Pierce Wise

People tend to engage in Dream Watching for a period of time and then discontinue. Carl Jung told his clients how to do it: when going to bed, tell yourself that you will keep a small part of the conscious mind open to watch the dreams. When so engaged, we remember a lot of our dreams, but must jot them down soon after rising, or they will be forgotten. When not Dream Watching, the sub-conscious mind sometimes takes it upon itself to communicate with the conscious by making a dream break through into consciousness. This happened me last night.

I dreamt I was in a "familiar" cosy mountain hostel, with a gathering of people. I was supposed to know all these people, but had only a half-knowledge of them. They were from my previous positions in life, work colleagues, fellow students, cousins, and so on. However, those I had previously known had become unfamiliar. Others were not my original associates, but the next generation of their families.

A new arrival came to the door, and someone said to me, "Come and say hello to Pierce Wise." I looked over and saw a man, who looked something like Tony Ryan, the founder of Ryanair. I guessed this must be Pierce Wise. I did not recognise him one bit (in the dream), but reckoned, since these were all supposedly my acquaintances, I must also have been, at some stage, an acquaintance of this man. So, I decided to go over, presume this former acquaintance, and say hello.

I walked across the room, proferred my hand to "Pierce Wise," and said, "How are you Pierce?"

He looked at me with piercing eyes and said "I do not know who you are!"

This woke me up.

It seems to me that the subconscious was sending me some message, but I do not know what that message is. The subconscious uses puns and metaphors in its communications with the conscious mind, so I imagine "Pierce Wise" means something.

More extraordinarily, the subconscious is very often very accurate in its data. When I woke up, I was, in my conscious state, aware that Pearse Wyse had been a leading politician, but could not remember what he looked like. Accessing the Web, I found that my dream image was actually a perfect snap-shot of the man.

The Progressive Democrats at their height outside Leinster House. Pearse Wyse is at the extreme right