I’ve always been someone who was attracted to a variety of fields of study, and so I have always appreciated your (Jordan’s) efforts to synthesize and connect knowledge across multiple domains. And I wanted to share a story about an unusual domain you have helped connect me to. 
    In my own life, I have subject to a few strange experiences, moments when I suddenly understood something, or more accurate, saw them. The experience was much more like a vision, of being suddenly lifted into an airy perspective, than it was like achieving a particular insight. The trigger was usually the same, walking and thinking, looking at a subject from many angles, trying to get a hold of it and figure out just what it was I was dealing with. And then, all of a sudden, wind, the clouds part, and for a brief while I suddenly see farther down the path than at any ordinary human moment.
   In those moments, I’ve sometimes had access to writing materials, and recorded a storm of shorthand notes as quickly as I could, the terrain and it’s details unfolding much to fast to properly slow down and focus on any single thought. And then eventually the experience ends and my vision reduced back to its narrow and dim focus.
   I’ve had this experience maybe four times, and have always been too embarrassed by it to ever mention it to anyone. I’m a generally skeptical and analytical person, with a strong but hidden emotional and creative side. And I’ve never felt comfortable revealing that hidden side of my experience, especially in contexts like, say, the academic world.
    Listening to you (Jordan) has given me some renewed confidence though. Even just hearing another person talk about Jung and about creative and transcendental visions outside the context of drug use (which I do not indulge in) opened up new horizons for how I could understand and analyze my own experiences (which mostly happened before I ever encountered you). I am religious, but I’ve always resisted the mystical and emotional elements within the religious tradition, because so often they have descended into absurd emotionalism devoid of any rational challenge or understanding.
    I’ve also always been especially skeptical of dream interpretation, but after learning about it a bit, first from you and then from Jung, I began to dip my toes into it. I even did some dream interpretations for some of my family members, and discovered that I was indeed able to easily discern information about their unarticulated knowledge, fears, and desires in their dreams.
    I was especially interested in the concept of lucid dreaming as a means to intellectual exploration. And I so opened my mind up to the possibilities. One of the results of this is that I’ve actually been able to figure out a way to maintain a form of lucid dreaming with much greater frequency (maybe once every couple weeks). In this state, which is generally confined to the hours closest to morning, I can wake up, set my mind onto a problem, go back to sleep, and carry with me into my resting state my analysis of the issue.
    I’ve found that this is a very interesting way to explore intellectual problems. The secret is to focus on a question, and only a question, or some sort of simple statement. That seems to be about as much as I can take with me. My rational mind seems to process fairly well in this state, but I do have an increased ability to free associate and pull things out of unarticulated vision and instinct. And I make a lot of progress and figure a lot of things out. If my usual rational process is a bit like taking slow, carefully steps, this feels more like taking vast leaps between footholds, bootstrapping up the path by vaulting suddenly from one previously unanticipated ledge to the next. 
    The problem is that remembering it when I wake up is a bit of a challenge, especially since there’s always so much going on in the morning (I have two young children). And especially because the ground being covered is being taken in such unconventional strides (at least for my usual way thinking). But even when I don’t have any time to jot down what I learned, the knowledge still seems to be there on an unconscious level, waiting to uncovered and reexplored in more careful detail. When I next encounter that subject, it begins to come back to me, and begin the long process of retracing my steps. 
    Anyway, this is a long way to say thank you for the opportunities and insights and encouragement, intended or not. As much as I remain radically skeptical of mystical knowledge and visions, which so often are merely projections of our own unchallenged desires and prejudices, I have learned to crack open this book a little and see some of what it has to show me. Thanks.