There is a trail of events within the dream, passing through many friends and places, uniforms and roles, but these didn’t stick in my mind. Instead it’s the falling through the sky, away from everyone, into a canyon; quarry like and filled with water so clear it did not distort the odd, almost fluorescent light that filled the canyon. I had no problems breathing, and in looking around I saw jagged rock outcroppings ascending high up the sides, in addition to smaller, six to eight foot high boulders. There were aquarium like plants, floaty leafy greens swaying, and I was standing on the white sandy bottom. Amazed that I was still upright after the fall I looked around and felt fear. Not at the rocks but what was behind them.

The most significant part of the dream was my reaction to the fear. I simply decided to wake up. In recognizing that my vision was completely unclouded in this place, I got the feeling I would see things I was not ready to see. Not because they would be horrible, but because seeing these things would bring a forced responsibility, one that I would have to take ownership for. To avoid this, I woke myself up, a knowing return to the comfortable muddle.

Recently I’ve been reading a kind of autobiography by Carl Jung (Memories, Dreams, Reflections), and in it he goes into intense depths of analysis within his own dreams, his interpretations almost acting as plot points within his story. In the prologue he writes:

“Outward circumstances are no substitute for inner experience. Therefore my life has been singularly poor in outward happenings. I cannot tell much about them, for it would strike me as hollow and insubstantial. I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life, and with these my autobiography deals.”