A Nightmare Can Be Your Ally

I’m in bed. Paralyzed. I scream, but only “mmmm, mmmm, ma, mum” comes from my throat.  My lips are welded shut. My body is frozen. Panic. A woman’s hand, so white it glows, scuttles over the wall, nearing the light switch. I struggle to scream. Paralyzed. She flips the switch. I wake - panting and sweating. 

For over twenty years, I’ve been tending my dreams, and for the last fifteen, I have attended a dream group filled with Jungians. I keep a notebook beside the bed and write in the dark. I know that nightmares are potent friends, but that doesn’t make them any less terrifying.

The morning following my current nightmare, I sat in active imagination and called for the dream figure to join me. I asked her the first question of dream tending: Who is visiting?

She said: “I am with you now as you cross the threshold into a more vibrant life. I turn on the light so you will wake up and see. You have been hiding in bed, unwilling to transform in public, waiting to be finished before you step on stage. It’s a good way; all ways are good.”

“Will you help me with the terror?” I asked her.

“My hands are reverse spiders, pulling the strands of terror from your cells as they hover over the switch. You hesitate, but you are ready.”

“Was I calling my mother?”

“No. ‘Ma, ma, ma, mum’ is the way an infant learns to speak. You are struggling to say your first word.”

“Will you help me?”

“I work through you to help you heal a vast cultural wound—the Father God wound. We will make a dent. Remember that dream? Not many can touch it, but you can? I am that dream, too.” 

A dream from two years ago blooms around me again:

I’m walking toward a river through a wooded lot. Just as I reach the bank, an enormous fish, a whale, leaps from the water and thuds beside me. I’m stunned. She has no eyes. She shines, and I want to know if it’s because she is wet or covered in slime. I reach a hand to touch her. Before my fingers arrive, I hear: Not many can touch it, but you can.”

Now, in active imagination, I’m making connections. Several years before that, I dreamed of a slimy serpent slithering by in a clearing. The slime was toxic, but I could touch it. I didn’t, though.

The woman with spider hands says, "I am those dreams, coming to you again because you are ready now. You are right to be afraid, but I will help you.”

During the first few weeks of this publication, I was throat-clearing, writing about my personal mythology instead of engaging in the larger conversation about our cultural myths. The realizations I wrote about happened decades ago. I don’t know why I was telling those old stories, except I was terrified of opening the real conversation - the reason I’m here. The nightmare came to show me that. 

So, let’s wrestle with God. The father god is an archetype. It’s inside us, both personally and collectively. Even if you’re sure no God exists (a valid point of view), your life is impacted by other people’s beliefs. Laws are written based on them. Isn’t the whole argument against abortion religious? Aren’t the three Abrahamic religions resting in the same god image? And isn’t he a jealous and angry war god? There are also psychedelic experiences (I’ve had some) and near-death experiences (not yet).

Please share in the comments. What do you think God is?

Also, I’ll be posting every other week from now on. These are hefty topics. We all have too much to read, and this format seems better.