While on my way to the Last Resort, a Buddhist meditation retreat center in Zion National Park, Utah, I was listening to Robert Bly's tapes entitled "What stories do we need?" (Cassette from Sound Horizons,
New York. 1991). Bly tells a story about an enchanted serpent that sheds seven skins in the course of its liberation. After the ordeal, the serpent miraculously becomes human. The serpent is coaxed into shedding the skins by a maiden who offers to remove one of her elaborate wedding blouses for each skin. She had prepared the seven blouses during the last year in expectation of meeting the serpent prince. Bly interprets the blouses as the discipline of an art form that helps release the creative potential.

My state of development was heavily dependent on a long period of Jungian dream analysis undergone prior to my Buddhist training. Each dream was a serpent skin or cloak which had to be coaxed off through analysis to reveal its meaning. I used the analytical technique described by Robert Johnson in InnerWork (Inner Work. Harper & Row, New York. 1986). Jungian analysis involves:

1. Recording a dream,
2. Recording associations with each dream symbol and event,
3. Dynamics or identifying parts of yourself (subpersona or POMs —parts of me) that are like the symbols, events, and associations,
4. Dialogues with POMs, dream figures and feelings, and
5. Closure

Each of the dreams becomes a living, modern fairy tale when I engage POMs in dialogue to elaborate on the experience. I resolved to make public some of the analyses as an example of "shedding the serpent skins." Each dream study offers a view of the masculine perspective from the inside out. While these are my unique personal dreams, they also offer one man's 'from-the-depths' view of our culture.

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Dreams have been an important part of my life since 1969 when I was first introduced to dream interpretation by a psychologist visiting our dormitory. Fritz Perls (Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. Real People Press, Lafayette, Calif. 1974) inspired my first dialogues in the mid-70's. Like many interests, my analysis of dreams waxed and waned but I always recorded my dreams pretty continuously. Sometimes analysis was not necessary.

In 1977, I was preparing for my Ph.D. prelims. Even after 6 months of exclusive preparation, reviewing notes from classes I had taken, reviewing borrowed notes from classes I had not taken, and reviewing notes made by previous candidates after their prelims, I still was anxious enough to realize that I would not succeed simply out of fear. One of the examiners had a political vendetta against my advisor and I had also been unable to take a few of his classes. He was a formidable opponent.

In the week prior to my prelims, I had a series of dreams that quieted my fear.

They began with a high school experience that saved my high school career. Being asthmatic, I lacked normal stamina but I was a large and very strong sophomore and easily made the junior varsity football team. I was playing first string offensive left halfback and defensive middle linebacker (we called it the "monster"). Both were key positions that involved me in nearly every play. After a month of continuous running I lost 30 pounds. My muscle strength had deteriorated so badly that I pulled both hamstrings in one day and was dropped from 1st string to last string that same day. It destroyed me. I also failed 10th grade English that first quarter. It was a nose dive. My football coach told me I would never amount to anything in sports, a sentiment shared by some older friends. This angered me because as an asthmatic, I felt I had been mishandled.

Later that year I went out for the track team and really cranked up the discipline. The shot put was my event. My strength had returned in the months since football season ended, however, I now had permanent injuries to my neck, knees, and both hamstrings. The injuries had ruined my running speed so I tried out for the shot put which required mostly agility and strength. The track coaches were skilled teachers and sensitive to my needs as an asthmatic. I excelled, achieving league honors over the subsequent 5 seasons (two college seasons included). What was even more important was that I transferred the discipline from the playing field to academics. My grades recovered and began a steady rise which I attribute to the discipline I learned from shot put practice.

Dream Series

In the first dream I am tossing a 16 pound iron ball (used in shot put field event) over the goal post back in high school. It disappears into the ground after clearing the goal post several times. The next night, the iron ball re-appears on a Moonlit beach as four silver orbs. One of the orbs began to crack. The next evening, the crack widens and the beetle I was studying for my dissertation crawled out. On the fourth evening, I was walking in a dark enchanted forest. The Moon peered through the trees. A luminous brook flowed through the center of the forest and I saw something sparkling on the bottom. I reached in and pulled out a set of keys. When I held the keys up to the Moon to see their outline, they were the keys to the department of Entomology! My Ph.D. was in entomology.

The high school shot put experience reminded me of the first time I really applied my effort in a disciplined fashion. The disappearance of the shot in the ground was symbolic of my forgetfulness of that important time in my life. From my studies of Carl Jung's work I knew that the re-emergence of the shot as four silver orbs suggested an amplification of my Self, a blooming of my inner core. The beetle study was helping my potentialities come to fruition. And the possibility of success was clear in finding the keys deep in my inner forest. My psyche seemed to be saying that I had done enough preparation for my prelims and it was time to let go, to enter the arena with the confidence that I had done my best.

At my oral exam, I was buoyant with confidence. Facts were easily available, unobscured by the fear that had been plaguing me. It was not an error free exam, but even in my mistakes one of the friendlier examiners said they could see that I knew the subjects very well.

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Back on the road to the Last Resort (PO Box 707, Cedar City, Utah 84721), I felt the confidence of 63 complete dream studies over the course of 4 years behind me. All the personal stories, all the inner figures seemed to be advising me. Much more work had gone into inner work than any other of my life activities to date. Ten days of silence lay ahead of me, eight other people were in the retreat. We would not speak or communicate in any way for the next 9 days. No reading, no writing, no mirrors, just meditation: 8 sitting, 7 walking, 2 eating meditations every day.

After six days of formal Buddhist practice, during the sixth sit of the day which was 1 hour long, I was watching my breath and noting the rise and fall of my abdomen. After the first 40 minutes, the knee pain began to dissolve, it felt something like a warm fire. It seemed to grow in energetic intensity, not more pain but more light and joy. The glow grew up my spine and roared into my cranium. With each inhalation there was a rush of light and joy up my spine to the top of my head. With each exhalation, a rush of energy traveled down the front of my body to my tan tien point, just below the navel. I felt then I would burst with the power pooling in my tan tien. I wondered, "what am I to do with this energy?" Then it exploded from my tan tien in all directions. I felt myself embracing and being embraced by all beings. Consumed in rapture, my body overflowed with radiant joy and love. I wept until my beard was soaked and my shirt had trails of joyous tears.

When I described what had happened to my guide Pujari, he said it was stream entry, the first stage of enlightenment. The rapture was not the significant milestone; at the same time I was enraptured, I was also observing so many perceptual phenomena that I could not note them fast enough. Being able to perceive the stream of phenomena without mental distortion is what I understand to be stream entry.

Nothing was said of the stream entry experience later when we broke silence. The retreat ended in a celebration of dance and music. Spontaneously my eight fellow yogis formed a tight circle around me and danced around and around as I touched each of their hearts in gratitude. I felt as though they knew and I was being welcomed to the sangha or circle of meditators who have entered the stream.

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It's important for you to note that the interpretation of a dream is very personal. As you read my analysis and questions to my POMs, you may feel that you would have answered differently. The difference between your answer and mine is our individuality. If you played the role of a therapist and you felt the need, you might suggest lines of questioning to develop additional important threads. However, in dialogue and interpretation the individual's sense of direction needs to be respected.

Two other issues need attention. Dreams as healing experiences are built from memories and associations. Much of the wounds that need healing attention result from parent-child experiences. Parents generally don't intend to wound their children during upbringing. The child experiences parental interactions without moderating adult faculties. Thus a mother's refusal to buy a candy appears monstrous to the child, or a father's punishment might appear fiendishly sadistic. The parental intent is to teach the child right and wrong the best way possible, however, the impression that the lessons make on the child may feel and act like emotional wounds later in life.

In my analyses of the dreams that follow, I present my interpretation of the impressions made on me by my parents. I wish to emphasize that these interpretations are made in an attempt to understand the residues from my unconscious. It is clear to me that my parents did the best job they could raising me, that they loved me as best they knew how, and that the wounds I sustained were not intentionally inflicted. It is also important to acknowledge that my parents have a completely different interpretation of the events of my childhood.

My mother did not literally grow fangs when she refused me the candy. My father was not really a troll who relished beating children. But through the eyes and fantasy of a child, indeed I saw the fangs and the troll. Until I realized the childhood origins of my dysfunction, I was crippled by vague memories. But I do not blame my parents for my childhood fantasies. I wish to honor them for doing the best they could. The journey through my dreamscape is to unravel the Gordian knot of my childhood fantasies, it is not an indictment of my parents.

Because this is a journey through my dreamscape, I use "I" statements. The fantasies are mine, no one else's. This is not a theoretical journey. I explore the roots of my being, my personal unconscious. This is not a conceit oriented diary. It is an in-depth study of a personal unconscious. Please remember in using "I" statements I am taking responsibility for the fantasies. There is no blaming, only a sincere search for meaning.

So now on to the serpent skins. Many wounds have been healed along my path to The Last Resort. Each wound had psychic scar tissue that needed understanding, openness, and eventually new suppleness. The dreams and active imagination (a Jungian term for entering into dialogue with imaginary figures from dreams) guided me into the needed healing. I suspect that you will find a relatively strong correlation between my dilemmas and those of many men in our culture. Enjoy.