Interpreting the Wisdom of the Dream

Dreams are the language in which all aspects of a person’s individual psychology express themselves in an uncensored form. Dreams are the threshold into the unconscious from the conscious.

“Only the dreamer knows the true meaning of his dreams.”

– Edgar Cayce.

“The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the psyche, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego consciousness may extend.”

– Carl Jung.

The 4-Step Approach:

1. Making Associations
A dream may contain persons, objects, situations, colors, sounds, or speech. Each of these is a distinct image and needs to be looked at in its own right. Write down all the images that appeared in the dream. Starting with the first image, ask yourself; “What feeling do I have about this image? What words or ideas come to mind when I look at it?” Your association is any word, idea, mental picture, feeling, or memory that pops into your mind when you look at the dream. It is literally anything that you spontaneously connect with the image. Again with the second and subsequent images, write down the associations.

2. Connecting Dream Images to Inner Dynamics
By inner dynamics we mean anything that goes on inside you, any energy system that lives and acts from within you. It may be an emotional event, such as a surge of anger. It may be an inner conflict, an inner personality acting through you, a feeling, an attitude, or a mood. To perform the second step, we need to go back to the beginning and again deal with each image one at a time. For each image ask; “What part of me is that? Where have I seen it functioning in my life lately? Where do I see the same trait in my personality? Who is it, inside me, who feels like that or behaves like that?” Write down each example that you can think of in which that inner part of you has been expressing itself in your life.

3. Interpretations
The interpretation ties together all the meaning you have drawn from the dream into one, unified picture. It is a coherent statement of what the dream means to you as a whole. At this stage you ask questions like; “What is the central, most important message that this dream is trying to communicate to me? What is it advising me to do? What is the overall meaning of the dream?

4. Doing Rituals to Make the Dream Concrete
Up until now, you have done your best to understand the dream with your mind. Now it is time to do something about it. You need to ask yourself; “What am I going to do about my dream?” For some people this is a difficult stage of the dream work yet, with a little practice, you can learn to use you imagination and invent ingenious rituals that will give your dream immediacy and physical concreteness. The fourth step requires a physical act that will affirm the message of the dream. It could be a practical act; As a result of your dream, you may feel that you need to pay your bills on time, or straighten out a relationship that has become confused. Or it may be a symbolic act – a ritual – that brings home the meaning of the dream in a powerful way. For example, if your dream tells you that you spend too much time on work, that you need more physical relaxation, you could make a ritual of taking yourself to the beach, or to the country, focusing your eyes on the colors of the earth and sky, reconnecting to the physical world.


Reference:
Johnson, Robert A., Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, Harper San Francisco, 1989

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a state of mind, characterized by concentrated awareness of one's thoughts, actions or motivations. Mindfulness has its origins in Buddhism and is attracting increasing interest among western clinical psychologists and psychiatrists as a method of dealing with stress, anxiety, and depressed moods. It has been clinically shown to be effective for the management of stress, anxiety and panic, chronic pain, depression, obsessive thinking, strong emotional reactivity, and a wide array of medical and mental health related conditions.
In mindfulness, we bring complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis. In mindfulness, we are not focused on what may have happened in the past, or by what may happen in the future. Instead, we open ourselves fully to our experience in the present moment. Often, we are so wrapped up in our thoughts and feelings that we are not totally aware of where we are, what we are doing, or what is currently happening around us. By residing more frequently in the present moment, we begin to see both inner and outer aspects of reality. Internally, one sees that the mind is continually chattering with commentary or judgment. By noticing that the mind is continually making commentary, one has the ability to carefully observe those thoughts, seeing them for what they are without aversion or judgment. It is important to be aware that the messages one hears during "thinking" may not be accurate or helpful, but rather may be translations of, or departures from truth. By practicing mindfulness we realize that "thoughts are just thoughts" and we are free to release a thought (let it go).

Practicing mindfulness helps us:

• To be fully present, here and now.
• To experience unpleasant thoughts and feelings safely.
• To become more aware of what we are avoiding.
• To become more connected with our self, to others, and to the world around us.
• To become less judgmental (by assuming the stance of an impartial witness to our own experience).
• To develop more patience (and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.
• To become more trusting (of ourselves and our feelings).
• To increase self-awareness.
• To become less disturbed by, and less reactive to, unpleasant experiences.
• To learn that thoughts are just thoughts: nothing more than pictures, sounds, and bits of language passing through our mind.
• To have more direct contact with the world, rather than living through our thoughts about the world.
• To learn that everything changes: that thoughts come and go like the weather.
• To have more balance, less emotional volatility.
• To experience more calm and peacefulness.
• To develop self-acceptance and self-compassion.