Alienation

One of the effects of the fall is a very real sense of alienation.  We are separated from God and from each other by gulfs that only grace can bridge.  I find many modern descriptions of the phenomenon of alienation to be quite suggestive.  Here is one from a Jungian analyst:

“A sense of dividedness or separation seems to have been basic to the human condition, probably since coming to consciousness, and the vocational ‘call’ to wholeness arises in moments of special conflict and crisis.  Every human heart longs for the overcoming of the sense of alientation….some sense of being connected to a larger reality is basic to healing that separation and finding meaning in life.”

  

Jean and Wallace Clift

Symbols of Transformation in Dreams

Jung's God

Jung found it hard to commit himself to any traditional theological position.  In practice, his approach to the inner archetype of the Self fulfilled many of the functions which a deity would provide -

“Jung saw this central archetype as the organizer and inventor of dream images – the inner guiding factor that continually extends and matures the personality when the ego is willing to listen to the messages of the Self.  The ego perceives the Self as ‘other,’ and the subjective experience conveys the feeling that ‘some suprapersonal force is actively interfering in a creative way.  One sometimes feels that the unconscious is leading the way in accordance with a secret design.’  Jung spoke of the Self as the ‘god image’ in the psyche, and encounters with the Self have all the qualities associated with the concept of God.”

……………..

 

“Jung says that those who have developed a kind of dialogue between the ego and the rest of the psyche sense themselves as the objects of an unknown and supraordinate object.  He closed his Answer to Job with this passage”

 

            'Even the enlightened person remains what he is, and is never more than his own limited ego before the One who dwells within him, whose form has no knowable boundaries, who encompasses him on all sides, fathomless as the abysms of the earth and vast as the sky.'

 

These descriptions are remarkably like those of many Christian Writers.”

Jean and Wallace Clift

Symbols of Transformation in Dreams

A Vicious Cycle

"There is a general succession of events in which contraries are produced by periodical vicissitudes; labour and care are rewarded with success, success produces confidence, confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins that reputation which accuracy had raised."

Samuel Johnson,
The Rambler, 29

How do dreams mean? A Jungian Answer

I went through the Topical Guide to the Scriptures on the topic of Dreams and found the collected references quite insightful.  The scriptures do not give us a dream encyclopedia, just a reminder that the interpretation of dreams is a spiritual gift.

Fascinated by how dreams communicate to us, I have collected some examples (with a little bit of underlying theory) of what people have learned from dreams.

One Jungian theory is that some dreams are "compensatory or complementary."  They "balance a one-sided attitude of consciousness" or "complete what is lacking in the contents of consciousness which are too narrow or are not considered sufficiently valuable."

Some examples of such balancing dreams

1.  "...someone who suffers from feelings insecurity and inferiority and in a dream finds himself in a hero role."
2. "Jung relates the case of a lady who was well known for her stupid prejudices and her stubborn resistance to reasoned argument.  One night she dreamed she was invited to an important social affair.  Her hostess greeted her with the words, 'Oh, how nice you have come!  All your friends are here already and are expecting you.'  The hostess then led her to a door, opened it and the dreamer stepped into - a cowshed!  'The woman would not admit at first the point of a dream that struck so directly at her self-importance, but its message nevertheless went home.'"

"Sometimes a dream...gives advice like a well meaning person."

1. "I had a rich elderly woman analysand who had been alcoholic and had given up drinking.  But the neurotic problems that lay behind her alcoholism, especially a general demoralization and slovenliness, still had to be worked out.  Once she dreamed that a voice told her, 'You need a breakfast corset.'  I asked her in great detail what time she ate breakfast, what kind of corset she wore, when she put it on, etc.  I discovered then that out of vanity she wore a very tight corset but never put it on in the morning; rather she breakfasted in her dressing gown, then dawdled around the apartment in her negligee the rest of the morning and put her corset on around noon.  Only then did her day actually begin.  After this information, the dream no longer needed interpretation, and we both laughed heartily.  I would ask her, 'How is it going with the breakfast corset?'"
2. "I once had an analysand who had to give up alcohol, which he did bravely for a couple of months.  Then he said to me, 'Listen, don't you think I could dare now to have one glass of beer in the evening at the Sternan Hotel with Betty?  Just one glass?  I am always so lost in the evenings, so lonely.'  Although I knew this was not advisable, I just said, 'I don't know, I don't want to be your governess.  Try it and we will see how your unconscious reacts.'  He did this, drank his glass of beer, and went home.  That night he dreamed of driving his car up a mountain, all the way to the top, but when he got there he did not brake properly and the car rolled backward all the way down the mountain until he was back where he started....He immediately realized that 'only one glass of beer' would not work."

Quotes from
Marie-Louise Von Franz
Dreams

A Jewish "Falling Away"

Like Christianity, which must confront the difference between modern times and the miraculous, charismatic events of the first century, Judaism has had to ponder the end of the prophetic era.

"After the death of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, the last of the prophets, the Holy Spirit ceased from Israel."

Tosifta Sot. xiii, 2
quoted by
Abraham Cohen
Everyman's Talmud

"By the rabbinic period, prophecy - direct communication from God - had given way to textual interpretation: exactly what we are doing.  The sages preferred to interpret the Torah actively rather than passively awaiting new revelations.  Further, I suspect that they were suspicious of new revelations, which potentially undercut their authority.  They preferred an established system of commentary to charismatic religion.  For the rabbis, active prophecy ended with the biblical books of the Minor Prophets, Haggai, Malachi and Zechariah.  From that point onward, the rabbis engaged in midrash, the searching out God's will through interpretation of the scriptural canon."

Rabbi Burton L. Visotsky
Sage Tales

"The men of prehistoric times, being able to use the Holy Spirit, gave names to their children which indicated events that were going to happen to them later in their lives; we, on the other hand, who cannot employ the Holy Spirit, name our children after our ancestors."

Genesis R. xxxvii, 7
quoted by
Abraham Cohen
Everyman's Talmud

Self Regard

"Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine, that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or in degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour."

Samuel Johnson
The Rambler, 29

Jung and the source of Dreams

I've been reading and thinking about dreams a lot lately.

Jung and his disciples had a fascinating approach to the dream that verges on the religious.  The following quotes are from Marie-Louise Von Franz, a close associate of Jung and a well known interpreter and influential diffuser of Jungian ideas.

"Who or what is this miraculous something that composes a series of dream images?....it must be a being of the most superior intelligence - judging from the depth and cleverness of dreams....each time we succeed in understanding a dream and morally assimilating its message we 'begin to see (the light)'....one sees oneself for a moment through the eyes of another, of something objective which views one from the outside as it were....This eye which looks at us from within has to do with what we usually call conscience."

Marie-Louise Von Franz
Dreams

While neither Jung nor Von Franz would go so far as to claim the "objective existence" of God, they put the kind of faith into the unconscious self (the "image of God" inside man) that allowed them the ability to have spiritual experiences in which they received guidance, and were even given glimpses of the future.