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If we could read them, we would learn a lot about ourselves, our problems and ways to solve them. But alas, the symbolic language of these messages is most often incomprehensible to us. How to decrypt it?
Ordinary morning. The family gathers at the table for breakfast. Everyone communicates with each other in the same way as last night, because nothing happened during the night. But hasn’t each of us made an amazing journey during this time? The brain made up a bizarre story for us, and we experienced it as if it were real. But we wake up – and continue to live as if none of this happened.
Sometimes the dream is not remembered. Sometimes some episodes or only emotions remain in the memory: fear, excitement, joy. On rare occasions, we may tell someone about what we have experienced, or look for cues and clues in dreams. We do not believe, unlike our ancestors, that dreams are sent down from above, we are ironic about dream books that unambiguously interpret the images of sleep … but we don’t know how else to perceive dreams and what to do with them.
Get into a magical land
Why does the brain do this complex, sophisticated work every night – the creation of dreams? Surely not only so that in the waking state we learn and understand something – otherwise we would remember them well? “Dreams are a kind of mental metabolism,” says art therapist, member of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA) Varvara Sidorova. – In them, at the level of symbols, the unrest that we experienced during the day is replayed or resolved. Thanks to this, the psyche itself stabilizes, balances, heals.
But this is not the only function of dreams. “They open those sides of the soul that are not so easy to understand and feel in the waking state,” says Gestalt therapist Denis Novikov, author of the book “Help me understand my dream …”. This is the way the unconscious communicates with us. The psychoanalyst will say that the dream speaks of repressed desires. Gestalt therapist – that in symbolic form we are presented with internal conflicts and the dream gives a hint on how to resolve them.
Dreamland is a whole world, and each of it extracts what it sees fit.
Other psychotherapeutic approaches emphasize other aspects of dream work. In addition, there are different types of dreams. For example, children’s scenario dreams help to understand what typical situations will occur in a person’s life and what resources he can rely on. “Dreams-visits” in which we see deceased relatives can give us a connection with the family. When we are sick, sleep can suggest a treatment option. And there are also dreams-predictions that have not yet been studied by science. All of them provide a wealth of material that contains something of value.” The land of dreams is a whole world, and each of it extracts what it sees fit. If you take it seriously.
Hear unfamiliar words
It’s a shame if an important message remains unaccepted, because it speaks a language unusual for us. Probably, without a skilled psychotherapist, there is nothing to try to understand this language? Psychologists do not agree with this: it is both possible and useful to work with dreams on your own, they believe.
“I know many people who, without turning to a psychotherapist, are able to understand dreams in their own way, extract clues from them, and this helps them live fully,” says Denis Novikov. “But such a skill requires a culture of dealing with dreams. A start can be made in the family: if a mother or grandmother was attentive to their dreams, told how they understand them, then the child grows up with the feeling that this is interesting and necessary. But the main thing is still our own efforts: reading books on this topic, reflections, discussions with others. This is a big and constant inner work.”
Varvara Sidorova considers the habit of writing down dreams in the morning useful: “This is how we train the ability to tune in to the unconscious, and mental energy begins to circulate more actively between consciousness and the unconscious, and we better learn the language of the latter.”
Most of us in a dream observe primarily visual images and hear speech. “And if other modalities suddenly turn on – sharp sounds, smells, bodily sensations, this is a signal that we need to deal with them,” Denis Novikov emphasizes. Recurring sleep is also important – a message that we do not want or cannot hear for a long time. If, despite our efforts, some “catchy” dreams remain incomprehensible, this is a reason to contact a specialist. To which?
Become more whole
Working with dreams in Gestalt therapy is based on the idea of its founder Fritz Perls: consciousness is not integrated, it is fragmented, and we refuse to recognize some parts as our own. These separated parts find expression in dream characters. “For example, those who do not take their aggressive side may have nightmares where evil, attacking creatures operate,” explains Denis Novikov. “And the image of a flying bird, most likely, speaks of the desire for an easier, freer movement in life.”
Our basic task, according to Perls, is to become more whole. One way to do this is to live the story of the characters in the dream and own their emotions. “Perls considered the dream brought by the client as a script on the basis of which he and the therapist put together a “movie,” recalls Denis Novikov.
The therapist acts as a director: he helps the client to get used to each image in turn and asks questions to uncover its essence. And the client, like an actor, embodies the character from the inside: he moves with his characteristic plasticity, talks about himself in the first person in the present tense: “I feel, I want.” Moreover, not only people and animals can speak, but also objects and natural phenomena: a book, a lamp, a thunderstorm, an evening … Gradually, the dreamer recognizes and accepts those personality traits that he previously rejected.
Make the invisible visible
An art therapist will offer us a dream to show – through drawing, modeling, movement. When we tell someone our dream, we cannot convey all the shades of the mental image, and the listener will present it in his own way. But art therapy helps to make the dream visible. “When working with a drawing, we, together with the client, look at what is happening here, what are the nuances of color and composition, whether the dreamer himself is there, what he is experiencing,” explains Varvara Sidorova. We let him understand and experience these feelings. And then we move on to their transformation. I say: “Now, in the waking state, you can become the master of the dream, watch it if it breaks off, change it as you like.”
Our wise body seems to know what to do, and we must trust this process.
You can also use dance. It is not at all necessary for the client to make graceful movements: in art therapy, even a tilt of the head or a raised finger is considered a dance. All spiritual experience, including dreaming, is displayed on the bodily level. “We allow the body to manifest itself, both literally and symbolically,” continues Varvara Sidorova. “It is enough to imagine that you are now in this dream, and your posture, breathing, rocking will say a lot.”
Transformation can also take place at the physical level. Some movements we can change intentionally, while other changes occur spontaneously. “Our wise body seems to know what to do, and we must trust this process,” says Varvara Sidorova and gives an example from her practice.
34-year-old Alevtina suggested a dream for work: “I sit, look at the rain outside the window, I feel calm. Rain envelops me, accepts. During the session, she draws the image of this living, receiving water and, imbued with the emotions evoked with it, begins to dance and sing – and she herself is surprised at her voice: “It turns out that he can sound so freely! I can express myself so easily!” For her, usually overwhelmed by shame and guilt, this is an important metaphor: it turns out she has her own voice! – and the first step to being yourself, instead of always being guided by the opinions of others.
Two classical approaches
The two titans at the origins of analytical psychology, Freud and Jung, treated dreams differently and did not agree with each other.
The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, called dreams “the royal road to the unconscious.” In them, he believed, repressed, repressed desires are played out. But not literally, but metaphorically. And if we want to understand the meaning of the dream, then we need to decipher the images of the dream, to understand, as he explained, what “signified” is hidden behind the “signifier”. For this work, he proposed the method of free association. The bottom line is that the patient is offered to come up with a chain of associations to the original image of sleep until he comes to a topic that is painful for him.
Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, criticized this method, believing that such a chain of associations still leads to the primary parent-child relationship. Why then analyze dreams if the “answer” is known in advance? Instead, Jung proposed the method of circular associations, when a whole “cloud” of associations is invented for the same initial image. At the same time, he distinguished images generated by the dreamer’s life context from those that originate in the collective unconscious. From these two classical concepts, all subsequent methods of working with dreams have grown.
live in reality
Psychodrama is based on dramatic improvisation, and the dream must comply with its general principle: “We work with the client’s story in which energy is felt or, conversely, there is no energy, although it should be: for example, a person dispassionately talks about traumatic events”, – explains the psychodramatherapist Yulia Pustynnikova.
These can be recurring dreams, serial dreams, strange dreams that evoke strong feelings. In the group, the dream is played out as a performance, where the dreamer becomes the protagonist (the main character). Focusing is done first. “We help the client to clarify the purpose of the work,” says Yulia Pustynnikova. What would he like? Explore a dream, watch it, redo it? When he clearly understands this, we conclude a “contract” with him for this work.
When we look at a dream from different points of view, everything is not what it seemed to us.
In the first part, a falling asleep scene is staged, when the client seems to enter a dream. Here he may be asked what he thought about before going to bed – this may give a clue to the upcoming action. The second part is the actual acting out of the dream, in which the members of the group play the roles of characters in the dream given by the protagonist. In psychodrama, there is always a “mirror position” into which the client can be taken to look at what is happening from the outside.
As the work progresses, the therapist asks questions: “What happened next? What do you feel now? What do you want to say? – helping the protagonist not only to go over the plot again, but also to understand what is happening to him and get closer to his feelings. And finally, the third part is the awakening scene. The therapist says to the client: “You wake up, you had a dream in which you … What is your first sensation after waking up? Did you understand what this dream was about? This is followed by an exchange of impressions: the group members talk about how they felt in their role or as spectators.
“When we get the opportunity to look at a dream from different points of view, from different roles, everything turns out to be not what it seemed to us,” says Yulia Pustynnikova. “Due to such stereoscopic vision, we pull out the symbols of a dream and comprehend its meaning. And then the anxiety associated with sleep is resolved.