11.15.25 | Guest Presenter: Dr. Michael Conforti | Workshop: Dreams: Lifting the Veil to the Ineffable

“The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego-consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness extends.” – C.G. Jung

It is the simplicity of the dream, communicating to us in a language derived from the natural world that moves us so deeply.

Similar to the apparent simplicity of French composer Eric Satie’s music, we are mesmerized and taken to a realm far beyond everyday life into something that may be the domain of the Numinous. Just listening to the opening stanza of Satie’s Gymnopedie we sense that he was already transfixed, and needed to create music expressive of this world existing beyond the veil. Like the image, these sounds and rhythms convey the movement of the Self as it transports us into relationship with the sacred.

In the dream, patterns of life, of growth, and of endings are revealed through a rich tapestry of collective images and language. So too, the dream allows us to see that something in our life – perhaps a relationship, a job, or an attitude – is outdated, and that the Self, the soul is in need of renewal.

C.G. Jung was once asked why the dream speaks through symbols and not in the language of everyday life. To this question Jung responded by saying that such a direct communication would fall on deaf ears, and that the Self speaks through an iconographic, pictorial voice of the ages, the language of the “Antique Soul”. So too he reminds us that from time eternal, humanity has been moved by images, by sounds, parables, and symbols.

Could the majesty and utter beauty of Satie and Debussy’s music or DaVinci and Michelangelo’s art ever be conveyed in words?

This seminar offers a glimpse into the world of the archetypal, providing an approach to the image that aligns with Jung’s understanding of dream symbols as powerfully constellated messages from the Self.

The Library welcomes guest presenter Dr. Michael Conforti, a Jungian analyst and the Founder/ Director of the Assisi Institute. Dr. Conforti is a faculty member at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, and Boston, and for many years served as a Senior Associate faculty in the Doctoral and Master’s Programs in Clinical Psychology at Antioch New England.  A pioneer in the field of matter-psyche studies, for more than 40 years, Dr. Conforti has been actively investigating the workings of archetypal fields and the relationship between Jungian psychology and the New Sciences.
    He has presented his work to a wide range of national and international audiences, including the C.G. Jung Institute-Zurich and Jungian organizations in Austria, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Romania, Russia, South Africa, the Ukraine and Venezuela.
   He is the author of Threshold Experiences: The Archetype of Beginnings (2007) and Field, Form and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature and Psyche (2002), and his articles have appeared in Psychological Perspectives, The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, Roundtable Press, World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution, and Spring Journal.  His books have been translated into Italian, Russian, and Spanish.

This workshop is an in-person only event. However, guests and remote enthusiasts are warmly invited to register for Dr. Conforti’s Thursday evening  lecture (a HYBRID offering) on November 13th from 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. : The Voice of Psyche and What Shapes a Life ~ The Presence of Archetypes in our Life and in Dreams