This dream today really gives me some disturbing insights into my own unconscious. There is a new NBC TV show called, The Black List, I have been watching the trailer for months now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9_qgX7pTlc The show has been relentlessly hyped and promoted. It stars James Spader as a former government agent who turns into a narcissistic opportunist. The scenario of the show reminds me of the Silence of the Lambs franchise.
In my dream I keep running into this James Spader character, Redding, over and over, and on every meeting I turn all psycho and stab him to death. In the final scene of my dream I see him on a frozen pond and run at him with an ice pick and stab him in the stomach and turn him into bloody ground meat.
I have come to the conclusion that this response stems from my annoyance with the constant and relentless buzz around this TV show. I originally thought the premise of the show to be a good one and one that might be worthy of watching, but in the end, I decided I would refuse to watch the show because I was being relentless assaulted by the ads for it. My displeasure with this marketing ploy turned violent in my dreams!
Carl Jung talked a great deal about the shadow of the unconscious. The shadow aspect of our unconscious is like a whole primal personality within us. It is one to be bargained with, loved or hated. The shadow may be very emotional or it maybe cold and intellectual. It can be different for everyone. It functions as an opposite side of the ego. It can be a Doctor Jekyll or Mr. Hyde in each and everyone of us and can embody just those qualities that one dislikes in other people.
It would be ideal if one could be consciously attuned to this fact and use it in an honest way, and could integrate our inner Jekyll or Hyde with our conscious personality. But, alas, such an attempt does not always work. The shadow is powerful passionate force and reasoning with it is extraordinarily difficult.
Sometimes it takes an external stressful event to get the two, the conscious ego and the unconscious shadow, to have a meeting of the minds in order to put the drives, and impulses of the shadow in check. Only then might the heroic higher self, with superhuman effort, might hope to engage with the shadow. However, the shadow can sometimes exert such a powerful influence that it is the one really running the show. The landscape of the unconscious is such that it is impossible to tell where one aspect ends and another begins.
Everything in us can be jumbled up, all the good, the bad and the ugly. In the case of this dream my conscious personality wants to try to evaluate what is going on with me and my shadow. The case of my shadow self going on a killing spree seems to be pretty dark but all may not be as it seems to be here. There may be useful higher things that I can learn from this and safely integrate with my conscious self.
To begin it sure is useful knowing what my shadow side is capable of doing. It is a passionate. My inner Hyde can be murderous. I suspect my rage arose out of the persistent assault on my mind from the TV show ad and not the James Spader's character specifically. Although, come to think of it, the character is pretty annoying. The character, it seems to my conscious self, was just a target for the shadow to retaliate with. Hmmm! Interesting!
The symbolic meaning inherent with the frozen pond speaks of a cold harsh sterile environment and reality to me. It seems, to me, like an apt metaphorical place for the target of my shadow's rage to be hanging out in. If you got to kill your enemy what more appropriate a location, huh?
Perhaps, it is good to know, if push came to shove I have it in me to defend my life and the integrity of my mind, what ever the consequence may be. Of course, my conscious self would not turn to murder to solve a conflict. After some reflection I have concluded my shadow self is a powerful scary personality. Well, I am a Halloween birthday Scorpio! This sure proves it. Ha! Ha!
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