Dispelling Duality in Dreamland - by John Hubbird

Dispelling Duality in Dreamland - by John Hubbird

Human consciousness is now experiencing a quantum evolutionary awakening into newness, wholeness, Oneness, a sacred embracing of our diverse experiences, a transcendental reunion of polar opposites, and so forth. The Path that must be traversed in order to awaken and evolve ourselves, is ironically to delve headlong into incarnating the very self-same duality that we are in the process of transcending,  while at the same time skillfully  navigating these deep unconscious waters in a way that avoids compounding suffering by re-traumatizing ourselves.  The only “way”  forward is to move lucidly and fluidly through shadowy ancestral thickets of murderous dysfunction, abuse, war, rape, pillage, etc. and live to tell about it.   This is where we become the proverbial snake eating it’s own tail.

In order to dispel dualities in a relatively safe manner, ideally such work takes place in what we call a “container” that is strong enough to contain the pressure that must be allowed to build and build, until it reaches sufficient intensity for a major transpersonal psychic shift to occur, at which time the shadow material becomes illumined and liberated.  In the Awakening in the Dream community, weekly groups function as conscious containers for the purpose of invoking, embodying, playing out, transmuting and liberating shadow material.  [For a more detailed explanation of the container and how it works, see http://www.awakeninthedream.com/wordpress/?p=216#hermetic]

During my 10+ years of participating in the Awakening in the Dream groups, I have both witnessed and experienced how most “issues” that get constellated in the groups initially present themselves as seemingly solid dualities, as apparent dilemmas, where there are at least two distinctly “different” voices urgently pleading for supremacy over some seemingly “opposite” voice(s).     Energetically, for those  present in the group, this experience is likely to feel like conflict, both tense and intense, heated, oppositional, etc., and -- depending on ones conditioning -- may even feel unsafe, scary and/or abusive, as in something to be avoided.  This is where we may or may not drop into the Rabbit Hole, where most anything can, and probably will, happen.   

One of the more likely things to happen at the edge of a Rabbit Hole is what we refer to as “Edge Phenomenon” (EP)  [<link to Chelsea’s article], where some seemingly random distraction suddenly pops into the field, such as side-chatter, disjointed eruptions of laughter or giggling, interrupting one another, a cat suddenly walking into the center of the circle, lights flickering weirdly, etc.   Interestingly, EP’s can also function as a dreamlike fractalian side-show that further illumines the very process that is unfolding.  [For more on edge phenomenon, please see article "Tarot Reading for the Field" at: http://expressionsofthedream.blogspot.com/2011/02/tarot-reading-for-field-anonymous.html ]

For example, a person may be “in their stuff” in a somber story-telling process about how poorly their parents dealt with conflict, and then * BOOM * a seemingly unrelated “conflict” will break out between two other people in the circle, which can easily be seen as a rude or “inappropriate” distraction or interruption that sucks energy and attention away from the person who is talking.  Or, if we are awake enough to catch it, the “interruption” filling up the room can be seen more expansively as an energetic real-life portrayal of the story-teller’s own process around conflict.

Regardless of how duality shows up, its trademark is to urgently impose a false choice onto the field, like about whether something is “this or that”, true or false, good or bad, real or imaginary, abusive or standing up for oneself, and so forth.  Often, two (or more) people will pick up differing voices, giving present real-time shape and form to whatever archetypal duality is being touched upon, thus playing it out.   Then other voices, roles, alignments, and realignments typically start getting played out by others in the circle, so as to render the display more vivid, detailed and colorful, and perhaps even more intense.   Still others may remain silent as witnesses to anchor the energy and simply hold space for all the intense energy that is present, and/or pick up more of a facilitator role,  and so forth.

Thus begins the “cooking” phase of the process, where a particular duality has constellated itself in a room full of witnesses, where it is being illumined, reflected upon, psychically digested, and eventually assimilated and dispelled.  This is where having a strong container becomes essential in order to “hold the tension of the opposites”, which is a Jungian term referring to how we can alchemically transform unconscious shadow material into golden stardust of awakening.  There is no telling how long this cooking process may take: it could take 15 minutes, or hours, weeks, months or years, or it could happen in the “twinkling of an eye”. 

But regardless of how long it takes, the point is that cooking “opposites” represents the homestretch in humanity’s journey towards alchemically dissolving and integrating classic archetypal dualities of the collective unconscious shadow that have historically proven so destructive and damning to our species and to the planet -- and that there is a way to do this cooking that is safe, psychically organic and emotionally healthy.

This is, of course, merely a statement of my own experience in the Awakening in the Dream groups, and does not necessarily reflect how others in the Dreaming community may experience how we deal with duality and conflict.  Fortunately, there is a “comment” section below, where others can supplement what I’ve said with their own experience and reflection.