Wisdom in Dreams --- Part I

Humans have always flirted with wisdom, even courted it. From the Venus of Willendorf to the cave paintings of Lascaux; from the Great Pyramids of Egypt to the Healing Temples of Aesculapius, a sheen of wisdom has lain over the human enterprise, gracing our intelligence, skill and inventiveness with an imponderable something. When wisdom smiles on human endeavor we seem truly gifted, lifted beyond ourselves on wings that do not melt if they approach the sun.

Ancient cultures recognized this “something” as an enveloping, transcendent presence. They even dared to give it many names: Sophia, Shekhina, Athena, Nebo, Ea, Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, the Goddess, Venus, Thoth, mana, the magi, the daimon, among countless others.

Modern culture, drunk with the hubris of power and mesmerized by its trinkets, trains us to look with amusement on those early cultures. We scoff at the naïveté of the ancients, who not only saw fit to personify wisdom but also looked upon a world suffused with the quaintness of soul, the superstition of spirit.

But we live in a time when much of humanity seems gripped by a strange, fateful inertia. It is as though we were incapable of tearing ourselves away from our labors and amusements long enough to face the deadly paradox: that the mythological machinery of technological prowess and economic “growth,” if not somehow brought under control and harnessed to serve wiser ends, might conceivably bring the human enterprise to an unseemly, premature end.

In such a time we might ask whether knowledge alone -- severed from wisdom -- is worth what it is costing us. And if it is not worth the cost, how then are we to bring wisdom, however haltingly, back into our lives, re-connecting it with knowledge?

The Philosopher’s Stone

The aim of this article is to consider dreams as a potential source of wisdom. But first, let’s consider a few qualities of wisdom itself. Admittedly, sometimes wisdom rises to the level of rarified mystical insight or philosophical perception. But equally striking, and perhaps more important for our purposes, is the very commonness of it. An alchemical saying, referring to the Philosopher’s Stone, expresses it thus: “Here stands the mean uncomely stone, ‘Tis very cheap in price! The more it is despised by fools, the more loved by the wise.”

On a practical level, wisdom may come into play when we exercise discernment and insight. If a politician lies to us, for example, and we cannot discern the lie, then we can have little insight into the personality of that politician and little chance of responding wisely to the slogans and propaganda issuing forth from the media under his or her control. How can we be wise citizens in a troubled time if we do not actively seek such discernment and cultivate such insight? But with discernment, we are one step closer to wisdom.

Ironically, young children sometimes have an uncanny ability -- and why not call it wisdom? -- to see through social poses and put their finger on the telling characteristics of someone they meet. This reveals an unconscious capacity for discernment. The fairy tale about the Emperor’s clothes points to the presence of wisdom in the young, as does the expression “Out of the mouths of babes.” But what is freely given in childhood is too often drummed out of us by the time we are adults. The attainment of wisdom then becomes a matter of recovering something that we once had, but lost. I wonder if this in part is what Jesus referred to when he said “Except ye become as little children . . . .”

“Unto the seventh generation”

The word wisdom means “seeing doom” or “seeing judgment,” in the sense of seeing an outcome in advance. A long-term perspective is therefore implicit in a wise response to processes that affect us and others. An example would be native people’s ecological concern for the effects of an action on “seven generations.” Contrast this with the contemporary ethos of “resource-extraction for immediate profit,” and ask yourself which is the wiser course.

Wisdom can enter into our life-choices in subtle ways without our knowing it. “Mistakes,” for example, can further the larger process of becoming whole persons. Wisdom is always greater than we are. And whether we wish it or not, the shadow side of the personality forms part of the greater whole and, one way or another, will have its say. If we deny and repress the shadow, then -- willy-nilly -- it will express itself through projection. Thus the evil eye casts about for an enemy, seeking yet another resting place on which to displace one’s own darkness into the world. Would it not be wiser to come to terms with our shadow, however unpleasant the process, than to force someone else to carry the burden for us?

It should be evident from these everyday examples that wisdom is not always out of reach, even though from earliest times we have imagined it as a gift from the gods. But I believe the ancients’ attitudes, in many ways, to be healthier than our own, and more accurate. Ironically, in the “science” of wisdom they may have been more astute than we are.

For we have turned our backs on wisdom in favor of efficiency, expediency and power. In the process we have displaced wisdom from the elevated temple it once occupied as a ruling principle of the universe, relegating it instead to rarified individuals whom we then either dismiss as impractical fools, or place on pedestals, out of reach of the rest of us.

Only a stunted culture could imagine that wisdom is not a property of the universe, free for the taking, like honey for the bear, available to anyone with eyes to see.

The Wisdom Vessel of Dreams

Dreams provide a great corrective for the myopia of our age, insofar as they force us to look at ourselves more honestly. They confront us mercilessly with our shadows and our complexes, our fears and inflations, our manic ambitions. They show us the damage we wreak on the unknown creatures and persons of the soul. Whenever we take dreams seriously and allow ourselves to be challenged ethically by the claims they make, we have inched a little closer to wisdom in ourselves and in the world. For it is far more difficult to judge someone else wrongly, once we have seen the wrongs that we inflict on ourselves. It would be difficult to overstate the benefits of this kind of psychological hygiene for the world itself.

By showing us that we are not masters in our own psychic households, dreams help us to ratchet down the rampant egomania that threatens the world and all of us with it. Matthew Fox equates this egomania with “anthropocentrism,” which he calls one of the great unrecognized sins of our time, along with ecocide, geocide and biocide. For example, were we not so egomaniacal and anthropocentric, we would find it more difficult to look with such stunning, apathetic complaisance at the extinction of animal species taking place today on all sides.

These two features of dreams alone -- that they confront us with our shadows and thereby undermine our titanic egotism -- constitute a massive potential for the influx of wisdom into the suffering world.

But note: It requires the moral courage of a fearless witness to look at dreams in this light and to allow oneself to be transformed, not into what one would like to be, but into what one actually is. This same moral courage also forms a crucial part of what I am calling wisdom in the person, the dream and the world.

I say “crucial” advisedly. The word derives from the same root as “crux,” “cross” and “crucifix.” The individual who confronts the wisdom in dreams may indeed undergo a kind of psychological crucifixion, an excruciating suspension between the opposites. But how else is the one-sidedness that is tearing our world asunder to be brought into balance, if not through the moral courage of individuals, who find the wisdom to recognize both sides of their own story?

Balance, moral courage, discernment: all are parts of wisdom, as is the seeking of it.

Communing With the Animals: A Dream

We could fill volumes with examples of dream wisdom, once attuned to its subtleties. But I would like to cite just one simple dream, before concluding, as an example of what I consider the “wisdom-voice” in a dream. A woman dreamed:

I am standing in a field, on one side of a wire fence. On the other side of the fence a group of people calls to me impatiently, “Let’s go, let’s go!” Instead of getting caught up in their impatience, however, I calmly say: “No, first we must commune with the animals.” [End of dream.]

Several aspects of this dream reveal what we might call the “vector of wisdom.”

First is the distinction between the individual and the group, which are placed on opposite sides of the fence. So long as the dreamer is caught up in collectively-determined impatience -- drivenness -- she will probably not be open to wisdom. But she is on the “other side of the fence.”

Second, the wire fence is a porous division, not an absolute barrier. She can see the group and hear its call throughout the dream. But whereas they are agitated, she is calm. In this respect the dream shows the dreamer resisting the emotional pull of a complex, which usually draws one into a less-differentiated state -- a form of regression. We function at a lower level than what we are capable of.

Third, it is probably because she is standing “on her own side of the fence” that she is able to give voice to the wisdom-perspective. If she can stay grounded in this way, she may be able to detach herself from the complexes with which she has been aligned or identified in the past. They won’t disappear or stop exerting their pull, but at least she has established a precedent of “standing her ground.”

Fourth, the wisdom-message that “first we must commune with the animals” suggests that the dreamer is aware of a priority lost on the group: communion with the animals in some way takes precedence over pursuit of worldly concerns.

Fifth, it should be noted that “the animals” do not appear in the dream. They are not visible. Interestingly, this suggests that the “communion” need not be taken literally, that is, it can take place inwardly. The animals are always present, we just usually ignore them.

Finally, we should note that this small dream is an exception that proves the rule, since the wisdom-voice usually emerges from the depths of the dream, carried by a figure other than the ego. This is in line with our traditional notion of the angel, who flies from “heaven” to deliver a healing message to the receptive ego. Thus, it often happens that a stranger, an animal, even the structure of the dream itself, gives voice to a wisdom the ego is lacking. Here, the dreamer finds herself aligned with the “angelic” message.

This dream suggests that a shift is taking place in the dreamer’s psyche, a loosening of the ties between the ego and the complexes with which it is normally aligned or identified. The dream therefore points to new potentials that are within reach of consciousness -- if she can only continue to stand her ground.

A deeper implication is that the wisdom flowing from the Self, as an expression of the Whole, is close by, ready to manifest itself to her and, through her, to the world.

As we go deeper into our dreams, and incorporate more and more of their inherent wisdom, we may gradually find in the individual soul a reflection of the underlying patterns humans have always recognized as “divine.” In this sense, as individual sparks of the divine fire, we all participate in the cosmic currents of wisdom that, I believe, permeate the universe and everything in it.

Let us all seek wisdom, then, in ourselves, in our dreams, in one another and in the world. And whenever or wherever we find it, may we find the courage to live it, embody it, bring it forth and let it shine.