This Jungian Life

Many people have difficulty making decisions, whether large or small. Among other factors, the psychology behind the fear of making a decision can be related to fear of making a mistake, lack of motivation, suppressed anger and aggression, and difficulty accepting the limitations and ordinariness of adulthood. The Dream: Last night I had what felt like an important dream. I was in a big new house. In one room I was just waking up with the cousin who is closest to me. The room was dark and filled with shadows. The other room was filled with light and I saw a woman waiting for me to wake up. We had both gone to the kitchen and as she got closer she was a girl I had a crush on in high school in very much detail. In high school I was always afraid to come talk to her—now she was coming to me. She was wearing my boxers and tank top and saw me and went right to the fridge and pulled out some tea. One of her friends was there too, whom I knew but didn’t know too well. We were all talking and having fun but with me a

The pressure to conform to familial and cultural values provides guidelines for each new generation – and can also stifle the uniqueness necessary not only to the individual but to family and cultural health. How can we discern when differentiation from established norms is in the service of meaningful growth and soul versus avoidance of necessary developmental challenge? This podcast engages this issue as both interpersonal and intrapsychic conflict. The dream: A recurring dream I have had for years. I am in someone else’s house and unable to find my way to my bedroom to sleep. I open doors and wander corridors. There are other people around. Sometimes I find my room to find other people in my bed. Sometimes the house is a holiday cottage or a university hall of residence, or a hotel or a huge rambling house. I never find a place to sleep. At Home in the World: Sounds and Symmetries of Belonging (Zurich Lecture Series in Analytical Psychology) by John Hill  Link: http://a.co/gTkuyoP

Living with a parent who is seriously impaired can be traumatic and have lasting consequences. Fortunately, resources for healing and resilience are also available, and premature encounters with shadow can be a call to consciousness and yield gifts of effective and creative depth. The dream: My band mate and I are in an underground burial chamber which is dimly lit by torches. At some point we come across a large tomb/coffin. The coffin was black and was decorated with golden “stick figure” men with very large, erect penises. They looked a lot like prehistoric cave drawings of people. There was a smaller coffin inserted into the top of the larger, which could be removed and slid back. My band mate removes the smaller coffin and opens the lid; inside is the rotting, decaying body of an infant girl. It’s at this point in the dream I remember feeling particularly unsettled. At that point both of us knew we were supposed to be the two-wheeling this coffin out of wherever we were. We were supposed to be the funera

The mother-in-law is not only the subject of many a joke but the subject of fairy tale and myth. Conflict between the older and younger woman lies in the archetypal realm, as both struggle to come to terms with differences, age, and the power of both youth and age. The Dream: Somehow my baby’s right arm has come completely out of her socket and is completely detached. I try to put it back into her socket, hoping for a miracle (which doesn’t happen) so I put her back into her cot. Later, I look for her, thinking I need to feed her but cannot find her. I search high and low, still there’s no baby. By chance, I find her in another room, it was like she was deliberately moved there. Her skin is very cold but she is alive. Her arm is still detached. I’ll have to take her to the doctor’s, I think, and get her arm sewn on, if that’s even possible. I wake up.

In archery, sin refers to missing the mark, whereas transgression involves violation of a cultural boundary. But missing the mark or crossing a line can have positive effects as well as negative consequences. The dream: I am outside, in the yard of an old, but well-maintained house. The house is off-white, but I couldn’t say if it was gray off-white or beige off-white. There are other people here but I don’t pay them much attention because I am looking at my left hand. It has been injured—the skin across my knuckles has been torn and crudely stitched up. The skin is buckled between stitches and several are infected. I think to myself, no wonder things are a mess!

Creative depression demands that we suffer a journey into the deep wells of the psyche in quest of new life. It differs from other kinds of depression in how it is imaged in dreams, its antecedents in the person’s life history, and in relationships. The Dream: I was gardening and all my seeds were failing. The plants they were producing looked old and withered as they broke the soil. I went to a water barrel to irrigate the sad plot and instead of water, there was a red liquid in the barrel. Not sure if wine, blood…it didn’t seem significant. I siphoned some down a hose to the garden and what looked like snow started falling and covering the garden. Then in a back corner of the garden, I saw movement…when I approached the spot, I saw a person stand up from under the soil. As if he had a gown like a plant. I don’t know who it was in waking life, but in the dream, he seemed familiar. I remember being more intrigued than bewildered by the person. Then I woke.

Lying, hiding and sneaking are examples of trickster behavior, discussed as they occur in political and personal spheres. When is this behavior in service to individuation, and when is it in service to regressive, or unconscious, aspects of the psyche?  The dream: I had a dream a couple of days ago where I was cut in half by a shaman. The setting of this dream occurred in my backyard. The shaman was Aztec it seemed. At the same time I was a shaman too, who was willing to be sacrificed by this shaman. He cut me in half with a ceremony knife and as he cut snakes came out of my body. An extension of this dream was of a snake crawling up my spine to talk to me. I don’t remember what it said.  

As three analysts, we explore the archetype of “the gun” from a Jungian psychological view and seek to understand it’s influence in the collective psyche of Americans. Guns play a big role in American mythology from the American Revolution to cowboys and first-person shooter games. Guns are symbols of heroic power—but mythology also sounds a cautionary note about what can happen when humans arrogate super-human power to themselves. The dream:  When I was a child, around ages 7 to 8, I would dream that my bedroom was covered in lizards. I’d wake up and jump to the floor, run to my parents’ bed, and climb in between them. Sweating, I’d look up to see the eye of a red dragon. Suddenly I was in an old-time saloon and the dragon would just be staring at me. That ‘s all there was to it, but it was repetitive.

How can we understand the superficial label assigned to masculine behavior in today’s meme-driven style of discourse? The Dream: I am walking on what seems to be mountainous hills. A little ahead of me is what feels like my teenage daughter and a friend. It’s kind of like twilight. Then I see a giant size footprint on the hillside. Huge, like a natural wonder-of-the-world type of site. I point at it like the way one does when one sees something pretty or interesting on holidays. Then I take a photo.

Jung was one of the primary theorists who added to our understanding of the psychological significance of dreams, and working with dreams is often a central part of an analytic process. What is the Jungian understanding of why we dream? What does it mean if we don't dream, and what are some ways of learning to work with dreams? We discuss things one can do to help with dream recall, and ponder whether we dream all day long, even when awake. We also talk about the nature of symbols in dreams and dream series.    Here's the Dream We Analyze:   "I ran into a male friend who I have not seen for a few years in the lobby of a ridiculously high-end hotel. I was wearing only a towel. He asked me to join him in his room, which was called “the mermaid aquarium,” along with a female friend of his who was already in the room. Somewhere along the line in the hotel lobby he bought me orange-scented perfume. I found his room. I just remember entering the room and seeing two nude women lying on the bed wearing exotic jewelry

Jung pioneered the technique of active imagination, a process by which the ego engages with imagery and content generated by the unconscious. Active imagination can help us understand our dreams, and lead us into new psychic situations. On today's episode, we share some personal examples of active imagination, discuss some suggestions of how to engage in it, and explore what active imagination has to do with snorkeling.    Here's the Dream We Analyze: "I am about to light four candles on the dining room table, each in its separate candlestick. They are ivory-colored tapers and are about two-thirds consumed already. Two of the burned wicks are quite short and two are long, curling at the top. I am arrested by this fact as it seems significant and I’m somewhat afraid of getting it wrong somehow." BECOME A DREAM INTERPRETER We’ve created Dream School to teach others how to work with their dreams. A vibrant community has constellated around this mission, and we think you’ll love it. Check it out: https://thisjun

“We don't so much solve our problems as we outgrow them. We add capacities and experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.” CG Jung Anxiety is one of the most common complaints that bring people into therapy. While it can be difficult to differentiate anxiety from healthy fear we all agree that finding an ally to stand with us makes a big difference. We explore the many underlying dynamics that can manifest outwardly as anxiety and consider the value in taking a heroic stance as we face our inner dragons. Inspired by Jung, we can come to appreciate that working with our anxieties rather than running from them gets the best results. Here's the Dream We Analyze: “I’ve had Repeated dreams for many years about human feces in different forms.” BECOME A DREAM INTERPRETER We’ve created Dream School to teach others how to work with their dreams. A vibrant community has constellated around this mission, and we think you’ll love it. Check it out: https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/ PLEASE GIVE US A HA

Why do Jungians care about fairy tales? What is their relevance in analysis? How do they differ from myths, and why do they matter to us still? Find out what fairy tales have mattered most to our clients, and why Lisa gets cranky when people criticize fairy tales for being sexist.   Here's the Dream We Analyze "I dreamt of a big cockroach. It was standing like a human and it was going to be transformed."  REFERENCE The Book of Symbols BECOME A DREAM INTERPRETER We’ve created Dream School to teach others how to work with their dreams. A vibrant community has constellated around this mission, and we think you’ll love it. Check it out: https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/ PLEASE GIVE US A HAND Hey folks, we need your help. Please become our patron and keep This Jungian Life podcast up and running: https://www.patreon.com/ThisJungianLife SHARE YOUR DREAM WITH US Submit your dream for a possible podcast interpretation: https://thisjungianlife.com/share-your-dream/  INTERESTED IN BECOMING A JUNGIAN ANALYST? Enrol

Synchronicity is a concept that has fascinated thinkers across disciplines for decades, and few have delved as deeply into its nature and implications as the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. According to Jung, synchronicity refers to meaningful coincidences that defy rational explanation but that feel infused with a sense of significance or destiny. But how do we recognize such coincidences, and what role do they play in our lives and psyches?  Jung himself was driven to explore the concept of synchronicity by his encounters with analysands who described unusual coincidences that seemed to be tied to their inner experiences and conflicts. For example, a patient might think of a long-lost friend just before they receive a call from them, or while discussing a dream scarab, a similar insect flies through the office window. These events felt charged with meaning and often served as powerful catalysts for psychological growth and transformation.  But what makes a coincidence truly synchronistic, as opposed to just a

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, True Blood. Vampires are perennial stars in popular entertainment. How can we understand vampires psychologically, and what does their tremendous popularity tell us about our culture? This week, we look at the transformation of the vampire archetype, explore how vampires live in all of us psychologically, and trace the return of the feeling function in modern vampire images.    Here's the Dream We Analyze: "This is a repeating dream. I am still at school but have reached well into middle age. I am unwilling to stay there, unwilling to study or sit for any exams as I have already qualified as a nurse. I wish to go and secure a job." BECOME A DREAM INTERPRETER We’ve created Dream School to teach others how to work with their dreams. A vibrant community has constellated around this mission, and we think you’ll love it. Check it out: https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/ PLEASE GIVE US A HAND Hey folks, we need your help. Please become our patron and keep This Jungian Life podca

Sex? Money? Passion? Intellectual companionship? Kids? What are factors to consider when choosing a life partner? Should you be practical, or follow your heart? How is this decision different for men versus for women? We offer some ideas.   Here's The Dream We Analyze: "I was in my parents’ house. My mother was showing me some renovations she had done in the bathroom. Suddenly, in the mirror, I saw myself behind me charging toward me. I turned around in terror, but there was nobody there. I turned back to the mirror and saw myself again, looking pretty demented, charging toward me. Again I turned around, but there was nobody there." BECOME A DREAM INTERPRETER We’ve created Dream School to teach others how to work with their dreams. A vibrant community has constellated around this mission, and we think you’ll love it. Check it out: https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/ PLEASE GIVE US A HAND Hey folks, we need your help. Please become our patron and keep This Jungian Life podcast up and running: https://www.patr

The standard psychiatric understanding of auditory hallucinations is that they are a symptom of serious mental illness, and ought to be treated with antipsychotic medication, but could there other ways of understanding this phenomenon? Can such symptoms ever have meaning in their own right? We explore whether voices could sometimes be the psyche's attempt to heal itself. In the show, we mention the Hearing Voices Network. Here's the Dream We Analyze: "I was walking along on a frozen lake near the shore. Suddenly the ice under my feet gave way and I felt myself falling through. My boots were immediately soaked, pulling me under. My coat quickly became too heavy. As my head slipped below the surface, I saw my mother walking some distance from me. She didn’t see me; nobody did. I didn’t make a sound. I only had time to think: this is my death, and nobody will see me. I was going down very quickly, with no time to even struggle. About 1.5 meters below the surface, I had a final quick thought; maybe I’m dreaming.

Is alcohol dependence a misplaced expression of a spiritual thirst, or a collapse into a regressed and infantile state? We discuss Jung's involvement in the establishment of Alcoholics Anonymous. Jung's letter to Bill W. Here's the Dream We Analyze: "I’m accused of something I’m guilty of: loving the pharaoh’s daughter as she was my own. There are pictures and notebooks on my bag that prove it. So I’m dismissed from my post as guard. I end of on the floor; they paint my face black. The pharaoh and the other guard go through my stuff. On several occasions, they are about to find the proof that I’m guilty, but there are a lot of other notebooks and books in my bag, so they don’t find the incriminating ones." BECOME A DREAM INTERPRETER We’ve created Dream School to teach others how to work with their dreams. A vibrant community has constellated around this mission, and we think you’ll love it. Check it out: https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/ PLEASE GIVE US A HAND Hey folks, we need your help. Please become our

What’s the difference between shaming, being ashamed, and being shamed? Which of these is most alive in the culture right now? Why do we feel existential shame, and how can it be healed? Here's the Dream We Analyze: "I was on one side of the Grand Canyon with my graduate school classmates and it was daylight. We all had on our caps and gowns. There was a thin land bridge reaching over to the other side where there stood significant others, homes, and other symbols of a great future. My classmates were running across smiling and throwing their caps up into the air. I let them all go because I wanted some space to run by myself. It started to get dark and I didn’t see anyone I knew on the other side for me. The land bridge turned into a rope ladder with dowels that was strung horizontally across. I had to crawl across in the dark by myself." BECOME A DREAM INTERPRETER We’ve created Dream School to teach others how to work with their dreams. A vibrant community has constellated around this mission, and we think

We take a look at emotional affairs and imaginal affairs. Both are more common than you might think and can lead us into an experience of our own depths. Here's the Dream We Analyze: "I was with my eldest child and my husband. We were in my old hometown. I suddenly felt an urge to visit an ex-boyfriend. I knew he was unwell even though I hadn’t spoken to him for many years—call it a sixth sense. I said to my husband and child, “We must go to his house as all is not well.” We got there and entered the house via the back door. My ex-boyfriend was sitting on his sofa, dressed in women’s clothes. He was dead." BECOME A DREAM INTERPRETER We’ve created Dream School to teach others how to work with their dreams. A vibrant community has constellated around this mission, and we think you’ll love it. Check it out: https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/ PLEASE GIVE US A HAND Hey folks, we need your help. Please become our patron and keep This Jungian Life podcast up and running: https://www.patreon.com/ThisJungianLife SHAR