I wanted to believe that this might be the only blog in town this week not about Osama or Obama. That I wouldn’t write a tome about “to kill a killer” or “to gloat or not to gloat.” Yet, in the end, it’s all really about the meaning of life, anyway. I’m talking about BIG stuff, here. I’m talking about THE POINT.

What’s the point?

And I’m not coming from that nihilistic, black nail polish kind of place. I’m coming from that stare into the mirror and sigh sort of place.

It seems like back “in the really old days” people had basic survival to contend with more than anything. Hunt, gather, and/ or grow food and do ones best to protect the family from marauders and generally bad people. Also likely was the added concern with the fate of one’s body, mind and spirit in the assumed or hotly debated afterlife.

Today, we’re still concerned with the procurement of food ( I mean, who doesn’t like a cold Coca Cola) and self-protection (could I ever build a wall high enough), however these basic needs are often overshadowed by the pursuit of new technology (patiently, peacefully waiting for the IPhone 5), preparing for retirement (what does that really mean in this day and age) and where and when we will take our next vacation (when did we need a fancy term for staying home instead of going somewhere else).

Back in the day when folks were primarily concerned with the survival of self and soul, do you think they felt an overarching sense of meaning in their lives? Do you think they felt connected to the rest of the planet; a kinship with other humans? Even without CNN? Makes me wonder…

When faced with my survival, is there really significant emotional and physical space to worry about the existential nature of meaning and purpose?

Today there are surely billions of people who are still concerned with their souls in the afterlife and who derive a sense of meaning from their respective religions or beliefs. Yet, I am unsure as to whether there is a unifying, universally coherent, common purpose for us all; something that draws us all together. Was the notion of the Tower of Babel (one of my favorite parables) merely about language or was there a deeper, existential notion of DIFFERENCE?

One would think the condition of our environment would have accomplished a unification for our species long ago yet the fact that the nations of the world can’t seem to work together to solve global warming is an indication of our state of affairs. We still remain scattered across the earth doing our own thing. Some countries still consider global warming an Other issue as a matter of public policy.

Then there is, of course, the issue of doctrine, dogma and subjective truth. The marauders attacking my village thousands of years ago believed they were justified in attacking my village even though I strongly disagreed. I mean, I REALLY disagreed with the essential premise of their approach to life.

Many of us today are in favor of free speech and democratic process until someone threatens us for real. When marauders come rolling through my sense of peace and calm, I want to stop them by any means necessary because I’m still basically a human being who doesn’t care about you until you make changing me and altering my agenda, your agenda. Then we have a problem, man.

The notion of that primordial tower was for all the nations of the earth to band together for a common end and build a structure so amazing that we could reach God, thus becoming Gods. However, that scoundrel God “confounded the language of all the Earth.” (Genesis 11:5-8) and set us back a ways. Now look at us.

“The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics. At any moment several millions of human beings may be smitten with a new madness, and then we shall have another world war or devastating revolution. Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides, and inundations, modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche. C.G. Jung

It was a fascinating synchronicity in my life. As my house was pelted by thundering winds and layers of thick, unrelenting snow last week, rocks, bottles and bullets flew in Cairo. The inundation I experienced here in Chicago felt in some ways to be overshadowed by the revolution taking place in Egypt, and yet, in other ways the two events felt strangely aligned. I skipped back and forth between CNN and the Weather Channel, watching for a break in both relentless storms.

While elements of change ebbed and flowed from the heartland of the United States to the ancient sands of the Middle East, I couldn’t help but ponder the significance of an apparent web of momentous physical and psychic events occurring on our planet and in our consciousness.

I suppose I unconsciously took it for granted that folks in the Middle East were not willing to fight for their rights. Regime after controlling, oppressive regime in the Arab world seemed to have taken advantage of a few convenient scapegoats (the U.S., Israel, capitalism, Hollywood, “The West”) through the years, conveniently overshadowing their own horrible human rights violations, the economic rape and pillaging of their common citizens and the general manipulation of hearts and minds.

Over shadow is truly at the core of it, too. It takes a lot to blur the deep human longing for wholeness, joy and love and it relies upon an overarching, bloated shadow that swaddles our essential love for life in rags of doubt and resentment. The greatest tragedies in human history have typically occurred as a result of similarly monolithic entities who have successfully brainwashed the collective consciousness with a tribal cool-aid aimed at using our inherent desire to protect against ourselves.

Not dissimilar has been the environmental snow job on the planet…

The only thing that matters is our advancement. You want to protect our evolution as a species, don’t you? Then who cares about strip mining? Who cares about aerosol cans and light bulbs? Who cares about sucking the earth dry in a matter of a few hundred years what took millions to create? You want to be the best nation, don’t you? The strongest power? Drink, drink, it tastes like fruit punch…

The archetype of the wounded healer is one that has long resonated for me. The notion that in order to truly help others heal one must have done his or her own fair share of suffering and grown from it, i.e. placed the pain and near death experiences (physically and/or emotionally) into a constructive context, is probably the most potent response to “why bad things happen to good people.”

However, when an archetype is not expressed in a meaningful, transformative, dynamic way, it “loads up with energy and becomes inhuman” (Marie-Louise von Franz). I believe that is the situation we are facing on our planet these days.

Without transforming our collective suffering thus creating a sacred wisdom of the heart borne from pain, we risk the creation of something terrible and ugly in its place.

Without choosing to learn from our arrogance, immaturity and selfishness as a society we don’t really grow up as a species and end up retarding our psycho-spiritual development as well.

Margarita Tartakovsky interviews me here on some basic tools and tips when it comes to dream interpretation and analysis for today’s PsychCentral:

When people think about analyzing their dreams, they usually think of psychics with crystal balls, dream dictionaries, or lying on a couch while a Freud-like psychologist tells them precisely what their dreams connote (and it sounds a lot like cigars and sex).

But dream analysis is none of these things. And it’s actually a valuable way to better understand yourself.

Below, clinical psychotherapist Jeffrey Sumber explains why we dream, why analysis is important and how to start interpreting your dreams.

Why We Dream

“Dreaming is non-essential when it comes to survival as a body but is essential with regard to our development and evolution as metaphysical beings,” according to Sumber, who studied global dream mythology at Harvard University and Jungian dream interpretation at the Jung Institute in Zurich.

Dreaming is the communication between our conscious mind and our unconscious mind, helping people create wholeness, he says. “Dreams are the bridge that allows movement back and forth between what we think we know and what we really know.”

Dreams let us play out painful or puzzling emotions or experiences in a safe place. “Dreams also allow us to process information or events that may be painful or confusing in an environment that is at once emotionally real but physically unreal.”

“Dream analysis is a key component in the process of becoming whole as a person,” Sumber explains. Dreams reveal a person’s “deepest desires and deepest wounds.” So analyzing your dreams helps you gain a deeper understanding of yourself.

How To Analyze Your Dreams

One of the biggest myths about dream analysis is that there’s a set of stringent rules people need to follow. But every person is unique, so there are no formulas or prescriptions.

Dreams “can only be understood in the larger context of the individual’s unfolding and self-discovery,” Sumber says. However, there are several guidelines that can help you see your dreams more thoughtfully and dig deeper into their meaning.

Record your dreams. This is the first and most important step in analyzing your dreams, Sumber said. “Taking notes, even a few sentences that encapsulate the dream, literally draws the content of the unconscious out into the realm of the concrete.”

Think you don’t dream or can’t remember your dreams? He suggests simply keeping a journal by your bed, and writing “No dream to record” every morning. “Within two weeks of this process, the person will begin to remember their dreams.” (In fact, “you might open the floodgates!”)

Identify how you were feeling in the dream. For example, Sumber suggests asking yourself: “Was I scared, angry, remorseful, etc.? Do I still feel those feelings the morning after? How comfortable am I feeling these feelings?”

C.G. Jung referred to dreams as “feeling-toned complex of ideas.” In other words, according to Sumber, “We are always being called by our unconscious self to feel into our ideas, thoughts and actions so as to gain a deeper sense of who we are and where we are going in our lives.”

Identify recurring thoughts in your dreams and daily life. Sumber gives these examples of recurring thoughts: “They are going to kill me.” “I don’t understand.” Or “I’m not going to make it.” Next, ask yourself if you’ve had these thoughts throughout the day. If so, in what situations have you had these thoughts?

Consider all the elements of a dream. You can show up in your dreams in various ways. Many times, “we can find ourselves, our personalities, in many elements of a dream, even if there is a clear distinction between us and another character in the dream.”

You can ask yourselves these questions, Sumber said: “What is it like to be the villain in the dream? What is it like to be the aggressor, or be passive?”

Put down the dream dictionaries. You’ve probably come across dream dictionaries that feature specific meanings for objects. As Sumber notes, while there may be some universal meaning for these symbols, the key is to figure out what the dream means to you.

“While there may be a trace of collective meaning for certain universal symbols that do have some bearing on our internal analysis and growth, I am far more interested in where the dreamer goes with the symbol and what the dreamer connects to as a result of the dream.”

So, even though there may be some universal elements, symbols have different meanings for different people. “I believe we are all unique and carry very personal histories that impact the symbols, objects, tastes and smells that we associate with a particular dream story or event.”

Remember you’re the expert! “There are no experts other than yourself when it comes to your own psyche so don’t stop trusting your own inner guide to your unconscious,” Sumber says.

He adds that, “therapists need to place aside all of their information, tools and associations for universal symbols and dream interpretation with each new client and treat each person as a unique, new world to be discovered.”

You can learn a lot from even the most mundane dreams. You may be thinking that your dreams just aren’t fascinating, flashy or profound enough to explore. But even dreaming about having oatmeal for breakfast can yield thoughtful results, Sumber believes.

As examples, he lists the following questions you can ask:

“Am I alone with my oatmeal? Am I inside or on a veranda with a gentle breeze? Are the oats organic? Overcooked? Is there a horse nearby? How do I feel about the oats? What do oats typically symbolize for me? Are there any memories that I can tie to eating oatmeal? When was the first time I remember eating oatmeal for breakfast? How did my mother make oatmeal and do I make it the same way as an adult?”

“There is always something to learn about [yourself] in a dream,” Sumber says.

Some of my favorite dream resources:

* Memories, Dreams and Reflections, C.G. Jung
* Dream Psychology, Maurice Nicoll
* An Illustrated Encycolpaedia of Traditional Symbols, J.C. Cooper
* The Wilderness of Dreams, Kelly Bulkeley
* Dreambody, Arnold Mindell
* Dreams, C.G. Jung