In the Beginning Was the Dream

"It looks as if there is within us a superior intelligence which we would call an inner guide or a divine inner centre which produces dreams. The aim of dreams seems to be an optimum of life for the individual." --Marie-Louis von Franz, The Way of the Dream.

According to C. G. Jung, our minds are divided into conscious and unconscious, with the unconscious the much larger portion. As we experience the world "out there," we develop ego, a psychological construct that helps us make sense of that world. We are continually overwhelmed with sense impressions, inner and outer, and need ego to focus on what is immediate and consequential. That allows us to extract order out of chaos and contribute something meaningful to our culture.

The unconscious is largely unknowable to ego. In it resides our instinct, inspiriation and primordial creativity. Each of us has a personal unconscious, and we share a collective unconscious with all humans that have lived. The collective unconscious teaches us about human experience through myths, symbols, archetypes -- and dreams.

Jung said our chief work as humans is individuation -- a process that begins with facing the darkness of the unconscious, the shadow, and integrating it into consciousness. We must work to unite ego and the unconscious in support of Self's needs and purposes. Both are equally important and best used in service of Self.

In Western culture, though, we have reduced the dream state to nothing more than outrageous fantasy. Too many of us fear the unconscious, with good reason -- it can consume a person in its immensity and delusion when allowed to emerge without rein or process. In the extreme, a person can fall into a "permanent" dream state: psychosis.

However, if we attend to the unconscious, dialog with it, give it time and space to breath, it can be our most precious gift of imagination, creativity and intuition. When honored and valued, dreams inform the ego of Self's deeper needs and soulful wishes. We become balanced, whole persons, equally adept with introspective, intutive feelings as we are of logical, sensate thoughts. The unconscious enriches ego with creativity, and ego gives the unconscious tangible expression.

Balancing seems to be the first function of dreams. When we're too much "in our heads," the unconscious craves equal time. Studies have shown that patients who are deprived of R.E.M. sleep (when dreaming occurs) show marked symptoms of anxiety until they are allowed to dream again. When R.E.M. sleep is then undisturbed, dreams come through in droves. Researches have actually induced psychotic symptoms by prohibiting subjects from dreaming for extended periods.

So even if we refuse our inner work, if we underestimate the importance of dreams and deny our human nature, we cannot confine the unconscious. One way or another, it balances the scale.

But if we embrace the dream state, value it, listen to it and nurture it, we embark on an extraordinary path to Self conscious awareness . . . the path to individuation. The unconscious only needs an invitation: the simple task of writing dreams down gives the signal -- we are ready to listen. Then the unconscious reveals its mysteries and directs the way to wholeness.

Finding meaning in dreams

The unconscious is an old, old soul and it speaks in archaic, symbolic language. A dream's meaning is not meant to be clear, otherwise it would speak through thoughts in waking life. No, the unconscious challenges us to meet it at its level, that inner center where archetypal voices (those of gods, goddesses and generations past) echoes through the soul. We go to that place each time we dream.

But there are other ways to access it. Any spiritual discipline that speaks the language of the archetypes touches it, rousing psychic nourishment as effectively and powerfully as the dream state. What's more, by pairing dreamwork with one or more consciousness tools, we can extract meaning from dreams.

Astrology is one of the most useful and applicable tools because it is based in planetary archetypes and directly relates to Jung's theory of psyche. The Sun represents the Self, the central life force, the core individual. The Moon is the unconscious, the dark, intuitive, oceanic realm. Saturn and Jupiter are the great social teachers, our bridge to the collective unconscious, which is represented by Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, the outermost planets.

Combine the 10 planets (archetypes) with 12 signs (qualities), 12 houses (fields of experience) and five major aspects (planetary relationships), and we have an exhaustive language to describe human experience nearly as ancient as the unconscious itself. Today, through the hard work of modern-day astrologers hoping to eradicate the fortune-teller stereotype, we have a revised language that is accessible, applicable, even essential to modern living because it reminds us of our natural cycles.

Barbara Schermer began keeping a dream journal in 1973. "I've always written down planetary transits in effect at the time of the dream," she said. "It wasn't long before I saw sometimes profound, often subtle correlations between the planets that were activated in me and the sorts of dreams I had. The astrological archetypes came alive in my dreams, and I learned how to engage and interact with them, to use them in integrating my understanding of astrology's relationship to Jungian psychology, alchemy and Kriya yoga to further my spiritual growth."

John Giannini explains the astrological connection this way: "The chart itself is a mandala, a 12-house circle, and a fundamental picture of the Self -- the primary archetype in Jungian psychology. The Self is always pictured as a round quaternity. Jung discovered that such symbols are also the symbols of God found in all the great religions. He was attracted to one particular definition: 'God is a circle who's center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.' "

Barbara agrees: "The horoscope is a circle of dynamic energy processes anchored by a point in the middle, which is also the symbol of the Sun, representing the Self. I tell my students to always remember that they are that center point, the protagonists of their unfolding horoscopes. The center is their 'rock,' a grounding place and position of balance, safety and strength."

"In my work with clients and students, we walk around the circle," she explains. "Jung called it circumambulating -- looking at your horoscope and your life from different perspectives. In time, you see the whole picture at finer and deeper levels.

"This is a key technique in experiential astrology. I place the student or client in the center of a circle of others who portray the planetary archetypes as they appear in the client's chart. Then we dialog, sometimes with a rope around the client's waist to simulate the psychic tug felt when planets are activated. The experience never fails to evoke the client's recognition of the archetypes within themselves. They're often moved to laughter or tears because they've had their first deep glimpse of Self."

Lori W., a member of one of John and Barbara's dream groups, got her first look when she shared her recent dream:

The first thing I remember is being in the lake. It's dark outside, and I'm inside a boat which is tethered to a dock. Someone's telling me I have to dive under the boat to get to land, even though it looks like I could reach shore easier by just walking across. But for some reason I have to go under. There are boards jutting out from under the boat, so I have to go very deep before reaching land. I feel very scared to do that but somehow make it.

Then my mother is holding my hand--I'm still dripping wet--and we're walking up stairs. She says, "Lori, I want you to get a birthday present for your grandmother." I tell her Grandma's been dead for years (she died when I was six years old), but she insists, saying the gift is in honor of her memory. I start crying, and say "I can't, I just can't do it."

In her natal chart, Lori has six planets occupying Virgo, Libra and Scorpio, all in the fourth house. They are: Mars at 21 degrees Virgo, Pluto at 24 degrees Virgo, Jupiter at 26 degrees Virgo, Uranus at 1 degrees Libra, Mercury at 16 degrees Libra and the Sun at 3 degrees Scorpio. Saturn sits opposed the stellium in her 10th house at 21 degrees Aries.

This configuration is significant to her dream. "The fourth house represents ancestors, especially the female lineage," explains Barbara, "and Sun in Scorpio describes the oceanic realm she occupied in the dream. Whenever she has imagery of a deep, watery place, it will suggest psychic attention is turned to the planetary archetypes of the fourth house."

"One detail of this dream that strikes me is the boards," Barbara says. "With three planets in Virgo (Virgo being equated with thinking, logic and organization) she craves structure. But the boards--a symbol of structure--limit her ability to reach land until she dives, deep, (into her Scorpio nature), suggesting that she now needs to structure her inner life. Uranus and Neptune are activating those Virgo planets in her chart right now, giving her a rich opportunity to create workable structures within her psyche."

John elaborates "What we must understand is the unconscious has an intrinsic order. Because our culture places more value in building structures outside ourselves, many of us flounder when our inner lives call for the same. Lori's unconscious is telling her she has the capacity to access the intuitive wisdom of her horoscope's fourth house, to ground it on the shore, and finally bring it up the stairs to enrich her pragmatic life--the 10th house and Saturn."

Read Part II