Dreams of Healing: Marathon Bombing Anniversary #1

Dreaming is a healing process…a vital means by which we bind up our wounded spirits and rekindle our hopes for the future.” (Kelly Buckeley)

Welcome dreamers,

Last year the Boston area held the world in horrified thrall during the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon.  Stories have appeared in the news media off and on all year about the healing and recovery of the survivors, and stories of courage and selflessness of responders.  Many are planning to run or cheer on this year in honor of those who were killed or affected by the bombing and it’s aftermath.   As a Watertown resident, I have walked the streets less than a mile from my home where the suspect was finally recovered.  Scenes of the bombing on Boylston St., of the responders and victims that day, the lock down in many towns, the images of SWAT teams patrolling the quiet neighborhood and banging on doors, to the final recovery of the second bomber under the boat- these images have been engraved in many of our memories.  For some, they have shown up as persisting nightmares in various literal or symbolic forms over the past year.  While the distress has abated for most as the year unfolded and life returned to the new normal, as the first anniversary approaches the city and our psyches are revisiting that time, and we can hope to use the anniversary to mark healing and courage and our unwillingness to be bowed down to the false gods of violence and terror.

Kelley Buckeley  (Dreams of Healing, 2003) tells us that we make meaning out of tragedies publicly when people build monuments (think 9/11 or the Vietnam Memorial) or set up spontaneous memorials (think piles of running shoes and flowers on Boylston Ave.).  Inter-personally, we have conversations and prayer circles, and internally people dream dreams.  Our dreams can guide us in the direction of hope and healing; our job becomes to pay attention to them, and to direct them toward resolution and wholeness of being.

Our dreams can be both landmarks of our internal process when “bad things happen to good people”, (to quote Kushner), and a source of healing and solace as we attend to them and use their generative powers to move forward: to creating meaning out of chaos, hope out of despair, and a forward-moving life force out of the depths of darkness and sorrow.  A hallmark of a therapeutic modality called AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) has as some of its tenants that we are all wired for growth, that we all have the capacity to experience joy and delight, and that nothing that feels bad is ever the last step.  I love these philosophies!   It reminds me of what the proprietor of the hotel in the movie “The Exotic Marigold Hotel” also tells us (in his lovely Indian accent): “Everything will work out in the end.  And if it hasn’t worked out, then it isn’t the end yet.”

Post-traumatic nightmares can actually be a sign of a vigorous life force that is pushing forward to bring in potential allies of deep powerful inner strength and resilience that need to be brought forward into consciousness.  Dreaming in and of itself is a healing process- it is one of our system’s ways of digesting and processing information.  (With the legacy of trauma, the body/mind adage  “what isn’t sufficiently metabolized can become metastasized” can have great meaning).

Dreams that follow a crises do not aim to simply return the dreamer to the status quo, rather they aim to develop a whole new understanding of the self and the world that encompasses the trauma, and help the dreamer to rise out of the ashes of their broken self to find new hope, structure, and meaning for their world. (Buckeley)  Dreams are one of our most powerful sources of meaning making.

Buckeley continues, “Nightmares are more like a vaccine than a poison.”  This understanding follows the homeopathic principle of that a minute dose of a negative substance inoculates us to the disease or distress. Our dreaming selves are struggling to deal with the psychological distress and spirit anguish caused by traumatic events.  “…Although dreamsharing by itself does not cure a disease, it does have the power of enhancing conscious awareness of both our deepest fears and our greatest strengths…  At times of great suffering and vulnerability, this kind of enhanced self awareness can have a deeply re-vitalizing effect.”

We can assist our dreaming selves in this healing process, whether the nightmarish distress is from trauma, loss, illness or parts unknown.  We can incubate dreams at night before going to sleep; spending a few moments quietly tuning in, then writing in our dream journal our desire for our dream guide to send us healing dreams in the service of our highest good and best interests.  We can be general or specific, depending on what we already know about our nightmares or our day distress.  We can orient ourselves, as recommended by the Talmud, to find the gift in every dream.  We can hold the expectation that if it hasn’t worked out, that it is not the end yet.  And you are all invited to participate in a day retreat workshop on Sunday May 4^th on  “Dreams of Healing: Dreamwork and Transformation” where we will learn dreamwork principles, journey together, and find our way in the nearby woods for a short waking dream  journey.  Click here to find the link to the flier for registration.

May we all dream together of inner and outer worlds of peace

Linda Yael