Jung, Blake, Wasps and the Dreamscape

Last night I had a dream. In the corner of a room like my bedroom, sat a watchful bird. I instantly recognised it, but couldn't place where I knew it from or its name, except that it was very familiar. It had a sharp, flesh-tearing beak, a mustard or turmeric colour with white highlights to tail, wing tips and pale "goggles" round its eyes. It sometimes alighted its perch and made a line for me, veering away at the last moment. I knew it would hack at my flesh if I gave it the chance, not from malice, but because we had different priorities, and I must guard against its will. Once or twice the bird came very close and I swatted it away, waking myself in the process. It kept watch with an almost human intelligence.

I awoke this morning to find a large wasp buzzing about the room. The thing in my dream was like a wasp archetype, the spirit of wasps. It was part insect but thought itself a bird, and part higher animal, with similarly high consciousness. I couldn't get it out the window and as I had work in that room today, I swatted it, dead. I feel the bird wasp will return someday, and it set me wondering about consciousness in lower animals and whether it's as 'other' as we imagine. The animal's true nature reminded me of William Blake's, The Ghost of a Flea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_of_a_Flea#mediaviewer/File:William_Blake_002.jpg
 
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Not sure what to say about that Gabriel, most of the animals in my dreams are lions, with occasional visits from now deceased pet dogs.
Do you think the dream was triggered by the wasp buzzing?
 
Not sure what to say about that Gabriel, most of the animals in my dreams are lions, with occasional visits from now deceased pet dogs.
Do you think the dream was triggered by the wasp buzzing?
I'm certain it was. What was interesting for me is how the wasp had an equivalent in the dream, and it was one I immediately recognised. It had the characteristics of a wasp but the waspish "intelligence" presented itself to me as an exotic creature with a specific identity that transcended the insect form. The implications - and these may or may not translate universally - is that things have an apparent character, and a true one. Some people believe humans have an authentic personality and name, and one we carry through life. The latter is a useful guise for us to interact with the material world, but the real us (or wasp) is a more complex and beautiful being. I'd pondered William Blake's "Ghost of a flea" before, the idea that the most insignificant, disliked creature could be represented as a higher intelligence, and it seemed interesting but fanciful, but on waking Blake's image immediately came to mind in one of those light bulb moments. It also conjured Jung's idea of an archetype, the original thing underlying the stereotypes we deal with in our daily lives.

It's not my first Blake related synchronicity. Two years ago I was in an email conversation with a young artist I didn't know very well, and he announced he was a William Blake fan, and I agreed Blake was someone whose work people relate to on a deeper level than many others. I wanted to check a fact and in the course of the conversation I Googled around to find the date was the same as Blake's death. Searching further I found there was a William Blake society who met at the time of his death at Bunhill Fields, the Non-Conformist London burial ground where he is buried. The exact site of the grave had only recently been discovered by some expert sleuthing, as it was a pauper's grave with no marker, and the society were meeting right then! The conversation we were having was at the exact date and time of Blake's death! Weird and a little marvellous.
 
oh I see! It's interesting to think about how dreams may reveal the underlying archetypal nature of things, also interesting to commune with your dream self and see where it takes you.
I can certainly relate to the experience of waking up with a 'light bulb moment'
 
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