Towards the end of 1999, I was at the end of my rope, both mentally and emotionally. I was planning my suicide, and this time I knew that I would do it. I knew that if I did not do something drastic, that I would not make it. I was absolutely convinced of one thing: that no one and nothing outside myself could help. I had spent years trying every conceivable form of attempting to get help from others. I somehow knew that everything I needed for my mental and emotional healing simply had to come from within myself---or else, I was screwed. In a final act of desperation, I therefore chose to believe that all of my healing simply had to already lie within me, I just had to somehow access it. This was a very new concept to me, despite all that I had seen of spirituality so far. Little did I know that I was entering a world more beautiful than any I had ever imagined! Another spiritual truth would be revealed: It is indeed darkest, just before the dawn!
I had known about the work of the famous psychoanalyst and religious psychologist Carl Jung for several years, as well as the comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell. However, I found Jung's writings to be very difficult reading and I did not seem to have the mythological mindset to understand the connections that Campbell was making. I also did not yet have the 'experiential' component necessary to really trust their work on any level.
Still a huge leap of faith was necessary. I realized that I had to somehow stand on the knowledge that I had gleaned from them and others, so far. Although I was rarely prone towards taking any kind of action or displaying any sort of consistency in my life, I immediately began leaving a notebook and pen on the nightstand beside my bed to record any dreams that I might have. I also read the Jungian analyst Robert Johnson's book about dream work entitled Inner Work.
I immediately began to have brief, color dream clips just upon falling asleep. The first was a cartoon from a top-view perspective, of a funny little man who ran through an area sparsely covered with short trees. He abruptly slammed into one, shot up it and quickly topped out , making a loud grunt, "URRHM!" The clip was obviously from someone with a higher perspective, who was telling me that I was trying to get to God by inadvertently bumping into and climbing very short trees. A second clip was of a cup of clear gelatin containing small balls of cooked ground beef. Since cooked meat is often symbolic of disease, this probably signified that the cooked meat or emotional sickness had to be removed in order for me to become psychologically and spiritually clear. I was mesmerized by the speed at which healing knowledge from within myself was coming to me, after this fateful recognition that my recovery had to be an 'inside job.'