Soccer Practice

So the "boiling cauldron of contradictory impulses, inhibitions, and affects" would be the team and the Self/ coach the cook?

<abbr>Detlef Cordes´s last blog post..Piano Bossa: Two Willows</abbr>

Yes, Detlef, if this is a glimpse at the process of individuation. The psyche is the total of the conscious and the unconscious factors, and the Self often looked at as that archetypal center point from which the other archetypes emanate, both the center and the totality of the mandala.

Interpreted as a societal image, I tend to agree with your interpretation...but whose the coach? We'd have to think ideologies, government's, religions...

Hi Detlef,
Neat that this dream has such currency for you. I find the Ringo Starr analogy fascinating and recognize how you are taking the dream. In as much as it's your dream, and feel free to claim the story, I think you are correct.

From my perspective, it just doesn't go that way. One of Jung's teaching is the the ego is not the center of the psyche. He point to an ineffable reality called the Self, from which all archetypes manifest as the center. The ego is but one of the complexes in a myriad of complexes that make up our individuality. In as much as the complexes remain unconscious to the ego, we are unaware how they impact our conscious lives.

The issue of the dream points to a character defect which we could call justification. The Self, or the coach in this case want's to insure that the defeat that causes of the defeat that occurred are addressed.

The dream shows that my personal tendency to offer the excuse or justification is not solely rooted in the ego, which when challenges by the coach, is able to hold back. Instead it is unconscious factors or complexes that are acting autonomously that lead to that trigger type behavior.

The ego has no authority to boot out these destructive tendencies, but the Self does.

What's interesting about this dream is how it reveals that integration of unconscious elements into consciousness can radically change the makeup of the psyche and lead to a change in the personality. Integration in this case dispelled the negative influence from the unconscious.

Much of why I can speak with confidence about this is I am keenly aware of the questioning I was posing to the unconscious regarding my recent string of "defeats."

Can't tell you how thankful I am that your continued interest in this dream has led me to carry this interpretation out like this...

Richard, I hesitate to tell you what you dreamt. It's obviously embedded into your context, which I don't know.

If I take this dream and your comment as talking about an everyday event - I see a watershed here: is the game about winning (at all costs) or is it about playing a game? Playing a game in this case involves being a team. Being a team involves moving forward together.

I don't follow any sports. But music comes to my mind. Within each band there is the odd man, the apparently weakest part of the chain. The most prominent: Ringo Starr. In the sixties he was not a great drummer, he didn't have a great voice. Yet he is part of the Beatles sound with his odd work on the hi hat and the cymbals. I fits like nothing else could. Nobody can sing "With a Little Help of my Friends" or "Yellow Submarine" like Ringo Starr.

Okay - arguably what is true for music may not be true for team sports. But that's why I don't follow sports anymore. I'm not interested in games that are played just for winning.

<abbr>Detlef Cordes´s last blog post..This is the Way to Happiness</abbr>

Richard, thank you for sharing this. I sense a lot of pressure and relentlessness here. The powers are not pulling into the same direction and it's the coach playing foul here by setting a sinister trap. I would take a gut reaction in a dream serious. The coach has the authority - but it's not a good and wise one.

Hey Detlef,
That's in interesting take. I do not see the coach quite as sinister, as his approach is to move on and be better prepared for the next opponent. The harsh treatment of the players that raised their hands, the gut reaction I to had but resisted, was to stay justified in the bad outcome, which in many ways is a waste of energy. Nothing in the coach's action says he too doesn't recognize that the team was overpowered.

It's interesting, at the school I work I get to observed coaches working with teams and wrestling with all sorts of issues. It always comes down to the question of authority.