Anoner way to work on your shamed unacceptable parts is to learn how to intejrate and interpret your dreams. A full presentation of dream work is too mtch to undertake in this chapter or in this book. But I want to say enougl to make you aware of dream work as a powerful tool for self-integraion.
You dream every night. Current studies suggest that each of us dreams from one and one half to four hours each night. We dream in order to keep our liv(S up to date. Each night our dreaming is like the workers at the bank who an getting all the accounts up to date. The parts of our life that we've rejected clamor for us to notice them in our dreams. Our dreams are telling us abort these parts. They are trying to get our attention so that we will integrae them. Our dreams may also be telling us about a part of ourselves
* is..
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that needs to be actualized. Sometimes our dreams of death and dying are telling us of something or some behavior that we've given up. Such dreams may be signaling a new beginning and a new and creative stage in our lives.
Everyone can remember his dreams. Most of us have not been told that we can. Take a 3x5 card and write, "I will remember a dream tonight". Put it in your pocket or purse. Look at the card three or four times during the day, and right before going to sleep at night.
Keep a diary or note pad or tape recorder by your bed. When you wake up and the dream is fresh, write it down or record it quickly. Record every detail of the dream, as details are crucial parts of the dream. The language of dreams is the language of imagery, not the language of logical thoughts.
The dream is always trying to tell us something that our conscious mind does not know.
The Talmud says, "A dream is an unopened letter to yourself."
Dream work is work The great error is to think it can be done quickly.
The dream images have associations. These associations are parts of ourselves. They need to be integrated and owned. Some dream work errs in trying to be too interpretative. For instance, believing that every time you dream of a gun, it signifies the male sex organ. There are whole books of dream symbols. They can be useful but should not be taken rigidly. One can also err on the side of dream integration. In that case one assumes that there are no symbolical associations and that every part of the dream is a disowned or unrealized part of oneself. Good dream work involves both interpretation and integration.
One needs to truly commit to dream work and one needs a guide in doing it. My favorite guide is a Jungian by the name of Robert A. Johnson.
His helpful book is called Inner Work, (Harper and Row). The subtitle is
"Using Dreams and Active Imagination For Personal Growth".
Step One: Making Associations
After you have written your dream down as carefully as you can including all the details, you are ready to do step one. Write down the first image that appears in the dream. Remember that the language of dreams is different than the language of our ordinary logical mind. I had a dream about flying an airplane. I write:
"I am flying a single engine airplane. I am at Hobby Airport. I take off one way but I can't get off the ground. I try taking off another way. It is clear to me that I keep going from south to north and then east to west — I make a perfect cross with equal lines (+). No matter what I do I can't take off."
I write down the first image. Flying an airplane (single engine). For every symbol in a dream the unconscious has an association. The language of the
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unconscious can be decoded. The task is to let the associations come spontaneously.
Ask yourself, "What feeling do I have about this image? What words or ideas come to mind when I look at it?" This means that you literally write anything that you spontaneously associate with the image. Usually an image will inspire several associations as in Figure 7.1.
Figure 7.1. Dreamwork Worksheet
Rising above it all
Good life
After you've exhausted your associations, go on to the next image. My next image was Hobby Airport. An image is a person, object, situation, color, sound or speech. I write down the image in the center of a circle as in Figure 7.2. When I've exhausted my associations I move on to the next image. I do the same with it as in Figure 7.3, where I use the image of criss-crossed runways. For me the action of not being able to take off had only a few associations. I just couldn't get off the ground. I just couldn't do what I wanted to do. I also got the feeling of "being in a rut" of being stuck.
To choose one of these associations we look them over and wait until one "clicks". The "it clicks" method has to do with waiting for one of the associations to have some voltage or energy.
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Robert Johnson says, "One way to find the essence of the dream is to go to where the energy is — go to the associations that bring a surge of energy." Remember the split parts of ourselves are full of energy. Likewise with the symbols of the unconscious they are full of energy. Sometimes it's not totally clear which association has the most energy. In that case leave it alone for a while. The energy is often there when you come back to it.
In my dream the associations with the most energy were Transcendence, Seminary, Toronto, Mandala and Being Stuck. Now we go to step two.
Step Two: Connecting Dream Images To Inner Dynamics
In this step we attempt to connect the dream image to inner parts of ourselves. To perform this step we go to the dream image again. We ask the following: "What part of me is that? Who is it inside me who feels or behaves like that? Where do I find that trait in my personality?" Then write down each example you can think of.
Most but not all dreams are expressive of the dreamer's inner life. So we write out examples from our life that conespond to the events in this dream.
In my case I felt stuck. I was about 45 years old when I had this dream.
I was stuck in my life. I needed some kind of balance. The Mandala is a symbol of balance and completeness. I was stuck. I didn't know where to go. I had recently had some financial success but it was unfulfilling. I was at a high point in my career but something was missing. The dream was a read-out of my inner condition. It also held a clue to a solution for me. The word Toronto was a puzzle to me. Toronto is where I studied for the priesthood.
There was the obvious association of spirituality with Toronto. And I did feel spiritually stuck in my life.
Step Three: Interpreting
My interpretation was that this dream was a deep conoboration of the lack of fulfillment in my cunent spirituality. Even though I lectured in Christian Theology, something in me was unsatisfied spiritually. I was stuck and out of balance.
Step Four: Doing Rituals To Make The Dream Concrete
I honored this dream by talking to my best friend about my spiritual banenness. I allowed my mind to focus on Toronto. I just embraced the word and let my thoughts flow back to my seminary days in Toronto. I got no answer to the riddle for some time.
One night I dreamed that I was in the same single engine airplane. This time I took off with ease. I flew to Toronto. The first thing that hit me as I
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got out of the plane was the memory of an abbot whom I had met 20 years before in a Trappist Monastery in New York.
I worked on this dream and found that my unconscious was telling me.
that meditation was the key to unlock my blocked spirituality. I had been deeply moved by that Trappist monk years before. I had spent hours in meditation when I studied to be a priest. But I was never able to benefit from it. Later when I read Robert Johnson's book, He, I realized that I was too young and inexperienced to be able to meditate then.
In the book He, Robert Johnson writes about the Percival Myth. He interprets the quest for the Holy Grail as a myth describing masculine development. He suggests that all men, like Percival, are in the Grail Castle in their teens. All young men have a mighty vision — but they are too young to know how to actualize it.
In Toronto I had studied to be a priest. I had spent my first monastic year in Rochester, New York. During that year I had met the Trappist abbot. He was the most powerful spiritual figure I had ever met. As the years went by I forgot all about him. Now here I was 45 years old in my middle-aged crisis and my dreams led me back to Toronto and to the abbot of the Trappist Monastery.
I had a couple of intervening dreams which helped me arrive at full awareness of the meaning of all of this. Over the next few months I became fully aware that my life was a dead end if I only pursued money and worldly prestige. It became clear to me that I had to begin meditating if I wanted to move on and expand my consciousness and my creativity.
One of my current achievements had been being on the Board of Directors of an Oil Company. One part of me — a very shame-based part of me — loved being on the Board of Directors. But the other parts of me felt out of place. These dreams helped me to start meditating.
Almost coincidentally I met Dennis Weaver in Los Angeles. Kip Flock and I were doing a Training for Drug Counselors. Dennis was our guest lecturer on 'Meditation'. Dennis had been meditating since 1959 — sometimes several hours a day. He was a leader in the Self-Actualization Movement in Los Angeles. I was deeply impressed by his depth and the inner peace which he exuded. I began meditating shortly afterward. It has made a great difference in my life.
I honored this dream sequence by going back to Toronto. I walked around the places I had been before. I prayed and meditated in the same chapel in which I had prayed and meditated before. There was an incredible difference. My dreams had led me to a new place in my life. My dreams had gone far in healing my shame.
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