Linda Yael Schiller, MSW, LICSW

Integrative and Embodied Dreamwork and Healing

With you as my therapist I finally learned to trust another human being. You helped me discover faith in the world and in myself. I didn’t think that was going to be possible. You have been a real gift in my life.

-- J.C.

Things That Go Bump In the Night, Part 2: Our Hero’s Journey

“I’ve had dreams, and I’ve had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams.” Jonas Salk

Welcome dreamers,

Nightmares.   There seem to be two main categories of adult nightmares.  There is the uncomfortable or upsetting dream, and then there is the heart-pounding panic-stricken terrifying one.  Some nightmares are so vivid that they seem real- we wake sweating, or screaming, or our partner wakes us up asking, “What were you yelling about in your sleep?”   Perhaps especially with upsetting dreams, we need work with them, figure them out, and resolve what triggered them in order to have them transform and/or disappear.  (Really. I’ll give you some examples over the next few blogs.)

Believe it or not, nightmares come to us bearing gifts- even the really scary ones.   We may not have been particularly desirous of this kind of a gift- and would just as soon “re-gift” it as soon as possible.  However, if we’ve dreamed the dream, it means that some part of us is ready to receive these gifts: the gifts of information, of insight, of potential, and of direction that we may need in order to move forward in our lives.

This is part of what mythologist Joseph Campbell calls our “Hero’s Journey”.  Part of the journey of every hero and heroine is to encounter obstacles, face seemingly impossible tasks, and then to figure out how to resolve and overcome them. Sometimes the task is to face up to and then overcome something: (i.e. Perseas and Medusa, where our hero Perseus has to cut off the Gorgon Medusa’s head, but since looking directly at her would turn him to stone; he figures out how to see her indirectly reflected in his shield and thus be able to slay her).  Sometimes the work is to complete a seemingly impossible task (i.e. Hercules 7 labors; one of which included cleaning out the Elysian stables of the gods-and that’s a lot of horse-sh*t to have to clean up!).  Sometimes the task is to journey to dark forbidding places for the purpose of redemption ( i.e. Orpheus and Eurydice where our hero Orpheus actually journeys to hell and back to reclaim his bride).  All contain allegories for our lives, and our nightmares often include being threatened by something monstrous, an impossible task or dilemma, or dark forbidding landscapes.

Since we know that the language of dreams is usually through symbols, we have to figure out what these messages mean for us, and then what we need to do with the information we uncover.  The final stage of dream work is the action stage- taking the dream information and connections into some form of action in our life.  This is the part that is often neglected, which is why the nightmares may continue.  Jeremy Taylor says that dreams come to us in the service of health and healing, but as Robert Moss points out on his website, we have to actually DO something differently in our lives to get us there. “…Dreams require action! If we do not do something with our dreams in waking life, we miss out on the magic…we (have to) take the necessary action to bring the magic through.” (Moss)

 

Moss calls his quick method of working with dreams “Lightning Dream Work”; it is one way to work with the milder form of the nightmares.

1. Title your dream:  As mentioned in a previous blog, giving the dream a title can often allow the core message of the dream to “pop” in high relief.  Don’t think – just go with your first gut response.

2. Describe the feeling narrative:  Have the dreamer describe the various emotions that accompanied each part of the dream story.

3. Bridge to life:  This is the reality check part.  We ask the dreamer where in waking life this might be true?  Do we recognize any of the people or places or events?  Are any of them real now, or in the past, or potentially in the future?  We may need to ask several questions here to tease out possible connections. Once you have the “aha” connection- what then is the message of the dream for you?

4. Bumper sticker:  If you were to make a slogan, a pithy statement, a “bumper sticker” one liner out of the message your nightmare was bringing to you- what would it be?  Again- go with your gut on this.  What does your bumper sticker then mean to you?

5. Action plan to honor the dream:  To change the dream, or your life, or keep it from becoming repetitive, you need to do something concrete in the world.  Your action plan may also be to incubate another dream on what to do next, or to perform some small symbolic act.

Example: One client’s nightmare was “I stopped on the way home from work to buy a loaf of bread and when I got home I discovered that it was stale and crawling with bugs that I tried to pick out, but they were too numerous”.  She titled it “Buggy Bread.  She had been having some version of this dream (sometimes sour milk, sometimes spoiled meat, sometimes in her office, sometimes on the way home) for several months.  They were profoundly distressing and wouldn’t seem to dissipate.

The feeling narrative accompanying the dream story was  “first calm, then tired from work, then I started to feel anxious, nervous, and when I unwrapped the bread I felt disgusted, sickened and upset.”

We played with possible bridges to life: Have you bought bread recently? Anything significant about the buying of it or having it be spoiled in some way when you got it home? How about the way home from work- how do you usually feel then?  Are you feeling sick or disgusted or “bugged” anywhere in your life recently?  Then, you might ask about the significance of bread- Sustenance? Staff of life? Money?  Are you feeling “stale” or “bugged” or “disgusted” at work, at the place from where you are to “bring home the bread”?  This last one resonated fully.

Possible bumper stickers she explored were: “Man does not live by bread alone”, “Call the exterminator” , “Change bakeries!” , “Time to go gluten free”.  The bumper sticker she chose read “Change Bakeries”, and in doing so she realized that it might time to leave her current job, that the “bugs” in this one were too numerous to continue or risk getting “sickened”.  The bumper sticker feeds the action plan.  Her small symbolic act was to wash her hands before leaving work to (wash the office off) and then to start to send out resumes.  Once she updated her resume and began sending them out she had this dream:  “ I am making a cake, and I realize in the middle of it that I don’t have all the ingredients I need.  I worry that it is too late to go to the store, but when I get there it is still open and I can get the rest of what I need for this project.”  No more bugs, and it’s not too late! Although she’s not completely out of the woods yet (neither was Dorothy when she met the Lion), it’s clearly not a nightmare anymore.

Additionally, don’t forget that adult versions of some of the kid techniques in the last blog work as well.  Next time I’ll address in detail the “Capital N” nightmares that may require other methods to stay grounded as you work on them, and introduce the GAIA* Method: “Guided Active Imagination Approach” for Nightmares and Trauma Dreams.

 

Till then, may your dreams point you Home,

Linda Yael

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A dream un-interpreted is like a letter unopened.

-- The Talmud