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At 6:35 A.M., I awoke with this disconcerting dream:
After a long absence, I discover that my doctor has moved his office to a high-tech clinic in the city. As I follow a nurse to an examining room, I see a former friend sitting on the floor of another examining room, looking disgruntled, her shapely legs stretched before her upon the hardwood floor. My heart sank. I hoped she had not seen me.
This glimpse into my psyche reveals more of my shadow. My need to see my doctor suggests regaining control of my health rather than allow the continuing diminishment of my body under hospice supervision. I’m determined to fix myself—And only the best will do: a high-tech clinic in the city.
The former friend mirrors my stinginess of heart, resentments, whining and demanding and sulking behaviors, deeply entrenched in my psyche, still rooted within the recesses of my shadow, despite decades of Twelve Step work.
And my former way of handling conflict— I hoped she had not seen me. —was to flee the scene or ignore what had occurred. Such pretense had thwarted development.
The dream reminds me of the critical practice of emotional honesty, with God, myself, and others. I still have a terminal illness.
At 7:10 A. M., I awoke with this shocking dream:
I’m alone, watching a horrifying scene: a bald nude unconscious man, with pasty skin, lays on the ground surrounded by enemies, their steel-toed boots kicking him. One of them covered his privates with a rag when a cameraman came by and began taping.
This dream from the collective unconscious still shivers my innards—more visceral than accounts of Nazi and Soviet torture that I’ve studied over the years. Even the morning spent at Germany’s Dachau concentration camp was tamed by the sense of it being a tourist attraction, with informative signage.
Stunned, I still shudder. Long ago, I learned that the Dreamer tells the truth: hatred, anger, and penchant to retaliate—even with violence—behaviors I would never own in the conscious world, hide within the shadow of my psyche.
But such behaviors come with being human. Following the collapse of inner restraints, instinctual madness zings through dripping caves like bats: their mayhem terrifies. We all have breaking points, and I have mine, whether expressed or not.
The concentrated negative/evil energies, all masculine, also suggest the collapse of my own, in the face of my mortality, given the minuscule increase in my symptoms, from month to month. No longer is it appropriate to remain passive, unconscious like the victim. I am still breathing and the Twelve Steps of CPA are still to be practiced.
The antidote to this insanity is found in Step One: humble acceptance of my powerlessness and the acceptance of the unacceptable; then on to the cleansing and forgiving Steps, with Higher Power’s release of noxious energies and restoration to wholeness, until the next time.
It takes daily practice…
At 5:50 A.M., I awoke to this stirring dream:
Christ of the Oceans invited me to join His fellowship. I am honored. Others were with me. One fumbled with his keys and happened to drop them in the water. I dove deep, found them lying upon a sandy spur, and returned them to him. I was already a member of His fellowship of Earth.
This dream constitutes a big one in Jungian analysis as it emanates from the deepest place in my unconscious, known as the collective unconscious. It could be a huge gift or the fruit of deepened acceptance of my terminal diagnosis, interstitial lung disease with rheumatoid arthritis—Or perhaps the completion of my care plan when actively dying, whenever that happens.
Needless to say, I’ve already received beautiful care since my November 2019 hospice sign-up. My gratitude knows no bounds.
So to the dream—I did not receive a visual impression of the Christ of the Oceans, only His presence as experienced during my annual directed retreats on the Gloucester coast; its sweetness, the quintessence of joy. His invitation to this watery fellowship suggests Richard Rohr’s study of the Twelve Steps, Breathing Underwater—doing the impossible and healing through obedience of the heart: Its daily practice enables me to continue diving deep. Who know what else I will find? Perhaps more keys to unshackle me from pretense and other character defects?
This dream is a welcome respite from weeks of darkness. Yet, Christ of the Oceans and of the Earth has been companioning me all along. There’s nothing to fear …
Heart Whisperings 