Hanging Dream

I don't usually report my dreams on this blog but last night's dream was unusual. I was scheduled to be hung along with a small group of maybe three other men. The site was a single story house on acreage. Initially I was on the verandah and there were lots of people about, chatting and enjoying themselves. There a party atmosphere such as might have existed back in the early 19th century in England when hanging of criminals was public and a source of entertainment. 

I was free to move about and nobody seemed to be paying attention to me. I pondered whether to run away and thought about hiding at John Contarino's house. I knew my old school friend was dead but that meant there was a spare room that his mother might let me use. It didn't occur to me that she was long dead. I knew I'd be found however, and things might be even worse for me. There was an awful sense of dread knowing that I was to be executed. I couldn't believe that my existence was about to end.

I've had similar dreams in the past, though not many. At one point I asked Baba for help which I've never done before. Earlier in the evening I'd been talking to Sabina about the timing of my passing. A Pak Haji whom she had known predicted that I would decline healthwise once she graduated. She herself felt that my demise would occur soon after she got engaged. That's not on the cards at the moment but her current boyfriend in the United States is planning to visit mid-year. I'll have to wait and see how that relationship evolves. Clearly that conversation with Sabina and discussion of my time of death had prompted the dream.

I remember thinking in the dream that hanging was a nasty way to go and that I would have preferred a bullet. As my concern showed, I'm still very much attached to my body and my physical existence. The fact that I called out to Baba is positive I guess. I've only done this once before in a dream when I was falling to my death and remembered to take His name before impact. Here is a description of the merriment accompanying public executions.

Public hangings in early 19th-century England were major, rowdy public spectacles, often attracting thousands of spectators who treated the events as entertainment, with vendors selling food and drink. Executions typically occurred at locations like Newgate Prison for offenses ranging from murder to theft, continuing until 1868. 

Jungian Dream Analysis

 I asked Gemini to comment on a dream that I had last night. I used the following prompt:

Imagine you are my Jungian therapist. I'm going to relate a dream I had last night and I want you to analyse it from a Jungian perspective. I am a 76 year old male who grew up in Australia but am currently living in Indonesia and has been married to his Indonesian wife for 25 years. I mention this because she appears (indirectly) in the dream. Here is the dream:

I'm in a house that is not my own but I appear to be living in it with my wife who is taking a shower while the events I'm about to describe unfold. I'm in the living room when I notice a rhinoceros in the house that is restrained in some way. It has a short but sharp horn and starts swinging its head from side to side. The velocity of this movement quickly gathers pace and it soon breaks free of its restraints and is able to move about freely.

Here was its response (I'm still processing what was said and may comment later):

Hello. I am honored to step into this role for you. Thank you for sharing such a visceral and powerful dream. The fact that this dream crossed the threshold of sleep and caused you to shout in physical reality suggests that the unconscious is demanding to be heard. It has a high "energetic charge."

Given your specific request for a decisive interpretation without ambiguity, I will present to you the single most potent Jungian narrative that fits these symbols, your age, and your life context.

The Core Theme: The Liberation of the Archaic Self

This is not a dream of danger, despite your fear within it. This is a dream of expansion.

At 76, you are in what Jung called the "Second Half of Life," where the goal shifts from social achievement to Individuation—becoming who you truly are, stripped of social masks. The "House that is not your own" represents your current psychic structure or even your aging physical body. It feels unfamiliar because you are entering a new phase of existence where old rules no longer apply.

The dream is telling us that your instinctual life force (Libido) is breaking its chains. You are no longer meant to "restrain" your deepest, heaviest, and most powerful nature.

The Symbolic Breakdown

1. The Restrained Rhinoceros (The Primeval Drive) The rhinoceros represents a prehistoric, earthy, and solitary power. In Jungian analysis, this is the "Shadow"—not as "evil," but as the raw, unrefined energy of life. The horn represents focused, penetrating power (masculine principle). The fact that it was restrained implies that for much of your life, you may have held back your bluntest, most stubborn, or most powerful instincts to fit into social structures (Australia) or perhaps cultural adaptations (Indonesia).

The shaking head: This is the build-up of kinetic energy. The psyche is saying, "I can no longer stay still. I can no longer be polite."

2. The Wife in the Shower (The Unavailable Anima) Your wife here functions as the Anima—your inner soul, your feeling function, and the bridge to the unconscious.

Why is she showering? She is engaging in purification and renewal. She is "naked" (authentic) and turning inward.

Why doesn't she answer? This is crucial. Your conscious Ego (the you in the dream) is panicking and trying to drag the Anima into your panic. Her silence is the psyche’s way of telling you: “There is no emergency here that the feeling function needs to solve. Do not look to the wife/mother figure for safety. You must face this energy alone.”

3. The Elephant (The Great Wisdom) Suddenly, the Elephant appears. In Jungian symbology, the elephant is the remover of obstacles and a symbol of ancient, heavy wisdom and memory. It is larger than the rhino. This tells us that behind your raw drive (Rhino) stands a massive, slow-moving, unstoppable wisdom (Elephant). This validates the Rhino; it says this breakout is supported by a deeper power.

The Interpretation

You are experiencing a Vitality Breakthrough.

The fear you felt was not because the animals were attacking you—they explicitly were not hostile. The fear was regarding their size and unpredictability. This is the classic ego-reaction to the numinous (the awe-inspiring power of the unconscious). You are realizing that there are forces within you that are bigger than your conscious control.

The animals did not destroy the house; they smashed a window. A window is a viewpoint—a way of looking at the world.

Here is the decisive meaning: The psychological structures and restraints you built up over 76 years are too small for the spirit you possess now. The "House" (your current adaptation to life) is too cramping. Your inner nature (the Rhino and Elephant) has decided to break the window—to shatter your old outlook—so it can escape into the open.

The dream indicates that you are possessing a surge of "late-life libido." This isn't necessarily sexual; it is creative, assertive, and heavy presence. You are being called to stop restraining your "bigness." The dream implies you have been too careful, perhaps too adapted to your environment, and your soul wants to roam free.

Summary

Your unconscious is shouting (literally, through your mouth) that it refuses to be domesticated any longer. The animals escaping represents a successful liberation of your energy. You survived the encounter, and the animals are now free. This is a positive omen of a vigorous spirit that refuses to fade away quietly.

***********************************

See blog post titled The Way Forward from July 2025.

Francis Brabazon

I don't normally write about my dreams on this blog but last night I had a very odd dream in which Francis Brabazon appeared and gave me a gold coin that I recognised as a "Brabazon" and spoke that word, albeit with some difficulty. I had mentioned Meher Baba in a text message I sent to a friend just before retiring for the night. What it means I don't know but it seems positive enough. 

Francis was Baba's resident poet and one of the mandali (close disciples). He was Australian. Although he was born in London, his family migrated to Australia when he was a boy. After living with Baba in India for many years, he returned to Australia after Baba's passing and lived Avatar's Abode, north of Brisbane, until his death in 1984. His grave is located there.

A Belated Farewell

Last night, I dreamed about a childhood friend named John Contarino. We were walking towards his house and as we approached it, the house became what looked like, in retrospect, a sepulchre or crypt. There were white steps leading down to a rectangular pool about the dimensions of an average grave. Oddly, but then again it was a dream, John had been driving a car, a Volkswagon I think, and he parked it squarely on the stairs behind me after I had descended them.

I skirted the pool by walking on its concrete edges and to my right there a slightly open door with light spilling out. This was his house but I didn't look in and proceeded to emerge from the crypt and continue on my way. John was no longer with me but instead I realised that I was already late for school in my capacity as a teacher. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 8:45am and I had missed roll call that took place at 8:40am. The class that I needed to teach was already seated and waiting for me. I started to panic and try to wake myself up and eventually succeeded after my wife shook me.

On awakening, I felt that this dream might have been a premonition that he had passed away. After all, he would have turned 75 in December and he had been a heavy smoker. Later in the day, I checked out the funeral notices for Brisbane and discovered that he had died on August 8th 2013 at the age of 63. He had been born in December of 1949. I think it was on the 12th of the month but I'll have to check. Figure 1 shows the funeral notice.

Figure 1

It would be interesting if his final resting place at Nudgee Cemetary was a crypt. Given his Italian heritage, the family could well have had such a structure built. Why I should dream of him now, so many years later, I don't know. He's not someone that I remember having dreamed about for decades. As the notice says, he had two children, Gina and Salvatore. He was married in late 1993 or early 1994 and I attended his wedding in Brisbane with my then wife Sylvia. So it goes. That was the last time I ever had contact with him. I was living in Sydney at the time and this was before the Internet. In January 1996, Sylvia and I headed overseas.

John arrived at Marist Brothers Rosalie, where we both attended school, in Grade 5. This was way back in 1959. We became firm friends and would often walk back home together after school. He was a bright student and we both attended University together, although we both dropped out after a couple of years. He suffered a mental breakdown in his early twenties and remained on psychiatric medication thereafter, while I knew him, and probably for the rest of his life. There are so many memories that I have of him and I guess I'm still processing the news of his passing. We played innumerable games of chess together. We both trained for long distance running.

Eternal Divine Bliss

I'd read the following quote before but never fully understood it but on reading it this time, it made more sense. The quote arrived via a regular Meher Baba newsletter.

WHEN BABA SAYS “HE HAS COME TO ME” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

(May 1958) Charles Purdom asked, “Will you comment on what you mean by ‘to come to me’?”

Baba replied:

To come to me means liberation, experiencing me as I am, no more bondage of births and deaths. But it does not mean the state of a Perfect Master or Perfection. That is only to be attained while alive in the gross body. So if you are not blessed with this state of Perfection [while in the body], at least you can have liberation [after the body drops].

If you just take my name, just at the moment of dropping your body, you will come to me. Yes, anyone. It is not easy to take my name at the very moment of leaving the body. Then you individually experience bliss, infinite bliss. After attaining liberation, you continue to experience infinite bliss eternally. Why? Because it belongs to you eternally. You experience what belonged to you eternally. Even spiritual ecstasy cannot be compared with divine bliss. Remember this.

Lord Meher, Original Publication, Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 15, pp. 5444 – 5445.

This is certainly something to aspire to, although in practice almost impossible to execute. However, I still remember a dream in which I tumbled off a cliff and was hurtling toward the ground with a house also tumbling down right above me. If the impact of the fall didn't kill me, the house crashing down on me certainly would. I knew I was finished and was only seconds from death. I fumbled to access my wallet containing Baba's photo but realised that I didn't have time and ended up taking Baba's name instead.

At least in the dream I was able to take Baba's name at the moment of dropping my body so maybe one day I'll be able to do so in real life.

My Grandfather's Clock

My father gave me his father's gold pocket watch when I left home in late 1973 and it was stolen a couple of years later in a house break-in. He was clearly disappointed when I told him later and I was upset by its loss when it happened but there's was nothing to be done except to accept its loss.

Last night I dreamt that a watch of mine had broken when I dropped it. In appearance, it was some weird composite of a smartphone, wristwatch and pocket watch and I remember trying to get it fixed. There was no resolution of the problem. However, I was quite soon after this splashing about in a pool and diving underwater.

Upon awakening, I associated this with the amniotic fluid of the womb and the broken chronometer, reminiscent of my grandfather's fob watch, was a sign that my time was up. Admittedly the night before, I had been contemplating my mortality as I lay in bed trying unsuccessfully to sleep.

With my birthday a little over two weeks away, I seem to be somewhat preoccupied with my mortality as if turning 75 is somehow more significant than other birthdays. Meher Baba died 25 days short of his 75th birthday and I'm now past that point with about 19 days remaining. 

Daniel Norgren's song "Everything You Know Melts Away Like Snow" playing on my phone as I write this. I play this song quite often on my guitar.

Everything you know

Everything you know

Melts away like snow

Melts away like snow (mm-hmm, mm-hmm)

Everyone you love

Everyone you love

Grass will grow above

Grass will grow above (mm-hmm, mm-hmm)

Cold black starry night

Cold black starry night

Makes my day look bright

Makes my day look bright (mm-hmm, mm-hmm)

Never comes the day

Never comes the day

That keeps the night away

Keeps the night away (mm-hmm, mm-hmm)

New green grass will grow

New green grass will grow

Folks will come and go

Folks will come and go (mm-hmm, mm-hmm)

Speaking of music, the title of this post is also that of a old song that goes like this:

So the old man lived ninety years in this song. Will I last that long? 

The Barefoot Dreamer

On the night prior to March 29th 2021, I dreamt that I was barefoot. I had just stepped out of a house (unidentified) and realised that I was barefoot. I immediately returned to the house to retrieve my shoes but I had been on my way to the airport to catch a flight to somewhere. 

On the night prior to April 2nd 2021, I dreamed that I was approaching the bus stop just down from the corner of Milton Road and Hale Street, near my maternal grandparents' home. I had obviously walked up from there. As I approached the bus stop, I noticed my first ever girlfriend sitting there but suddenly realised I was barefoot. I thought about asking her for the money for the bus trip but realised I was still without footwear. Together we rummaged through a pile of discarded thongs but couldn't find a matching pair. All of the thongs were green and ugly. Again I was intending to travel somewhere.

What's common in both dreams is that I'm surprised to suddenly discover that I'm barefoot and make an immediate effort to find footwear. It's not that I've made a conscious decision to step out in public barefoot. I've done it inadvertently. About a year ago, I was strongly into "earthing" after reading the book "Earthing" by Clinton Ober and others. I even bought an earthing blanket so that I could be earthed as I slept. I stopped using it after a couple of months and haven't bothered it since but I've always felt that the idea of earthing made a lot of sense. In the light of my dreams, I've resurrected the blanket and have put it under my feet while I'm typing at my desk. It can't hurt.

The dream is probably psychological in meaning but in terms of my daily life over the past year or so, it's only earthing that comes to mind. However, I have been lately thinking about harnessing my psychic energy for healing purposes and the idea of earthing sort of ties in with this. Some of the techniques I've been working with, shaping psi-balls or energy-balls, might be enhanced by means of simultaneous earthing.

Source: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Psi-Ball

Meanwhile my 72nd solar return occurs at 2:39pm Jakarta time today so that might be a good time to experiment. Chiron is strongly involved in this solar return and the mythological figure of Chiron was associated by Jung with 'the wounded healer':

In Greek mythology, the centaur Chiron was a "Wounded Healer", after being poisoned with an incurable wound by one of Hercules's arrows. Jung mentioned the Chiron myth "wounding by one's own arrow means, first of all, the state of introversion". For Jung, "a good half of every treatment that probes at all deeply consists in the doctor's examining himself... it is his own hurt that gives a measure of his power to heal. This, and nothing else, is the meaning of the Greek myth of the wounded physician." Jung felt that depth psychology can be potentially dangerous, because the analyst is vulnerable to being infected by his analysand's wounds by having his own wounds reopened. To avoid this, the analyst must have an ongoing relationship with the unconscious, otherwise he or she could identify with the "healer archetype", and create an inflated ego. Withdrawal of both projections may however ultimately activate the powers of the inner healer in the patients themselves. Jung’s closest colleague, Marie Louise Von Franz, said “the wounded healer IS the archetype of the Self [our wholeness, the God within] and is at the bottom of all genuine healing procedures.” Jungians warn of the dangers of inflation and splitting in the helping professions, involving projection of the 'wounded' pole of the archetype onto the patient alone, with the analyst safely separated off as 'healer.

 It was interesting to read what Von Franz said:

“the wounded healer IS the archetype of the Self [our wholeness, the God within] and is at the bottom of all genuine healing procedures.”

189

It's not often that I have a very explicit dream about numbers or a number. Last night I was aware that I was in a long queue with unseen people and a voice announced that we should take note of the number that was displayed on the back of the person in front of us. The number was displayed in large black print and in my case the number was 189. I had been thinking of slipping away and leaving the queue but then I realised that the person behind me would have noted the number displayed on my back and that I was thus a marked man.

That was the extent of the dream, although there is a vague memory of another number which I think was 1094. However, this recollection is more mental quite different to my close-up and very visual encounter with 189. On waking, I was left wondering what was the significance of this number. Firstly, it should be noted that 189 wasn't MY number. It was the number on the back of the person in the queue. Given that I was behind this person in a winding line of other people, it might be supposed that my number was 190. However, this is sheer conjecture. Let's return to 189 and explore the properties of this number because this is the number that I saw so clearly and closely in front of me.

The site AngelNumbers had this to say:

The number 189 does not appear at random, especially if it is frequent. If you have noticed this number too often, it is a sign from the angelic realm. Indeed, your guardian angels want to get in touch with you. They have a message to give you, but to find out, you will have to look for the meaning of the angelic number 189.

In order to help you find the message from your guardian angels, we will immediately give you the full meaning of the angelic number 189. To capture what the angelic realm is trying to send you, be attentive while reading while remaining focused.

Trust, you are fully supported financially if you focus your time and energy on your divine purpose of life which consists of spiritual topics for which you are passionate. Your guardian angels also tell you that you will need to have faith and confidence that your financial needs will be met while you pursue your goal of divine life.

The message that comes with the angelic number 189 is that the world needs your talents and skills, you will now have to fully live your goals and passions. Your guardian angels support you, surround you with love and encourage you. Also, it's time to consider a new job or a change of profession or career. You will have to free yourself from the old so that you can do something you love.

The angelic number 189 prompts you to begin a new stage in your life that will allow you to become a worker of light in the service of your fellow men and of all humanity. Your positive attitude and affirmations about the purpose of your divine life will give you the opportunity to serve as your soul dictates to you. Allow blessings to enter your life, and use them to your advantage and the benefits of others. By serving the purpose of your soul, you manifest good at all levels.

The number 189 is a mixture of the energies of the number 1, the vibrations of the number 8 and the influences of the number 9. The number 1 symbolises creation, new beginnings, willpower, ambition, motivation, insight, intuition, inspiration, status and initiative. It also encourages you to step out of your comfort zone while reminding yourself that you are creating your own reality with your thoughts, beliefs, and actions.                         

The number 8 represents the influences of inner wisdom, authority, reliability, patience, practicality, material success, wealth, abundance, and karma, universal and the universal and spiritual law of cause and effect. The number 9 resonates with the positive example for others, compassion, benevolence, service to humanity and generosity while vibrating with the ends and conclusions.

Another site, also on the theme of angel numbers, had this say: 

What Does 189 Mean?

189=1+8+9=18, 1+8=9

If you see angel number 189, the message relates to the field of relationships and hobbies and says that You acted wisely having opened your soul to the world, having ceased to demand visible and tangible benefits from it. From now on, nothing will prevent you from doing only what your heart draws you to. You may come across minor disappointments and big trouble on the chosen path. But there will be much more joy and happiness anyway. This is the indefeasible law of the universe, which you must faithfully believe in.

I didn't know what "indefeasible" meant so I had to look up its meaning:

All this talk about new beginnings and fulfilling my potential fits in nicely with my forthcoming 72nd birthday when one is naturally drawn to thinking about the purpose of ones life and how best to spend the remaining time.