“Who am I, now, in this moment, how did I get to be this way, and who am I becoming as I grow and mature?”
Jeremy Taylor – Wisdom of your Dreams
Why work with dreams
Dreams come to us unbidden and speak a symbolic language
They show us information relevant to our lives, relationships and emotional worlds – and to our place in the world, our connection to the world beyond the individual psyche.
Working with dreams is a way to know yourself, to accept yourself, to free yourself from judgements of who you should be or what your emotions should be. The rich and imaginative world of dreams can be a wellspring of creativity that help support us when facing intense emotions. Working with dreams can be particular helpful when someone has experienced trauma and is having nightmares; when there is intense grief after a loss; or when depression has swamped imagination and creativity.
The overarching goal of working with dreams (and for the psychotherapy I practice in general) is to come to understand your internal world and to use this understanding in helpful ways in your life. It is a way to activate imagination, creativity, and curiosity, which are both valuable in of themselves and a way to make rational tasks more efficient. Working with dreams may be used in a small part of psychotherapy, revealing something important to you, or the experience of engaging with dreams may form a central focus to a longer psychotherapy.
When we are able to hold complexity, we hover between chaos and order, and the self will begin to organise, allowing something new to emerge.
To feel the injury, the wound, and affirm that this can be healed is an act of imagination.
Robert Bosniak
My approach to working with dreams
My approach to working with dreams has three steps:
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- Orientating to the dream,
- Deepening engagement, and
- Making connections
The principle behind this approach is that meaning arises through engaging imaginatively with the dream itself. A meaningful resonance can only be recognised by the dreamer – not by having someone else interpret the symbols in your dreams. Assumptions about what a dream means needs to be set aside – dreams never show us only what we already know, nor what theory might say a symbol means. My approach draws on multiple theoretical perspectives including Gestalt Therapy, structural dream analysis, Embodied Imagination (Robert Bosniak) and psychodynamic and neuropsychological approaches.
Orienting
The orienting phase involves staying within the framework of the dream, asking clarifying questions like:
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- What is the story within the dream – is there a problem that needs a solution, a wound that needs healing, or the desire of something wanted in a relationship?
- What are the characteristics and feelings of the “I” in the dream (called the dream-ego) – e.g are they passive, without agency; under threat, frightened; or are they able to access support and make their own choices
- What are the relationships between the dream ego and characters or aspects of the dream – are there threats, desired relationships, or helpers
- What are the new elements in the dream – such as unexpected events, gifts or solutions
- Are the characters within the dream facing their own developmental challenges and needs
Deepening
Deepening involves engaging imaginatively with the aspects of the dream, such as by
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- Being present fully to a scene, character or image within the dream, allowing a felt-sense of recognition to arise
- Allowing spontaneous emotional or image based reactions to arise in response to the dream
- Entering into an imagined dialogue with a dream character
- Expanding the possibilities and opportunities presented in the dream
- Continuing the narrative of the story forward or linking the dream narrative to myth
Connecting
Connecting involves drawing connections between the dream material to your life
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- What is the core message of the dream?
- What parts of ourselves do the characters in the dream represent?
- What might the dream-ego need, and how is this related to what you might need in the days?
- What does the dream say about your relationships, especially if a real person figures in the dream?
- Does the dream offer a creative solution to a life problem?
Nightmares
Nightmares are a special category of dreams that sometimes require a focus on calming and settling the fears and bodily experience of terror before exploring the dream content. This is particularly true in the case of recurrent nightmares or nightmares associated with trauma. There are several strategies to settle nightmares, including strategies for reducing nervous system arousal during the days; pre-sleep