The whole dream space is as if in the twilight. Gregory is with his son (and perhaps Sara, too). He is in what looks like a two-tiered mini-bus of sorts, red in color. I see his father as Henry Mack, a man I knew in the Army. He has allowed Gregory to leave home. I am happy that Greg is getting out on his own, away from what seemed an imprisoning youth. But there is this “key” that Henry Mack gave to him, or placed in the vehicle, that keeps Gregory attached to the home of his youth. Gregory tries to get rid of this key. He even throws it from the vehicle, but it bounces right back, somehow autonomously returns to the vehicle. So, he is not really free, but needs to be. There is a sense of frustration in this. Then, I am seeing my self, holding a young child, toddler perhaps, spooning my body around his/hers, hiding beneath a small set of steps. There are many others moving in and out of the building attached to the steps. Then, there is some sort of threatening chase activity. I am now seeing my self as being with Gregory. We are having to evade these two men who are pursuing and trying to shoot us. It appears that we are in some industrial-like setting, amidst manufacturing plants/factories. Then, we are walking through basement tunnel/hall ways in one of these buildings, only now I see the men in front of us. I don’t know that I had/have a gun, but I feel I have shot them. They are falling dead in front of me.

Before going to sleep this evening, I was with thoughts and feelings of my youth, specifically all the feelings and difficulties and pressures that caused me to turn to drugs. I was feeling the me who so wanted to “not” use drugs, but wished for a better life. I had remembered the time I took a drug, I am not sure if it was speed or PCP, but I was so disoriented that I came home and hid myself in this basement-like room (with damp concrete walls) in the unfinished portion of the basement of my home, that sat beneath the large porch. There was an old bed frame in there. I laid on it for some time, not knowing what else to do, not wanting to be seen by my parents. I think I was about 13 years old. I was feeling her need to be free. Gregory is my son, a young adult of 21 years now. I know that his image in this dream is a reflection of my own young self.

Kristi

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On the day before this dream, while at my clinical experience site (a wonderful, state of the art [not for profit] hospital with a great reputation and very solid core values), I had a wonderful experience... a sense of great community, feeling welcomed and belonging in my new role (new career) in Physical Therapy. But, just as profound feeling as that, I experienced a deep sense of non-identification with “personalities”… not my own, nor any others’… Every where I looked I found/felt only deep peace and acceptance for all and everything before me … there was no contention with any moment, or any person. I was not ‘personally’ asserting my self in any way… it felt there was no need to… There was a deep sense of connection with others, with everything. I just was, present, very full feeling, content, and quite spontaneous, without anticipation of any next moment. It was a very pleasing day. It made me so happy that when I came home, I soon found my self crying tears of gratitude. I could not feel such love and beingness and not cry. As I wept, I moved to feeling I was releasing deep pains… the deep pains of the conditioning of my childhood, that for so long contained and defined me… for this is what came in my thoughts… like, finally, I am feeling more me, more real, more authentic... and “it’s okay to let this go, now.” I felt such a deep releasing, such a deep love, and thankfulness… which left me feeling profoundly peaceful inside of my self.

The next day, the day of my dream above, I was moved to look more deeply at some more of the pain of my youth. The memory I mentioned when I first posted this dream is one that has come back to me time and again. Is it the key that keeps bouncing back? (I do feel most all of the keys to our present day issues lay in our childhood) Have I been harsh on (judged) my self for the use of drugs? My son also struggled with drugs in his youth. I am not currently experiencing any anxieties with he and drugs, but I certainly have – and have felt great remorse for his use of drugs, knowing that our children adopt the same dysfunctions that have been prevalent in our life. So, this dream may be speaking to that, too, for he is a young adult as in this dream ... and I do have a mother’s concern for how he will fare in life. My sense is that he is a reflection of an aspect of my own young, masculine self/spirit that needs my help, my love. Somehow, it feels it is not just an aspect of my young female self back there, hiding beneath the steps/porch of my youth, but a part of my spirit, too, that I feel I am reclaiming/redeeming, bringing into healing light. They were very difficult days, there was much pain, and a need/want to go away, to numb myself. We lived on the “outside” (so to speak) of society, growing in the streets of Chicago, taking the back ways/alley ways, hanging out on the railroad tracks (and catching rides across town by hopping on the ladders of freight cars). We didn’t belong to the regular class of society, we felt, so we created our own class, while above us and around us, life moved on… “life,” I deeply wanted to be a part of, engaged in, involved with. Who are the men pursuing me in the dream? Are they ones that tell me how wrong I was? That want to persecute me? Are they a reflection of my own denial of (attempt to kill) my own young self as I learned to believe she not good for using drugs, and so many other things. The factories? What do they represent? Overly masculine society? Machinated/mechanized ways of thinking and being? Like Henry Mack, the Army guy… he was like this. The young child I am spooning in my body? I am protecting her from the world that walks on above me. She felt very insecure back then, so very unsure of her self. She needs much love and acceptance and understanding. And I think she needed me to kill those guys in the factory basement, so she can come out from hiding and running... and into love.

Kristi

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Oh, and why a red, mini-bus (something like that)? And why does it appear two-tiered? I think, not sure about that, it may just have been an extended top. It's like a large, funny van, of sorts.

Buses make me think of the collective (society). Could this be about a young masculine aspect trying to find his way in the world? Whatever kind of vehicle it is, it's larger, heavier, capable of carrying more than only a car is able to... So, is it about the heavy load of my childhood? Having left home, but still carrying all of that history with me (as does my son carry with him the history of his life with me)? And why "red?" The color of the root chakra? About safety, security, belonging, in the here and now (as well as the past, as time is really just one continuum)?

Kristi

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Kristi,
A lot to consume. Ill provide my thoughts later today or in the morning.

Jerry

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Kristi,
A few comments and hopefully I will be able to provide an interpretation to your dream later.

On the subject of your 'clinical experience'. Your words "I just was, present, very full feeling, content, and quite spontaneous, without anticipation of any next moment" for me are a reflection of the deepest self, the self that is connected to nature, where everything drops off and you are merely 'in the moment'. I think of this as a truly spiritual experience because there is no human element of negative emotions, only the acceptance of the natural wonder for which we are a part of. And I believe this experience is what Jung spoke of when describing the spiritual aspect of the psyche. Being a part of nature and when you divorce yourself from the 'sorrows' of the world you find tranquility and peace. Much as you do when you practice yoga.

Joseph Campbell put it in another way. Life lives upon life, all things consuming other life. And when you feel negative thoughts you are to be that simple self, being consumed by time and space, a part of the cycle of life. The thoughts should turn to the 'moment', away from the emotional self. Just 'being'. Nothing is happening, life continues without notice of those negative feelings within your thoughts. All you need to do is to change your thinking, tune in to the senses and away from the emotions.

That is something I have learned to do very well, learn to change my thinking when it turns negative. All the negative stuff is within the mind when in actuality nothing is happening, except in your mind. Turn to yoga where you learn not to think, and you are merely being. You put yourself in accord with nature, being but a small part of the whole and realizing your insignificance. And with that realization there is another realization that you are a part of all that is and have access to all the powers that be. Powerless but powerful. Consuming yet being consumed. All life operates this way, all the cosmos is a consuming entity, never ending.

We spoke earlier of Carlos Nakai's Native American flute music. This is one way I experience the 'moment'. It is often through the muse we connect with nature and our true being. And the more we are able to be in the moment and not obligated to social duty, where else do you find such peace and tranquility?

I also think of Campbell's conversation with Bill Moyers in The Power of Myth where they talk about peek experiences and epiphany. A revelatory manifestation of a divine being. Perhaps you were having an epiphany, a divine moment.

Ah! to be able to be in the moment. A meditation for the soul.

Jerry

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Jerry,

I like how you communicated this: Powerful yet powerless. Consuming yet being consumed.

It is something really hard to describe in words. It was like a river in which I existed. Each previous moment gave way to the next, there was no holding or stopping in any thought. Looking upon another, I felt only deep connection that was not at all personal...they too were the river...a part of God/Life...wearing another form standing before me. That was all I conceived/perceived. An emptiness of self that was so very full. I felt every thing and every one, every moment, in my body. It is like I was the river, in which everything "moved." There was such an openness that everything merely flowed through me. I was not stopping to question anything, just allowing/experiencing the fullness of each moment. I was not wearing a mask and did not see/percieve the mask worn by others.

I have thought since those moments of how whenever I experience these times of deep letting go, my mind and the stories of my conditioning will vie for attention ... that false self that doesn't want to die. It feels to be another example of what I have known for some time now ... that existing in the NOW, truly being/resting in the NOW, is like a vast window or portal through which all time/life flows. We ideate about this NOW moment when we embark on a spiritual path, thinking it is some point we will reach where all will be peace. But the first thing that happens is the door opens, and all that was comes rushing in/through, to be released. It is only when we fixate (when the mind fixates) on what arises that the process becomes difficult. I think the peace comes with the practice, of letting go, of reaching the needed understanding that we are not "just this or that," the various identities we have had/held our self to be, but that we are something much deeper, that is at once all and none of these, that it is only our judgments (negativities) that causes us confliction.

Kristi

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Jerry, some more thoughts on this...

First, I do feel it was an epiphany, a divine or transcendent episode - and it continued to varying degrees through this entire past week.

This is what I seem to be finding:

The day after Tuesday (which is the day it was most pronounced), I found myself feeling some afraid, uncertain, questioning - and then that evening found my self reliving, from memory, the feelings of my young self, high and disoriented on drugs. In those moments of reexperiencing the pain/experience of my young years, I also felt "guilty," wrong/bad. I meditated and prayed for resolution before gonig to sleep the night of this dream.

I had transcendent experiences in my childhood -in my dreams, in waking life, as the result of an NDE, as the result of meditation (I was a natural comtemplative/meditator), and as I began having what I today know was a kundalini rising as a teenager, which I prayed fervently away one day, asking that God/the universe delay such an eventuality until I was able to integrate it if it was meant to be. I was having such experiences before the use of drugs, and after the use of drugs, BUT also during my use of drugs.

I stopped any drug activity when I was 15 years old. My decision to do so came on a day when smoking marijuana with two of my brothers. One of these brothers was Michael, who has always been a very helpful image in my dreams. It was he that I felt a dear and sincere "brother and sister" connection. Mike and I always had profound conversations/inquiries into the nature of things/life. He was very intelligent and very helpful to me and I looked up to him. On this one particular day, as Mike and I spoke about world events/news, I began speaking, fervently, about the need for love in the world, for God's grace. "Intervention," I believe was the word I used. And as I did, I felt every charka in my body open as a divine beam of light descended on me. Standing there, like a pillar or votrice of energy, I felt Spirit take over my 5th chakra and began speaking through me. To this day, I do not remember what was said, only that it in some manner affirmed what I was speaking of. I thought the experience very bizarre. When the presence stopped speaking, I asked my brothers, "Did you hear that?" Yes, they answered. "Wow," I think I said, "That was weird, let's change the subject." But I couldn't. I kept talking about my convictions, about the need for love in the world - and it happened again. It was yet another experience that greatly affected and shaped my life. Because of it and other experiences, fortunately, I did STOP using drugs, as I felt/saw a bigger picture in life ... BUT I also blamed my self terribly for having used drugs - and all the things of my self that I was trying to escape in using them -the abuse, etc. I also feel that when I have had transcendent experiences, as an adult, since the advent of the awakening of the kundalini as an adult, it has been mixed with a sense of guilt (not just because I was an Eve, responsible for the fall of mankind as a result of listening to the Serpent :) but also because I was having transcendent experiencs as a child, when my life was riddled with negative feelings/thinking, guilt, etc.

I think the dream showed me protecting the young child in me from the guilt and other critical associations that develop in us in our youth - and say again that I think it was good that I shot them two men in the factory basement.

When I wake from my dreams I often "FEEL" there is a deep working out of things on a psychic level. It is as though there is a continuity between my meditations/prayers and the shaping/reforming of my psychic constitution.



Kristi

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On this link is an image that resembles the vehicle in which I see my son in this dream:

http://www.visitdoncaster.co.uk/Tourism/Images/double-decker-bus_tcm4-20918.jpg

As I said, I am quite sure this scene is not about him, but that my dream maker gives me him (as someone I love and am deeply connected to) as a stand in for this aspect of my animus. And on second thinking, I am not so sure that Henry Mack represents only the "military" aspect. The qualities about him that stand out for me as I reflect again on him as a masculine entity (aside from military associations) is that he had an earthy sensualness about him, and humor ... and his leadership style, there was an element of humility in it. He was a capable man, but not too big in the head/ego, in his outward expression. Gregory, in the dream (really, me) is trying to get rid of a key that keeps coming back, so... something I need, that will help me as I travel in this bus... Again, the masculine is trying to give me something. I need to accept it. As I see Greg on the bus, he is moving about. The locomotion of the bus seems autonomous. I feel near certain it intends to communicate something about my position in the collective. And, of course, the bus is me, too... two-tiered.

Kristi

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Kristi,
I like how you are answering your own questions {to the extent of being able to do so}. To be honest my thinking is that through an inner dialog with oneself answers to come about that were unavailable previously. This is exactly what Jung's Individuation Process is all about. It is a self examination of the total psyche, the total life, from beginning to the present day. And when that is done memories, experiences from the past return as if they were experienced yesterday. You are once again in that 'moment' and that moment can say so much about the present.

As for the two tiered mini-bus. Could that represent your drug use as well as your sons? Anything at the top often represents the thinking mind. Could it be you are 'thinking' too much of the negative consequences? You stopped using drugs early on, before they were able to take control. How much of a problem is it with your son? Is his use severe or only recreational? Is it a big problem or one you are afraid will develop into something worse? Are you putting too much into it?

Perhaps it is time to 'allow Gregory to leave home'. Perhaps his attachment {to home} in the dream is actually your attachment to him. "I am now seeing my self as being with Gregory". Could this be a statement about your fears of Gregory being like yourself? If so then the dream may be taking a position of the need to let that go, let Gregory be Gregory {to the extent of no getting in his way in positive aspects}.

getting back to the proposition of being too hard on yourself. Perhaps you are being too hard on Gregory. Is his drug use really that much of a problem. If so then of course you need to all you can to deter that. But it may be 'as much in your mind' as it is in reality.

Give thought to this and let me know how you feel. And keep on with the self analyzing. It is through that process you discover {and by posting it helps others understand} what is the motivations in your life and in your dreams.

Jerry

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Jerry,

Thanks for that. More to consider. It must also relate to my son. Again, things most always a matter of "both/and," instead of "either/or."

I will have to take some time to look at and feel into it. If I am still being too harsh on my son, then it would also indicate that I am, as well, still being too harsh on me. For what we do to others, we also do to our own selves, I believe.

He no longer lives near me. He is about four hours away. We did talk just yesterday, as he called. I don't think he is using "drugs," now. I know he drinks, but I think he is away from the drugs. At least not using them to the extent he was when he was living with me over a year ago. That time was very good, for both of us, as it brought an opportunity for healing ... healing which I feel I can still take deeper. I recall at this moment how very judgmental and negative I was about his drug use, which I felt was a reflection of how harsh I was on my self, too, for having used drugs. Like I said, our children are a great mirror of our selves.

I will meditate more on this. I may well be holding on to him, still.

Kristi

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More thoughts here (some, perhaps repititious)

So, what if Henry Mack (in my dream) is actually the authoritative (Army) aspect that is too harsh and does not allow Gregory (and my self) to be free of the mind attitude about drugs? I do think it is both/and (both he and me) and not just my son, for my meditation/reliving those moments of my youth was felt very viscerally, like an emotional regression to that time. The judgment takes me to the young child aspect I am protecting (from the judgment) as I hide beneath the stairs out in society. There, I am wearing guilt and condemnation. The men I end up fleeing from = the parts of self that have persecuted/punished me, made me feel wrong, that I had to hide. As the dream (my psyche) continues to explore these issues (into the factory area), I end up finding that this is a part of how my psyche has operated (functioned, sort of autonomously, with judgment, like on a factory production line). Ouch, I can see/feel that in my mind, as I think about it. I think this is what is being killed - what needs to die, as the dream shows.

Kristi

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Jerry,

That I may have been thinking too much about the negative consequence of drugs is not something I was conscious of doing, at this time. More than a year ago, when my son was living with me, and using drugs, I could better see what you suggest, perhaps find it more fitting. And I wonder if it was that knowledge of me you were going off of, for I did share some of that here. As I said, currently, I don’t think he is using drugs. It has not been a concern of mine. He is doing well, holding a good job. He is very responsible and works very hard. He is disciplined and does well to care for his son. I am very proud of him. I did all that I could to deter his use of drugs when he was here with me in late 2007, into early 2008 – and then reached the point where I had to let go of it/him, give him back to him self. While I did not close the door to him, I did tell him he could no longer “live in” my home. I said many prayers for him, but did send him on his way. And he did not spiral down. It woke him up, more, he reorganized and made adjustments in his life.

So, I do not think this is the predominant message of the dream.

Do I have a mother’s concern that if another adverse event entered his life, he may turn to drugs, again? Yes, I do. That is an eventuality. He has an addictive personality, as does his father. I have actually wished that Greg were more like me, able to stop the drugs, able to see that there is another way. I've wished for his burden to be easier, lesser than mine. I've wished for him to know a gentler way in life.

I feel the dream has more to do with unfinished business within me.

During the time that he was here with me, I was quite aware of the pain it was waking up in me, from my own childhood.

The dream/psyche keeps the key returning because some understanding needs to be reached. It's a key to understanding. The dream seems to suggest that with the understanding I can release both my self (and of course, in turn, my son, from the too critical mindset about the use of drugs). The key comes from a hard charging, order giving (Army) masculine entity. Henry Mack used to be my First Sergeant - authority/supervisor.

Again, this dream came after a reflection/meditation on my own youth. Greg (and his drug use) was not and has not been in my thoughts.

Also, the current movement in my life, school and a new career after a lot of inner work, is reflective of the position of the image of Gregory in this dream, leaving home (so to speak), entering the collective on his own. The dream may be speaking to part of what I was still carrying when I made this same movement in my life when I was 18 - leaving home to join the Army.

Kristi

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Kristi,
A note that is always worth remembering and I know you are already aware of. Your dreams are always about you. Anyone else {that is recognizable} is most likely about their relationship or influence on you.

Jerry

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Jerry,

Thanks. Yes, I do I do know, and do need to remember sometimes.

The best I can make of this dream at this time is that Henry Mack, as Army First Sergeant, is an aspect of my self that is exacting in decisions and judgments, an enforcer of orders/regulations within my self. In the dream, as the focus of the scene is transitioning from seeing Henry Mack to seeing just Gregory in the trolley-bus looking vehicle, it is as though Henry is above, elevated to the vehicle Gregory is in. Henry maintains this elevated position in the dream as the key bounces back and forth to Gregory. So, it adds to the fact that Henry represents a thinking (judgmental) aspect of mind. The dream then shows how this has affected Gregory. I can see his frsutration, need to be free. Which, as I already said, is also my own. For the judgment I have held of my son's drug use did not originate with my son, but of my judgment of my own drug use as a child. The dream goes on to show how that affected me as a child, and still, through the years, as I remained unconscious of how I continued to berate my self with it, through the years. I remain feeling that the final scene was positive, in that I stopped running from the men attempting to shoot me and my son, but instead have gone deeper into the issue (in the basement/unconscious) and find these persecuting men falling dead before me. I think it shows what needs to happen - the death of these negative mind aspects.

Kristi

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