Dreams - Working with Dreams : Part One

Every dream has many layers of meaning. Every object, person, and situation in a dream may have many meanings. So take your time in trying to understand it. Think of your dream as something to EXPLORE. You have to look at it from different angles, walk around in it for awhile, work with it - and then its many meanings will begin to reveal themselves.

Try not to give into the pressure to "interpret" a dream. If you put yourself or others on the spot to "tell me what it means" then you are taking the wrong attitude toward working with the dream. It's not a game of Jeopardy or a multiple choice test where there's a right or wrong answer. Working with a dream is more like playing with it - the kind of play that involves creativity, imagination, and a willingness to experiment. It also requires patience!

Here are some ways to work with a dream:

Free Association
To unpack the various meanings of a dream, take each object, person, situation, etc. and free associate to them, one at a time. What does it remind you of? What comes to mind when you think of that element of the dream? Let your imagination go. Let your attention wander. Come up with as many associations as possible. Do this in your head, or talk out loud. If you let yourself go with this, something will come up - a memory, an idea, a feeling. It may not tell you "The Meaning" to the dream, but it will give you pieces to the puzzle.
(You know you are onto something when you experience that AHA!, lightbulb-popping experience)

Free Writing
Write down on paper a stream of consciousness reaction to your dream. Start anywhere and just keep writing whatever comes to mind. Don't censor or edit anything out. It's like free associating onto a piece of paper. Record everything you are thinking and feeling. If you get stuck, simply write "I'm stuck, I'm stuck..." over and over again until a new association comes up. Then keep writing.

Or write down on a piece of paper each element of the dream, and then write a stream of consciousness for each one. Compare what your wrote for each element of the dream. Look for similarities and patterns. Hold onto these writings - and go back to them later on. Days or weeks later you may see something that you missed the first time around.

Mental Images
Images are pictures or sensations in you imagination, in your "mind's eye" - similar to dreams. Use them to explore a dream. For example, close your eyes and free associate to the various elements of your dream by letting PICTURES or SENSATIONS flow through your imagination. Let your imagination go. Don't try to control what you see or experience. Let it move on its own. Stay with this and something important will come up.

Another technique is to RELIVE the dream in your imagination. Close your eyes, start at the beginning of the dream, and relive it as vividly as you can. Then replay the dream again, only this time let your imagination go. Let your imagination add to and change the dream in any way it wants. It will lead you to important insights.

(Any sensations you experience in your body during a dream, or while working with it, may reveal something about its meaning.)

Dialogues
Create a conversation between you and the dream, or between two elements of the dream. If you dreamed about driving a car through a forest, write down on a piece of paper a conversation between you and the car (or the forest). What would you say to the car? What would the car say back to you? Don't try to over-control the conversation. Let it be as spontaneous as possible. Stay with the dialogue and let it progress. Or create a conversation between the car and the forest. What would they say to each other?

Another possibility is to carry out this conversation LIVE. Set up two chairs. Sit in one chair and put the car into the other. Talk to the car. Then switch chairs and talk back to yourself. Keep switching back and forth. Let the conversation progress. Be spontaneous and honest! Sounds crazy, but THIS WORKS!

Dream Enactment
If you are in an adventurous move, get together some friends and reenact the dream as if it is a play. Assign roles to people. People can also be objects in the dream. First replay the dream as it actually occurred. Then do it again and let people improvise in their roles. Experiment with the play, with you as the "director." This is a powerful technique.

(All of these techniques work best if you are SPONTANEOUS and FREE-WHEELING. Let your imagination go. Don't try to force or over-control the process. Be honest. Don't censor ideas.)

Day Residue
People, things, or events from the previous day that get incorporated into a dream were put there for a reason. They touched off ideas, feelings, and memories in the unconscious. Examining your thoughts and feelings about these events from the day will help you understand the dream and why it is "commenting" on these events. What do these day residue events remind you of? Have these sorts of things happened before?

Dream Intangibles
There is a tendency to focus just on objects, events, and people in a dream. But there is more to the dream than that. Consider also:

- FEELING TONE : what is the primary feeling in the dream. What does it remind you of in your life? Does the feeling tone change at different points in the dream? Why?

- COLORS : how are colors used in the dream? What feelings and meanings might be associated with them? What do the colors remind you of?

- TIME AND SPACE : how are time and space used in the dream? What feelings do these create? Is the dream communicating an idea by how it uses time and space?

- MISSING AND VAGUE PARTS : what parts of the dream are vague or unclear? Is something missing that should be there? These might be the points where dream censorship by the ego is at its strongest. Focus on these parts. There's something important going on there. Use free association and the other techniques described above to fill in the gaps. If there is a vague part to the dream, try to catch whatever details you can. For example, if you can't remember a person in the dream, can you remember what they were wearing, the color of their eyes, the color of their hair? Who does this remind you of?

- John Suler, Ph.D.