I'm sitting in a large open grassy park and I notice that it seems to be raining.  I get up to leave and see a large sprinkler a long distance away.  Another fellow chooses to stay and enjoy the rain.  Somebody hits a very valuable softball a long distance and a hippie-type friend with a ponytail goes to fetch it.  With great affection I tell him that before he leaves town with the loot he should not forget me.

This deceptively simple dream reveals a great psychospiritual truth. The sprinkler is the truth.  Water is one of the most common symbols of the truth.  The common expression, ‘rain down the truth’ shows the connection between water and the truth.  The truth is like water because we can’t live without it.  It is life giving.  That the sprinkler is in the ‘center’ of a large open grassy park also indicates that it is a spiritual symbol.  The truth, the Self, is the center of one’s being.  Just as a park is a place where one can relax and enjoy the Self is the soul’s ultimate enjoyment.  Knowing the Self, one relaxes completely. 

 

Enter two conflicting thoughts, denial and investigation.  Denial is symbolized by the person who prefers not to ‘get wet’ i.e. know the truth. In this case ‘the truth’ is probably all the uncomfortable unconscious information I have been forced to acknowledge by the rash of dreams have been pouring out of the Unconscious lately.  These unpleasant psychic facts, called the shadow, are uncomfortable truths about oneself; that one has selfish, dishonest, cruel, vain, petty, arrogant etc. tendencies.  

 

The dream presents another kind of thought or psychic impulse operating in my consciousness: the power of investigation.  This is represented by the hippie fellow who prefers to ‘stay and enjoy the rain.’  Not only is this part of the mind open to the truth, it is willing to pursue it.  His pursuit of the ‘valuable softball’ probably symbolizes my pursuit of the truth about the lower self as evidenced by my commitment to dreamwork.  It should be understood that I did not completely understand what was happening to me when the flood of dreams began.  It was only as my study of dreams deepened that I understood where it was going.

 

Anyway, the final symbol, the ‘valuable softball’ is probably the Self.  A ball is round, a complete circle, complete in itself.  It is white i.e. pure.  It is worth pursuing.  In fact the worldly ego, the one in denial, seems to know the value of pursuing the Self because he asks the hippie to share the ‘loot’ with him.  I find this a very interesting, actually amazing, communication from the Self.  It shows that all parts of the psyche are affected and integrated by Self knowledge.