Have you heard this one: What do you call a person who’s dyslexic, an insomniac and an agnostic? Someone who stays up all night, trying to decide if there really is a dog. (Badum-dum.)

The point being, even this old dog can learn a few new tricks. And remember what we say about no coincidences in God’s world.

Once again perusing the bookshelf here in rehab, and having read all the Hollywood tell-alls, I came across the autobiography of Carl Jung (1875-1961), entitled Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963 Engl. translation.) Knowing really nothing about him (I thought he was a poet!) I picked it up and read the introduction.

Before diving further into the book itself, I did a quick Wikipedia survey of Herr Jung, and boy, was my psyche tired! Turns out the Swiss-born Jung was a true renaissance man in psychology and philosophy, who spearheaded many new techniques in psychoanalysis as well as creating innovative socio-scientific concepts and terms that have since entered everyday use.

By 1906 Jung was already established as a physician and professor when he became a protege of Sigmund Freud. Together they wrote and lectured on Freud’s proposals regarding ego, sexuality and the conscious versus unconscious mind. Since I’m not an expert on Freud, I won’t venture here into unknown territory. Instead we’ll follow this thread as it pertains to how I relate to Jung’s later postulations, after he and Freud parted ways. (One egregious reason for their split diluted religion with politics: Freud being Jewish and Jung a Christian, and with WWI looming in Europe, Jung’s Aryan roots began to show. His later forays into Eastern religion appear to have somewhat mollified his earlier nationalism. )

What captivated me about Jung, on top of his astonishing output on a veritable spectrum of mind-bending themes, was my personal connection to several of his affinities, specifically dream analysis, self theory and (not ironically) addiction treatment. Let’s start with dreams.

I’ve always put great stock in my dreams, ever since my first nightmare before I was eight years old. My family and another were visiting the observation deck of the Empire State Building, when a strong gust of wind blew me over the side, and I awoke to my own scream. Over 50 years later that feeling of terror remains just as vivid.

As I grew into manhood the relevance of dreams became more prominent in my life, and I even began keeping a ‘dream journal’ next to my bed. The key to recalling details is to write them down immediately upon waking, then go back and reflect on them after a few strong cups of tea. Recurring themes included flying (the best,) sexual stimulation (not bad either) and re-visiting career scenarios and their various key players.

This last story-line would likely most interest Jung, via what he calles the ‘repression mechanism.’ Both he and Freud agreed that dreams are windows to the unconscious mind, and dreams return me to the best (prosperity and happiness) and worst (rejection or dismissal) episodes of my life. Just last night I had a career dream that included both ends of this spectrum, with the added wrinkle of inserting two bosses from different jobs, certainly an analytical field day in Jung’s world.

Jung also developed a philosophical viewpoint he called Individuation, a concept of personal distinctness that he referred to as the heart of all religions. (As mentioned, Jung was Christian but also embraced pantheism, and was a student of Buddhism, Hinduism and particularly Taoism and Gnosticism.) He defined Individuation as “a journey to meet the self and at the same time meet the divine.” This is a paradox I’ve been working on for some time, because even Jung would have to agree that in Buddhism the self is downplayed, as the cessation of personal desire creates the path to Nirvana.

Even in recovery I’ve felt Jung’s influence. As a psychoanalyst, he treated an American patient who was suffering from chronic alcoholism. When all else had failed Jung recommended spiritual rebirth as a path to abstinence. When that patient, Rowland Hazzard III, returned (sober) to America, he joined the Oxford Group, an evangelical organization, where he found continued support for his cure. Hazzard brought his acquaintance Ebby Thatcher into Oxford and she in turn recommended the group to her friend Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. (To read more about the Oxford Group’s influence on AA, click here.)

From our standpoint, dear readers, let’s wrap this up with a distinct example of synchronicity, another of Jung’s landmark precepts: the Oxford Group’s founder, Lutheran minister Frank Buchman, preached that fear and selfishness were the roots of all problems, a further parallel to our already-discussed Buddhist beliefs.

In 1959 Jung told the BBC’s Face to Face program: “I don’t have to believe in God. I know.”