Bear With Me
On January 11, 2026, I laid down for a guided self-hypnosis session, one of Dick Sutphen’s Astral Projection Workshop tracks. It’s an old one that I’ve been returning to when I don’t really feel like I have a particular direction to focus on and am limited on time. I’ve mentioned the following many times before: I absolutely love the depths that Sutphen’s method takes me to. By the time you’re taken further into the deep end, you begin to really understand what riding the razor’s edge between losing consciousness and being aware is. The best part is how heavy and non-existent the physical body becomes, which is absolutely crucial.
Lately I’ve been experiencing low rumbling spinal vibrations as the physical body falls asleep. The sensation isn’t new, but the frequency and timing definitely are. It’s important to mention that hypnosis, self-hypnosis, meditation, meditation with binaural beats, Gateway tapes, etc., are all methods to enter human trance. All of them operate with different frameworks put in place for assisting in mentally navigating state changes. The low and rumbling vibrations illustrate this rather well. I know that the spinal vibrations I’ve been experiencing lately come on during settling into Focus 10, or “mind awake, body asleep.” That’s not the language used for Sutphen’s hypnosis, but sure enough it still happens because these are natural abilities and processes which are not dependent on any one specific system. They all help in accessing the same stuff and work in the same space, but it is important to understand that none of them are responsible for anything you experience.
They are wayfinding systems. Why so many? Everyone is different. Everyone will respond or not respond to these systems, but it isn’t the systems themselves that grant these experiences. All of the work, understanding gained, beliefs turned into knowing—all of it is on you. Everything else involved is a tool or technology designed to first assist you and ultimately teach you (about yourself).
Often we find a technology or process that assists us so well in our endeavors that we become attached and dependent on them. We begin to place more importance and care in those tools rather than in ourselves. In other words, we shift our trust away from ourselves and place it in those non-fundamental aspects.
The Dream
While I did not project nor have a lucid dream, I did have a fun little (Jungian) dream sequence. The beginning of this dream focused on a shirtless man grooming a brown bear. Hell yeah, Brother! We’re off to a great start!
At first I was a little confused, naturally, but very quickly it got even more confusing. So I’m watching this bald guy: he was pretty built, and I assume you’d have to be considering how casual he was about grooming this bear. That last point made me think, “Hmm, looks like this happens a lot.”
He leans over and whispers something into the bear’s ear, then he mounts the brown beast like a horse. The bear and the rider take off through the snow-covered ground. It appears that I’m observing from a bird’s-eye view, like an eagle or owl flying above the dream’s subjects. It’s a crisp winter day; you can see their breath trailing even from my very high vantage point.
I was quite impressed by the steady pace that the bear kept and the jacked bald dude just nonchalantly riding it. They pick up the pace right when there’s a deer galloping in front of them, or rather away from them. The bear hits the accelerator, and now they’re really off to the races.
The trio climbs high up the mountain, and now I can no longer see the deer. Must have gotten away, veered off—maybe its mission was fulfilled. The bear and the rider continue on. Now near the top of the mountain, the bear slows down and begins navigating the snow-covered ridge.
I see the rider lean to his left, hanging half-off the bear as it continues to move forward. Since they’re so high up, I notice that the rider is intently looking for something down below. It’s a little confusing given the situation—I mean the entire vision isn’t something I’d call ordinary to begin with.
Suddenly the rider leaps off the bear and down the face of the mountain as if to base jump and/or proximity fly, except there’s one crucial detail: there’s no gear on him. At the same time, the bear continues up the mountain, and I lose track of it.
The now-falling “Discount God of War” repositions himself in a head-first dive. The ground of the valley is fast approaching, and at this point I’m thinking that I’m about to witness a gruesome ending.
At the last second a chute opens. From where, though? The bear-less rider lands ever so gently on the valley floor and looks up at the mountain he just leapt from.
The dream ended.
The Dream Analysis
There were a few head-turning situations in this one. At several points in the dream the basic fear reaction should have been prompted, but for the majority of it I remained curious and unable to turn away. That emotional neutrality suggests this is subconscious communicating operational capability, not threat processing.
The Brown Bear
Yes, I know—my surname makes the “bear” imagery very stereotypical. I don’t think that was the purpose. A more potent read on the beast would position it as shadow integration, considering this dream’s close proximity to my recent major shadow work reducing psychological entropy and expanding my aperture for altered states.
The grooming ritual before mounting presents itself as conscious tending to that integrated shadow material. The whisper in the ear alludes to intimate communication with what was once wild/unconscious. The cooperative ride underlines shadow energy now working with me rather than against or independent of me.
The bear was my anger which has been transmuted into aggression. Rage that was once destructive and unconscious is now harnessed, rideable, powerful. I whisper to it, groom it, mount it, and it carries me exactly where I need to go.
The Wayfinding Deer
The deer was not helpless, it was not in distress, there was absolutely zero danger to it. The deer was leading the bear-rider duo up the mountain to the specific ridge where the leap needed to happen. Once it served that function, it vanished.
A perspective: my subconscious is using animal guides to navigate terrain and position me at the right location for the next phase.
Jungian Amplification
The mountaintop represents consciousness peak, elevated perspective. The valley serves as a return to ground/integration. The leap without visible equipment demonstrates ego death/surrender to archetypal forces. The chute appearing is a symbol of Self provision, the psyche’s inherent self-regulating function. The bird’s-eye observer is the transcendent function witnessing ego operations.
I am being shown integration in action. Shadow cooperative, animal wisdom providing navigation, ego trusting non-physical mechanics enough to take the leap, and witness consciousness observing the entire operation from the view that exposes the gestalt rather than focusing on individual symbolism.
The Not-So-Hidden Shadow
This dream is double-sided and very cleverly weaves together shadow work, transmutation, abilities, and most importantly the next big obstacle that remains.
Trust in my aggression (when to strike), trust in the process (the deer leading me), trust in timing (the leap), trust in non-physical support (the chute from nowhere), trust in the landing (always gentle).
I have the operational capability, the infrastructure is built, the transmutation is complete, and the integration is functional. Yet I still, somehow, haven’t been able to fully trust, to truly let go and flow.
What remains is trusting that I can trust.
The rider in the dream doesn’t analyze where the chute is stored or how it will deploy. He just knows. Everything about this scene from start to finish has read like routine work, the empirical trust built from repeated gentle landings.
I am once again reminded of the following quote by Neville Goddard:
Stop looking for signs. Signs follow, they do not precede. Begin to reverse the statement ‘seeing is believing’ to ‘believing is seeing.’ … You will find that you’re not the victim of fate but a victim of faith—your own.”
Subconscious communicates through symbolism, and it’s saying: leap.
