Last time we saw how Sylvia is intrigued by her dreams. They know everything of her life, the past, the future and they protect her night after night against the dangers of the life.

So she finally asks her dreams : What are dreams ? Here is the dream she got :

Dream

Driving my car, I arrive in front of a church.  Mathilda is there waiting for me out front below the stairs.  I step out of the car, she comes towards me with an outreaching hand and having got hold of mine, she takes me into the church.

Interpretation

Driving my car, I arrive

Sylvia has a car, which indicates that she has a fast and comfortable way of going forward in life.

We should note that a car rides on roads built for this purpose, that indicates that the dreamer easily goes forward in life on pre-established pathways same as everyone else. She is not part of those who advance slowly on foot, searching for their own way, surmounting the obstacles of the individual path.

I arrive in front of a church

This young woman is not particularly interested in spirituality. She has vaguely heard about Christ, the crucifixion, mass, communion and the Holy Spirit.  For her the church is a building that was erected to greet the divine, to allow everyone to listen within where one can meet Him .

But in her everyday life Sylvia doesn’t go to church, so the church of her dream does not speak about the external church, but about an interior place.

So what does this mean in regards to the question asked : what are dreams?

Dreams are her interior church where she can meet the divinity and commune with It.

That’s all ! …

She got an immediate, clear, simple and direct answer.

But for the time, Sylvia has not yet entered this sacred place. She just arrives in front of this opportunity.

Mathilda is waiting for me below the stairs

Mathilda is her dream interpreter. She is aware of this dimension and is waiting for the dreamer to let her discover the interior reality.

I get out of my car

However, before being introduced, initiated, Sylvia must get out of her car, give up her habit of following pre-established ways to go forward.

How that ? She must set her two feet BELOW, DOWN on the ground, be more humble, walk by her own means to meet the dream interpreter.

Only with this humility she will be able to go UPstairs into the sacred place.

Mathilda comes towards me with an outreaching hand

Here the dream insists, it presents to the dreamer the interpreter who offers her help and support. It emphasizes that it is with her, thanks to her that Sylvia will be able to enter the dream path.

Having got hold of my hand she takes me into the church.

Mathilda, the interpreter then brings the young woman into her inner church, into her dreamworld within which the divine resides.

Conclusion

So, Sylvia had asked the incubation question : What are dreams?

Her dream answered:

Dreams are the interior church where the sacred encounter between human and divine unfolds.  That’s why dreams are all-knowing, that’s why they are so wise and clairvoyant.  

Comment

Surprising?  Perhaps. 

Really?

Not really, for what have all the old societies preceding us on earth said ? Didn’t they all declare that the dream is the natural channel through which the human soul meets the divine?

Everywhere one finds the widespread affirmation that dreams give access to another level of consciousness, which surpasses the conscious and grants knowledge that it would not have access to on its own.

Scientifically today we call this other level of consciousness the unconscious.

It is a question of vocabulary of course but we must know how others understand that word.  Cultures who differ from ours consider that the unconscious, this other level of consciousness to which dreams give access to, is that of divine forces. That’s how they name it.

In preceding texts I have shown you that in Antiquity, for all, whether they be Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, or Africans the divine spoke through dreams, whether he was called Yahweh, God or Aesculapius, Jupiter…  And I didn’t speak yet of the Indians of the Americas and of others throughout the world. For them the unconscious is the expression of the divine dimension.

Sylvia’s dream says the same thing: the dream is the moment of encounter with an interior force, which proves a wisdom beyond our understanding.

What can the rational say? Could scientific reason be brought to recognize that as far as dreams are concerned it finds itself faced with a dimension with its own laws the rational does not know about, and which extends beyond its competency?

Could reason accept that rational means have attained their limits regarding the unconscious?  Then, logically and rigorously reason would declare that it can’t say anything except that it finds itself facing a hyper-rational dimension.

That would be honest !

Illustrations

I thank the artists for their illustrations listed in order of their presentation :

Evening at Antiquity, 1908, by the French painter Alphonse Osbert, 1857-1939.

Pilgrim in a Rocky Valley, 1820,  by the German artist Carl Gustav Carus

The Cathedral, by the German artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)

The Cathedral, by the German artist Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841)

Hand in hand : liloo.citations.skyrock.com

Mystery of the Nignt, by Alphone Osbert

Moonlight, 1896, by the French artist Alphonse Osbert, 1857-1939

Several months ago we started studying dream incubation. We have examined several aspects of the topic. Now it is time to take the following question into consideration and see what  the dream answers :

Does the unconscious always answer an incubation question ?

With the latest dreams we have seen that the unconscious doesn’t like to be asked questions repetitively. It accepts giving the desired information of course, but it will only give what it deems necessary. When we look at the dreams, it appears that the unconscious doesn’t always have the same point of view as us, concerning what we need to know or not.

Today, you will read an answer to an incubation dream, which is much harsher than the preceding one, because the dreamer is trying to exploit the unconscious to his own advantage.

The dreamer Arnaud is very worried because his wife is sick.  However, what poses a problem to him is not the state of her health but rather he worries that she may no longer be able to work, and that means a loss of income. He calculates the family finances.

What he’s truly concerned about is not how he can help his wife or what kinds of treatments could cure her, but rather whether she will get money from a “paid” sick leave. He asks his dream to answer this question.

Dream: The Sovereign Cat.

I go into a “café”. There is a black cat in the middle of the hallway. I raise my leg to go over it. The cat lifts its head, glares at me…

I am paralyzed, I can’t put my leg over across the cat, I can’t go into the café.

Interpretation

The “café”.

It is the place where one can drink a black tonic beverage which wakes you up : coffee.

The beverage

 Last time we have seen a frequent meaning of coffee :

The beans of the coffee tree are the fruits representing the dream symbols which appear naturally. The dreamer collects them and the dream interpreter acts as a coffee bean roaster, a blender, a coffee machine, transforming the beans to obtain an universally appreciated drink : this black liquid which awakens is the interpreted dream.

The setting

The “café” represents the place, the moment when the dreamer makes contact with the unconscious through dream interpretation.

For Arnaud, in view of the question he asked, the setting, this “café” represents the place where he can geta dream interpreted and the desired information.

So Arnaud would like to get an answer thanks to an interpreted dream.

The black cat in the hallway.

The cat is a domesticated animal, which nonetheless retains a wild side.It lives in the home environment but can’t be trained. It is ferociously independent. It has the very rare ability to see in the dark, in the night.

It’s black color, like that of the coffee, expresses its link with the unconscious.

So what is the cat ?

This black cat is the way the unconscious chooses to present itself to the dreamer.  When Arnaud goes into the “café” to get his dream interpreted and to know if his wife will receive a pension, first he comes across the cat, this natural instinct, the unconscious, which sees in the night and can never be trained. 

This cat occupies the middle of the passageway, as if it were the master of the place, as if it were guarding its entrance.

I raise my leg to go over it.

Our friend wants to go in.  He doesn’t pay any attention to the cat, he could acknowledge it :

- Oh ! Hello cat !

So he could write a letter and say :

  - Dear dreams !

He could even bend down, pat the cat and say.

- Wow, you’re so beautiful!  Could you let me go by ?

Would you please help me to see clearly our present financial situation ? Your information would allow us to plan ahead. Will my wife get a workman’s compensation ? Thank you very much for answering.

But no, Arnaud ignores the cat and wants to step over him. He wants to get his dream and the information without any consideration for the unconscious, as if Arnaud were master of the cat-unconscious.

The cat lifts its head and glares at me.

The cat/unconscious is indignant at this lack of consideration.  Its anger is expressed by the fury of his glare.  Lightning shoots from of its eyes.   

Lightning is the attribute of Zeus, the king of gods, it is also that of Yahweh, the God of Jews, also called the god of ire. Lightning bolts are the manifestation of the divine wrath. 

So, it’s as if the cat were saying: who is this boor who intends to go over me and acts as though I didn’t exist?  This guy is ill-mannered.

I can’t cross over the cat

The anger of the cat paralyzes the dreamer.  He won’t be able to enter the “café”: the incubation process won’t work, he won’t get the dream that would give him the information he wants.

Comment

This little dream is highly significant.  It underlines a recurrent trait in our cultures today : I mean a lack of attention toward the unconscious and ignorance regarding the interior world at large. All the rituals designed to approach this dimension have been neglected, forgotten.  We act as boors and consider ourselves as masters of the domain ! The unconscious finding us very casual, becomes contemptuous and reacts vigorously !

The analysis of this little dream shows us that the unconscious manifests itself as an autonomous reality which is not under our power.

It is an independent, sovereign function. 

The unconscious is willing to cooperate, to help but we fall prey to a big illusion, if we think we can exploit or abuse it. The unconscious cannot be manipulated and will never be at our ego’s service.

Moreover the last image shows clearly that the unconscious paralyzes the one who tries to exploit it for personal material gain.

Conclusion

You might have noticed that the image of the cat in Arnaud’s dream doesn’t have the same signification as the cat in Irina’s dream posted earlier.  The meaning of an image changes according to the dreamer and the circumstances. 

In Irina’s dream the cat symbolized a man in the outer world.

Here, in Arnaud’s dream the cat manifests the same mysterious, independent, sovereign dynamism, that the Egyptians adored in cats, in the cat-goddess Bastet.

Truly Arnaud’s cat appears much more powerful than the humans. The cat dominates, it possesses a divine quality.

So, you can see in this contemporary dream the permanence of representations and conceptions which were found in vestiges of the past, some dating as far back as 5000 years old. Carl Gustav Jung called these images “archetypes”. These are not created voluntarily by human minds, they appear by themselves as images in dreams, and represent powerful dynamisms. Our ancestors considered them as the manifestations of divine forces on the earth. 

Could this dream invite us to understand that the unconscious is divine ? 

Illustrations

I thank the artists for their illustrations listed in order of their presentation :

Calculations : capifrance.fr

Le café du Forum, by the French artiste Vincent van Gogh,19th century.

Black cat : caneton.fr

Egyptian cat : chaosexmachine.info.fr