Exploring Inner Life with Dreamwork

There are endless myths about dreams: that we dream only in black and white and our minds fill in the color; that dreams are uncontrollable and/or unpredictable. The Aborigines believe that the soul leaves the body at this time, and countless kids watching Nightmare on Elm Street in the eighties thought Freddie Krueger might get them in their dreams. There is one “myth,” though, that bears looking into: that which holds that dreams are completely irrelevant bits of neurons as they pass through synapses of our non-stop brains, that they are random, hold no meaning, and are not worth remembering. What are dreams? And can dreamwork tell us the answer?

Chinese writer, critic, and artist Gao Zingjian wrote, “Dreams are more real than reality itself, they’re closer to the self.” A question often arises, “But do dreams have a purpose?” Scientific study seems to indicate that the answer is no. The University of California’s G. William Domhoff writes, “…surely they must have a ‘purpose’; that is, an ‘adaptive role’ in the maintenance of our bodily or psychological health…but the best current evidence suggests otherwise. Dreams probably have no purpose!” How can both Domhoff’s and Zingjian’s statements be “correct”? Purpose, whether physical or psychological, is different from meaning. Domhoff goes on to say that dreams “are very ‘revealing’ of what is on our minds” and that they do have meaning.

Dreamwork is the process of exploring the images and emotions that are presented or evoked in dreams. The goal is not to arrive at a single “meaning,” per se, but to allow for the possibility that dreams can have a variety of meanings. Jeremy Taylor, founding member and former president of the Association for the Study of Dreams, writes that, “Each one of us is uniquely blind to the deeper meanings of our own dreams, and the dream work helps us see what amazing gifts are there, just below the surface of the ‘manifest content’ and obvious appearance.” Taylor holds that no one but the dreamer can know what their dreams mean.

This is similar to the idea that each dreamer has his own dream language. Say two individuals had dreams which feature a cat. That cat will mean something different to each person, and further, it may mean something different to each of the dreamers’ depending on the context which their life provides at the time. In dreamwork or dreamwork therapy, the dreamer has a guide through the process of understanding his dreams. The guide’s role is to flesh out descriptions of the dream and to ask questions which will help the dreamer understand and interpret without influencing the analyses.

Modern dreamwork is the intentional process of focusing on a dream and gaining insight into it. According to Margaret Bowater, dream specialist and dreamwork practitioner, “It assumes that the dream or nightmare is a meaningful expression from the client’s inner Self or spirit, triggered by something current in his or her experiences.” Thus, understanding it has value that is applicable to a dreamer’s waking life as well.

Do you need a guide to do dreamwork? According to psychologist Calvin S. Hall, the goal of such work was not to understand the dream itself but to understand the dreamer. As “uniquely blind” as we are to our dreams, we tend to be even blinder to other aspects of our selves. Having a dreamwork therapist or guide can help us see past ourselves to get at the meaning of a dream. In other words, it might help us get out of our own way. It is possible, of course, to interpret and focus on your dreams independently. Having a dream journal is a big help in this case.

A dream dictionary will tell you that if you dream of an alligator, you may feel threatened. You may feel impending danger. It will tell you that the alligator could also represent intuition, or the need for a thicker skin, or the necessity of being able to survive in two different realms. Or it could mean that you went to bed after watching Swamp Men and your brain threw the image in there. We do not know how our dreams are made; it is up to you to discover a meaning in them.

When many people think of death, they think that it has to be an either/or situation. Do we have an afterlife…yes or no? Is there a God…yes or no? Who is right, and who is wrong. It is similar with dreams. Do dreams meaning something…yes or no? Do they have a purpose…yes or no? Those are not the right questions. What is far more important is asking yourself whether your dreams have meaning and purpose to you. Dreamwork is a process through which we can search for our answers.

Looking to find an excellent provider for therapy San Francisco, then look no more. Dr. Seth is a renowned analytical psychologist who practices classical Jungian analysis to psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy.