The following 'Big Dream' occurred on the morning of March 22nd, 2000:
I was in a familiar outdoor place, although I can not say exactly where. There was green grass and tall green trees and I was pleasantly reminded of possibly being back home in North Carolina where I grew up. A large number of familiar people that I knew but that I could not exactly place formed a long line across from me. They all seemed to be old and true friends of mine. Each person in turn gave me a present although I do not remember exactly what they were. However, each present was very different, for instance, one person read a poem, another possibly performed a dance, and others gave me things. Then suddenly, I had an amazing realization of how all these seemingly disparate gifts in reality somehow fit together to form a much greater whole completely beyond my imagination. This whole emerged as a three-dimensional ring of thick white smoke. The ring then sat flat on my chest and seemed to be pulling my upper body out of bed. I woke up saying "Oh my God." I then realized that it is Saturday morning.
Interpretation:
I am somewhere unknown, but I know that I have been there before. This is the classic spiritual motif whereby this earthly life is seen as a forgetting of my true life, that I have left for some unknown reason to come here. It is echoed in Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
The color green represents the abundant life of nature and is also a Sufi symbol of the realization of God. I am receiving many diverse, creative gifts from true friends. These presents ultimately combine to produce a whole that I shockingly realize as unimaginably greater than the sum of the individual parts. (Note that 'the whole that is greater than the sum of the parts' itself can be shown to be a symbol of spiritual wholeness in mathematical form). The circular object is known as a mandala --- according to Jung --- a supreme symbol of psychological and spiritual wholeness. The fact that it is white seems to indicate purity, while its being composed of smoke suggests its spiritual nature. This connection can be seen in the saying, "where there's smoke there's fire," where 'fire' has long been recognized as representative of the Spirit (i. e. the baptism of fire). Indeed, meditation upon mandala figures has been practiced in Eastern tantric spiritual traditions for thousands of years for the purpose of facilitating psychological and spiritual growth. The final symbol is seen in the fact that this spiritual awakening occurs on the Sabbath day, the day at the end of the six days of work, and 'the day of rest.' This dream therefore strongly imaged my potential future realization of the Jungian archetype of wholeness, the Self, the true center of the human psyche and the goal of the process of psychological individuation. It therefore came in the service of informing me, that in spite of my extreme difficulties, it indeed was possible for me to manifest psychological and spiritual wholeness!