Another
Reality
“Elements
of truth are the basis of delusions and hallucinations…On the other hand,
delusions and hallucinations are real; they are the language of another
reality.”
Harry
A. Wilmer, M.D. (Practical Jung, p.146; Chiron Publications, 1987)
How
many times have you caught a glimpse of something and felt your body react in shock
or terror, only to find out that what you saw was something else entirely? Just
the other day, I jumped backward out of my flowerbed, thinking I had seen a
snake, which turned out to be only a branch that moved because I had stepped on
one end of it. How many times have you seen someone from behind, or in a crowd,
who looks just like someone you knew in the past who is now dead—for just an
instant, you respond as though it is that person even though you know it can’t
be. But it feels like we’ve unexpectedly brushed against them; it is so real in
its intensity that sometimes we can even catch a whiff of their familiar
perfume or aftershave.
How
many times have you had a conversation with someone and come away from it
uneasy because their tone of voice or the look in their eyes seemed hostile or
evasive? Then, without knowing any facts, you take off on a flight of fancy
about what they meant by that look and concoct an entire scenario that never
happened. That imagined meaning now causes a physical reaction of nervousness and
anger. It never happened, but because you have an active imagination, it may as
well have happened. Your response is the same. Maybe that person had a
headache, or maybe they had just received some news they didn’t like, or a
million other things—but for you, the feeling state remains. You created that
reality and then inhabited it.
Often,
when we are asleep and dreaming, the dream feels real—as though we are in a
different place—maybe one we’ve never seen before—and we are encountering
people we don’t know but they seem to know us. When we dream, we are in an alternate
reality, that our eyes cannot see when we wake up—but is it still there? Can
you pull up the memory and reexperience it in vivid color, detail, and within
context? Our dream world can feel as real as this physical world—because it is.
I am
pretty sure that someone who is diagnosed with schizophrenia would disagree with
me that their hallucinations are just like our imaginary scenarios—sometimes the
person gets lost in the matrix of psychosis and can no longer distinguish between
outer reality and inner reality. I am not judging the rightness or wrongness of
anyone’s inner life. What I want to convey is that sometimes we don’t need to
experience a hallucination to bring up the reality of the inner world. What is
in the unconscious will often present itself in the form of dreams or chance
encounters, or, for that matter, synchronistic events, or out-of-the-blue
thoughts or unplanned happenings. It is as though a giant intelligence—or perhaps
our soul’s guardian angel—is pulling strings to show us what exists within if
we are willing open ourselves to the mystery and become curious.
I
encourage you to pay attention to these happenings. They are psychic phenomena
that can shed light on the innerworkings of your soul. Ask questions, don’t
just sluff them off as meaningless. A whole other world is waiting to be
discovered.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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