One participant in an IDL training module reported a dream in which she was sitting on the sand at a beautiful beach, enjoying herself. She looked down and worms were coming up out of the sand around her. Then she realized that the ground was hollow beneath her and that she was about to fall into a hole! That scared her awake.
Because we were teaching how to create Dream Sociomatrices she interviewed not only Dream Self, herself in the dream, but also the ocean, the beach, and the worms. She omitted the hole because it was “nothing” and scary. Of course, what she was doing was avoiding listening to the “loudest” voice in her dream! So we had her go back and interview it as well. The hole said that it contained a “paradise.” If she would allow herself to fall in, she would find herself in a paradise!
What this lady took away from this interview was that she spends her time seeking to find comfort, recreation, and relaxation (being on the beach) in the context of her daily life. There is no problem with this except that it thereby avoids a “fall” into a state of being that will bring her happiness beyond her wildest dreams. This “space” exists close at hand, so close that she does not recognize it, but only associates it with “negative” indicators of something being “wrong.” But those are misinterpretations, just like her misperception of the hole in the dream and then later, when awake and thinking about the dream. There is nothing negative about the “worms” in her life or “wrong” about either the hole or falling into it. But because she misinterprets this shift as a threat, she does everything she can to avoid it. She does not realize that moving toward what she fears is exactly what she needs to do in order to move into a transformational way of being.
In the abstract we can all grasp this concept. It is entirely another for us to personally experience the reality of that message ourselves. Are you willing to let go and fall into the abyss? Are you willing to “die” to be reborn? Few are. This is essentially the function of meditation: to practice dying so that you can be reborn. It is also a function of Integral Deep Listening: to show you how you stay stuck by misperceive your opportunities for transformation as fearful, and then avoiding them instead of embracing them.
Just for today, resolve to move toward whatever you fear. See what happens. Then let us know your results!
