The Human, The Dream, The Myth - A Journey through human psyche.

Joseph Campbell - "The hero with a thousand faces"

..This archetypal nightmare of the ogre father is made actual in ordeals of primitive initiation. The boys of the Australian Murgin tribe , as we have seen, are first frightened and sent running to their mothers. The Great Father Snake is calling for their foreskins. This places the women in the role of protectresses.
A prodigious horn is blown , named Yurlunggur, which is supposed to be the call of the Great Father Snake, who has emerged from his hole.
When the men come for the boys, the woman grab up spears and pretend not only to fight but also to wail and cry, because little fellows are going to be taken away and "eaten".
The men's triangular dancing ground is the body of the Great Father Snake. There the boys are shown , during many nights, numerous dances symbolical of the various totem ancestors, and are taught the myths that explain the existing order of the world. Also, they are sent on a long journey to neighbouring and distant clans, imitative of the mythological wanderings of the phallic ancestors. In this way, "within" the Great Father Snake as it were, they are introduced to an interesting new object world that compensates them for their loss of the mother; and the male phallus, instead of the female breast, is made the central point of imagination.
Click to expand...
Dreams symbolic of this snake coming after are met all across Europe.

Modern society has abandoned its' myths, forgotten them into subconsciousness, but they are still there and arise from the psyche in dreams, when the present day culture and society doesn't stand between your psyche and the human that is in each of us.
These symbols are the language of psyche and through them humans become aware of themselves and the world in a greater, deeper meaning.
So without myths, without these rituals many adult humans have not gotten further than their childhood and mother, they continue to be children (in the bad sense of the word) all their lives and in all their actions.
But if the psyche is strong enough and is allowed to express itself, humans can't hide anywhere from what they are, can't hide from the voice of their psyche, even if don't understand it any more, even if don't listen to it.

Also take in mind that the Great Father Serpent is just some second or third step in the development of the persons' mind, of you knowing your psyche.
It's the very beginning with a very basic meaning.
 
Avatar said:
I tried the unlock thing today, although I wasn't conscious in dream,
but that's a lot better. Still under the spell of the dream-fate. :D

Anyways, I was running away with some friends from the mansion of the Devil (lol, a frequent story in latvian (and not only) tales) and there was the Devil's car-vagon that we couldn't get into. I tried various commands in dream, but it worked when I said open sesam :D (from the "Thousand and One Arabian Nights" and Ali Baba).
It also worked when I told - start the ignition sesam and even when I mixed the sides and told the wrong side for the sesam to turn to and almost crashed into a wall.

Then the devil's guys came after us in another car. I wanted to say activate-defence, but I immediately thought that that defence might act against us, so I just found a bazooka and shot the pursuers down by hand. kaboom!
Click to expand...

Sweet, it's interesting that the consistency was there right off the bat.
The thoughts come to mind that maybe by telling you it was consistent
it had a first impression on your subconcious and it became so. On the
other hand maybe the concept of unlocking / opening gets stored in some
area of the brain that is simply consistent in dream time (like moving the
ol' right arm). Most interesting.
 
pg. 10.-11.

It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those constant human fantasies that tend to tie in back. In fact , it may well be that the very high incidence of neuroticism among ourselves follows from the decline among us of such effective spiritual aid. We remain fixated to the unexorcised images of our infancy, and thence disinclined to the necessary passages of our adulthood.

In the United States there is even a pathos of inverted emphasis: the goal is not to grow old, but to remain young; not to mature away from Mother, but to cleave to her.
And so, while husbands are worshipping at their boyhood shrines, being the lawyers , merchants, or masterminds their parents wanted them to be, their wives, even after the fourteen years of marriage and two fine children produced and raised, are still on the search for love - which can come to them only from the centaurs, sileni, satyrs and other concupiscent incubi of the rout of Pan, either as in the second of the above-recited dreams, or as in our popular, vanilla-frosted temples of the venereal goddess, under the make-up of the latest heroes of the screen.

The psychoanalyst has to come along , at last, to assert again the tried wisdom of the older, forward-looking teachings of the masked medicine dancers and the witch-doctor-circumcisers; whereupon we find, as in the dream of the serpent bite, that the ageless initiation symbolism is produced spontaneously by the patient himself at the moment of the release.

Apparently there is something in these initiatory images so necessary to the psyche that if their are not supplied from without, through myth and ritual, they will have to be announced again, through dream, from within - lest our energies should remain locked in a banal, long-outmoded toy-room, at the bottom of the sea.
Click to expand...
 
:D see?

There is much, much more stuff going on in human psyche than just your conscious thoughts and what you think is yourself.

And even dreams are just cinema-screens through which your subconsciousness and the heritage of what human is (all the way back to the caves) speaks to you in the language of archetypal symbols, themes and happenings.
 
There were a few dreams I had from long ago when I was about age 12 or 13 I believe. Of the same person or events. There was this guy who I referred to in my dreams as the "dangerzone" I was vry afraid of the dark at my age and my house was vry dark at night. I would always be afraid to go downstairs. But the most wierdest stuff would happen when I would go downstairs. I'd swear I was awake and when I would go downstair this guy would run out of the dark kitchen and grab me and I'd wake up in my bed. This dream happened each night I went downstairs in the dark. There was one time were I went to bed and I hide under my covers and watched my doorway and a dark figure would stand at my door, and the moment I closed my eye's I was downstairs and this guy was carrying me down to the vry dark basement. The moment I wanted it to end I woke up on my bed under my covers with my eye's on the door but no one was there. I've had vry spooky dreams as a child and I dont have them any more.
 
I mean come on man, I've had dreams before, but not dreams were I would be awake one moment and dreaming the next. Every single time I'd go downstairs to get something to drink this dream would continue to happen on a frequent level. But after I wake up from these dreams and go back downstairs, no one would be in the kitchen. I never told these dreams to my family, they probably would think im crazy lol.
 
I just had a dream tonight. I was a theif in some huge department store. I was taking a tent, some food and some other supplies I wasnt to sure what they were myself. I dont know why I was thinking about putting my sheets in the tent, I mean, why am i thinking about putting some sheets in my tent. Anyway, I had this vry strange feeling that some people knew I was taking this stuff, and all of a sudden I hear voices saying " that man over there has this big bag of stuff and he is taking stuff from the store, see he has one of the tents, its the big black thing sticking out of the bag. Then for some strange reason I began to put the stuff back and I began to run out the store when I looked the cop at my left side. As soon as I got outside I saw a cop about 30 feet outside of the store getting out of his car. Then I had this feeling of no escape. Then I woke up....
 
As to the original dream...your descriptions of the inner caves, the mirrored surface and the strange greenish light are the same descriptions ive read in countless stories of people whove stumbled into caves, and found passage ways odviously built by an earlier civilisation. Ive also read accounts of people finding egyption markings in and around these cave entrances.
Out of curiosity i Just wondered if youd read any accounts of people finding caves and structures nside the earth and if thats where you got the idea from, if not then thats an uncanny coincidence.

As for the dream interpretation; personally i think you have to be careful not to over interpret dreams sometimes, In making everything a metaphor or symbolic i think you can easily overdo it and end up making a completely different story up in the process, which can infact lead you further away from the original message of the dream, if there in fact was one.
 
Out of curiosity i Just wondered if youd read any accounts of people finding caves and structures nside the earth and if thats where you got the idea from
Click to expand...
Not really, I first hear this from you.
But I wouldn't be too surprised if others have seen the same or simmilar temple-caves, because all and in itself it's a place in human psyche, it's not attached to a single personality.

Even if such a temple really exists built somewhere, I'm pretty sure from where the builders got their idea from.
As for the dream interpretation; personally i think you have to be careful not to over interpret dreams sometimes
Click to expand...
I am careful, I interpreted only the things I am sure were archetypes and left out the rest.
I have plenty of knowledge and experience in world myths to notice them.
Besides I didn't talk about one I wasn't sure of how to interpret.
which can infact lead you further away from the original message of the dream, if there in fact was one.
Click to expand...
The message of the dream was vocally told to me in dream. I didn't have to interpret the meaning, it was there from the start, I only analized what else was there.
 
Last edited:
Avatar said:
Not really, I first hear this from you.
But I wouldn't be too surprised if others have seen the same or simmilar temple-caves, because all and in itself it's a place in human psyche, it's not attached to a single personality.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear the stories i was talking about were peoples actual accounts of caves they had stumbled apon, im not sure if that came across correctly in my original post. I just wondered if youd read the accounts, interesting that you havent, quite uncanny.


I am careful, I interpreted only the things I am sure were archetypes and left out the rest.
I have plenty of knowledge and experience in world myths to notice them.
Besides I didn't talk about one I wasn't sure of how to interpret.
Click to expand...

Well im not sure there ever is a correct way to interpret anything, or even to be sure which aspects of a dream are to be taken litterally and which are open to symbolism. But i guess thats the fun of interpretation, its what ever want to make out of it. : p

The message of the dream was vocally told to me in dream. I didn't have to interpret the meaning, it was there from the start, I only analized what else was there.
Click to expand...
Yep thats what i understood from reading your posts.
 
Just to be clear the stories i was talking about were peoples actual accounts of caves they had stumbled apon
Click to expand...
I perfectly understood what you ment and replied accordingly in every aspect.

Haven't seen those reports, so can say nothing.
Also take in mind that a vision or a dream can be so vivid that even after awaking it is indistinguishable from the wake-world experience (so to say).

To me it is more important that that ancient temple exists in human psyche, because that means much more than the possible temple made in its liking. Alas it would be a grand place to visit ..the second time.

Well im not sure there ever is a correct way to interpret anything, or even to be sure which aspects of a dream are to be taken litterally and which are open to symbolism. But i guess thats the fun of interpretation, its what ever want to make out of it.
Click to expand...
These symbols are made to be metaphors and they have been such for countless milenia, the meaning is pretty embeded in human psyche, just like the snake bite (even if you haven't seen one).
If in simmilar situations people see the same symbol and have also used that symbol in mythology for the same use, it's pretty safe to assume what the symbol means.
It mostly has to do with the function of the symbol and not the outward look of it.
A bridge can also be a ship, can also be boat, can be a wooden box afloat.
The Sun = womb of woman (or goddess) = sacrifical fire == transforming force.
 
Last edited:
Avatar said:
I perfectly understood what you ment and replied accordingly in every aspect.

Haven't seen those reports, so can say nothing.
Also take in mind that a vision or a dream can be so vivid that even after awaking it is indistinguishable from the wake-world experience (so to say).

To me it is more important that that ancient temple exists in human psyche, because that means much more than the possible temple made in its liking. Alas it would be a grand place to visit ..the second time.
Click to expand...
heh fair enough.

These symbols are made to be metaphors and they have been such for countless milenia, the meaning is pretty embeded in human psyche, just like the snake bite (even if you haven't seen one).
If in simmilar situations people see the same symbol and have also used that symbol in mythology for the same use, it's pretty safe to assume what the symbol means.
It mostly has to do with the function of the symbol and not the outward look of it.
A bridge can also be a ship, can also be boat, can be a wooden box afloat.
The Sun = womb of woman (or goddess) = sacrifical fire == transforming force.
Click to expand...

I just think youre treating symbolism and metaphor as an exact science, all im saying is it isnt by any means.
and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...
 
I just think youre treating symbolism and metaphor as an exact science, all im saying is it isnt by any means.
Click to expand...
It's your freedom to have an oppinion. :)
and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...
Click to expand...
Actually I'm in quite ill thoughts about Freud.
He did an exellent account of dreams of disturbed persons, but apart from that he saw it all too simplistic and uncomplicated,
besides he had his own mental problems.
sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
Click to expand...
True and I have used this phrase quite often myself, but there are occasions when there can be no doubts. I analyzed this dream exactly because it perfectly fits.
Why it does? Well.. after reading thousands of myths and folk tales from all across the world you start to see particular patterns and these symbols called archetypes that can not be mistaken for something else exactly because of their function.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top