Paralysis strikes. People feel paralyzed by problems. Relationships become stuck. Dreams become those of being paralyzed, unable to move, unable to wake up. Paralysis is real in life and in dreams. It often strikes when we least expect. It's the voice of the unconscious mind trying to get through to us.
Jung wrote, "The fight against the paralysing grip of the unconscious calls forth man's creative powers. That is the source of all creativity, but it needs heroic courage to do battle with these forces and to wrest from them the treasure hard to gain. Whoever succeeds in this has triumphed indeed" (Symbols of Transformation, 1912/1952 CW 5, 523).
People inherently desire to dip deep into their creative powers. But to do so requires that we listen to our paralysis, our sense of stuckness. It is the voice of the gods offering us a chance. Without it, we'd just go along merrily not growing, not loving to our potential, not living.
We're stuck when we're feeling out of sorts for long periods of time. We can can get out of this psychic morass only by engaging in the heroic battle of asking ourselves what it is that we need to face. There's always something lurking, at the ready, for us to be shocked by. It comes as a dream symbol, a life event, a simple phrase a person uses that cuts to the quick.
Paralysis strikes so that we can strike back, so that we hear the call and respond to consciousness, to face new vistas of awareness in life, in love, and in the discovery of inner and outer treasures hard to gain but potentially within reach for those of heroic courage.
