One study of dreams concluded that if we live to eighty years old, six years of our life will have been spent dreaming—not sleeping, which is a far higher percentage. Six years dreaming! Apparently, dreams are tied to our nature and its effort to process, metabolize, correct, and heal the fissures that lie within each of us.

Then you will find what supports you when nothing supports you. Then you will be comforted by, rather than threatened by, the idea that something within you knows you better than you know yourself. Then your ego consciousness will be reframed, enlarged, and deepened.

Persona, the Greek word for “mask,” is the social face we show the world—it’s our relational manager. As the cornea protects the eye, our persona protects us from the social grit of disapproval and mediates social interactions. Unlike the cornea, we shape our persona in tune with cultural norms—for example, showing different aspects of ourselves at

“I have my eye on the central fire, and I’m trying to put some mirrors around it to show to others. Sometimes the edges of those mirrors leave gaps and don’t fit together exactly. I can’t help that. Look at what I’m trying to point to!”

A dream is a theater in which the dreamer is himself the scene, the player, the prompter, the producer, the author, the public, and the critic. —C. G. Jung

Both dreams and symptoms are examples of the transcendent function at work.

“If the word is a sign,” wrote Jung, “it means nothing. But if the word is a symbol, it means everything.”

Jung asked us a telling question: What supports you when nothing supports you? What can you turn to when your instructions from the world have led you astray? What can you count on when the world you built is no longer livable? Then, in that darkness, a light flickers and the dream appears.

Your dreams are an expression of your inner life, and they can show you through what false attitude you have landed yourself in this blind alley. —C. G. Jung