“For as long as humans have roamed and rested, dreams have been at the forefront of life’s mysteries. Today, dreams are more commonly considered as a window into the unconscious mind.”
In this module I would like to speak about Dreams and the unconscious.
We are not alone in this. We don’t have to do it all by ourselves. If we speak about the unconscious, we could say as a metaphor “here my with all my heart looking for balance in this field or in that field” but I’m not alone in this. You can visualize that there’s a part or an energy that has an overview. Let’s say behind you or above you. It has an overview about yourself. And this will be called the Dreamweaver. Or the Dreammaster. So there’s an intelligence in our consciousness that seems to have an idea where we are in our process. And that intelligence can give us some clue. It can give us information. And it can give us some guidance if we know we learn how to listen to it.
So let’s say I’m identified as a person who is identified with being very rational and controlling. That’s one of the clients that we worked with. And then at some point the Dream master comes in with a dream. This person is a very rational manager, with an English background. He dreams about this English military group of soldiers. They are very well organized and they’re marching and everything is fine. It’s the nice weather and this group of soldiers meet a band of hippies playing guitar. They are a wild bunch and they are having a party. But it’s Corona time. So they are not allowed to do that. So this military group comes in and they want the hippies to shut up. And then there’s a struggle. At the start this military group is a beautifully organized army, but they get destroyed by the hippies and by the Gypsies. It is a totally bloody field battle. And then the man, the dreamer, wakes up. He is in sweat and in panic. And this dream repeats itself and after a while he signs up for therapy and coaching. So what is happening so if you look at it from the perspective of the dream master? Let’s say the client is sitting here in the dream master is overviewing.
What the Dreammaster does and can do is to show the opposite of the energies of the parts that the person is identified with. So this is the part that Jungs calls the principle of compensation. So it’s balancing the psyche. It is showing something that is not integrated. So this person, the rational manager for so many years he relies only on the rational and the control side. And then it was time for him to wake up, literally. This nightmare may learn about the other side, that is the disowned selves. The hippies and the Gypsies were the disowned self of de clients. So this was the start of the whole process for him to integrate and learn about himself. This dream is good material as a beginning point to start doing Voice Dialogue with. In the dialogue we honor the primar self, we take time to explore the rational mind and the controlling, structuring part. We find out about the vulnerability underneath. We use the dream directly to go to the disowned self. At some point have a hippie type talk with the gypsy in the room in a session. As a part of the client expressing itself. And this man learned through his nightmares to make that journey and eventually integrate the opposite self. It shows us what needs to be considered.
So Voice Dialogue opens the door, a crack. If you’re 100% identified with the primary self then it’s difficult. But Voice Dialogue helps to open it and then the Dreammaster can come in. And the dreamweaver can say “look here” a creative process. In the beginning we call this an initiatory dream. In the beginning of this process there is usually a pretty spectacular or heavy nightmare. Once the process starts the Dreamweaver can give feedback on the process..
It can give different dreams during the different stages of that process of integration. While integrating his wild side there might be a second dream with music, firstly disturbing and later nice music. And in the last week in his dream he was part of the band. The Dreamweaver can give feedback not only feedback during the process. So you could say if you through this work learn to connect with your dream master. It’s like you have an inner guide, an inner teacher. Your inner leadership is what it’s about. The leadership from within. I think that indicates we are very rich inside without knowing it. So there are different examples.
For example a man disowned his sexuality. A minister who worked for the church. He dreamt that there was a knock on the door and then came these huge drunk penises trying to protect him and he had to struggle. And he woke up in his sweats. This was also a strong initiatory dream. It also urges for attention. Like it is saying; There! You listen man! You need to do something about it!So this principle operates different fields. In Voice Dialogue which is part of Transformational Psychology distinguishes different fields of development. So one of these fields is the vulnerability. Something we spoke about several times. So if the vulnerable sites have been disowned, there may be a very strong dream. In one of the dreams of a Princess and children dying of hunger in Africa. This person invented this woman said all these kids are dying. It’s like the right in your face. Ok look at this. She had to look at this as on her own Vulnerability. The dream about the children was start up a process. So the next dream it was still not very happy. Everyone was still suffering but now it was like was a baby crying block away, and nobody was taking care of it. But it was really a bit closer. Maybe the third dream would be; my cousin has a child. And I’m going to do babysitting. And a later dream maybe I’m pregnant. With time maybe it was a beautiful baby. For the last dream would be called an integration dream. So there a a few stages in dreams; there is a initiation, there is a compensation dream, then there’s the feedback and then at the end there’s integration dream. So then the Dreammaster said we’ll Kate is integrated her vulnerability. Maybe now it’s time for something else. So I’ve learned to trust this process over the years. And I’ve seen it with many clients. Even people who are not into spirituality and personal development they still have dreams. So in coaching I ask sometimes for dreams without doing the whole explanation. Just if you have a dream tell me what’s going on. I feel in the coaching of people I can also work together with this intelligence as a coach as a therapist could be very effective in therapy. It will give you picture of what’s happening inside. Another field of development is power. One of the architects we have is our natural instinct. In human beings one of these elements in us is the instinct or animal side, the power. So we also need to come to terms with that. It’s not just about a strong ability but is also finding out about our power and our dark side. So when there’s an initiation-dream on that level it can be pretty impressive as well. I had a series of dreams when I was studying in Los Angeles on my birthday. I shared these dreams with Hal Stone. It was a terrible dream about death. And people killing each other and he congratulated me with this dream. And I thought, “oh my God crazy I am murdering everybody”. But it was the start of a process to find out my own inner killer. First it was scary, and then it was like okay, I’m meeting the mafiosi. And I am not afraid of him, and it became an ally. In the course of my life this archetype of the dark side can come in if I don’t all know my own limits. If I am too nice for a while. And I reach my own limits. Then my dark side can come in, and it can be as a warning. But it’s quite rich. I was one time in New York and I was going to be there for a week by myself exploring it. And then somebody else asked me if I want to be part of the training from this network. And my pleaser side said yes. So the next day instead of being in the wild, in this situation I suddenly was a trainer in this network because my pleaser said yes. So it was not a conscious decision. So that night I dreamt of this black man who was really angry with me. And he said “why do you do this? I want to be free, I want to walk!”
So for me the black man was a representation of my power. And the next morning I listened to the dream and called the trainers and cancelled them all. So then I felt this whole relief in my system. This is an example of an ordinary situation. This is a language we all need to know, this is something that we all have and why don’t we use it. It’s not rocket-science.
If you understand Voice Dialogue you know that there are parts. When you know these parts, you might understand the possibility that there’s intelligence in the unconscious that can compensate for what we are identified with. So it’s very nice to be able to share dreams with a partner. It is also useful to make a journal for yourself.
It’s very difficult sometimes to look at your own dreams and to interpret them. But when you can share a dream maybe the other person can say; “well children in Africa, how is it with your own inner child?” So in sharing it even without having this many years of training or as an analyst, it is enriching and it is part of the Voice Dialogue.