The personal is political and a free society necessitates a
shift in the interpersonal power structures that govern our daily lives. Since
we need power to govern our lives, politics is personal. Another charge
levelled against dream work by well-intentioned men and women is that it is
"navel gazing," or just another way to avoid the demanding reality of
waking life through a "dream realm" of reckless, self-centered
withdrawal. We are living in dangerous days.
A list of our mutual ills and woes will fill a book several
times the size of this essay. We are on the verge of extinction, not only of the
human race, but also of the vast majority of the other diverse animals with
which we share the earth, and we have purposefully created these awful dangers
for ourselves. We live in the shadow of nuclear, chemical, and biological
warfare, technological incompetence and planning failure, industrial ecocide,
economic ruin, civil unrest, and the mental and emotional attitudes that allow
those horrors.
Indeed, our common conditions are so ominous that most
people would rather suppress their anxiety and feeling of helplessness in the
face of these issues by not thinking about them at all, however we must think
about them. We must summon the courage to investigate them objectively and
devote our brightest and most imaginative efforts to their transformation and
resolution. Let me suggest a quick mental experiment to begin this necessary endeavor
of gazing intentionally at our deepest and most wicked individual and
collective potentialities: Imagine the world as it is, but condensed, without a
human intervention.
Imagine the night and day rhythms, the sky, clouds, and
changing weather, the endless ebb and flow of the tides, the changing seasons,
and the myriad of creatures and organisms living in the sea, on land, and in
the air—all existing together in a web of intricate, subtle, invisible,
impartial natural forces—creating a single, delicate, evolving ecosystem, this
wholistic ecosystem. Both suffering and death lose their terrifying and
"evil" characteristics in this imaginary world.
The cycle of life and death, the drama of predator and prey,
the pain of human animals, and even the disappearance of whole species are all
accidental and normal, completely innocent because they are completely unaware
and therefore incapable of premeditation or guilt. We are standing in a
metaphorical "Garden of Eden" as well as the biological environments
that current research indicates contributed to the evolution of human life.
It's ironic that amid such broad metaphorical consensus, the discussion between
"evolutionists" and "creationists" is so acrimonious.
When he studied the various evidences of evolution, Teilhard
de Chardin tried his whole life to be faithful to both the rigorous demands of
scientific inquiry and his own profound intuitions of theological significance.
He came to the conclusion (as had Hindus and Buddhists before him) that time is
a useful illusion, and that “God” is the ultimate end toward which evolution is
groping (but, since time is ultimately illusory, it is possible to think of all
events as occurring simultaneously, and in this sense, God can be understood as
existing always, in the fullness of time, drawing evolution toward itself).
The endless debates about "evolutionism" vs. "creationism"
can be seen for what they are in the face of those ideas: the products of
prematurely closed processes of thinking and belief. Consider the world as it
is now, but without the influence of humans. Anything that is genuinely “evil”
(including all the horrifying prospects of environmental catastrophe and
personal suffering that we have wrought for ourselves) is the product of human
consciousness and human interference in the “natural order,” according to this
“thought experiment” (as Einstein called such efforts of mind and imagination).
In this essential context, it is possible to understand that
human consciousness is the "true sin," the root of all our anguish
and pain, metaphorically speaking. “Separation from God” has been described as
“sin” by all world religions. Separation from God can be interpreted
metaphorically as a blueprint for the separation of individual human
consciousness from the overwhelming universal unconsciousness of the natural
universe. This is the species' and all conscious human beings' initial
existential state.
Indeed, consciousness is the one element that “separates” us
from the spontaneous, universal cosmos, though consciousness is still our main
way of knowing and reconnecting with it. When Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
both argue that humanity's predicament is the inherent product of original sin,
this is merely a summary of the obvious divergence of individual human
consciousness from the universal unconscious on one basis. At all, our
dreaming, lucid, "objective" human experience is fragmented and
transient.
Our perception vanishes into realms of
"unconsciousness" in all ways at once, even though we are mentally
clear and emotionally elevated. Allow me to suggest another mental exercise.
Try to be as conscious of the whole experience in this moment as possible. Try
to be aware of all the unconscious bodily processes, such as your breathing,
the food digesting in your stomach and intestinal tract, the blood coursing
through your veins, the various states of tension in your musculature, your
thoughts, your emotions, your visual perceptions of this page and the scene
beyond, the sounds in the air around you, the meanings of these perceptions,
and the constant tug of a constant tug.
At the same time, try to keep everything within the field of
conscious awareness. There will always be a feeling at the edge of
consciousness that there is more, no matter where the mind is focused. We have
the impression of being "separate," of being "once
separated" from the harmonious movement and rhythm of the natural world
only because our consciousness is still partial. Our first human ancestors (the
"Adam and Eve" of Near Eastern tradition) were "once
separated" from the "Garden" of socially unconscious natural
existence in this way.
The "expulsion from the Garden" often represents
the birth trauma on another, similar metaphoric level. - of us was ejected from
the Garden of the Maternal Womb into the experience of independent,
"sinful" life and toil at some stage. It's important to note that
we're all exiled from the Garden, into the Garden in this sense of biological
metaphor. The natural world's natural order, harmony, power, subtlety,
elegance, and unification is the religious imagery of the Garden of Eden's root
metaphor. In this essential context, consciousness is the initial detachment
from unconsciousness that enables one to look about and understand that we are
closely linked in a self-aware way.
The entire body of contemporary physics data confirms this
ultimate interconnectedness. Our own atoms were first formed in the furnaces of
the "Big Bang," in the pure energetic cores of the stars, as Carl
Sagan points out, and our ultimate and personal relations with all life stretch
far beyond the universe, out into the vastness of inter-galactic space. Despite
the fact that all of the challenges we encounter are the consequence of our own
actions, we humans interfere in the natural world in ways that are both good
and poor, harmful and constructive, aggressive and altruistic, knowledgeable
and dumb, imaginative and habitually uninspired.
In this way, I've come to see cultivating the artistic
instinct to self-expression, development, and transformation as a morally
valuable and important practice, one without which evil will still threaten to
consume us. (At the same time, that's far too serious and foreboding—nurturing
the artistic instinct is, at its heart, a metaphor for play, an action done for
its own sake, for pleasure.) We believe that we "know it all" as we
prematurely close our minds and memories, as we attempt to draw utter and final
lines between "our own best interests" and the needs of everyone and
all else.
When Yeats talks of the horrors of everyday life, he
specifically means this kind of premature closure: “...the best lack all
conviction/while the worst are packed with a passionate intensity...” Both “the
passionate intensity” of the wrong we do—the bigotry and hypocrisy, the
stupidities and cruelties—is characterized by this simple mindset of premature
closing.
The attitude of openness to new thinking and practice, as
well as as-yet-unconceived potential, which is at the center of all artistic endeavor,
stands in contrast to the premature closing from which these evils arise
(including dream work). We indulge in the delusion that we have it all worked
out, that we can draw absolute comparisons between our own desires and the
interests of "others" and the world in our less imaginative moments.
We act or, more often, fail to act on the basis of these
prematurely closed notions, then flee with astonishment and horror as the
consequences of these actions/inactions reverberate in ironic metaphors of
self-destruction, as they always do, for all is interconnected in both obvious
and subtle chains of cause-and-effect, structural interdependence, association,
and causality.
This is known as "the Law of Irony": irony is
unavoidable if consciousness is partial (so one might as well cultivate a taste
for it). The Rule of Irony is at work in our collective lives, as demonstrated
by our present global perils. We are the ones that have brought these horrors
upon ourselves, and we are the ones who must work out how to disarm and
reconnect with our environmental neighbors and the ecological realities of our
utter interdependence. Only by opening our minds and hearts to new experiences
and opportunities will we be able to respond in ways that will prevent us from
destroying ourselves.
The acts we take can only be fruitful if we grasp the real
essence of our predicament, our "original sin" in being conscious
human beings in the first place. In the same way as our partial consciousness
triggers all of our personal and social challenges, the best way to fix them is
to widen our spectrum of consciousness and take innovative, creative steps.
The growth of this growing self-awareness is the first step
toward the change we must affect—both in our own lives and in the face of our
mutual dangers. Dreams can be very illuminating in this kind of attempt to
cultivate the artistic impulse and create practical methods for saving human
life on the earth.
When I first came to dream work, we began sharing our dreams
for the sake of curiosity and enjoyment many years ago. We learned that dreams
caused tremendous energies of development and transformation in us. As we
worked to conquer sexism's oppressions, our aspirations were more useful and
valuable in exposing the self-deceptions and hidden agendas that rendered the
fight more challenging, and that made the improvements and development more
satisfying until they were accomplished.
During a racism-awareness lecture, I had the opportunity to
suggest that we all share our visions in which black people appeared and center
our attention on them. Even I was astounded by the amount of energy released by
this work for personal development and change, as well as latent attitudes and
fears. Since each of us was compelled to “own” both the negative and positive
depictions of black people in our visions as manifestations of facets of our
own identities, the dream work was successful in bringing deep-seated latent
ambivalences to light, and the work was further effective in changing them.
In this way, dream work had the potential to be much more
critical than just one tool among many for raising racism awareness. It became
clear that dreams could be used to enhance self-awareness and consciousness
around any subject, and that dream work could also be useful in releasing
dramatic energies for personal development and transformation. As this process
progressed, it became apparent that one of the other outcomes of this work was
the formation of strong and enduring ties of trust, reciprocal love, and
admiration among those who shared the experience of collaborating with dreams.
Dream work could bring people together from all walks of
life to participate in the work of transforming society, regardless of color,
age, sex, or class. Dream work has the ability to be profoundly
"extreme," not just in the original sense of radix, which refers to
going to the "source" of things, but also in the political and social
sense of dramatically changing mutual fears, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.
I've had the opportunity to observe the longer-term effects
of dream work in people who are personally engaged in social and political
action over the years after this initial encounter. I've seen dreamers'
intracollective support networks evolve, and their coordinating efforts'
efficacy, ingenuity, and maturity expand and deepen. Overall, I've seen dream
work strengthen people's determination and resolve to progress, both
individually and collectively. I've seen dream work help people resolve the
unavoidable depression and sense of desperation that comes with wanting to
bring about change in a society that hates and opposes change.
Person imagination and confidence, which are essential for
collective transformation, are sustained and nurtured by the strong sense of
identity that group dream work fosters. Dream work has also opened previously
closed political and strategic ideas. I've seen "religious" people
becoming more conscious of the importance of political and social activism, as
well as "atheist" activists become more aware of a metaphysical
component to their lives and jobs. I've seen the understanding that "the
personal is national" evolve into more creative modes of action and
conversation, awakening consciousness, and bravery in a growing number of
people.
During dream work, I've seen people who thought they were
"uncreative" discover their own imaginative and expressive abilities,
transforming their lives and emotions. These experiences have kept me focused
on visions and dream work ever since, while continuing to work toward social
justice, healing, unity, and creative, nonviolent reform, which have always
been at the forefront of my life. Dreams often come with the intention of
encouraging wholeness. They have an underlying opening impact, bringing to
consciousness facets of our own being that we had previously shut out of our
waking experience.
All those theological and metaphysical practices that
emblazon dream work (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Freudian psychology, and so
on) have all but forgotten the practical activity of paying careful attention
to dreams, despite their recognized conventional significance. Even where
dreams is the original catalyst for such beliefs and ideologies, sustained
dream work often brings into question the set beliefs and ideologies of
prematurely closed experience and thinking.
The continuing critique and artistic creativity presented by
dream work becomes "heresy," and dreams themselves become suspicious,
persecuted, and inevitably repressed and forgotten until a concept or
theological intuition is frozen in a hierarchical structure.
The underlying challenges of human and collective existence
have remained unchanged throughout history. The challenges we face in the
twenty-first century may seem to be different from those of previous centuries
at first glance, but a close inspection shows that they are merely the age-old
problems of human consciousness itself—greed, malice, and stupidity—exaggerated
to world-shattering proportions by the increasing strength and efficiency of
our modern technology and social organization. We are the "sorcerer's
apprentices," summoning forces beyond our control—the forces of
consciousness itself.
One unavoidable, constructive outcome of our
"sorcerer's apprenticeship" in consciousness so far is that we can no
longer deny that our internal lives and external conditions are inextricably
linked—that environmental ecology and psychology are inextricably linked—and
that the answers to our personal and social dilemmas must be found
simultaneously. The dream has been a key medium for the emergence and unfolding
of human consciousness and growing self-awareness during our species' history.
We can no longer afford to disregard the imaginative
capacity inherent in each individual—a potential reflected in our dreams and
unleashed actively when we remember and work with our dreams—in the
contemporary fight to develop ourselves, in this "battle between education
and tragedy," as Bertrand Russell put it.
Our mutual dangers are true and immediate. We created them
for ourselves, and we must examine them consciously and objectively to disarm
ourselves, change our systems, and reconcile ourselves to our planetary neighbors
and the ecological interconnectedness of all beings. By cracking down our
prematurely closed biases, beliefs, philosophies, and world views, dream work
will reinforce and energize these efforts.
Group dream work will also foster a sense of cooperation and
empathy, which will help us persevere in our attempts to remake global
civilization in a smarter, more compassionate, and just manner, as well as
provide concrete new perspectives and ideas for achieving this critical goal.
