and if one is not one’s own driver, it often seems like one would be like a demon if one grabbed the Wheel.
That’s not quite what I meant. I said that the West objectifies consciousness, which is subtly different from “objective”. “Objectify” means to treat as an object, whereas “objective” means true absolutely or independently of a subject (although the two are obvious connected). The West tends to treat consciousness as though it were an object that exists in reality, whereas the East tends to treat consciousness as that which defines reality (which can only be seen from the subjective point of view that consciousness makes possible).
So the mind of the spirit communicates to the mind of the body through dreams when we’re asleep. Is that what you’re saying?
Not so hard to believe so long as you have a vivid imagination. I’ve always felt we all have a higher self, but I never considered it to be a separate self from the one I feel myself to be. It’s really rather simple: it’s who we become when are able to rise above our more crass emotions and thoughts, the moments when we can look at ourselves and say “I’m being really immature” or “I know I’m being silly” or “I know I’m just telling myself this in order to feel better” and so on. But it doesn’t sound like this is what you’re talking about.
I am actually saying something even more extreme, she literally has part of you inside her. (and I am not being smutty) But if you like you can say what you said, though I Think this will make it seem like the pattern is only affecting your perception, when in fact what I see often - though perhaps not in your case - is the woman does change also.
Right. I should ahve been complimentary. This to me shows that you want to take the demons back. And just to be clear, I do not Think the demons are essentially bad.
your wife. Though I believe this can happen between anyone. But my belief need not hinder you from taking it more symbolically. Just that in relationships sometimes when we disown things, other people feel, unconscously or consciously, pushed to pick them up. An easy example is when a man is risk-taking and the woman expresses more and more fear. Even without my more literal account it can be said more metaphorically that she begins to feel HIS fear also since he won’t. So it is not simply a matter of projecting (iow perceiving the other as), they will actually begin to take on the disowned feelings
or in this case, possibly,
demons.
Desires can seem demonic if they are judged and not integrated, for example.
It is stll confusing to me as i did not get clearly what you exactly mean.
As far as i understand about the western perception of consciousness, it is not supposed to be the root ingredient. They say that brain causes mind and consciousness. It other words, physical matter and forces creates abstract matter. On the other hand, east says that consciousness creates forces, which again causes physical matter.
Mind of the soul use to communicate human mind all the time, whether sleep or awake. What we feel and call Subconscious mind, is nothing but soul’s mind. Both minds are differnt but interconnected and also influence each other. Initially, it is soul’s mind that decides the basic nature of the physical mind. Then physical operates in human realm, get inputs and also influenced by it, and also influence the soul’s mind to some extent. That is how it works.
As a thumb rule, soul’s mind plays a dominant role, though we do not realize it. And also, soul’s mind use to have complete excess to human mind but human mind does not have the same capacity. It knows only to that extent, which soul’s mind allows it to have access. But, when we focus and train human mind more than normal, it starts becoming more and more powerful. Then, time comes when it becomes dominant and also able to access soul’s mind completely.
That is the only differnce between a true enlightened person and a normal human. Though, this can also happen in some other cases like scientists and philosophers, like Einstein and Kant, where some extraordinary individuals use to put extraordinary effort on their minds. Though, there is still a limit to it. Kant, the greatest pure intellectual philosopher that the west ever had, realized this limit and also admitted it honestly. He comes second only to Socrates, because he (Socrates) was not a pure intellectual philosopher but had some spiritual inputs also.
No, Gib. It is not that simple.
Like most of the weatern intellectuals, you are taking induction route for enlightenment, which will again increase complexity (intrusion). The correct way is deduction. One has to unwrap the layers to get the pure essence of the existence.
Pure must be simple, not complex. Remove unwarrented intrusions, and you will be enlightened.
The whole philosophy of Vedanta and Buddhism lies in that simple notion. Though, it is not that easy that it appears.
The higher self really has some separate existence from the normal human self. A human is not only a very complex entity, but the most complext also, because the trail ends at it. It can get simpler (pure) only from here on. And, that is also what its true and only purpose is.
But, IMHO, the whole of westen philosophy and even science also seems to be confused in understanding this very simple but most essential concept, except Socrates as he applied induction method. West suggests that one has to be more and more developed ( complicated) in order to be enlightened.
That is cornerstone premise of the artificial intelligence; develop and improve more and more and one day consciousness will manifest within machines automatically and they will start willing like humans. Though, that day will never come, because they are presuming without knowing the facts. They are applying induction before analyzing by deduction. Unless one does not prcisly know and have what causes willingness in humun, how can he recreate that into machines?
Just deduct the existence of human completely, and the knowledge (both of philosophy and science) will come to its end; Enlightenment. Everything will be known; Omniscience.
If you are interested in complete ontological details, have a look at my posts at the below mentioned thread- viewtopic.php?f=5&t=184542