Hun

I found myself more engaged with the idea of the Hun; especially its relation to dreams and the dream world. I have struggled on and off with the concept in Chinese medicine that vivid dreams is in some way indicative of pathology. I find it curious that TCM includes the life of the spirit, and yet concurrently considers a vital aspect of that spirit to be disease related. I mean, I do know that when I am ill or beginning to be ill, that my dreams are sometimes feverish and wild - and I would indeed consider them to be a symptom of my illness. And, I suppose that this is the context that TCM is referring to. However. I also have always had vivid and archetypal dreams which I feel are NOT in any way related to pathology; in my spiritual work I find that my subconscious and yes, sometimes forces beyond myself and of a spiritual nature speak to me in these dreams and that they give me guidance and support in my life. I have seldom, if ever, been mislead by one of these "teaching" dreams; but I wonder if they would be considered illness from a TCM perspective?

I like that there are three types of Hun: the vegetative, animal, and human. I recently had a question when studying herbal formulas, and we were discussing those formulas that treat the spirit. I wondered how this mechanism actually works, and perhaps the fact that plants do indeed have their own spirit begins to answer that question....

And when I was a girl and attending Catholic school, I can remember getting into an argument with one of the nuns in religion class when she told us that animals don't have a soul.....I told her that I was sure that they did, and that I wouldn't believe that just because they were animals they would not be allowed into heaven. Of course, I no longer believe in an actual heaven or hell, but I DO still believe that animals have souls. Apparently I was right.