The patient began to talk about his anxiety. He had just arrived in Canada to begin directing a movie. This was an established TV series that he had spent many years directing. Now he was welcomed back as a guest director. Despite the perfuse acclaim accorded him he was agitated, depressed, fearful and upset. "I think something bad is going to happen," he said. "I tried to do what I usually do to assuage my anxiety, that is masturbate….and I do this looking at porn. Porn you know is now free. You can find it free of charge. It is all over the net. But that didn't help. My wife and kids came so that stopped and I am still very anxious. Maybe I better tell you my dream."

DREAM ONE - PART ONE

I was a manager in a factory. I didn't know who the owner was for whom I was working. I wake up a Mexican man sleeping on the floor. He is very thin and very frightened. There was still time before he would have to go on duty. I carried him outside and said, "I have to attend a meeting now. The meeting is with all the managers of factories in the area. We are going to meet under that big tree. You cannot be there so I will drive you two freeway stops from here." Which I did and I said to him, "After the meeting I will come and pick you up." The second freeway stop was a dead end of the freeway and one had to get off. I found myself in a very dangerous neighborhood something like deep South Center Los Angeles and there were people on motorcycles and one bad guy, pretty big with mustache, tattoos, real bad Hell's Angels type hoodlum. As we went on, there was an even bigger guy who looked more menacing. But we were not harmed. I think I have to take the man back with me. The topic of our meeting, the mangers that is, was whether we let the workers unionize. We were in a quandary because I believed it to be a right of the workers to unionize and I think the managers felt the same. Obviously the bosses did not. They wanted there to be no union in their factory. We got back and I went to the meeting under the tree. After the meeting, there was only this skinny Mexican man and myself. We turn around and I see this huge Hell's Angel type guy coming toward us. I am very scared. The Mexican man now has a knife and as this menacing figure approaches he stabs him and slashes at him and I hear the tearing of paper. The Mexican man gives me the knife and wants me to complete the job. At this point I wake in a cold sweat.

ASSOCIATIONS

Dr. B: What do you think?

Patient: Well, I do think that people have the right to unionize and I know how owners of factories think.

Dr. B: Who is this thin Mexican man?

Patient: I don't know him. Maybe it's a part of me.

Dr. B: Why Mexican?

Patient: When I was very young we lived with my mother's mother and I loved my grandmother who indulged me. This was a wonderful time for me. Then my parents took me to Mexico when I was about three. They were teaching school there. Before they married I think they met at the University of Mexico and I think their plan was to go back to the States, get higher degrees, then come back and teach at the University of Mexico. This time for me was terrible. I remember being frightened all the time. I did not understand the language and later, when I went to school, I still did not understand the language and I was frightened of the boys in the neighborhood, though in all fairness I was never hurt. I think this feeling of being in this strange country overtook me. Today I can speak a little Spanish and sometimes words come to me that are a surprise, so somehow I must have learned something. When I was six, my parents came back to the States. They never went to Mexico again. When we got back to the States I think they lived in Louisiana and I went to school there.

Dr. B: So to get back to the dream, what do you think of the events?

What do you make of the Hell's Angel fellow?

Patient: I guess he was a paper tiger. I have to tell you that after coming here to Canada all the anxieties I have about the States, all the anxieties I feel about living in the States seem so unreal. The Canadians seemed happy, they seem secure, and they are all planning for the future. Nobody is walking around in dread.

Dr. B: I suppose their leaders didn't let the crooks of their country bankrupt the system.

Patient: Obviously, but I am now thinking beyond this episode. I am thinking about my writing of my pilot. After this episode I don't have any steady work. My wife is OK with that. She wants me to write a pilot and writing is very, very hard for me. It is very hard for me to have no work or to feel that writing a pilot is my work. Of course, that's a very chancy proposition for any writer to get his script made into a pilot. It would put me, if that were done, into a different category. I would truly be the boss and not working for a boss.

Dr. B: So we can sum up the situation that your coming to Canada reminds you of being in the familiar position of working for somebody else. But that feeling of security is temporary. Soon it will be over and you will be confronted with the issue of your independence and that brings us to your dream. I would agree that this skinny Mexican is a part of your unconscious and maybe it is that part that lived in Mexico, a very frightened child, as if that part of yourself was too scared to really grow. In the dream you go to the dark side of the unconscious where Hell's Angels are. I suppose that would correspond to your fears as that young child. But you come back with the skinny Mexican, you as a very small child, and that small child has the courage to strike at what frightens him and finds, as you say, it is a paper tiger. All of this comes at a time when you are trying to change the fundamentals of your life from being a worker, albeit a highly paid worker, to being the boss of yourself. And you seem to be in the space in-between, which is filled with anxiety and the fears of long ago. Lastly, it is to be noted that this meeting happens under a tree. A tree obviously is a very good symbol. It is the symbol of protection and rootedness, security and living.

COMMENTARY

I want to call attention to the symptoms, that is the masturbation and the porn watching. Whereas pornography has exploded in our society, the dreams here, harking back to early childhood and before, would seem to link great anxieties with these symptoms. It is known that masturbation can allay anxiety. People have different ways of coping with their anxiety. However, it is clear that it would be in the patient's best interest to solve the origin of his masturbation and his looking at pornography with which masturbation is associated.

This solution would give him more energy to pursue his writing and his attempt to change the course of his life. There are large conflicting forces involved in this struggle. Simply put - the corporations versus the unions, parent versus child, the parents (Hell's Angels) who the child fears and dreads as those who would destroy him. However, they turn out to be paper tigers. Now that he has awakened a part of himself that has so long been asleep and a part he can go into union with, there will be more courage and drive to fight toward his goal.

It might be interesting for those who are following this person's progress to read the essay "The Awakening" in which his parents brutalized his feminine unconscious and wanted him to do likewise. As a consequence of disobeying his parents, these sessions have profoundly shifted him forward in a healthy way helping him to achieve a happier life in work and in family.

This dream follows.....

DREAM TWO - PART TWO

I walk into a 7-11 to buy a newspaper. The owner, an Indian man, tells me that I can’t buy just one paper. I have to buy a whole bundle. Each bundle has a hundred papers in it. He suggests I should consider re-selling the papers from the bundle and thereby making a profit. I think this sound like a good idea and ask for two bundles. But when I get to my car I see he has sold me three bundles and that the bill is $736 dollars. I am angry and begin to plan to go back and get a refund. But I realize I have to do it today because at the end of the day the paper expires. Yesterday’s news - so to speak.

I come to a fountain. It is very ancient, like one from Florence Italy. I turn the handle and water begins to gush out. This seems a good thing. But then I realize that there isn’t just one “on”-“off” handle. There are two handles. Like “hot” and “cold” or, more accurately “positive” and “negative.” I get confused; knowing that it’s not just enough to get the water on, it’s about balancing the opposing forces of positive/negative, male/female, hot/cold, darkness/light, etc.

To complicate things further I look over and see that there is another fountain. This one is very modern. White, like a Philippe Starck design.

This fountain also has two handles. So, now there are two fountains – modern and ancient, each with two handles – how can I properly balance all the forces. And how can I do it in time to return the papers and get a refund?

The dream ends on these conundrums.

Dr. B interprets: 7-11 are lucky numbers – winning numbers. What is the newspaper for?

Patient: The news. I want the news. The truth.

Dr. B: Also, the 7-11 is run by an Indian man. You are turning to India and China lately – to the East – for spirituality.

Patient: True. These days I am studying the practices of the Indian Sihks and meditating using Sanskrit mantras.

Dr. B: Many numbers play out in this dream. You want one newspaper – One is the magician – which tells us “As above so below.” One means all on earth is as it is in heaven.

Patient: Right. Also, I suspect, all in the unconscious manifests in our lives!

Dr. B: This is the news You want. But the Indian man wants you to not just have this glorious news for yourself. He wants you to share it with hundreds of people.

You want two bundles, but he gives you three. Three, in the Tarot, is the empress. The empress is abundance. The truth will create abundance.

But the price of three bundles is $736. An amount you are not happy with. 7 plus 3 plus 6 equals 16. Sixteen is the tower.

Patient: The number sixteen and the tower is an important symbol that has come up in my dreams a lot and for many years. I used to fear it, but now I do not. I accept it. The tower says that the old system must be destroyed before the new system can be built.

So, in keeping with the chronology of the dream – the secret news I’ve learned (about the unconscious affecting earth and that earth reflects heaven) must be shared with many others and then abundance will flow to all – but I must destroy my old way of thinking and build a new way of thinking in order to do this. Perhaps sharing this news will be profitable for me. I think this is potentially true. I have been trying to put the knowledge I’ve learned into my writing, and disguising it a bit (as one must.) We’ll see if it profits me.

Dr. B: Yes, we’ll see.

Now as to the fountains: First there is an ancient fountain. You make the water flow. Water in dreams, as you know, is always symbolic of the unconscious. It I good that you get your unconscious flowing – but then I realize that it is more complex than that. There are positive and negative forces that must be balanced.

Patient: It taken me years of analysis to get the unconscious flowing – and then I find it’s more complex than that. There is darkness and light, secrets and truths, many opposing forces. They are not “good” and “bad” per se or the correct answer would be to only turn ion the “good” and turn off the “bad” – the real discipline is to get them in balance.

Dr. B: What about the two fountains?

Patient: Right. I see there are two fountains. The ancient – which is ancient wisdom and mystery – probably up to and including Freud.

And then there is a modern fountain. I suspect you would say this is your work.

Dr. B: Yes. My work is very modern. Very new.

Patient: So the dream is telling me all must be in balance, the positive and negatives of the ancient work and the positive and negatives of the new work - your work.

This is my task.

On a personal note – it is worth mentioning that after seeing Doctor Bail for many years, I began to notice that whenever a number appeared in a dream he referenced the Tarot. I never questioned this – but finally (in 2004) I decided to buy a book on the Tarot and study it for myself. At the bookstore there were many books on the subject – but one seemed to leap off the shelf at me. It was a book by Paul Foster Case. Now, years later, my wife and I (who study together) joke that reading this book was like falling down the rabbit hole. Our spiritual knowledge and knowledge of the mysteries has expanded immeasurably and sometimes painfully beginning with our examination of the Tarot.

COMMENTARY

I believe with a terrific surge of knowledge from the previous dream and a great strengthening of his ego in a good way, the patient has pulled together a number of observations he has gathered over the period of time he has worked with me.

In the dream of the newspapers - obviously information and the significance of that is already stated above - he is told what his task is, to put his information and his personality in balance and to disseminate this information. He is told it is not easy to do that for the Polarities are always active and one must constantly be the master arranging and shape shifting those Polarities to keep himself in balance.

He is told there was the old way (up to Freud) and there is the new way, the new fountain (my work). This work is bringing spirituality into the realm of psychological functioning and allows us to see how the unconscious mind is always giving us clues as to how Source works and what it is working toward - The Evolution of Consciousness. This means a more balanced world order that is truly just for all people on earth, since all people on earth are brothers and sisters. Division amongst us is a ruse by the masters to aggrandize and to enrich and to enslave fellow brothers and sisters. This is not what any of the enlightened souls who have come to earth to teach us have said - whether the Buddha, Jesus or Mohammed.

We see today that a perversion of these masters' teachings has brought the world to ever greater states of decay. Where there is no morality there can be no enlightenment. It seems, from all the evidence streaming across the globe, that there is an enormous hunger for new knowledge to get us out of the slough of despair.

No intellectual's solution will do it. They have all been tried. More wars will not do it. That, too, has already been tried.

But the dream contains a new fountain and new knowledge. I might add fountains are usually built circular, as the ones in the dream, which corresponds to the wheel of fortune in the tarot. It is calling us, indeed, to spin into a new era, into a higher level of consciousness. We must go to the Feminine Unconscious for further knowledge and instruction.

It is the only place to go.

April 2010