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[Tobin S.]

This message was self-deleted by its author (Tobin S.) on Sat Dec 24, 2016, 05:56 AM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[elleng]

1. I'm glad things are back to normal, Tobin.

Lots of us have been wanting to hear from you.

I'm not a professional, and have only a bit of experience with analysis. I did see a psychiatrist some 30+ years ago.

It sounds to me as if you're doing too MUCH self-analysis. I hope your therapist can help.

[Tobin S.]

2. I might have thought that, too.

I mean regarding self-analysis. I have to do it right now, though. For one thing I'm an introvert and introspection is just a part of my nature. My wife is an extrovert and I think a part of me found that attractive about her because I was seeking balance in my life, and I love her very much. But she totally doesn't get any of this talk about Jungian theory and dream interpretation.

But that's the thing. I haven't really had to do much interpretation on those three dreams. I had the dreams and then they happened in reality two weeks later. I've been a skeptic and an agnostic for a long time, but I just can't honestly explain that away. How would you react of something like that happened to you? It's blown my mind.

[elleng]

4. Yes, that 'old' accident was kind of mind-blowing.

I haven't done any such, nor had such experiences.

Does kind of sound like you're too much 'into' it. and I've never done or even read jung.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. I'm so sorry, my dear Tobin, to hear that you feel broken.

I wish I had the words that could help you heal.

I tend to agree with elleng--maybe you're doing too much of this self-analysis. Maybe there are places in our minds where we shouldn't go. But I really don't know.

Definitely talk to your therapist. I hope she can help.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. That sounds like a plan!

[mnhtnbb]

7. I read your OP last night, Tobin, and have been thinking about it.

My husband is a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst (not Jungian) but pays a lot of attention to dreams in his own life and when patients bring dreams
of their own to their therapy sessions. He's been in practice for over 40 years. For the 31 years that we've been married, I've learned a lot about dream interpretation from him because of his experience.

Sometimes dreams can predict a literal event (like the fear of driving through a tunnel that fills with smoke at night) or sometimes they
can be a metaphor for a life journey. Think about a tunnel: its function, purpose, and what happens when you go through it. It is a transition
space that gets you from one place to another--in the dark (which can be scary)--and protects you at the same time from being crushed by
the weight of whatever threat is outside of it (rocks, dirt, water...) You are in a different place when you come out of it.

You are at the age/stage of your life where you are in transition. You still work as a trucker, but prepared yourself with education to do something else.
You've been married to a woman that you love--whom you've written about as being very different from you personally (extrovert vs introvert)--and also
indicated that she doesn't quite know what to make of all this dream analysis. You have had to turn around and go back to working as a trucker, even
though you were a long way through that education tunnel and felt ready to come out the other side. It may also be with your interest in Jung, that the process of analyzing yourself is raising some barriers in your marriage--encountering some smoke?--that may not have initially been there.

You are a very creative person, and you've shared your stories with us. This morning, when I decided I would respond to your post, I also googled "tunnel as a Jungian symbol in dream analysis" and this very interesting article came up. It's a long one, but you might enjoy reading it. There's some really interesting stuff in it that you may find applies to your own life. http://www.mythicjourneys.org/newsletter_jul05_transitions_bolen.html

I'm sorry that you have been feeling broken. I hope that you will be feeling better, soon.

[Tobin S.]

8. Thank you for the thoughtful post. I will check out the link.

[Tobin S.]

9. I like this passage from the article. It is pertinent to me right now as a metaphor.

"I liked what Michael Meade said this morning. He wasn't talking directly about transition, but he also was. Something is born that has both form and sound together. Michael Meade's comments moved my thoughts into the whole idea of womb/tomb and birth. Humankind has observed routinely and, at times, numinously the major transition and liminal experience of new life emerging from the body of a pregnant woman. The pregnant woman who carries this new life is herself the cocoon, the carrier of that fluidity out of which grows a whole new life. The time comes when the new life is able to live outside of the mother. In the timing of birth there is the movement, shifting, labor pains, and the cervix that held all the fluid stretches and unblocks. The waters break and labor is initiated.

Well, labor is something that almost all of us have gone through. Cesarean section births cut short that usual process, but there is this experience that we've archetypally actually all lived out. Most of us came through labor, delivery, and the birth canal. There is a moment in the birth process which is called transition, and it is the most dangerous time of the delivery for both the baby and the mother. The head of the baby must pass underneath the pubic arch of the mother and enter the world. If this is going to work, if this baby is going to come out of the mother into the world, it has to go through that danger moment. This is often the most painful part of the labor for the mother. Mother and child go through this transition, which is a crisis, danger and opportunity. Then there is a new being that has never existed on earth before, but that has just come through the birth canal to the other side.

One of the fascinating things about the creative process and actually giving birth is that, not only have you brought something new into the world that wasn't there before, but when you go through this experience, you are changed. It affects you. Once you have delivered a baby you are no longer in the mother/maiden/crone archetypal form that women can go through physiologically. Your body has changed. You now have given birth to this child. Out of the darkness of your own creative process, out of the unconsciousness of your process, out of your labor has come new life."

I went through that very dangerous period over the weekend. The fact that I made it out to the other side I guess is a good sign even if I feel really bad right now.

[mnhtnbb]

10. I thought there was some really cool stuff in that article.

Glad you found it interesting, too.