He wears a dirty brown hat...

Earlier, I promised to expound on the concept of the Jungian Shadow. If you haven't noticed, I'm a huge fan and student of Jungian Psychology, especially as it relates to dream interpretation. I wouldn't presume to call myself an expert by any stretch, my formal studies don't extend past PSYCH101, so if you're qualified feel free to correct anything I get wrong.

 Just what is The Shadow? It is a very specific personification of what Freud called the Id. It is the underlying primal repressed and vehemently denied part of ourselves we can scarcely bear to admit. We spend our lives, up until what Jung called individualization, a sort of psychological coming of age, growing up as it were, fighting and running from this dream monster until we finally realize there is no defeating it, because it is ourselves.

So who is my Shadow? The title of this post should give you a clue. Jung gave us two more qualifications for narrowing it down. It will be the same gender as the patient, in my case male, and it will be the last person you would ever want to be. I can only presume it doesn't have to be a real person because in my case, I had spent many a nightmare for twenty-five years (8-33 years old) fighting and running from the worst monster I can imagine.

"He wears a dirty brown hat. He's horribly burned. He has razors on his right hand. His name is Freddy Krueger."


"THIS is God now..."

 I am a fan of the series though I honestly hate the character. I can't pass up a chance to watch any of the ANOES movies though, needless to say, I rooted for Jason in FVJ. He epitomises ugliness, cowardice, and cruelty, three traits I hate the most about myself when I'll admit them at all. Confrontation with one's Shadow is like facing the Magic Mirror Gate in The Neverending Story. "Confronted with their true selves, most men run away screaming,"

Atreu facing the Magic Mirror Gate in The Neverending Story

 Over the years, he became nearly ubiquitous in my dreams. Even when the dreams weren't about him or nightmares at all, sometimes he was just there. Once in my early days of studying lucidity and dream control I found I could produce lightning from my fingertips as a weapon. Yes, just like the Emperor in Return of the Jedi. I used it on him and appeared to have destroyed him with it as I didn't see him for a long time afterwards. It was only last year I believe I have seen the last of my Shadow. I dreamed, very graphically I recall I watched another monster, it may as well be Jason Voorhees, crushed his skull and tore his heart out. Then I ate his heart. It has been over a year and I havent seen him again. I didn't see him for so long I actually missed him, until one dream, I caught a glimpse of him in my own reflection. It was then I realized, I hadn't defeated him or temporarily subdued him as before with the lightning. I could only see him in my reflection because I have merged with him. I have accepted and admitted him and his three traits as an inexorable part of myself. I am ugly, cruel, a coward and a liar. The only way to change is to acknowledge the things you don't like about yourself.

Lost Boys Dream

This morning, I had an amazing semi-lucid dream. It was induced by the 'hour of wakefulness' rule. That's a theory in the realm of oneirology that one way to induce lucidity is to go back to sleep after being awake for about an hour.  I only explain in case there's someone who can't figure that out from the name, and to take up space so my blog is more than a few lines.

There were parts of this dream on either side, before and after but they were less memorable. I found myself at a restaurant on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk (Santa Carla in the movie). My mother was with me, though I don't recall actually seeing her. A group of teenage boys passed by the door where we were still standing before finding a table. I recognised them as The Lost Boys (from the movie of the same name. If you're not familiar, do yourself a favor and get familiar. It was lauded by the late great Sam Kinison as "The coolest movie ever made" and you can't appeal to a higher authority on what was cool.)  and I shouted to one of them "Hey Brooke!" calling him by his real (actor) name. I couldn't think of his character name. Brooke McCarter played the big haired blonde vampire.

Billy Wirth, Brooke McCarter and Alex Winters (L to R)
played Dwayne, Paul and Marco.

There were three blondes, Brooke, Alex and Kieffer (Paul, Marco and David) so "The blonde vampire" doesn't do much to narrow it down. I didn't think he would but he responded to it. he was very friendly and grabbed my outstretched hand in the "arm wrestling handshake". He answered my "Hows it goin' " with something incredibly autonomous, if that makes sense. You see I was lucid, so I was cognizantly aware that everything said or seen ultimately came from me. Yet what he said surprised me. I wish I could remember what it was. I think he told me Jason Patrick's character, Michael had just made his first kill. Whatever it was they were all very happy about it. He behaved just like an actor at a horror convention, friendly and accommodating yet distant.

As they walked away to sit far off in the same restaurant, I said to my mom, "God, I love it here," referring to my lucid dreamscape. I can't tell you how thrilling it is to explore your own mind if you haven't done it before.

I looked over to their table and saw them watching me watching them. Mom sat down. I was torn, stay with Mom or go sit with them. I told myself "Go individualize." which I did.

Individualization is a process described by Jung of becoming your own person. It should also be noted that to my best knowledge, I have already individualized in the final dream where I confronted my Shadow and merged with him. I may expound on my Shadow in later posts. I don't know if it is possible to de-individualize or regress in that area but I think it is and I may need to do so again.

I walked over to their table and found Billy Wirth, The dark haired one (I knew neither his actor nor character name only his face) sitting with his feet outstretched to take up the seat opposite him. If the dream had any permanence, Brooke would have been on the opposite side next to Billy's feet, because I could see his face from where I started. I remember there was a girl or girls with them though not Jami Gertz (Star). Neither David, Laddie (the child) nor Marco were there. Jason Patrick had vanished also as there wasnt room for him in the booth I guess.

I tried to join them but Billy, the dark haired one, told me in no uncertain terms to fuck off. At some point he called me a pussy. I wasn't offended or surprised. He acted exactly as I expected him to. "Come on," I told him with incredulity of his assessment of my physicality. "I'm bigger and probably stronger than you," He immediately leapt to his feet and took off his leather jacket. I backpedaled remembering he is a vampire and has superhuman strength, and offering a hasty retraction. I didn't finish my sentence before he'd punched me twice in the left eye. Again I was surprised. It didn't hurt much, just jostled me a little. Thank God my dream self forgot about my eyebrow piercing or he would have floored me. Since my head didn't fly off my shoulders, I remembered I also have superhuman strength in lucid dreams and fought him until I had proven myself and he gave in. In the end he resorted to biting my wrist with his vampire teeth. I told him he couldn't break my skin and stop before he broke his teeth. I seems ironic but I was fighting him because I wanted to be his friend. After we broke it up, David (Kieffer) may have appeared and told me to meet them somewhere. My memory fails the longer since I woke up, and I've been trying to get this down all day, but that was I think the end of it.

The dream is full of symbols and truly lends itself to Jungian interpretation. Drop a line if you have any thoughts.