“Paradoxically, although our brain waves are active during REM sleep, we are physically paralyzed … not to mention unaware of our surroundings … We (and other mammals) are to all appearances defenseless, raising puzzling questions about REM sleep’s role from the point of view of evolution.”—Adrian Morrison
The brain on night shift1
The real question we must ask ourselves is how does the invisible become visible? What is the language of creation and of the soul? How do psychics communicate with animals, distant individuals, and the dead? What sees when we have a near-death experience and leave our bodies? How does the community of cells speak to the conscious mind about their needs and health? How do we know what future plans our unconscious is creating?
The trillions of cells in our bodies are designed to act like a community so that our body will be protected and develop in the healthiest way possible. Our problems stem not from our genes but from our perceptions and attitudes, which—through the changes they create in our internal chemistry—activate specific genes. Our perceptions and attitudes are derived from our nature, our nurturing or lack of it, and our subconscious and conscious minds.
Children’s brains prior to the age of six are basically in a hypnotic state as seen by their brain wave patterns, and they are particularly vulnerable to messages from authority figures like parents, teachers, and clergy. The internal environment controls the body, and though consciousness can override the perceptions residing in the unconscious, it is not so easy to do when the perceptions are based upon a lifetime of abuse, indifference, and a destructive lack of nurturing. The unconscious cannot speak to us in words, and so what is the language of the community of cells? How do they coordinate their activity to protect us in times of danger and help us to grow and achieve our full potential?
I have yet to meet a medical student or physician who was told, during their training, that Carl Jung was able to make the diagnosis of a brain tumor from a patient’s dream. Through images and symbols, the invisible is made visible. We can refuse to acknowledge it because we cannot explain it, but by doing so we close our minds and limit our knowledge. The mechanisms of communication through images are meant to be of help to us so that we can be aware of healthy and self-destructive behavior, thus helping us to maintain our health and be aware of our inner wisdom. Even the Bible tells us that God speaks in dreams and visions. Images are the universal language as revealed in the myths and parables of many cultures and religions that are sharing common themes.
The invisible I talk about is what lies within us physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Yes, we can be aware of what lies within through feelings and symptoms, but if we were capable of knowing what lies within before a physical affliction or emotional breakdown awakens us, we would all be far healthier and the community within us would be far more likely to thrive than have to struggle to survive.
By taking the lid off the unconscious, we can be guided by its wisdom and knowledge. It allows us to go within ourselves through the use of our images, whether in the form of spontaneous dreams, guided imagery, or drawings. As a surgeon, none of this was a part of my belief system or training. What has led me to a new understanding of the nature of life is my experience. Consciousness is not a local event. I have had an animal intuitive locate our lost cat in Connecticut while she sat in California. I have had a near-death experience and know we are more than our bodies. I have had past life experiences, and I have had messages from dead patients delivered through mediums or have heard their voices speak to me. I did not seek any of these things but I have lived them.
And rather than turn away from, or not accept, the experience because I cannot explain or understand it, I—like the astronomers and quantum physicists—seek to explore the invisible and communicate with it through the language of creation and the movies of our minds.
By my training as a surgeon, I was not made aware of the many uses of spontaneous drawings and dreams as psychotherapists are. What I am about to share stems from my experience and work with patients and their families. I have always been an artist and a visual person. In 1977, I attended a workshop presented by Dr. Carl Simonton, and in 1979, one presented by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. The former led to my first experience with guided imagery and the latter with a spontaneous drawing. Both revealed incredible insights and information about my life, and so I became a believer and returned to my practice, where a box of crayons became one of my therapeutic tools. I was also quite angry about what I was not taught in medical school, about the significance of dreams and drawings as they relate to somatic as well as psychological factors.
What makes our species unique is not our ability to reason but our use of symbols. No one stops to think about why mankind has evolved in such a way that we sleep for long periods of time even though we are vulnerable while asleep. I believe the answer is to give our body, brain, and unconscious and conscious minds the ability to communicate in the universal language of symbols—a universality that can be seen in the symbolism and themes of myths originating from various cultures.
I began to ask my patients and their families to draw pictures to help us make therapeutic decisions based upon not just intellect but inner knowingness, as well as to help family relationships and psychological issues. I was amazed by what I learned, and particularly the revelation of somatic aspects in the drawings. When I wrote to medical journals about my work, the articles were returned, saying “interesting but inappropriate for our journal.” When I sent them to where they were appropriate, they were returned saying, “appropriate but not interesting.”
When I began to realize how much I hadn’t learned in medical school, I made contact with Jungian therapists to explore their work and wisdom. I will never forget a note I received from Susan Bach, the author of Life Paints Its Own Span,2 a book based upon the drawings of children with leukemia. I wrote to tell her what I had discovered, and she wrote back, “Calm down; we know all this.” It confirmed the consistency and the truth of what was known because we had discovered the same things. Gregg Furth’s work, another Jungian and author of The Secret World of Drawings,3 has also helped guide me. Because of my training as a surgeon and knowledge of anatomy, I was experiencing things a psychotherapist would not normally be aware of, particularly the somatic aspects of various disease states and their treatments, from people who were sharing their experience of illness and their lives through images. I will always remember Susan Bach telling me how fascinated Jung was “by the somatic aspects of the drawings.”
I learned that when the two sources of intelligence, intuition and intellect, were in conflict about a treatment, the patient suffered more problems and side effects. The drawings revealed the wholeness of mind and body, while integrating their life outside of the clinical area into the somatic aspects.
What Bach learned in her early work was that both the psychological and the physical were revealed in the drawings. I have made decisions to operate or not based upon my patients’ drawings. The somatic or organic aspect helped in the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis and was a very important means of communication for the doctor, patient, and family. It has helped me get families to accept that a loved one was ready to die as their next form of healing. When parents see their child’s symbols, they are more likely to let go or respond to their needs than if they are just listening to a doctor’s words.
There may be physicians who will say, “Who has time for this?” My answer is that you will save time by using drawings. When a child with cancer tells me she is not getting enough time from her family, I can talk to six people in her family and try to clarify the issue, or ask her to draw a picture of the family and then show her parents how separate and untouched she feels. They are changed by the picture and I do not need an hour of discussion.
Inner knowingness speaks a powerful language and can be used for prevention, treatment, diagnosis, and prognosis of an illness, as well as emotional problems or decisions an individual or family must make, including the choice of chemotherapy, eating vegetables, and more. Very often, what one fears may be portrayed as very therapeutic and the conflict between intellect and intuition resolved to the benefit of the patient.
How to diagnose what is in a picture relates to many factors, such as color, numbers, oddities, missing items, direction, quadrants, and more. The drawings communicate and make visible the inner wisdom, thus helping to heal the afflicted person and their soul through the drawing’s ability to enhance the physician’s skill, and together with the patient, make the correct therapeutic decisions.
Through the drawings, we can learn and discover what is within us. The drawings opened my mind and led me to pursue knowledge in a way that I had never been exposed to. I now refer to myself as a Jungian Surgeon and use drawings in our therapy groups and through my Web site to help guide people in their lives and decision-making processes when confronting a variety of problems, so they can live or die in harmony, wholeness, and peace. By exposing the unconscious and revealing the inner truth, the disharmony within individuals, families, and healthcare professionals ceases; then compassionate care and true healing can occur. Now spirit and symbol serve life, and we can be unique guides and coaches for those we care for and about.
I want people to discover their personal mythology and not my interpretation of it, so their soul can speak to them through images and their symbols can lead to transformation. Susan Bach talks about the drawings stirring us through our reactions, surprising us through their meaning and our emotional reaction, and fascinating us through our curiosity.
The symbols also open the door to something greater than any one person’s wisdom. They connect us to our inner knowingness, creative instinct, rightness, and connection with our creative designer. When we are done we know ourselves, and the unconscious becomes conscious. This communication can be done anywhere on this planet, with anyone, because symbols are a universal language. It can be preventive as well as diagnostic and can be done with minimal supplies.
We spend a lot of time and money on outer space, but I think inner space offers the same wonder and mystery. Near-death experiences tell us we are more than just physical bodies. I believe we sleep for long periods of time to give our body, brain, and unconscious and conscious minds the ability to communicate in the universal language of symbols—a universality that can be seen in the symbolism and common themes of myths originating from various peoples.
As Jung said, psyche and matter are complementary aspects of the same thing. Just as animal intuitives can communicate with animals nonverbally, we can communicate with our bodies and the unconscious. Consciousness can be experienced as a universal field that affects us all. Studies by quantum physicists verify this, and books such as The Field4 by Lynne McTaggart and The Psychobiology of Gene Expression5 by Ernest Rossi share examples and give insight into this process of universal mind.
There is an inner intelligence within matter that can be utilized by bacteria and viruses to make genetic alterations and become resistant to antibiotics and vaccines, and by man to become aware of somatic matters, induce self-healing, and reveal psychological insights. Just ask yourself who or what decides what you will dream about tonight? As Ernest Rossi shares, “The mind mediates what consciousness dictates,” and quantum physicists tell us that desire and intention alter the physical world, causing things to occur that would not normally occur if they were not desired.
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