Noise and the Inner Life

“Noise protects us from painful reflection, it scatters our anxious dreams, it assures us that we are all in the same boat and creating such a racket that nobody will dare to attack us. Noise is so insistent, so overwhelmingly real, that everything else becomes a pale phantom. It relieves us of the effort to […]

What Is The Symbolic Life?

Now, we have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul – the daily need of the soul, mind you! And because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill – this awful, […]

Is Dream Analysis Really Useful?

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud declared that dream analysis was the royal road to the unconscious. Over a hundred years later, despite extensive research into the process of sleep and dreams, as well as the experience of countless thousands of people who have been helped by engaging in the process of […]

The Illusion of Self-Control

Behind the Curtain One of the hardest things to truly grasp about C.G. Jung’s understanding of the human psyche is the notion that there are aspects of psychological functioning that take place outside the control of the conscious mind. To be sure, most people understand on a cognitive level what is meant by the unconscious. […]

As We Are: Psychological Fantasy and Personal Growth

“We do not see things as they are,” goes a saying attributed to Anaïs Nin, “we see them as we are.” The origin of this saying is in doubt — some, including Nin herself, attribute it to the Talmud — but it expresses an important truth.  Psychological Fantasy and the Creation of the World The world does […]

Wisdom of the Dream, pt. 5: Dreaming of the Future

This is the final part in the series of postings examining the Wisdom of the Dream conference put on by the C.G. Jung Institute of Boston this past fall. The discussions of the other speakers and presenters in this series can be found by clicking these links: William Ventimiglia, Robert Stickgold, Erik Goodwyn, Jill Fischer, […]

Wisdom of the Dream, pt. 4: Dreams and the Body

In this post I continue my look at the Wisdom of the Dream conference put on by the C.G. Jung Institute of Boston. To read the previous posts in this series just click on the following links:  Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. In this fourth part I will discuss the experiential dream group […]

Wisdom of the Dream, pt. 2: Sleep and Dreams

In the first part of this series reviewing the Wisdom of the Dream conference put on by the C.G. Jung Institute of Boston, I presented the main details of the talk given by Jungian Analyst William Ventimiglia on Jungian dream interpretation. In this second part, I will be looking at the presentation given by Robert […]