The term “monkey mind” is an old buddhist description of how our ego minds jump from topic to topic from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. You might say, “We don’t have a monkey mind, it has us.” In other words it is so pervasive, repetitive, and non-stop that unless we are meditating or asleep, it has us. It runs us and causes our emotions to go up and down all day long and sometimes into our dreams.

Even it we “have” a monkey mind, it doesn’t mean we actually are this monkey mind. It is just a tool we can use to accomplish our goals. But if we let it run our lives with its restless chatter, then it does indeed, have us. It needs to be disciplined and put in its place. It is not who we are, for we are much more than this conglomeration of neural transmitters. It is merely an instrument in this body that helps us navigate through the physical world.
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The monkey mind is responsible for all the unrest, neurosis, violence, and upset in the world of human interactions. It keeps us awake at night and causes us to seek substances to subdue it. We are addicted to the monkey mind and its antics and then seek out other forms of addiction to quell it. And so, if we do not acknowledge this monkey mind and begin to tame it, it will, indeed, have us. And until we realize we are The Eternal Soul, we will experience its rambunctious behavior.

It could be. Our spirit guides find many pathways to communicate with us. Sometimes our waking consciousness is too filled with barricades that do not allow the world of the spirit in. This is why many people are visited by their guides and spirit animals before they go to sleep, in the middle of the night, or early morning. Their skeptical and self-doubting minds are at rest and they are open and receptive to messages from beyond.

We are more sensitive to the world of the spirit when we are not so consumed with all the things we need to get done and all the sensory input from the noisy world around us. Meditation offers that moment of inner silence. And into that peaceful vacuum can come your spirit animals to pay you a visit. Sometimes you may just feel their presence. Not everyone is visual in they way they perceive them.
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This is especially true for beloved animals that have crossed over yet are still protecting spirits for their human companions. They may appear only as sounds, a feeling of their presence, or even their scent. They are pure spirit but appear in the form that is the most appropriate.

Like the hidden part of an iceberg, the collective unconscious is something that all of us have but we don’t really know about. It rules our lives and shapes our decisions but this part of our psyche is not by choice. It is something we inherit. It depends on our ancestors, who they were and what their predispositions were. It is genetic. It has nothing to do with our current experiences and what we have learned from them
Jung proposed that the collective unconscious is common to all human beings and is responsible for a number of deep-seated beliefs and instincts involving spirituality, sexual behavior, and personality traits. Sometimes it is called the “objective psyche” because it is not in our control.
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Whereas Freud believed that the unconscious was the product of personal experiences, Jung believed that the unconscious was the product of collective experiences inherited in the genes. It is composed of a collection of knowledge and mental pictures that every person is born with and is shared by all human beings because of ancestral experience.
As individuals, we really don’t know what thoughts and pictures are in our collective unconscious, but once in a while someone breaks through due to trauma, paying attention to our dreams, or psychoactive drugs.

Jung felt that the reason all the world religions share common characteristics is the deep-seated collective unconscious. He also thought that morals, ethics, and concepts of fairness or right and wrong could be explained, not as the product of reasoning, but at least the collective unconscious is partially responsible.

He also explained phobias, such as the fear of snakes and spiders in children who never had trauma from these creatures. It is genetic memory that is responsible for their fears. Even seeing a picture of a snake or spider can cause fear, though the child has never seen a spider or snake in real life. Other fears that Jung imputed to the collective unconscious are social anxieties, fear of the dark, fear of loud sounds, phobias about bridges, or horror of blood may all stem from in this collective unconscious.

​While dreaming may be a universal to people, some individuals recall few or no dreams over many years. I know people like this. They suffer no ill consequences from not being able to dream, or not being able to remember, any dreams.
But these people still have an immortal soul, just as do the dreamers who have technicolor movies going on in their sleep.

Everyone has an immortal soul. And this soul exists, even if we don’t know about it, acknowledge it, or understand how to find it. By its very definition, the soul is immortal, cannot be destroyed, and exists eternally.
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Where does pain go when you are asleep? It is still there when you wake up. The same is true for the soul. It goes nowhere, it is right there when you wake up and exists apart from your mental recognition of it.

​Jennifer Windt wrote a book entitled Dreaming in which she makes a case that reasoning is not absent in the dream state and it falls into categories. While rational thought sometimes occurs in dreams, it may not be recognizable to the wakened mind if we do not know the categories that apply.
 
She categorizes this kind of dream-thinking into, “. . .the logical geography of concepts predominately used to describe standard, altered, and pathological wake states, such as ‘experience,’ ‘perception,’ ‘imagination,’ ‘belief,’ ‘delusion,’ and ‘self-consciousness.’ These ways of thinking are part of our waking reality and they are also present in our dreams.
 
This brings up a lot of questions about what is consciousness if our dream state shares the same kind of ideation as our wide awake life.

​In Jungian dream interpretation, dreaming about any house relates to your sense of self, your personal identity.
 
House dreams invite you to look deeply into your soul. What was it about that house in 2005 that describes where your Soul was at the time and where it is now? Ask yourself about the feelings that house brings up in you.
 
Recall as many details as you can about your 2005 house dream: The rooms, its outward appearance, what the space felt like inside, was the house in good condition, did it need repairs? These kinds of questions can uncover the meaning of this dream for you at this time of your life.