FOLLOWING MY DREAMS

     I have long followed my dreams. I began Jungian analysis when I was in my late twenties, almost fifty years ago. I immediately saw the importance of my dreams for my personal and spiritual growth. I spent almost ten years in analysis and came to know myself much better than I had before. My dreams were my main source of spiritual inspiration. I read everything that Jung wrote. My analyst, Al Kreinheder, inspired me to become a Jungian analyst myself. I began training at the Jung Institute.

     However, in 1967, I began experimenting with LSD. After I had done a number of trips and had begun to see its potential for personal and spiritual growth, I had a dream in which I am the captain of a submarine. In the dream, my crew and I are about to dive into the depths. The folks on the pier, my friends and family, as well as many of the Jungians I know, don't want me to go, warn me of the many possible disastrous consequences. They seem to think I am insane. However, I am resolved to go. As I cast off from their world, I'm asked how we will survive. I tell them that we'll take care of ourselves like any other free nation. Then we dive. I saw this dream as heralding my journey, using acid, into the deepest reaches of my psyche.


     Several years later, after I had moved to Berkeley and the counterculture, I had another dream. In this one the doctor is dying. I took this dream to be telling me that my desire to be a healer was no longer holding my interest. I accepted this and let go of the last of my patients. However, I made an agreement with myself then, with the two sides of myself that were in opposition - my Jungian and my acid tripper sides. I agreed to continue writing in my journal. I agreed to continue listening to and understanding my dreams. I also agreed to really go for it, to see where doing a lot of acid would take me. I would act out perhaps, as the Jungians would say, but I would do it consciously.

     I stopped working as a therapist. I used acid more and more. At first though, I had no focus. I didn't know what to do with my new and extremely powerful tool, which I soon called medicine, spiritual medicine really. In the middle of this, I had a dream in which I am leading a small group of folks in exploring the world beneath the one we know. We are in a garage, digging up the floor and realizing that there had once been a drug store on this very spot. There had been an older city underneath today's city. From this dream, I saw that my mission had become exploring, with others if possible, the deeper levels of consciousness, much like an archeologist, but focused instead upon the psyche.

     I spent many years after this realization exploring the Old City, as we called it in my dream. I lived in the deep woods, alone or with a few others. I traveled the back roads of America. I visited alternative cultures. I used a lot of acid. I tripped often alone, sometimes with a few others. I tripped anywhere and everywhere. I survived and grew more and more conscious of my place in the world. Interestingly enough, I found myself running into more and more magicians and wizards as I traveled both the inner and the outer realms. Reading Carlos Castaneda, I understood that I was on my way to becoming a man of knowledge.

     However, over the years, I lost my healing connection with the dream. My dreams, feeling my aloofness, came to me less and less often. I hardly noticed, still sure of my path. But then one night, I had a dream in which I am telling this acid tripper that unless he pays attention to his dreams and where they would lead him, he will become lost. I took heed from this dream myself and stopped relying completely on my acid consciousness for guidance. I began to listen more to my dreams again.


     I still don't dream like I did in the old days. I think this is partly because I have cleaned out my personal unconscious and have instead tapped into the collective one. But now, with my responsibilities to my wife and three boys, my dreams are returning, guiding me on my new, and perhaps, last great path with heart.

      Synchronicitly, just recently I dreamt that the doctor is back. I am helping her get settled in her new work. She will be my boss. I will help her in this work. Our office is at the beach. After I help her, I return home to Aspen and the boys, becoming mommy-daddy again. I've been all mommy-daddy for the past eight years. I have had no time for the rest of myself. My dream is telling me that now I can be both - healer and parent.

      Shortly after this dream, I had another in which I am with my rainbow friend, Wayne. He is trying on holy man clothes, white pants and a loose fitting white shirt. I am more interested in a river I can see from the window. I notice a path alongside it and want nothing more than to wander along that path, alongside that river. Wayne wants me to try on the holy man clothes. I want him to wander with me. We disagree, get a bit angry with one another, so I leave, somewhat scared of him.

     From this, I see that I am in a conflict about being a holy man. I resist taking on this role. If I let myself become one, I won't be able to take off and wander whenever I want in the Tao. I would have to structure my life into hours and days and weeks again. I would have to stay in one place. I haven't done this for more than thirty years. And right now, I feel that I'm already doing more than enough of this with my boys and their school schedules.

     But I've been the wandering Taoist for over thirty years now, ever since I began experimenting with LSD, especially since I earned my Ph.D. from UCLA in 1971. Ever since then I've been wandering - or often moving my home base. All this has led to me being off balance. I am a healer too, not just a wandering Taoist. But now the doctor is back, alive and well within me.

     I have to find a balance between these two creative aspects of myself - the wanderer and the healer. I have to be the healer again, but without repressing the wanderer. And, of course I also have to find a balance between these sides of myself and my role as a parent too.

     Since these dreams, I have begun to practice dream analysis again - after over thirty years! I have just offered a dream workshop and will offer another one or two early next year. I am most open to working individually with motivated individuals who are interested in their dreams. I have come to miss the deep and fulfilling connection that develops between therapist and patient when the focus is upon dreams.

     By Eugene Marks