THAT DAY

I'm building the World Dream Bank. Work on dozens of pictures I'll add--sizing, undoing distortion, color-correcting, sharpening.

My fellow dreamworker Xanthe calls. She's reading Jung. Funny, I worked on a set of pictures today for Ravenna, a psychic dream echoing one of Jung's weirdest experiences--seeing mosaics in Ravenna he later learned had been destroyed centuries ago...

But I'm not a Jung groupie. He made errors. One of Jung's clients planned to be a therapist himself, but dreamed he got lost in a complex and found an idiot child smearing itself with shit. Jung saw this as a latent psychosis, panicked, and lied to his patient, discouraged him from therapy (for himself or as a career) or even introspection, fearing that if the guy would looked inside, he'd go insane!

Lying to a client, leaving that child-aspect locked up? I find it more than unprofessional; disgraceful.

THAT NIGHT

After an errand in Silicon Valley that tires me out, I bike to a class in the new college built a mile north of my parents' house, on the site where my old elementary school used to be. Bike up hills, starting to realize I've over-committed. Either of the two trips was plenty for one day; both, just too much. Feel exhausted. Arrive at the college. Seek a class I'm in...

A short skinny black guy, maybe thirty, walks over and shows me a knife. Threatens me vaguely--not for any purpose I can see, just wants... a fight? Some opposition? I snap "Go find someone else to fight with--I'm not interested." He keeps pestering me, and I defend myself--not hard, he seems so vague!

A woman friend of mine helps me. Finally, I grab his wrist and wrench the knife away. He's not that strong; barehanded, I'm a match for him.

Sit on him. My friend gets some rope and we tie his wrists. Now we wait, either for someone to turn him over to, or for circumstances to shift so his aggression's no longer hazardous. It won't be long--the scene's shifting already...

The school hall opens up around us, and we're outside. A garden. Nice.

Under me, the man slowly turns into a gigantic housecat.

I'm holding him in my arms now, not sitting on him, it'd crush his ribs. I hold him tight still, though, not fully trusting him in this form either. Absent-minded clawing is still clawing, and he's big.

A bird hops by, from branch to branch, and the cat's head swivels, following in fascination. He seems fully feline now; I decide it's safe to let him go, and I do.

He just explores the garden, acutely alert to every bird and leaf.

Saner (and better focused) as a cat than a man!

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Woman who helps me: probably Xanthe. Vague in the dream because I didn't see her today--she just phoned.
• Man: my own aggression, anger? If so, the outcome's encouraging--I quickly see he's not that dangerous. Only need to suppress him briefly while he transforms. Get him out in nature, that helps.
• Black: probably to flag that he's a Jungian Shadow, a side of myself I devalue & deny--denigrate. (I'm skeptical it's black-as-criminal stereotyping. The only real knifer I've faced was white not black.)
• My dream echoes what I read to Xanthe on the phone: Jung saw that dungeoned baby as a latent psychosis, panicked, and dumped his patient! In contrast, I sit on my inner wacko but stay with him till he transforms and can be freed.
• ACTION: patience! But don't expect this side of me to transform into a sensible adult--not a human one! That was Jung's error--when human maturity seemed hopeless, he despaired. White male Euro adulthood, or idiocy--the only choices.

  Black cats know there are other ways to be.

Now I wonder. Could that alert black cat forcing me out of school into a garden mean... witchcraft, magic, ESP? In the years since the dream, as I've gone through my 40,000 written dreams, I've found over a thousand that seem predictive, clairvoyant or telepathic. I can no longer blandly accept the mainstream scientific assumption that ESP is a hoax or superstition. Not out of belief in the paranormal; out of experience.

Or that cat might just be forcing me out of dreary classrooms to the nearest park. Nature walks: a thing of terror. Right, Dr. Jung?

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