Soulfulness in Our Dreams
by David Richo
 Dreams, poetry, and myths all emerge from the same place: the point of contact between spirit and matter, human and divine, male and female, personal and transpersonal, ego and Self. Jung calls this point of contact the soul. The points are all related as Yin to Yang: complementaries that are ultimately unities (like breathing in and out).
Dreams are the royal road to and from the unconscious. They reveal our identity, our path, our next step, what resides in us and is ready to speak. Each dream speaks to our condition. Since dreams thus reflect and presage our life predicaments, they are living examples of synchronicity, meaningful coincidence.
To know who we are is a twofold task. It is first of all to know our deepest wishes and longings as well as our loves and fears. It is also to know the space that opens in us when we go beyond needs, wishes, fears and expand our love. Dreams show us how to move between one and the other, how to continue our journey. Dreams introduce us not only to parts of ourselves but to visiting archetypes who may come to free us from the domination of the ego.
Our ego identity is encrusted with habitual ways of seeing ourselves, others, and our life. It is supremely devoid of surprises, full of boring, hackneyed, and predictable responses. Our soul identity is free of habits, biases, and orthodoxy. It is full of surprises, full of grace. Within this spiritual identity is a set of accurate, appropriate, and courageous responses to whatever life may bring. Our true Self is a reliable inner repertory of powers. It is like a Swiss army knife with blades for every circumstance that may face us in the forest. Dreams come to us from this power place— or rather space—in us.
Our journey is to advance past our ego’s entrenchments long enough to feel contact with wholeness in our soul/universe. Dreams are visions from a superior intelligence that points out our ego’s blind spots and challenges us to deal with them. Dreams come from a knowledge larger than ego or our I.Q. They tell us what we do not yet know. We have minds that are unable to know the deepest truths about us! What we figure out mentally about the meaning of a dream often misses the mark because dreams speak the soul’s language to the ego. They are not ego talking to itself. Like angels, dreams are intelligent agents that come to help us. Decisions made on the basis of logic alone betray this soulful voice within us that, thanks to our dreams, will not be silent long...
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Copyright Dave Richo, Ph.D. This article was
originally
published at our website, SoulfulLiving.com,
in January 2003,
as part of our "Living Soulfully" Issue.
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