Interviewing Hitler
The following interview is an example of reincorporating disowned shadow in a classical Jungian sense or in a way that is understood and embraced by Ken Wilber’s Integral AQAL. What those models miss is that disowned shadow does not view itself as disowned shadow. That’s a waking interpretation and a waking projection. What we call disowned shadow sees itself as largely autonomous and as competent in ways that waking identity never has been. Such possibilities are not disowned shadow. They are yet-to-be-incorporated potentials.
What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?
1. Reaching children with IDL.
2. Networking.
3. Initiative, drive, focus
Tell me a dream you remember. It can be an old one, a repetitive dream, a nightmare, or one that you’re sure you understand.
I have been given Hitler, who is unconscious or in some sort of state of hibernation, to look after. I am worried that he could wake up at any minute. I am carrying him around in a car. He’s laid out flat. I find some guy to lie down with him and keep an eye on him. All the time I am trying to figure out what to do with him.
I am running toward my car, which is parked catty-corner, on the other side of a busy intersection, just before the light, at the bottom of a hill. I have to stop for traffic. I see a long, low metallic vehicle cruise by. Then as I walk toward my car I realize another one has pulled up next to my car and five or so big guys are completely going through it, taking everything apart. It could be government, it could be military, but it is anonymous and it is unstoppable. A woman in the group sees me and starts yelling questions at me. I know I’m going to be caught up in whatever this is about. I vaguely feel I carried something contraband in my car. Hitler?
Why do you think that you had this dream?
I went to Prora day before yesterday on Rügen, near Binz, where Hitler had a huge “vacation paradise” built for 20,000 at a time. It stretches for miles along the Baltic sea. Although I’ve been to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, Prora was the closest I have felt to a sense of the reality of Hitler since I’ve lived in Germany. In the museum at Prora there were all sorts of pre-WWII and WWII Nazi memorabilia and newspaper articles with Hitler’s picture, making those times very vivid, present, and contemporary, and I could imagine being alive then.
If it were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?
Being Responsible for Hitler
These are the characters in the dream…
Hitler, my car, my friend, the intersection, vehicles, woman, guys
If one character had something especially important to tell you, which would it be?
Hitler
Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor? It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind. If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!
Hitler, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?
I’m in some sort of coma-like state. I can’t wait to wake up to reassert my authority and will.
What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?
I get what I want. I can make almost anyone, most of the time, do what I want, get me whatever I want. I do it through fear. I like that you are afraid of me. You should be, or I’ll kill you, or worse.
What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What are they?
I do not like that I am in this coma-like state. I do not like that my power can be checked.
Hitler, you are in this Joseph’s life experience, correct? They created you, right? What aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?
The potential of awakened malevolence within himself.
Hitler, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change? If so, how?
I wouldn’t go into comas. I would be clever enough to always stay well ahead of those who are trying to catch me, to limit me, to take away, limit, or destroy my power to do whatever I want to whomever I want.
(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)
Hitler, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing? Why?
Confidence: 10 I have great confidence in my ability to intimidate people into doing what I want. I have great confidence in the power of fear, lies, and buying people off.
Compassion: 0
Wisdom 7 You would say that I am merely smart, but I have a great deal of experience in what works and what does not. You may not like my type of wisdom; you may not agree with it, but it gets real results that people have to respect, whether they like it or not. Most people secretly wish they had my ability to get what I want. You envy it too, if you were honest with yourself.
Acceptance: 8 I accept who and what I am. Do you?
Inner Peace: 0 I am not interested in inner peace. I want more power and control.
Witnessing: 7 I could not have accomplished what I have already accomplished if I did not have considerable witnessing ability.
Hitler, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different? If so, how?
Of course. I would only want to change if it woke me up out of this coma without changing me. I couldn’t be me if I had any desire for either compassion or inner peace.
How would the life of Joseph be different if he naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?
He would accomplish his goals, that’s for sure. He already has considerable inner peace and a good portion of compassion. What I have that he doesn’t is unstoppable confidence, wisdom about dealing with people, no self-doubt, and a determination to follow through with my plans. Using me as a part of him to get what he want scares him, because he thinks it’s playing with fire, unscrupulous, and may set the worst parts of him free to be destructive. But I am a part of him, and I represent aspects of his life force that are not only effective, but whose absence not only keep him from being whole, but keep him afraid of himself.
If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?
I would be in command, in control. I would use others to get what I want. I would not worry about whether or not I was manipulating them or whether the end was justifying the means. I would instead know that others were getting some of their needs met or they wouldn’t be giving me what I want. He can do a whole lot more of this without getting into the Drama Triangle. That’s what he needs to be afraid of, not me.
If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently? If so, how?
1. Give away his book on nightmares. Get the names of sources on line that deal with them, night terrors, and PTSD. Send them unsolicited copies.
2. He needs to then network with those people. See how that goes. Then consider duplicating with other manuscripts.
3. Take this project and practice initiative, drive, and focus toward it. If you focus on other things you will lose your focus.
What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?
Learning that you can access the strengths you associate with the threatening, selfish parts of yourself without being threatening or selfish. That one is enough!
In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?
When you need determined, willful focus to see your task through to completion, regardless of what it is. This is what people secretly admire about me and what scares the hell out of them.
Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?
To get him to see how he’s thrown the baby out with the bath water. To have him see how he has disowned strengths he needs out of his fear that he will be devoured by his weaknesses.
How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?
His fear of becoming or appearing to be like Hitler.
What would you recommend that they do about that?
Realize that is grandiosity. He in no way has what it takes to become a Hitler. It’s a twisted form of narcissism for him to imagine that he could be ruthless or malevolent. It’s neither his nature nor in his agenda, and he has the self-awareness, including his Sangha, to catch those tendencies as they arise.
I think this person had this dream because
He needs to own positive qualities that he has disowned out of fear of misusing them.
I think this dream event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…
The stripping of his car was a way of saying, “You have this Hitler aspect, and you are going to have to admit it and deal with it.”
What have you heard yourself say?
That it is better to understand and appreciate the fascination of evil and to learn from it than to pretend that you are not that and be both controlled and limited by your dishonesty, repression, and fear of it.
If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?
Claim all of who you are, good, bad, and ugly. Trust that the universe is big enough to accept and use all of you. That when you get “wake up calls” from your dreams through IDL interviews, you not only awaken your strengths and potentials, but those parts of yourself that you fear and that you need to face to become whole.
If you would like a copy of the referenced book on nightmares, email me at Joseph.Dillard@Gmail.Com.
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