Periodically, I wake up in the middle of the night and just lie there for a half hour or so. When this happens, I've taken to plugging my radio into my ear. I listen to a fascinating all-night talk show from the US - "Coast to coast AM". Perhaps some of you know it? Sometimes really interesting, sometimes really kookie, but better than staring at the ceiling in the dark. The only aspect of it that I am embarrassed about it is that I get it from QR770 in Calgary, a Sun media outlet! I swear, it is the omly thing I would ever listen from Sun, so forgive me.
Last night, I listened to veruy interesting woman, Kimberlee Ruff, part-Cherokee therapist from Arizona, talking about the Hopi Indians prophetic tradition, and its connection with Tibetan Buddhism! Apparentl, in cave beneath the Grand Canyon, where a Hopi have their meditation and prayer rituals, there is a statue of particular Buddha! The indication ws that, like the Vikings and the Templars, someone from Tibet was on American soil long before that Italian sailor, Columbas.
Whether there is any validity to any of this or not, the whole experience got me thinking about "life in the night, in the darkness." Whole hosts of North Americans listen to this program and call in. It has a substantial audience. Perhaps you are one of them?
It reminded me of something I learned decades ago in the study of Jung: that a large chunck of our lives are lived out of any contact with our consciousness - in our dark, so to speak. I have clinically observed people while asleep, and it is amaxing how much appears to go on with them! Rapid eye movement (indicating considerable brain activity), shifts in body posture, stretches, groans, dreams. Whole lives are lived out completely apart from our waking life. That struck me forcibly as a wakened up this morning. I woke up talking to woman whom I didn't know. She looked vaguely like a person I saw in a stage production some months ago. But she was a stranger to me.
Acouple of decades ago, I participated in a 'dream group' for some months. We recorded, shared and explored our dreams and their themes together. I found it a very rewarding and surprising experience. One or two problems that I was living with were solved in my unconscious life through that time.
I wonder how many people ponder that reality of their life: that about one-third of it is lived outside our conscious awareness or control? Do you learn from your dreams? Do you have "strangers" that inhabit that dark world in your mind?
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