A dream from a few days back, May 5, 2006.

Aristocrat with Amnesia

I was a young man from a wealthy family - wealthy in any sense of the word: money, culture, education, general interest in the world. But I had amnesia. I could not remember my name, where I lived, my family and friends, or anything else. I didn't want anyone to know, but was also helpless due to the absence of knowledge.

When I woke up, I noticed that there was still some resistance to this, but also a clear willingness to go into it more fully. I used Byron Katie's turnaround for no. 6, I am willing to be this young man with amnesia, I am looking forward to being this young man with amnesia. I am looking forward to not knowing anything.

Vector work

I explored this dream also tonight, again using the vector approach from Process Work.

First, I walked the line representing me in the dream, having a background of wealth yet with amnesia.

Then, I continued by walking the line representing my life of wealth in the dream, my life where there are stories, labels, names, locations, and so on.

Finally, I walked the line from the starting point to the ending point, the third side of the triangle, the line representing the sum of the two other lines, or rather that which holds and embraces them both.

I saw how this line is functional, able to live a daily life and using stories, yet also free from it all, coming from a context of not knowing, free from any belief in any story.

Looking at the two other lines from this third line, I saw that the initial - amnesia - line is free from stories, it is not knowing, yet also not functional in the world. I also saw that the second line - my conventional life in the dream - was functional yet not free, it was somewhat stuck, rigid and narrow.

Together, there is functionality and complete freedom. There is the life and engagement in the world, and the ability to use stories and labels as practical tools. And there is complete freedom from all of this, an absence of any belief in any story.

I also see how this resolution is very similar to what emerged from the death dream mentioned in the previous post.

Initial notes (from May 5)

All of this has to do with the dullness and forgetting which seems to be part of the dark night of the soul. It has been there for a while, but the noticing - in dreams and when I wake up - is coming up more strongly now. It seems to invite me to accept it as it is, to welcome it. To see, notice, welcome, become, be, live it. It is already there, but pushed away in the past. Now is the time to welcome it in more fully. To allow the boundary to dissolve.

It strikes me that this can be seen in two different ways, or that it has two aspects. One is the coming to terms with the dullness and flatness of the dark night phase. And the other is to become a man with no past and no future, and not knowing anything. Both feels OK to me. After so long time of struggling with it, I see that I can now more fully embrace both.

Labels: dream, process work