Dreams, Alchemy and Jung.
an intimate talk and discussion
with Dr Grace Hogstad from Pacifica Graduate Institute
Sunday October 30, 2016
5pm - 7pm
Photo: Artist Unknown
This Halloween, Inner Fields will be hosting an intimate talk and discussion around dream interpretation with Dr Grace Hogstad. Exploring the basics of Jungian dream work, Grace will describe four of her own personal dreams and their related archetypal symbolism. Through this study, we will reflect on how dream work can provide insight into the actualization of our own potential, and how finding one's destiny involves listening to this inner guidance system.
Jung uses Alchemy—an ancient art of transmuting ordinary substance like lead into precious metal like gold—as the metaphor to describe the psychological development of a human being. It was through understanding the experiences of alchemists that Jung understood his own inner experiences. The three stages of alchemy—nigredo (blackening), albedo (whitening) and rubedo (reddening) describe this transmutation of substance to a higher state, and this discussion will involve the dreams and archetypes involved in these stages.
Grace Hogstad was born in the Philippines, where she awakened to consciousness living in a one-room thatched shack with her parents, an older sister, and a younger brother. When she was eight her mother died from childbirth and her father could not take care of six children; their newborn brother was adopted, and the rest of the five siblings moved in with their aunt and uncle, where they were treated as second-rate citizens and beaten. It was then that Grace began to dream of getting out of poverty and of abuse. Education was going to be her ticket out.
After finishing her Bachelor’s degree in English and getting the well-paying job she sought, she found freedom and began to help her siblings with their education. She came to the US at age 24, got married, and became a real estate broker, successfully operating her own business while raising her three children. But when her last child left home to go to college, she also left town, and her business, to begin her inward journey and her quest of becoming a writer. Her search led to her doctoral study of the mythologies of the world. In July of 2015, she completed her PhD in Mythological Studies with Emphasis in Depth Psychology.