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Issue 90 –

Beware Of The Cave Of The Heart ©

A Dream and Commentary

by

Hal Stone

 

In 1973, after a very busy year of preparation, the Center for the Healing Arts opened in West Los Angeles. I was the Director of the Center; Edith Sullwold ( now deceased ) was the Associate Director and Jacquelyn McCandless ( recently deceased ) was the medical director. Linda Sussman was the Administrator. In addition we had a regular board of 5 members which included my cousin Herb Gelfand. It was Herb and his wife Beverly who gave me the financial support that allowed me to lead the development of this remarkable organization. They have always been there as a support when it was badly needed.

 

In addition we had a 16 member Council of high level professionals that met weekly and that developed and supported our operation with the proviso that if I needed to do something on my own that had to be done, then I would do it and we would argue about it later. This proviso was a very important one for me. I believe in a democratic process but there are times in running an organization when someone has to act and not wait for consensus. Otherwise the system breaks down which I have seen happen many times.

 

In the early years we were an educational group and we presented to the community a very wide range of teaching and training programs representing a very wide range of theoretical models. During the first two years we had 3 sets of 12 week programs and in any one week we presented 15 to 20 different programs. On weekends we had one or two full day programs going on. Our taste in programs was very eclectic and covered a very large range of treatment and teaching modalities.

 

Beginning in the third year we began to implement a cancer research program. We were at the cutting edge of the Holistic Health movement and it was early in this period that we were introduced to the energetic healing work of Dr. William Brugh Joy. It may be the case that energetic healing work has been around for thousands of years but the reality is that very few of us knew anything about it and it was really like fresh water was falling into mouths that were quite dry even though we didn’t know that they were dry. It was really the beginning of a profound revolution in the field of healing and the Center was deeply impacted by the work.

 

Since the time that I separated myself from my professional identity as a Jungian Analyst I have always been very eclectic in my outlook on transformational work. In my life as an analyst I felt quite judgmental towards all other systems of work but the Jungian. In a fairly short period of time things had turned around for me rather dramatically and I was involved myself in individual Psychoanalytical work, in Group Psychoanalytical work, in interactive groups of all kinds, in Gestalt work both group and individual, in neo Reichian work, in work involving symbolic visualization. The Council group at the center represented all kinds of approaches and I took advantage of all of them. I valued dearly all of my Jungian training and experience but I didn’t have a title any longer nor a sense of professional identity.

 

The emergence of energetic healing work began to shift the balance of energies into a very different path. The registration for our programs moved strongly in the direction of energetic healing and spirituality. It wasn’t a black and white shift but it was a very decisive shift. With it there also developed a very loving environment at the Center and the idea of learning how to love unconditionally and how to develop our own compassionate nature started to become paramount. We needed to learn how to love unconditionally and we also needed to develop our own compassionate nature. We could still fight and raise our voices at meetings of the Executive Council but the movement towards unconditional love became something like a mantra. It wasn’t just the Center that moved in this direction. It was also the times in which we were living.

 

Somewhere during this period I had a dream that I was walking in the slowest way possible. My arms were out to the side and when one part of my body moved then another part had to balance it. Every part of the body felt to me like it was a part of the Center collective in which I lived. It felt like a walking crucifixion except without the level of pain that would be there in a real crucifixion. There was however a feeling of being a walking cross and I could not let one part of it get too far out of line. This is the tension that I began to carry in a stronger and stronger way until I left the Center in 1979.

 

On the other hand I loved love. I loved loving and I loved being loved and it created a very strong energy field and the Center became enormously well thought of and successful in what we were doing. We introduced almost every leader in the field of holistic medicine during these remarkable years of activity. I flowed along through it all but never could I solve the love problem that I felt so deeply.

 

During this time Sidra and I were constantly working together on our relationship and we loved each other very much. That didn’t stop us from having some very negative interactions and it didn’t stop us from working constantly on our bonding patterns. Also, I began my life as a therapist in 1951 and I had seen a good deal of the inside of many many closets belonging to a wide range of people. Many of these people were strong advocates of teaching people how to love unconditionally but I did learn a good deal about life while exploring all of these darkened spaces. Something was off. Maybe something was wrong with me but the river we were on was flowing too strongly and so I flowed along with everyone else.

 

In 1979 I decided to resign the directorship of the Center. It was time. The tension of carrying the multiple opposites I have spoken about had tired me out. It was also just time to move on. During these years when I was at the Center, Sidra was the Director of Hamburger Home, a residential home for adolescent girls in the heart of Hollywood. She had started working there in 1972. When I called her the afternoon that I had resigned I was met with the remarkably synchronistic event that she had also resigned that day from the directorship of Hamburger Home. Both of us had decided on that day to resign without any specific plan to do so. We were both shocked by this remarkable synchronicity and yet these synchronicities were so active in our life together that on another level it was something quite ordinary. Clearly, our life was moving into a new phase and we didn’t know what it was going to be.

 

 

THE DREAM OF THE CAVE OF LOVE

 

I didn’t really know what I was going to do with myself professionally after I left the Center. I began to do energetic work full time and I remember a very special moment when I was working on someone energetically. She was lying on a massage table. I was standing behind her with my hands under her head and I began telling her about herself and what was happening and what was going to happen.

 

This had never happened to me before in this particular way but I realized that certain centers had opened in me that were allowing these pictures and thoughts to be spoken by me. When I realized what was happening I knew immediately that I didn’t want to go this route. I didn’t want to use my psychic abilities in this way. I didn’t know what it was I wanted to do or needed to do or what belong to me to do but I knew with absolute certainty that it wasn’t what was happening now. I stopped that process and it was a short time after this that there emerged the dream that I have only realized in these later years was a Source dream that helped me to separate from my spiritual identification and continue my journey into the unknown. As I have done before I am going to use the third person to describe Hal the dreamer. The dream ego gives us a picture of the primary self . By writing the dream noting the dreamer in the third person we are supported more strongly in the Aware Ego process.

 

 

( Begin Dream ) In the dream Hal is in a deep tunnel under the earth in India. All the many people from the Center were with him including staff and cancer patients as well as others generally interested and/or involved. We were a large group. We had been walking for a considerable period of time when we came to a cave and inside there were hundreds of people who were ready to greet us. They were wonderful, loving, caring people and food and drink was prepared and the name of the cave was identified by large and attractive letters and this cave was called THE CAVE OF LOVE.

 

Hal and his friends were all mixing around with their new friends and people were starting to drink and eat. It was as though we had all come home. It seemed like a grand and joyous celebration. We were home and it was beautiful — but there was that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of Hal’s stomach. Something was wrong. He knew this feeling too well and he had suffered it for too long.

 

Hal moved away from the inner group and stopped at the outer perimeter where he could observe and not be lost in the middle of things. He needed perspective and after a few moments of separation, and then quite suddenly, he got it. Suddenly he knew what the problem had been and he knew what the problem was. His people were enchanted by love. Enchantment was the key.

 

Hal called out to everyone as loud as he could to get their attention. He told them that this was not their home. This was only one of the many way stations that we had to explore in a constant stream of stations. Hal didn’t know what was out there when they left. They could enjoy this place for a short time and then they had to leave.

 

His talking was to no avail. They were enchanted by love. He was alone again in his life and he had to go back into the tunnel and continue the journey but he was all alone again. Then Hal remembered Ulysses in the cave of Circe. He knew that his friends and colleagues weren’t going to be turned into pigs as were the men of Ulysses. They were just going to be drinking enchanted love cocktails until they awoke from the long sleep that was ahead of them. Hal felt a deep sadness but he also understood how they felt and how they must stay.

 

He now understood the love dilemma that had so confused him in his life. He understood why enchanted love had caused him so much difficulty. It wasn’t real. It was a Self or a combination of Selves that had developed within the Center and especially within the new age culture of trying to be loving and compassionate. It was the mantra of so many beautiful teachers. Conscious love was something else. He could feel the difference. He couldn’t yet tell what was missing from the enchantment but he would find out. To try to love was to bury the opposite of loving – to bury the part of you that carried so much of the dark side of our disowned instinctual energies.

 

With a sad heart that was also now filled to the brim with a new vision of possibilities, Hal left the cave and walked alone into the tunnel. He looked back at all the happiness and contentment and he felt the sadness more for them than for himself. He didn’t know where he was going but he was on the journey again and it felt right. He had done this before and he would do it again in the course of time. He moved along the tunnel path for what seemed like a long period of time just as time might pass in a fairy tale and he began to enter new territory. The tunnel began to widen and then off to the left was a new cave and this cave was clearly labeled. It was called the CAVE OF POWER.

 

As Hal entered the cave there was a huge body of water without an end in sight. It was like a giant lake or a giant river or a giant ocean. Moored in the water close to him was a very large and very modern motor driven yacht – possibly 60 to 70 feet long with multiple engines. This yacht belonged to the Shah of Iran and it was Hal’s job to learn everything there was to learn about the operation of this power boat and how it operated in the world at large. There would be many other things to learn in this Cave of Power. After he learned what he would need to learn he would then leave the Cave of Power and go back into the tunnel until the next stop. ( End of Dream )

 

 

So what did I learn from this dream after I lived with it for a considerable time? I realized that enchanted love happens when we try to love and try to be compassionate. The key is the word “try”. When you try to love then you also try not to be unloving. You begin the burial process of those nasty selves that live inside of you that are not very attractive to deal with when enchanted love, when spiritual love of all kinds, is so available. Who wants to deal with negative bonding patterns and the profound complexities of relationship when spiritual love is so available. Spiritual love can be a wonderful thing but this must not be at the expense of how one deals with the central relationships of one’s life.

 

I learned that to accomplish my allotted task in life required the use of power and I learned too that Power moves very deeply in our psyches and it is very easy to get taken over by it and that is just one of the risks of the trade – to develop the conscious use of power by using it through an Aware Ego process. The good news is that you can have it all once the Aware Ego process can channel both sides of the system.

 

So it was that in 1981 Sidra and I bought our farm in Mendocino and started our travels around the world. Without any serious financial backing to all of this we learned, slowly, the ins and outs of how to operate of the Shah’s Motor Launch. It began slowly at first in 1982 and then from 1986 to the year 2,000 a period somewhere under 15 years we moved around the U.S. and the world plying our trade. For probably ten of those years we were probably on the road 6 months a year. When we got home from these trips we had our own work schedule and things to catch up with and take care of.

 

The love that our world needs is not the enchanted love of those who teach you to be loving and who teach you to be compassionate. This is a learned kind of loving and compassion that is not grounded in the dirt and dust of the earth. The dirt and dust of the earth is related to our instinctual energies and for so many of us these instinctual energies remain largely unconscious. If you study in the Cave of Power and honor what this learning center has to offer us, then you don’t have to kill your own power center in order to develop your own loving faculties.

 

As I have said, Power can be a relentless master and it is a real piece of work to stand between the power of the Shah’s boat and the vulnerability and heart opening that goes with a loving energy. Conscious loving is not for nice boys and girls nor nice men and women. It is about embracing all that there is within us and then climbing through valley after valley of opposite energies until there is a you that is strong enough to embrace them all. Along the way we begin to feel the authority of, the power of a new kind of territory and a willingness to separate from the cave that you have been living in when that time has come.

 

Source energy will not allow us to live in cocoons forever. Instead it functions in the galaxies as a cosmic divorce lawyer or divorce court that constantly forces us to separate from whatever it is we are married to. This Intelligence interceded on my behalf so many many times in my life but this dream was one of a number of major turning points. I very much recommend this particular Divorce Lawyer, a branch of the Organizing Intelligence of the universe, before you consider physical divorce. It is not particularly easy to do but the rewards are quite profound.

Issue 89 –

Vulnerability: Part 9

The Role of the Impersonal Self

in Caring for the Vulnerable Child

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

 

One of the most important aspects of protection of the vulnerable child is a self that can be characterised as impersonal or objective. This self is clear-thinking, direct, and dispassionate, even in the face of the needs or the emotional reaction of others.

 

It is often unavailable to women in our culture, although men usually have fairly ready access to it. Women have usually been trained out of their impersonality and, instead, encouraged to be emotionally available at all times, even when this interferes with their ability to evaluate the situation, determine their own needs and boundaries, and act effectively.

 

It is not unusual for a woman to have access to these impersonal energies at work but to be unable to utilise them in her more intimate relationships. If she is a teacher or a therapist, she may be able to use her impersonal energies to discipline pupils or to set limits, define boundaries, and contain the neediness of clients. The same woman, when dealing with her husband or her children, may lose this ability completely, responding instead in terms of their needs and feelings, without any consideration of her own.

 

Fran was this kind of woman. She had been raised by a seriously disturbed mother, a truly vicious woman. Because her mother was dysfunctional, Fran had to become the mother to her entire family at the tender age of five. She disowned her own vulnerability and instead identified totally with her internal “mother”, which became her primary self. She was always available to care for the vulnerability of others with great love and responsibility. She desperately needed to be more impersonal and to set limits on what people could demand of her.

 

After working to develop a more objective side of herself, Fran had the following day dream:

 

I was in a house with a lot of children. There was a group of tall, tough men outside trying to get in. I wanted to run away. There was a father there who was big and strong, with a tea towel over his shoulder. He was taking care of the children. He told those louts that they could come in, but they mustn’t hurt the children. You have the feeling that the father can take care of things.

 

The father in this dream represented Fran’s new way of taking care of the children. He could protect Fran from the “louts”; he did not need to run away nor did he have to go to war with them. He could simply deal with them objectivity and with great impersonality, keeping them all, louts and children, in their proper places.

 

As Fran, or any other man or woman, continues to develop her objective self and separates from the personal part of her that needs all relationships to be warm and close and nurturing, she will have an increasing number of choices in her life. She will be able to consider her relationships – even the most intimate ones – with some degree of objectivity and will be able to factor in her own needs when making decisions within her relationships.

 

An opposite example is that of the business woman who has a very well developed impersonal side that can deal with all sorts of issues at work without becoming emotionally involved with others. Her relationships at the office are pleasant but not personal. She has no need to maintain emotional contact with anyone, she does not need anyone’s love or approval, and, therefore, she can move ahead and take care of business.

 

This same woman, in an intimate relationship where her vulnerable child desperately needs to maintain intense emotional contact at all times, might well lose the protection of the impersonal businesswoman self that functions so well at the office. If she does, this straightforward, self-confident, self-sufficient woman is likely to be overwhelmed by the neediness, the fears, and the awkwardness of her vulnerable child. She will then bond in automatically to others in a variety of unsatisfying ways. She might even become the complete victim in a relationship because, somehow, she cannot bring to bear any personal objectivity when she is intimate.

 

Although women have traditionally been the ones to identify with personal, loving and related energies, and men have tended to carry the impersonal, we have seen some change in this during the past 20 years. Men too, are now encouraged to be more feeling and exclude their impersonal selves from relationships.

 

We have seen that the introduction of some impersonal elements into intimate relationship is extremely helpful, and we have emphasised this particular self because of its ability to help the aware ego in protecting and caring for the vulnerable child.

 

In this series of 9 Tips we have shown the importance of vulnerability and relationship and have introduced you to the vulnerable child. One of the most basic lessons of relationship is the development of a conscious relationship to this child. We have shown some ways in which people have learned this lesson.

In the upcoming Tips, as we begin to give examples of how relationship can be a teacher, we will show how the disowning, or denial, of this vulnerability triggers the negative bonding patterns that disrupt intimacy and cause untold discomfort in relationships.

Issue 88 –

Vulnerability: Part 8

Caring for the Vulnerable Child continued

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

 

How can we take care of our inner children? The most important step in caring for this inner child is to recognise its presence and develop an awareness of its particular personality, its needs, and its reactions. Once we know about the child and its needs and feelings, we are in a position to do something about them.

We must learn to separate far enough from our vulnerable selves to realistically evaluate situations in which they have been activated, and then to speak up for them in an objective fashion, rather than to put them in a position of taking care of themselves.

This ability to be objective in considering the requirements and reactions of the vulnerable child represents the true position of empowerment. It is the most powerful way in which to move into a truly intimate connection with another person and to avoid the pitfalls of bonding patterns – or to gently extricate ourselves once these bondings have been constellated.

 

We have found that people have evolved many ways of caring for their vulnerable selves. For most of us, one of the best ways to take care of our vulnerability is to be sure that we have a network of people whom we love and with whom we feel safe. In that way, our inner children receive nurturing from a variety of sources and always have a place to go when they need one.

Also, it is important for most vulnerable children to have some space they can call their own, however small it might be. This would be a place that the particular child finds aesthetically pleasing and one in which it feel safe.

 

It is fascinating to speak directly to the vulnerable child and then to consider how to meet its specific requirements. If one is fearful of a long trip, there may be something special to take along to make things more comfortable. We know people who travel with favourite pillows, pictures of their families, favourite books, stuffed animals, or incense and crystals.

One woman about to embark on her first business trip alone realised that the child was fearful of eating by herself in a restaurant. She was greatly relieved when she figured out that she could watch television in her room and order from room service. A man who was newly divorced discovered that his vulnerable child missed the smell of food cooking. He began to prepare meals at home and to keep food in his refrigerator so that his inner child would not feel so abandoned.

 

There are many ways of taking care of our vulnerable children. We must first learn to listen to them and to honor them, taking their input seriously but not allowing them to tyrannise us or those around us. We should be good parents to them, honoring them and helping them to move past their fears when this is necessary. This does not mean we try to make them grow up. The vulnerable child remains a child forever.

 

Each of us must learn about and care for our own vulnerable child in our own particular way. After the vulnerable child has been contacted, it will often help in this process. It has been know to appear in dreams to give instructions regarding its care.

 

Sam had not known about his vulnerable child and had allowed his life to be run by his need to succeed and to impress others, even though this tendency to overwork could have resulted in illness or other damage to his body arising from constant muscular tension. Once he found out about his vulnerable child, Sam decided that he had to pay more attention to him and take his needs seriously. He dreamt as follows:

 

A child came into my house, a child that I knew was related to me. I knew that he had come alone across a busy street. I told him “You must never come to me unescorted again.” He had really risked his life to get to me and now he had to be more careful.

 

The change has come about and the growth has already started. Sam’s unconscious took responsibility and began teaching Sam about his child and the risks that it runs. Sam realised that his disregard for his own physical health was truly dangerous and he decided to take better care of his body.

 

Before she knew about her inner child, Ann was very brave. She dared anything, laughing at danger and at the fears of others. As she contacted her inner child, Ann gradually became aware that it was not at all happy with this state of affairs, that it wanted her to be a bit more cautious, particularly where Ann’s feelings were concerned. Although Ann was willing to “walk through fire” in her relationships, her child had other ideas. After she began to take the child more seriously, the Dreamweaver sent Ann the following dream:

 

I (Ann) was taller and wore a long skirt. I was a classic maternal figure living in a beautiful house in the bush amongst gardens. My house burned and I went in to get the baby, who was asleep. I picked up the baby and realised that although I could walk through the ring of fire, it would burn the baby. So I decided to stay inside the ring of fire. I found a crystal clear cool pool and got in with the baby. The baby continued to sleep peacefully as I waited for the fire to recede. As I watched, I noticed that the fire wasn’t destroying anything. I was amazed.

 

We have found that if one cares for the inner child in this way in a relationship, there is time to sit still and work on the internal situation until some awareness is available to us, a certain amount of clarity is achieved, and the aware ego can make a more appropriate move. Then the fires can burn themselves out without doing any damage. It is the disowning of the child, the walking through the ring of fire without any awareness of the harm that is being done to the child, that alerts the defending primary selves and catalyses the bonding patterns. Once the negative bonding patterns are activated, the fire does do damage.

Issue 87 –

Vulnerability: Part 7

Caring for the Vulnerable Child

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

 

Once the vulnerable child has been discovered and the issue of vulnerability in relationship has been opened up, there is a chance for real change and sustained growth.

 

We would strongly suggest that the vulnerable child be addressed directly through the Voice Dialogue technique. However any approach that enables one to directly contact this child or to become aware of one’s vulnerability will be a great help. In her book, The Power of Your Other Hand, Lucia Capacchione has developed a technique of journal writing using the non-dominant hand which provides an excellent means of accessing the vulnerable child. Whatever the means of contact, it is important to become aware of what is happening to one’s inner child, so that the aware ego can utilise the information to care for the child in an appropriate fashion.

 

The last point is important enough to bear repeating.

When we disown our vulnerable child, we do not attend to it properly. Disowning this child does not make it go away! Since it is imperative for this child to receive adequate care, it will look elsewhere and bond into the people around us, requiring them to provide the care that is otherwise lacking. We will not be aware of this process because we do not know about vulnerability. In an entirely unconscious fashion, we will be automatically drawn into powerful parent/child bonding over and over again.

We see many examples of this kind of bonding in our everyday lives. Perhaps the most common is the strong professional man who relates to everyone around him as the responsible father, who is always available to help others and to care for their vulnerability. If he has no awareness of his own vulnerability, this professional man will bond strongly to someone who provides him with the same kind of care that he gives to others. The caretaker may be a nurturing wife, but often it is an office manager or secretary.

This bonding will be particularly intense if the man is uncomfortably shy around people outside of his professional role, or if he feels inadequate in terms of general business knowledge and office procedures. He will feel helpless if his office manager or secretary must skip work for a day, since he depends upon her to deal with all the aspects of life that frighten him, like disciplining the other office workers or attending to his finances.

 

When this bonding is particularly powerful and unconscious, as is so often the case, the man who is the strong, supporting father to everyone else is the inadequate and compliant son to the caretaker’s managing mother. When this bonding is in effect, this substitute caretaker can do whatever she wishes in the office; he will be powerless to stop her. He feels frightened of losing her and is helpless to ask her to change any behaviour that might prove problematical. Since the woman is living out of a managing mother self and not through an aware ego, she could become a real tyrant in the office.

Many powerful women become involved in one disastrous love affair after another. Man after man disappoints them in their search for a loving and rewarding relationship. It is our experience that this, too, is often the result of disowned vulnerability. Since the powerful woman does not know about her own vulnerable child, it bonds into one man after another, trying to get its needs met. The primary selves of the woman are strong and independent. They would be horrified to realise that underneath Wonder Woman is a vulnerable little girl.

Without this awareness there is no opportunity for a strong and otherwise sensible woman to find out about her inner child, to honour it, to speak up for it, and to go about meeting it’s needs in a thoughtful way. Her neglected, needy child looks elsewhere for understanding and bonds into the man, hoping that he will understand her completely, do away with her yearning, and make her happy. Since no one but herself can truly care for her vulnerability, she is doomed to bond in as needy daughter to each man in her life, and to be disappointed by each in turn.

 

The opposite situation occurs when one knows about the vulnerable child and identifies with it completely. For such people, the vulnerability is the primary self system and power selves are disowned. This is guaranteed misery.

For those who are totally identified with vulnerability, there is only an endless parade of bondings in which one assumes the victim role and is repeatedly victimised. For those identified with vulnerability, strength always resides in the other person, and there is complete dependence and constant neediness. Although there may be a period of bonding into the good parent in friends and lovers, this is usually not permanent, and the bad parent exacts the payment for all that the good parent has given, causing much pain and a feeling of betrayal.

 

As one gets to know about one’s vulnerable child, it is extremely important to keep in mind that indulging all its feelings is no better than ignoring them. One needs an adult around to care for the child, an aware ego to make conscious choices that take its needs into consideration, but is not identified with these needs or run by the child’s fears and sensitivities.

Otherwise one is in the position of a parent who, when faced with a weeping child, identifies completely with the child and weeps with it. The parent, then, is in no position to offer another perspective and certainly has no ideas as to how the child might take care of its pain. The parent is in the same position as the child, and there is no choice available to either of them. They must both remain in pain waiting for someone on the outside to intervene.

Issue 86 –

Vulnerability: Part 6

The Resilience of the Vulnerable Child

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

 

The vulnerable child appears to be small and weak, but we have found that its role in everyone’s life is amazingly powerful. The more that one knows of this child and the more that one integrates it into daily life, the more conscious one’s behaviour becomes. We have found that in most instances when people have tried to contact this child, even though it might have been disowned for a lifetime, the child is quite ready to be heard. It has proven surprisingly resilient despite years of neglect.

 

Where there has been serious emotional damage, it is this child that needs to be healed, and an extended period of psychotherapy may well be required. However, when this inner child has been disowned under ordinary circumstances, it frequently recovers from its period of disowning, bounces back to health, and begins to bring riches with it almost immediately.

 

The sturdiness of the vulnerable child was clear in George’s dream. After being introduced to the concept of vulnerability when he read our book, he dreamt:

 

There was a baby stuck up in a tree screaming and crying and it wanted to be taken down. I was too scared to go up to get it. It kept calling to me, but neither I nor anyone else with me went to get it. Finally, it jumped out of the tree. I felt badly that I hadn’t gotten to it sooner, and I ran over to see if it was okay. Its feet were bruised, but it was alright otherwise. I held it and comforted it.

 

In this dream, the unconscious helps George to reach his inner child. He is still identified with his primary selves, who have their aim in life the disowning of this vulnerable child. Once the initial contact is made, there’s a chance for the aware ego to take over and to perform the natural act of comforting and caring for the vulnerable child in an appropriate fashion.

 

Repetitive dreams about neglecting babies and young children often indicate that vulnerability has been disowned, as we have shown earlier.

 

Mildred, who had repetitive dreams of this type, began to take her vulnerability seriously. She experimented with a variety of psychological and spiritual methods and learned to care for her vulnerable child through an aware ego in an appropriate fashion. She said of her later dreams:

 

“I have been noticing a change in my dreams. I still have a baby who I’ve forgotten about. I used to dream that I left it on the shelf and then I would panic and look for it and find it half starved. These dreams repeated themselves and each time the baby has been less neglected. Last time I dreamt that I was breastfeeding it and it was fat and happy.”

 

These dreams clearly reflect how Mildred’s change in consciousness and the new way which she is honoring her vulnerability has resulted in the gradual healing of her vulnerable child.