The Living Labyrinth: Exploring Universal Themes in Myth, Dreams, and the Symbolism of Waking Life Paperback – January 1, 1998

Taylor’s Living Labyrinth_BookReviewIn The Living Labyrinth: Exploring Universal Themes in Myths, Dreams, and the Symbolism of Waking Life Jeremy Taylor navigates across a vast field of images, story, dreamwork technique, and the evolution of human consciousness. He is unabashed in declaring the underlying infrastructure that permits such exploration: the “collective unconscious”—what we (and possibly other species) share that constitutes our humanity. His book is a storytelling tour de force.To be sure, the study of dreams is not a harmless or peaceful endeavor. It entails risks, not least the treacherous territorial skirmishes of professional disciplines. For example, brain physiology. The physiological approach to dream events does not generally align. With Mr. Taylor’s emphasis on dreams coming “in the service of [personal] health and wholeness.” Thus, in another of his books, The Wisdom of Your Dreams: Using Dreams to Tap into Your Unconscious and Transform Your Life (2009), he spars with the reductionist tendency of “hard science” that by its methodology avoids the “hard questions” that define our character in our efforts to answer.Jungian scholars are probably not sanguine either. Mr. Taylor did not follow the recognized academic course that is the standard for speaking with “authority” about archetypes. Indeed, he even disputes statements by long-deceased Carl Jung, for example, about the Trickster archetype being “primitive” and no longer carrying the relevance it once had early in human evolution. Mr. Taylor repositions the Trickster archetype from the margin to the center, claiming that the Trickster is the very archetype of evolving human consciousness. As he says: when consciousness is partial (as it always is), irony is inevitable.I mention these two influential pockets of opinion about dreams because Mr. Taylor blazes a trail that, in my opinion, makes his contribution to dreamwork unique. He has had four decades of direct experience facilitating dream groups, and he claims to have listened to (and projected onto) more than one hundred thousand dreams which would give any person claim to be heard on the insights to be garnered from such a wealth of detail. The high number is credible. His approach makes dreamwork accessible through a non-hierarchical process that transfers the role of expertise from “professionals” to ordinary people assembled in a group—as many as twenty people responding to a group member’s retelling of a dream. And the “authority” for what a dream means is relocated to the dreamer when he or she recognizes a relevant point in the personally felt “ahah!” in response to another’s projection. (See the appendices for more on the procedure and rationale.)Furthermore, by providing examples across time and cultures, he unpacks the essential common features of dreaming (the archetypes) in a way that permits detecting them not only in dreams but also in myths and legends as well. Asserting the cross-cultural relevance of archetypes is not new, but Mr. Taylor risks taking a step farther. He proposes that the archetypes continue to evolve today as part of our evolving human consciousness. Significantly for the reader, he asserts that the evolution of the archetypes is directly related to our own growing awareness through dreamwork because dreaming is simultaneously both a personal and a collective experience.My comments may appear somewhat abstract and much too brief. So be it. For those who can catch the drift, I merely wish to point out that Mr. Taylor’s books are neither technique manuals nor symbol dictionaries but rather disciplined explorations of how dreams connect us with a reality much more expansive than the picture our habitual thinking paints. To that extent, the reader need not require that Mr. Taylor be correct in all his assumptions. The reader, however, can expect Mr. Taylor to further stimulate the reader’s investigation of his or her own personal nightly theater.And when the curtain goes up, he never disappoints.

I loved this book, which is an unusually accessible path to some Jungian ideas and to thinking about dreams and mythology in our personal lives and as they play out in society. It includes helpful examples and anecdotes, as well as more "scholarly" discussion. This book would be really helpful for writers and artists as well as those interested in psychology or dreams.

There is a lot of clutter in the field of psychology, especially in the area of dream work. Jeremy Taylor respects it all and brings together what is an exceptional book designed for anyone who dreams (that means most humans).

One of the greatest books available on Dreams.....how vital they are in our world todayas a means of connecting with our own unique source of wisdom!

Jeremy Taylor shares his wealth of knowledge about dreams and myths and archetypes. I bought this book to learn more about the willing sacrifice.

The presumption that the "collective unconscious" is a byproduct of cultural development leads Taylor immediately into over-reach. Rather than seeing the Princess and the Frog story as a universal metaphor for the renunciation of protected status under father's care for the realities of married life, Taylor launches into a trope regarding the symbolic role of women in society and a renunciation of social status for joyful spiritual awakening into acceptance of the "other." Taylor offers valuable lessons, but is obviously working backwards from his endpoint. This is also true of his analysis of Christianity. From a man characterized as humble elsewhere, this cultural misappropriation is depressing to read.My intuition is that the root of Taylor's myopia is actually his subscription to the Christion notion of original sin: man is the fly in Nature's ointment (a assumption asserted fairly directly in his introduction). The escape from this misinterpration of The Fall is to realize that the collective unconscious is billions of years old. It has been trying to express itself through every age of life. Humanity brings the power of reason as a tonic for primitive evolutionary urges. Unfortunately, that same capacity is a tool for amplifying those urges. I wish that Taylor was still alive to argue these points. Perhaps one of his admirers will take up the task.

After taking a dreamwork course from Jeremy Taylor, I was interested to know more about the archetypes that appear in dreams. The Living Labyrinth fulfilled my expectations and inspired me to explore the topic further. I highly recommend this book (and Taylor's other books) to anyone interested in dreams.

Good read, good analysis of history and society, until he gets to the history of paternal systems, which is too strongly worded..