The Cassandra Syndrome, Colin Brookfield, Colin Brookfield [i like reading books .txt] 📗

 Interpretation

At that moment in time in 1967, I had been working savagely hard seven days a week over a three-month period, with no more than three hours sleep in every twentyfour.

The dream indicates the ego is driving the body towards destruction; a cautionary dream, that I took note of.

 Symbolic Dreams

I once struggled my way through the hefty tome of Carl Jung’s ‘Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious’ and although I could recognise the wonder and universality of its symbolisms, the dream symbols that I received were of a different order; they were more simplified, more direct and slanted towards my cultural and worldly comprehension. It is also sensible to assume that such narrative would have been similarly slanted for our primal forebears. My first encounter with a symbolic guiding dream was startling and, this is how I would describe what it was endeavouring to achieve.

Dream 2

(Pristine import)

I was in an ancient stone underground room in Egypt, pounding at a wall with a heavy sledgehammer in the hope of discovering treasure on the other side. The wall finally collapsed from the impact revealing a deep, dark cavity. Something moved from within and a large frightening mummy stepped out then grasped the lapels of my suit jacket. I was petrified as its dark eyes gazed into mine. Then I got another shock. The creature began to speak in a soft and most endearing voice. “I love the material,” it said wistfully. In that second, I realised I had misread everything and was overcome with pity. I immediately assured the creature I would leave at once for Cairo to buy a suit which would then make us equal. As I turned to leave, I noticed a baby had arrived from somewhere and, was gurgling away happily as the mummy played with it. 

Interpretation

The baby not only further reinforces the benevolence of the creature (one’s twin aspect) but this child symbol, also stands for one’s own newly acquired possibilities – that like the child, we can grow to greater potential. By being dressed similarly, means to be on a par with one another in mutual acceptance. This represents the opening address by the unconscious in its efforts to establish an open channel. 

To further understand its meaning

Imagine that there was a locked attic in your house, which your family insisted was haunted. Then one day whilst you are alone, a poor, unkempt creature that had escaped the attic confronts you. However, during all your fear and panic, you suddenly become aware that things were not quite as they appear. Then the penny drops. You are facing your sibling, your twin self that had been wilfully demonised and shut away by your family but, you are reunited at last.

Dream 3

This dream, following the one above, indicates they are connected.

I was standing inside a garage that was filled with heaps of rubbish; it belonged to an unpleasant schoolboy I had once known. Suddenly the concrete floor beneath our feet began to disintegrate so we leapt towards the door. As I looked back, I saw that a large serpent had risen through the floor. The other boy shouted, “I’ll get the gun and kill it,” then raced off, but before he returned I looked back into the garage and to my surprise, the concrete floor had been reinstated and all the rubbish removed, as though things had never been disturbed. 

Interpretation

The garage or shed is a representation of the human objective mind shifting into equilibrium with its unconscious side and by doing so, allows it the means by which to purge the conscious aspect of its specious debris.

The serpent having returned from whence it came and having left no trace of its entry or exit through the concrete floor, indicates a respect for the separateness that exists between the subjective and objective worlds. The serpent visual effect on my part, represents a false overlay of my own making, a continuing response to the influence of institutionalised attitudes towards the subject matter.

The destructive boy represents the negative influences of others against the paranormal.

Dream 4

(The Immortal Three and The Dark Three) 

In this further dream, I was in a stone underground room. On one of the walls, were three niches occupying the busts of the ‘Immortal Three’ philosophers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. From each image shone a beam of white light that converged on the ground to one spot, on which I was centred. I was holding my book, which whilst symbolising mankind’s discarding of its guidance dreams, also catalogues the means by which our species had wandered away from the light. 

True to the laws of opposites in the dream, three ugly dark figures emerge from the shadows to snatch at the book, because that book was a danger to evil. 

Dream 5

I made my way through the mouldering ruins of ancient cities and in doing so, laying and concealing from sight, an umbilical cord that was attached to me. I was aware of others behind me, further assisting in the concealment of the cord; the images of those assisting were semi transparent and white. 

There was open countryside ahead dotted with trees and shrubs and to my right, a well-worn track. I proceeded forwards with great vigilance, well clear of the well-beaten track though parallel with it, for I knew that discovery would mean trouble. 

I was aware that my umbilical connection reached all the way back to an ancient vital source and that the purpose of my journey lay somewhere ahead towards the future. Then suddenly, as though from a detached point high in the air, I was able to see a panoramic view of the human journey taken from its past; there was nothing to be seen except ruined ancient cities and diminishing evidence of human habitation crumbling into dust, until all evidence of mankind had reduced to featureless desert. It served also to remind me why I must not be a herd follower. 

Interpretation

The well-beaten track represents the herd mentality; the ruin in its past, implies the ruin of its future. The umbilical cord (a connection to the intuitive essence) showed that something that had been lost through time, is being brought forward into the future, for reasons about which, I knew nothing.

Dream 6

I was wandering through undulating countryside, studded with small shrubs. Eventually, I reached a high point above a shallow valley and noticed the valley was covered with American Indians that had just been massacred. My attention was then drawn to a noise from some shrubs at my side and I saw two wounded survivors lying close to one another. One was caught within an entanglement, whilst his friend had managed to sit upright and was pointing to the knife in my belt. I knew he wanted to cut his friend free so I handed it to him. Following this, he gestured for my left hand, which I put forward. To my surprise, he made a small but painless incision across my index finger with the knife. Thinking this was a little strange, I examined it. Much to my consternation the cut suddenly opened like an eyelid and revealed a perfectly formed functioning eye, looking back at me. 

Interpretation

The Indian is an archetype, a representative of the natural and spiritual of the unconscious. The massacre represents the killing field nature of mankind. Interestingly, I now use that hand to successfully locate lost pets through psychometry. This also exemplifies how dreamtime direction came through to pristine mankind.

Dream 7

(My own primal self) 

From a detached position, I was looking down directly upon the head of a primal man. I knew that this hominid was me (my primal aspect). This man, together with many other creatures was running at full speed to escape predation. Suddenly, a lion homed in from the left and the man threw an inadequately small stone at it, which bounced off. Nevertheless, it did the trick and the lion veered away. The man then made his escape, by climbing a low stone wall which he sat on feeling safe from predation. 

The world now laid out in front of him was confusingly unfamiliar, consisting of quiet pastoral scenes with hedged close-cropped green fields and strangest of all – a neat stone farm building. 

Interpretation

To interpret this dream I go with my better instincts, which in reincarnation terms, implies that I have been jumped forwards too far into something difficult to comprehend and indeed, as my writings reveal, mankind has created its own world that is artificially strange in every way from the natural one of its ancestral origins.

Dream 8

My wife and I were facing one of the walls in a very large and extremely high bedroom. Some six feet or so above the floor level there was a narrow walkway that ran the full width of the wall. About eight feet above that, there was another one and, a third one of equal height further up. At varying distances along each walkway, a person was moving purposefully towards the right and feeling the wall as they went, each trying to discover their particular secret door. One of them did and, slipped away from sight. 

Meanwhile, I moved the bed to the foot of the wall so that my wife and I could reach the walkway and discover our secret doors but the bed was not high enough and, I was only interested in the top walkway. 

Interpretation

As usual I am trying to barnstorm the way towards my goal. Everything about the room represents the objective world including the three people upon the walkways. The scene represents their respective levels of spiritual search and successes, as they make their way through life. The left hemisphere of the brain is associated with the ego and is inclined towards objective gains. The three people travelling singly towards the right with no accoutrements, indicates that the journey is away from the ego and towards the intuitive right hemisphere. It indicates the purposeful journey through life and, that it is only achievable within one’s self. The number three often seems significant.

Dream 9

I was sitting by a campfire with another man on open moorland, when a black cat sank its teeth into my hand, I kept hitting it to make it let go but its body fell off and I had to release the head separately from my hand. Then I got to my feet to see the man off as he proceeded along a moorland pathway. He only had a rucksack of basic essentials and went cheerfully on his way. As I looked back towards the campfire, I could see a small aircraft that belonged to me. Then I noticed the head of the black cat floating unsupported in the air; its eyes were glowing in the firelight and in a clear, grating voice it said, “I’ll always be with you.” 

Interpretation

The aircraft represents an over commitment to acquisition to which there is always a price attached, hence the malevolent black cat shadow expressing itself saying, “I’ll always be with you.” The other man who stayed close to Nature, had no acquisition mindset, therefore – no shadow assailment. The dream is saying, ‘Which man are you going to be? Which direction will you take?’

Dream 10

I moved my car onto a track off the main road, thinking it might be a short-cut to my destination but gradually, the going became quite rough with many pot holes and obstacles that led into a grey, dusty place littered with machines of war. Eventually I noticed a group of dowdy, dust-covered people who seemed surprised and annoyed that a car with people of a different ilk, had entered a place where they clearly did not belong.

I continued up a steep sloping hill and braked at its summit, where I was confronted by a vast precipice beyond which, there was nothing but dense fog. Then it cleared. Far below, I could see beautiful, cultivated fields in their various crop colours (no animal husbandry) and, here and there, some village cottages. Parking the