After a few weeks talking to Brother Philip about my plight he
suggested that maybe it might be beneficial to undergo a dream
analysis. I knew that was coming, because before he became a
monk Philip was a successful Jungian analyst up in San Francisco.
And what he was talking about with me was what Jungians call
the "individuation process." It was about coming to understand
our psyche's inner world, our archetypal infrastructure that has.
does, and will determine our psychological--and spiritual--
development.
What's important during this process is becoming *aware* of that
inner world, it's repository of symbols that are basically its language.
Usually our dreams are not straightforward. They can be convoluted.
We need to understand their symbolic lingo in order to even begin
to understand the landscape.
Jung wrote about symbolism, and ever since more and more books
have been published when it comes to the complexity of symbols.
And as we plunge deeper into dream work the analysand need
especially to understand hir own set of symbols. Eventually we need
go beyond the books.
All this work took time, especially so for a fellow like me. Outer
directed all my life, I had to bend in a new direction, moving into
a land that was not at all familiar--and sometimes seemingly
bizarre! It started by *remembering* my dreams. I had to try to
remember, then write down as soon as possible the details of the
dream. Happily I found that the more I practiced this, the better I
became remembering my dreams.
After more than a year working through my dreams with Brother
Philip, a picture of my inner world began to emerge.
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