Magic 8-Ball Mind

Sat, 05/20/2023 - 15:51

My subconscious operates like one of those “Magic 8-Balls”. Just as I am humming along, thinking the day is going pretty well, something or someone will trigger a long forgotten memory. I won’t have asked ANY questions, but there it will be, that memory of an event or a person like it had been sitting at the bottom of whatever oily liquid it floats in, just waiting for something to shake it up so it can reveal its ugly answer to whatever question it perceives I have asked.

It’s not like I’m at war with it, or anything. I frequently order up dreams of one kind or another. But that doesn’t always pay off, either. Say I want a calm dream of meeting a friend in a quiet garden or by the sea. The response I get could very well be a dystopian dream or one of being expected to go on stage not knowing my lines.

I do know that these burps and misleading responses could very well be easily interpreted by any qualified Jungian. But frankly I’m getting a bit annoyed. I have tried, over the course of many years, and in many professional settings, to interpret what gets shown up on the screen of my mind’s eye. And when I break these things down for my conscious mind, they all seem way too simplistic and obvious. I expected that there would be more sophistication in my subconscious, more nuance, a bit of subtlety. But no, usually after consideration I see a child’s drawing of a horsey or a boat or a bowl of spaghetti. The cause and effect is no Wagnerian Opera, as I had thought it would be, but only a simple little ditty like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.