When Dreams Depict a Stage in the Alchemical Process
I have been going through profound changes for the last three years that have included a number of losses. I have glibly referred to my situation on occasion as "my dismantling." I'm coming out the other end, but managing my mood is still an effort. I don't know a lot about alchemy, but a dream I had a few days ago brought forth the image of the alchemical bath and seemed to speak to the magnitude of my transformation: I am seated in a black office chair on rollers in a large auditorium with…
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OK Bill, this is not my own projection; to complie with your own, this is CG Jung's projection on both blue and the rectangle you call a box.
Taken from CG Jung, "Dreams" (New York: MJF Books, 1974 p287-88) Jung is noting the color, "blue" missing from the dream of the dreamer, unlike yourown dream where blue is the only color noted and the rainbow of color is missing. (Sometimes a dream is talking by way absences within presences)
...
"We would conjecture that blue, standing for the vertical, means height and depth (blue sky above, blue sea below) and that any shrinkage of the vertical reduces the square to an oblong, thus producing something like an inflation of consciousness. Hence, the vertical would correspond to the unconscious."
...like woman herself, the anima means the height and depth of a man,"
Thank you all. Your input is greatly appreciated and I do understand the need to "flesh out" the dream content with my own subjective reality. I am inclined toward the idea that the dream is related to my growing sense of spirit and what may be contained in the box related to my own spiritual journey. What I have been able to find and what many, or all, of you have said is that the color is related to spirit. What is interesting is the shape of the box, and the fact that it has no discernible means by which to open it. But, herein lies another interesting piece...I didn't pick up the box or look elsewhere for an opening. I guess I need to do a little more work, eh? And, yes Ruth, I would like that! My own Jung library is insufficient for that purpose. Thanks.
Bill
With you on this, PJ Fields and others.
Blue Sky Meditation is about leaving the ego
for commune with the essential goodness of the basic Self
"In the morning, be sure to put your slippers under the bed, brush your teeth, wash your face, put on your clothing, and then
Take the roof off."
Max Luscher denoted skyblue for spirituality, purity and bliss.
Many of my students in classes have an initial dream involving the box shaped classroom and no ceiling, looking up many stories more than the building is and seeing blue sky.
My very first dream recall age 6 is of this also...standing in a brick house, packed dirt floor, no furniture, all walls, fire surrounding, smoke wreathing, and looking up to see blue sky. A bird crosses, pulling my spirit upwards. I am no longer afraid.
Jung perhaps can help you if you want to read his "marriage as a container" essay...or Freud with his rather long "Boxes as mother's womb" essay in Psychopathology of Everyday Life.
Then there is the "blue room" used on Television these days...sometimes called the Green Room...projections of whatever desired images such as the weather map for the weatherman's predictions appear on teh TV but in the actual physical studio, you see only the glowing blue box of the background which is both on the horizontal and the vertical.
Hillman's Soul/Spirit intersection comes to mind. Voudon, also.
ok, enough.
have fun.
g
The invitation may be for the dreamer to dive into the veil of the unknown, heart open, tendered to the flow of 'his' dream...even though one might sense that it may also have communal significance. Might he step vulnerably into the sharing by responding to the rich questions and prompts already on the table of presence, and/or bring through some of his own feeling intuitions? Such generosity of spirit as is in evidence here might strengthen the voice of the dream with more input from the dreamer.
P. J. Fields
Hi Bill, You haven't mentioned anything about how you feel about the box or the color, or the emanation (glow). This seems like a "feeling" dream to me. And something soft feminine to begin with. For this I would first ask your feelings and then I would dialogue with the image in the Perls-ian style. As Lisa suggests. The color blue also is a representation of Mary in Catholicism giving a sense of 'virginity' to the box or your years in virginity. (In some cultures the blue is a sky-blue) I think your feelings re: box are most important here. Does the image feel frightening? would it if the lid were removed? Can the lid be removed? How would you feel, removing the lid? the box is a rectangle not a square which, if it were square, would indicate more of a sense of wholeness. I sense that the dream is about something in your past even your adolescent or young adult years that has been unfulfilled although perhaps longed for. something that is incomplete. Stephanie talks about a setting of ambiguity, made even more so by your presenting it without any other input. It keeps leading me back to the adolescent years(?) something you wanted to approach but did not feel ready to. Usually that's either about the divine or sex.
I will also hold the image for awhile and see what arises. Thanks for your offering!
Hi Bill- I am curious about your own impressions which you have not yet shared and the ones here your narrative already shares. I'm keeping in mind the narrative I'm reading is not the dream but the way you choose to represent the dream when you re-presence it.
In your dream narrative
The box is set within a setting conveying ambiguity. Is it "hanging" and "walled-in"? Is it "tabled"; "it" is somehow conveying its existence between these notions of which it is not.
The rectangle you call a box is glowing faintly. The narrative has brought a wonder to the table which may not be a table or perhaps the wonder is caught in too solid flesh; between a wall and a hard place, a table.
The wonder is described as boxed in and this narrative seems to suggest there is an unknown content in the box, which is unopened and glowing faintly making one wonder what "it" is the box contains.Suppose however the unknown content is the box itself and the box conveys what it is completely. It is "sky" blue and rectangular.
Sky blue, a color carries a history of color (see Pastoureau's "Blue" p 44-45) and with this association of sky blue to the stone, sapphire, comes a magico-religious inheritance and christianity's 'color doctrine' in which the notion that colors are manifestations of the divine nature and when wedded to gold (light) evoke the splendor of creation.
Joseph Campbell believed mythic elements in a man's life reflect his nature as well as shape it and I often suspect the wonder turns us on in a very specific way, one that poetizes our stories making us begin to function more poetically...the unsounded sounds of the words of our dreams...what imitates that?
I think I may have it now! Hopefully this post makes it easier.
The dream was very simply that I saw a "sky" blue rectangular box on a table or hanging on a wall. It had no discernible openings or markings but it did have a very faint glow emanating from it.
Usually I am able to translate fairly easily but this one has me stumped!
Thanks
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