War in Iraq: Nightmare or Waking Dream?

As American bombs began raining down on the city of Baghdad, I found myself in shock, feeling as if we are living in a world gone mad. I feel impotent, seemingly unable to have any effect whatsoever on the horror of what is playing out as reality television on the screen in front of me. What is happening seems totally surreal, as if I find myself in some sort of dream.

Our world is in a completely disassociated state, where the opposites are totally polarized and want to kill each other. It is like we are living in apocalyptic times. The inner meaning of the word apocalypse means something hidden being revealed. Could it be that there is something being shown to us through the events that are manifesting in our world today, if we could only see?

Very dark, diabolical forces are manifesting in our universe. Regardless of our point of view, pro-war or antiwar, I don't imagine that anyone would disagree that an extremely dark energy is manifesting. The word diabolos actually means that which separates, that which divides. The antonym and antidote to the diabolic is the symbolic. Whereas the diabolic dis-integrates, symbols and symbolic awareness brings together and unites that which has been divided. Could there be a clue here to what is being shown to us?

In the apocryphal Acts of John, it says, "... the Lord contrived all things symbolically and by a dispensation towards men, for their conversion and salvation." Symbols are the language of dreams and the unconscious. Symbols are very different than signs, whose meaning is literal, known and can be conveyed in words. Symbols are not only emanations and point to something beyond themselves, but actualize and liberate the energy of this deeper state when we understand them. Symbols are psychic energy transformers which reflect, express and effect a change in consciousness itself. To quote Jung, 'There are, and always have been, those who cannot help but see that the world and its experiences are in the nature of a symbol, and that it reflects something that lies hidden in the subject himself'. I find myself wondering how this 'war' would look if we began seeing it symbolically, instead of viewing what is playing out in our world literally. This means to view our situation in the world today AS IF it actually were a dream that a deeper, dreaming part of ourselves is dreaming up into materialization, and then interpret it as such.

We can view what is happening in Iraq as a "dreamed up phenomenon", an externalization of an inner process; a mass shared dream that all six billion of us have mutually dreamed up into incarnation. What is getting played out in our world is then recognized to be a full-bodied reflection, in symbolic form, of a conflict going on deep inside the collective consciousness of humanity. We can then ask ourselves, what is this dreaming process showing us. What does it mean? What does it show us about the forces deep at work in the dreamer's psyche, who is none other than ourselves? How would we interpret the symbols of this waking dream that is actually unfolding in and as our life itself?

When I contemplate the current world situation AS IF it were a dream, something profound becomes revealed to me. A deeper pattern begins to emerge, a deeper process that underlies and is unfolding through, in and as events on our planet. Peter Jennings of ABC News said to a commentator at the Pentagon, "Let's get the bigger picture". What follows is an inquiry into "the bigger picture", the dreaming process that is in-forming and giving shape to events in our world today; the collective dream of our planet.

The Universe as a Waking Dream

'Everything unconscious, once it was activated, was projected into matter—that is to say, it approached people from outside', said Jung. When there is an unconscious factor, it always gets projected out. It is literally, as well as symbolically, 'dreamed up' into materialized form into the (waking) dreamfield. Jung realized that projection was not just a defence mechanism, but was the very process through which we become conscious of unconscious parts of ourselves. Provided, of course, that we recognize the projected content is a reflection of that part of ourselves. When recognized, we can then withdraw the projection, embracing and owning the projected content.

In dreamwork, all parts of the dream are seen to be aspects of the dreamer's self. For what is a dream other than our inner process projected out—into and as—the dreamscape? A dream is clearly an out-picturing, a projection of an inner process that is going on deep inside the psyche of the dreamer. The same process is at work in our waking life. To the extent that we are unconscious of our inner process, it will literally get dreamed up into—as and through—our universe, in full-bodied, but symbolic form. I think of Jung saying, 'The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves'.

To see this universe as a waking dream is to realize that it is embedded in an emanation, a reflection, a projection, a shadow, an echo, of a higher-dimensional reality that is speaking symbolically. Seen as a dreaming process, this universe is reflecting back to us that we need to become more fluent in its language, which is symbolic 'dreamspeak'.

This is why in Tibetan Buddhism one of the translations of the word for Enlightenment is the Great Symbol. The universe is a symbol of itself, both veiling and re-vealing its true symbolic nature at every instant. This reminds of the eastern idea of Maya, who is the source of both the deepest illusion and the highest creativity.

This dreamlike nature of our reality has been articulated in quantum physics, and is called the observer effect. The act of observing our universe actually evokes the universe observed. This realization points to the thought that it makes no sense whatsoever to even talk about an objective universe, as well as an independent observer separate from the universe. For the observer and the observed, the subject and the object interpenetrate one another so fully that we can't even talk about them as being in any way separate. What quantum physics is describing is what I call the physics of the dreamlike nature of reality.

In Buddhism, this process is called interdependent co-origination, in which every part of the universe evokes (dreams-up) and is, concurrently, evoked by (dreamed-up by) every other part of the universe. This is a circular, nonlinear, a-causal, beginningless feedback loop that happens in no time, outside of time... quicker than the twinkling of an eye.

To re-cognize this dreamlike nature is to step out of the linear, literal mind-set of materialism into symbolic awareness, in which matter is 'immaterialized'. This, in order to gain insight into the nature of the symbols that are appearing in our waking dream. They are seen to be an expression of the interplay between the dreamscape and the dreamer, since the two are not separate. The dreamer and dreamscape are mutually effecting one another in a synchronistic, cybernetic feedback loop; the dreamer and the dream reciprocally effect and in-form one another, co-arising simultaneously. This is an expression in which both the dream and the dreamer are contained in and are parts of a higher unity. They are not separate.

Shadow Projection

When viewed as a dreaming process and seen symbolically, it is clear that there is total polarization going on deep inside the dreamer, when the opposites are totally split, disassociated and trying to destroy one another. A reflection of this intense inner polarization is happening deep inside the collective consciousness of humanity and it is the 'shadow projection' going on in this waking dream of ours. Psychologically speaking, projecting the shadow is a perverse way of dealing with our own darkness by projecting it onto someone else and imagining that the other is the embodiment of the darkness that ultimately belongs to ourselves. Each side of the polarity is overly identified with the light, or God, splitting off and seeing the other as the embodiment of evil... even of Satan himself, e.g., Bush seeing Saddam Hussein, the terrorists seeing the Americans, the Palestinians seeing the Israelis in this way, as well as visa versa. It should be noted that it is this exact same psychological phenomenon that occurred in Hitler's Europe towards the Jews during the second World War.

Psychologically, it is a very dangerous situation, since a person (or a nation) can become fanatically identified with their point of view, unable to self-reflect, and become possessed by the hero, or saviour archetype. This figure is religious in nature, as it derives from the transpersonal, archetypal dimension of the collective unconscious. The person (or nation) inflated with the hero or saviour archetype wants to save the world from evil. By projecting the shadow onto the 'other' and wanting to destroy them, we literally become possessed by the very same darkness we are trying to destroy, thereby perpetuating a never-ending cycle of violence.

This dynamic is a reflection of and analogous to how—when we are split off and disassociated—the trauma that is at the root of this process endlessly re-creates itself. Seen symbolically, we are at war with a mirrored reflection of our own shadow, engaged in a battle

that can never be won. Etymologically, the word mirror actually means 'shadow holder'. If this process of shadow projection continues to go unrecognized and continues to get acted out unconsciously, we can undoubtedly expect not only more dreaming processes like this in the future, but we can expect the message to hit us over the head even more forcefully.

I find myself associating, as if working on a dream. To associate is circular, it is to step out of the linear, sequential, literal and casual mode of thinking intrinsic to the conceptual mind and connect with our intuition, with our divine, creative imagination. To associate is to activate symbolic awareness. To associate is to step into the very dreaming mind that dreams our dreams. I associate to Jung, who describes shadow projection as 'the lie'. I immediately associate to Diabolos, the Devil, who is the liar.

The daemonic, by definition, is a powerful archetypal, transpersonal (beyond the personal) energy that—if we are not in conscious relationship to it—can literally possess us and act itself out through us... whether 'it' be an individual, a group, a nation, or a planet. To quote noted psychologist Rollo May, the daemonic '... is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person... the daemonic can be either creative or destructive... a fundamental, archetypal function of human experience— an existential reality'. May asserts that violence 'is the daemonic gone awry'. When an unconscious daemonic content is ready to be integrated in a dreaming process, be it personal or collective, it always, to quote Jung, '... forces the subject into its own form, it always appears physically'. The daemonic content—at the point where it is available to be assimilated by consciousness —will both literally, as well as symbolically, get 'dreamed up' into materialization. What this means is that encoded in symbolic form in the manifestation of the daemonic, is it's own re-solution, it's own transcendence. The key to how the situation will resolve is none other than consciousness itself.

Incarnation as Trauma

Seen as a dreaming process, what is happening in our world today is not only traumatic to the psyche of tender humankind, but is itself an expression of trauma getting acted out and perpetuating itself in a never-ending cycle. In trauma, we split-off and disassociate from a part of ourselves, becoming alien to ourselves. In trauma, we endlessly and compulsively re-create the trauma, in what is called the repetition compulsion. In the repetition compulsion—a dynamic that Freud rightly calls daemonic—the very act of trying to complete the incomplete process and heal the trauma is the very act that endlessly re-creates it.

Trauma is stored in the daemonic or archetypal dimension of the psyche and to be accessed, so as to be unlocked and integrated, trauma needs to be incarnated (or dreamed up) in embodied form. This is the underlying teleology of the repetition compulsion. We should take note that when a daemonic energy is ready to be integrated, it, too, forces the subject into its own form and gets dreamed-up into, as and through life itself.

It is profoundly important to be aware when an archetypal energy such as evil manifests in a dreaming process where it can be seen. This is not the first time this has happened in our world, it is a recurring situation. When things happen more than once in a dreaming process—the recurring dream— this should get our attention and become an object of serious contemplation.

I immediately associate to the Christ event, in which God incarnated through one man 2000 years ago. When read symbolically, as a dreaming process, God's dark and light sides were totally split, completely polarized in the figures of Christ, who was totally light, and Satan, who was the embodiment of the darkest evil. Jung said, 'It looks as if the super-abundance of light on one side had produced all the blacker darkness on the other'. There was a complete disassociation between the two. This is not merely coincidence, as when the Self incarnates, the opposites fly apart into complete polarization. This is a reflection of the deep, inner split in the collective consciousness of humanity and we could say, the mind of God, as well. It is also an expression that some deeper process is emerging or incarnating.

I find myself wondering if maybe there's a deeper meaning to why our Christianity's myth of the incarnation of God 2000 years ago in Christ was in the form of a trauma, of an abuse drama (the crucifixion). Seen symbolically, trauma is mysteriously related to the incarnation of the Self. Is there a difference between God—who is one with everything and all—putting nails through his own body during the crucifixion, and propelling jet planes through skyscrapers on September 11? Or dropping bombs on cities? Isn't God throwing jet planes through pentagons alchemical dismemberment at its most embodied level?

When seen as a dreamed up phenomenon, the Christ event— and in particular the crucifixion —symbolizes the mysterious correspondence between incarnation (of the Self) and trauma. The cross is a perfect symbolic image of holding the tension of the opposites. Instead of identifying with one side of the polarity and repressing, and hence projecting out into the dreamscape (dreaming-up) the other side—which is the splitting that is characteristic of the traumatized soul—Christ on the cross was the perfect symbol of holding both of the opposites simultaneously. Holding the tension of the opposites is symbolized by being nailed, being really stuck... and is a veritable crucifixion for the ego, which feels its utter impotence and helplessness. A genuine passion play. A true agonia. Unresolved trauma is a literal 'holding pattern'.

When the opposites become totally polarized, this is symbolically related to the crucifixion and is an expression of a potential expansion in-and-of consciousness. To be going through this ordeal consciously is to be nourishing the Self and genuinely imitating Christ. Instead of a symptom, a symbol emerges. Jung calls this the reconciling symbol, or the transcendent function. It is a genuine symbol emerging from the creative tension of holding the opposites, which both unites and transcends the opposites; it both reflects and effects an expansion in-and-of consciousness. This is analogous to the resurrected body coming forth after the crucifixion. This is something the ego could not have done by its own devices. It is truly revelatory; we call it grace, as if it comes from God.

An overwhelming traumatic experience renders us incapable of integrating it in a typical way. Trauma forces us to re-create ourselves anew. Trauma propels us to not only create a new personal and collective mythology, but demands that we connect in a deeper way with our mythologizing, dreaming and imaginative powers. The only way to heal from trauma is to assimilate it, which demands that we radically evolve to a higher state. Trauma is therefore initiatory, as it furthers the evolution of the species.

To say trauma is initiatory means that the experience of trauma itself is the very medium through which a deeper level of consciousness is potentially actualized. I associate to the archetype of the wounded healer, who discover the blessings hidden in their wounding if—and only if—they are able to snap out of the victim identity and experience their wounding as a numinous event that came from God.

The Death of the Old King

Jung felt that the major archetypal, mythic process happening in our world today was the death and transformation of the old king, the senex. The aging, sick and dying king is the negative patriarchy, the mythic terrible father, who has become rigidified, egocentric and abuses POWER over others. The negative father is Cronos, father time, linear time. This figure is in need of transformation because he has become disassociated from eros, relatedness, the heart, feeling, and from the feminine. Symbolically, the old and ailing king represents a dominant of consciousness that has outlived its usefulness and become antiquated and anachronistic. This is why in alchemy, the prima materia—which is the stuff that needs to be transformed in order to make the gold of consciousness—is oftentimes pictured as an old man. This figure of the old king needs to be symbolically dis-membered and reintegrated in a higher synthesis, so as to give birth to the hero or heroine who is in touch with the creative.

To symbolically kill the terrible father is to stop interpreting our experience personalistically, reductively and literally, as we snap out of the spell of linear time and wake up to the symbolic, synchronistic dimension of existence. To have symbolic awareness is to re-associate, to re-member, which is the opposite of and the antidote to, being dis-membered. To recognize the dreamlike nature of our experience is to transform the figure of the rigid, concretized old king, who is the figure that is not only acting itself out on the stage of our world, but is a reflection of an inner figure who lives inside all of us. To transform this figure is the birth of the mythical and mystical Sophia, who is none other than the personification of wisdom.

The Incarnation of God Has Already Happened

Seen as a dreaming process, Christ is a living, breathing symbol of the Self, of our wholeness, of our holiness. We could even say he is a symbol of God that was dreamed up and emanated out of and into the waking dreamscape. Christ was a perfect symbol, bringing together and interpenetrating the heterogeneous natures of God and humankind in one being.

Christ, in the apocryphal (literally, secret book) Acts of John, shows John a 'cross of light' and says 'This is not the cross of wood which you will see when you go down from here, neither am I he that is on the cross'. Christ himself is instructing John how to view his experience symbolically, as an emanation of and portal into a higher-dimensional reality.

Like any symbol, the Christ event expresses and constellates analogous psychic processes in the beholder. This is why Christ says, 'A mirror am I to you that know me... but if you understand me, you shall be in your understanding as I am... behold what you are. I have shown you... behold what is thine through me'.

Seen as a dreamed-up phenomenon, the Christ event is an unmediated expression or embodied manifestation of a deeper process going on inside the psyche of humankind, as well as the mind of God, that both literally—as well as symbolically —got dreamed-up into materialization, into incarnation, in-through-and-as this very universe of ours. The Christ event was the incarnation, in embodied human form, of an atemporal process that exists outside space/time itself. It is a reflection—in symbolic form—of this higher-dimensional process of the birth and incarnation of God in-through-and-as humanity.

Seen symbolically, the Christ event is showing that the birth of the Self — the incarnation of God through humanity — has already happened in the pleroma, the atemporal fullness of the collective consciousness. The event simply needs to be recognized as such to be made real in time. In other words, the process of the incarnation of God through humanity is playing itself out in linear, sequential time in our world; yet in the atemporal, higher-dimensional reality in which our universe is contained, this process of divine incarnation is recognized to have already been accomplished and is merely actualizing itself through events in this world.

Revelation of the Dark God

The word apocalypse means something hidden that is being revealed. God is revealing him/herself through events in our world. It is the revelation of what is called the dark or hidden God, the 'deus absconditus', the wrath of God with all it's Luciferian ferocity. To quote Jung, 'God asserts his power through the revelation of his darkness and destructiveness. Man is merely instrumental in carrying out the divine plan'.

Scholar Rudolph Otto calls it the 'negative numinosum', or the 'mysterium horrendum', as compared to the 'mysterium tremendum'. It is the dark side of God, the other hand of God, which fills us with awe. Seen as a dreaming process, it is the return of the repressed, as the part of God that has been denied is the part of God that insistently shows up in a form we would least expect. Interestingly, the inner meaning of the word Satan is the shadow of the Lord.

I immediately associate that Jung refers to Satan as 'the godfather of man as a spiritual being', by which he means that Satan can activate in humankind a process of spiritual awakening. The original meaning of Satan in Hebrew was an angel of God who obstructs. Symbolically, Lucifer is the necessary dark side of life, of shadow revealing light by contrast; Lucifer means the bringer of light. By rebelling against God, Jung continues, 'Lucifer was perhaps the one who best understood the divine will struggling to create a world and who carried out that will most faithfully'.

Jung was very impressed by the paradoxical role that evil played in people's lives. He saw that oftentimes the emergence of evil into a person's dreaming process later revealed itself to be an initiation into a higher good, which was unattainable before its manifestation. This is why he says, 'I am indeed convinced that evil is as positive a factor as good'. As he points out, Lucifer was 'necessary and indeed indispensable for the unfolding and completion of the divine drama'. In alchemy, the most evil figure itself was, to quote Jung, 'destined to be the medicina'. The monsters of the unconscious stand in a secret, compensatory relationship to the ego, supplying everything the ego needs. Jung points out 'It does not seem to fit God's purpose to exempt a man from conflict and hence from evil'.

Over and over again we come up against the figure of Satan, of the Devil, diabolos, Lucifer, the shadow... of the daimonic. What is the meaning of this? What the ancients called demons Jung calls autonomous complexes. Autonomous complexes are split-off parts of the psyche due to an overwhelming trauma that the conscious ego can't assimilate. They develop a seemingly independent and autonomous existence. Like vampires, these autonomous complexes violently resist the light of consciousness, they can't stand to be seen, as being seen takes away their autonomy and omnipotence. The demons best hiding place is in unconscious identification with ourselves, where they can't be seen. They are then able to both project the demon 'out there', while acting themselves out through us.

To see this daemonic power is to recognize it's hidden hand in what is getting acted out in our world. This is why we exorcise the daemonic by naming it, which is to see it and objectify it... which is to be separate from it and take a stance towards it. This is the true power of the Word.

To see the shadow of the Lord, to recognize that it is, paradoxically, totally 'other' while simultaneously a reflection of what is inside ourselves, is to de-potentiate the daemon, so to speak. It is to alchemically transmute and liberate the energy that was bound up in the daemonic compulsion to recreate and re-enact our trauma. This energy becomes available for creatively expressing our greatest love and highest genius.

The word genius is related to the word genie, as in 'I dream of,' and both of these words are related to the word daemon, which actually means the guiding spirit or inner voice. To be genuinely 'imitating Christ' in this sense means to be following, listening to and honoring our inner voice with as much integrity as Christ followed his. The inner voice is related to our 'calling, ' which implies a higher fate or destiny. Finding our calling is to find our true vocation, which is what we are here to do. This is why Christ says, 'If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will redeem you. If you don't bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you'. Jung openly professed to be in the jaws of his daemon, but was able to transmute it into his creative insights that have helped all of humanity.

When the daemonic is not seen and related to consciously, it possesses us from behind and acts itself out unconsciously through us, and we become like puppets on a string. We have gotten 'drafted' into the more powerful field of the archetypal daemonic energy, as we find ourselves playing a role in a deeper, mythic, divine drama. As long as this divine drama that is enacting itself through us gets acted out unconsciously, it will be played out destructively: this energy becomes truly demonic. And yet, if this energy is recognized, it becomes the source of the greatest inspiration and our highest genius. This is why Jung refers to the daemonic as the not yet realized creative. Like a shaman in the underworld (the unconscious), we are able to alchemically transmute the demons into allies. And once again, the key is consciousness.

I associate to how, psychologically, it is right before the demons get vanquished that they make their worst destructive outbursts.

A Synchronicity

Is it mere coincidence that at the exact same time we are at war with terrorism, a new deadly virus, the SARS virus, appears in this waking dream of ours to terrorize us? Seen from the dreaming point of view, this virus is our terrorist process just having changed channels, as it is the same process manifesting in a different form. Like a terrorist, the virus is an 'invisible enemy'. It evokes incredible fear, as it is toxic and can cause death. This virus is seemingly further proof that this is not a safe universe, which just perpetuates the spell, reinforcing the trauma of imagining that we are separate and alien from this universe. Could it be that until we recognize and embrace the terrorist within us, we will continue to dream up a seemingly external agent in one form or another to terrorize us?

The Continuing Incarnation

Psychologically, apocalyptic phenomena represent the emergence of the Self, or we could even say the incarnation of God. Talking about Christ as a symbol, Jung says 'He represented a light which, though it shone in the darkness, was not comprehended by the darkness'. Seen as a dreaming process, the incarnation was incomplete, and a further incarnation was needed.

When contemplated as a dreaming phenomenon, the fact that the apocalypse archetype is activated deep inside the human psyche and is playing itself out collectively in this world means that the Self—what some call God—is incarnating not just through one man (like it did through Christ 2000 years ago) but is incarnating through all of humanity. If continued to go unrecognized, this archetypal, daemonic energy acts itself out through us in a destructive way, where —from the dreaming point of view— we all become suicide bombers, since we are killing none other than ourselves.

When contemplated as a dream, the deeper dreaming process is revealing something to us about the nature of the solution of our current crisis. The universe is, literally, primal screaming to be recognized as the higher-dimensionally arranged symbol that it is. To see the deeper pattern that our world is contained in, as well as being informed by, is to snap out of the world of linear causality and realize the world is a living, breathing symbol that we are all mutually dreaming-up together, so as to remind us of this very fact. Like Christ says, 'The kingdom is spread all over and people just don't see it'.

What I am pointing out through words is the 'good news' of the Bible. It's a situation that is playing itself out and already exists and simply needs to be recognized. Our seeing the deeper process that is, in fact, getting played out through us is the very act that radically transforms our entire situation. This is what Christ means in the apocryphal saying, 'Man, if indeed thou knowest what thou doest, thou art blessed; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed, and a transgressor of the law'. The implication is that consciousness is the determining factor. If we see and bring consciousness to the deeper process that is enacting itself through us, we receive its gifts; if we don't see it, we act it out unconsciously, and accrue karma. Interestingly, the word evil is etymologically related to the word transgress.

To see the deeper process that is emerging is to recognize that humanity itself plays a key and participatory role in the divine drama of incarnation and redemption, via the act of self-reflection. We become the medium or intermediary through which God reconciles, resolves and reunites the opposites intrinsic to the totality of his/her nature... which includes both light and dark. This is to integrate the darkness that belongs to our totality, as we truly flesh out our full-spectrum hologram, which is what genuine incarnation is all about. These archetypal, daemonic energies then get mediated through the heart and humanized and can be expressed creatively, constructively and with compassion.

God incarnates through humanity, Jung said, '... in order to obtain the jewel which man possesses in his self-reflection. 'To self-reflect is actually a bending backwards and is a privilege born of human freedom, in contradistinction to the compulsion of the daemonic. To self-reflect is a genuinely spiritual act; essentially, the act of becoming conscious. This act of self-reflection, of becoming conscious, registers and effects the entire universe as it gets invested in the collective consciousness of all of humanity. This activates a transformation in the archetypal realm, which results in the incarnation of God through humanity, i.e., the light of consciousness is born. This is why Jung said:

'God becomes manifest in the human act of reflection'.

This is the inner meaning of alchemy, where the ego and the Self mutually, reciprocally redeem one another. The Self becomes humanized (incarnate) and the ego becomes deified (blessed). The boundary dissolves between spirit and matter, as spirit becomes materialized and matter spiritualized. This is the magnum opus (great work) of alchemy, as spirit gets liberated from being imprisoned in matter. The key in alchemy is to have a strong enough hermetically-sealed vessel, or container, in which the alchemical operation can occur. In the case of what is playing out in our world today, the (mystic) alchemical vessel is consciousness itself.

We Must Be Dreaming

C. G. Jung was fond of making an analogy between the formation of symbols in the unconscious and the formation of crystals in a saturated solution. For example, if we dissolve sugar in a solution of water, eventually the solution will reach a saturation point. If a single grain of sugar is then added to the solution, a crystalline structure will spontaneously appear in the solution. Any one of us seeing the mirror-like nature of our situation and self-reflecting might be the very grain of sugar that tips the scales, initiating a phase-shift in the collective consciousness of humankind.

Our current planetary situation is clearly one of great instability. Chaos theory points out that times such as these are actually supersensitive situations, much more highly responsive to the smallest change or fluctuation in the system than 'usual'. This literally means that a change in any single individual's consciousness can potentially have an amplified effect on the entire system, in a way that was unimaginable and simply not possible before September 11.

Never before in the history of humankind has consciousness itself been of such importance.

Like a dream, once we stop superimposing our concretized mental constructs upon the canvas of reality and start allowing it to manifest as it truly is, it will reveal its dreamlike nature and resume its revelatory function. Our universe is then recognized to be a continually unfolding oracle whose events are its symbolic script, as it reveals itself to itself, through us. All we need are eyes to see.

One individual having the realization of the symbolic, dreamlike nature of our situation makes it easier and more accessible for others to have the same realization, because we are not separate but are all inter-connected. If enough of us wake up to what is being revealed symbolically, we act as so much yeast in the dough, helping the bread to leaven successfully. Some refer to it as the 'hundredth monkey phenomena'. How many people will it take having this realization to actually make a difference? This is a mystery, but this critical mass is hinted at by the symbolic number 144,000 in the Book of Revelations.

As we realize the dream-up-able nature of our universe, we become conscious of our divine, creative imaginatrix, or what I call our 'sacred power of dreaming'. This is the part of us that is co-dreaming this very universe of ours into materialization. We are all using our God-given sacred power of dreaming 24 hours a day anyway, but we are using it unconsciously, in a way that doesn't serve our highest unfoldment. Let us discover that we can put our sacred power of dreaming together in a way where we can cooperate and collaboratively dream a much more grace-filled dream, in real time, into actual incarnation. This is a revolutionary, radical, epochal and evolutionary quantum leap in human consciousness... unimaginable until this point in our history.

Let us have the mind-blowing realization that the universe is dreaming itself awake through us. Being like a dream, this will only be true if we see it that way. Seeing our life as if it's a dream means that you, dear reader, and I have dreamed up these very words to remind you of this fact. If you tell me that I am only imagining or dream-ing that this is so, I will heave a huge sigh of relief, as you have finally understood.

Imagine that!