VIDEO
AUDIO
Inner guidance is Psyche’s built-in orienting system, a silent interlocutor that Jung named the Self. When the ego listens to that source, life organizes around an inner axis rather than around social noise. The conversation begins in dreams: every night the unconscious compensates for one-sided attitudes and sketches latent possibilities, offering images that ask to be amplified rather than solved. Even a “snippet” is enough; when recorded in a temenos of morning journaling, the material becomes a living letter whose meaning ripens across weeks or years. Symbols such as the abattoir, the dictator, or the mysteriously delivered “blessings” in the dream transcript confront the dreamer with shadow, sacrifice, and the double face of unconscious gifts—each theme urging dialogue rather than repression.
Listening extends beyond sleep. The mystic Rudolf Steiner suggested cultivating the auditory center of the brain —already attuned to faint stimuli—to cast awareness past the refrigerator hum, the birdsong, and finally into the quiet between sounds. That outward act rehearses the inward move Elijah made when wind, earthquake, and fire failed to speak; only the “still, small voice” offered guidance and help. Contemporary chaos generates its own winds and quakes in the form of nonstop headlines and digital pings, yet guidance remains buried under the noise. Turning the phone off, feeling the body’s micro-signals, walking, or napping changes the channel and re-sets receptive readiness. The body, carrying millions of years of survival memory, behaves like the fairy-tale talking animal, offering instinctive counsel through tight breath, restless feet, or unexpected ease.
Jung observed that libido—psychic energy—flows down an inner gradient toward the image or task the Self favors. Tracking where vitality collects and where it withers tests the validity of any impulse. The dreamer worried about debt feels vitality gather around graduate study despite fear; By contrast, the misdirection of some people shows what happens when the ego hijacks energy for power and inflation, silencing conscience and sacrificing relationship. Inner guidance always retains a moral dimension: it seeks wholeness, not ego triumph. Inflation, therefore, requires counterbalance through ordinary duties, while genuine guidance enlarges consciousness without devaluing others.
Dialogue with the Self must oscillate between surrender and discrimination. Active imagination lets images speak, yet the ego retains administrative authority, asking Socrates’ question: “Does this pass common sense?” A symbol such as a dream liver and kidney may call for psychological detox and discernment, not sudden medical procedures. Similarly, apocalyptic dreams image psychic revelation, not literal doom; they press the ego to dismantle outdated personas, endure regression, and re-emerge with a more integrated identity.
Because the unconscious is autonomous, it responds to respectful approach. Setting an intention before sleep, drawing a daily tarot card, or simply asking “What am I doing here?” invites a reply; dismissive haste closes the door. Guidance is subtle—often arriving as a nap-sparked certainty, a synchronicity on a street corner, or a phrase that writes itself in a journal—and it gains clarity when it is honored by action, however small. Signs of alignment include steadier vitality, tolerance for paradox, and converging external opportunities that require little force.
In an era of cultural cacophony, reclaiming inner guidance is both practical and transformative. By recording dreams, cultivating bodily awareness, practicing intentional silence, and testing impulses against both feeling-tone and reality, we restore the ego–Self axis and chart a course through uncertainty. The psyche, “real and alive,” continues to send packages to the doorstep; our task is to open them consciously, discern the cost, and collaborate with the wisdom that sent them.
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE. FOLLOW ALONG WITH THE EPISODE:
I had a post-apocalyptic dream. I tried to find safety in a bombed-out town overrun by death squads working for a dictator. Hunters pursued me and many others. We passed a roadside mass grave that young men had dug for themselves; each had a patch of skin cut from his back, exposing a liver or kidney, and— in perfect unison— they shot themselves in the head and fell into the pits. Later I was captured and led through an abattoir cheerfully managed by a man who looked like Walter White. The place processed human meat: ground flesh covered the floor. Walter White explained that the product would end up in dog food because dogs excel at erasing human identity. At one point I hid inside a tiny house during curfew. I wanted to search for my partner but could not leave. My mother appeared and tried to conceal me behind an old stove, yet no space remained. Newborn kittens wandered everywhere. Eventually I moved to the basement, found a computer, and tried to discover what was happening in the wider world.
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I’ve written a play called “Implicit Memory Systems. A Jungian Farce.” I did the last live reading of it here in New York City, myself also acting in it with three other actors at HB Playwright’s Theater. It went GREAT. And I plan on doing all I can to get it produced. I am FASCINATED by so much I have learned up to now on Jung’s work/philosophy. A neighbor of my in my Brooklyn apartment building attended the reading and loved it. I told her I had listened to many episodes, repeatedly, of a podcast called Digital Jung as I have been writing the play. She then told me about yours. And I have begun tonight to listen and am thrilled to listen. Thank you. And if any of you would like to read my latest draft of the play. If not, no worries at all and thank you
This was a beautiful episode and I have gone back and listened again to take a few notes. I am wondering which translation for the 1 Kings 19:12 was read? I loved this version and wanted to print out and add to my journal notes.