Working with Dreams to Free the Soul
Dream Interpretation vs. Dream Work
Years ago, when I started this journey of exploration into “what is the nature of me,” I had a period of interest in dreams. Many teachers encourage us to explore our dreams. I had very little interest in dream interpretation, still do – though the occasional insight is of interest.
Lucid Dreaming
What I was mostly curious about in those days was lucid dreaming as I had heard that “waking up” in a dream could be used as a doorway into out-of-the-body travel. Over the years, I have become quite the lucid dreamer. Often when I sleep, I continue to be aware. I work with that awareness similar to the way I worked with lucid dreaming – waking up within the medium of experience.
Working with the Affective Content of Dreams
Over the last ten years my interest in dreams is more focused on the affective quality present in the dream. I have found this to be quite useful in helping me move through various levels of identity and object relations. If the self in a dream is an extension or construction of the waking me, then it seems fair to assume that I am somehow dragging my historic content into the dream in some fashion.
Last night was a good example of how i work with dreams these days.
Dreams of Humiliation
I was at an event with a large group Diamond Approach students. I recognized many of these people from my waking life. A new book was out, that contained a specific paragraph about me. In reading the paragraph, I experienced a very deep and searing sense of humiliation.
I went to a twenty-year friend of mine to ask why she had allowed this to be printed. She told me she had nothing to do with it. As I walked away, I fell to the floor, began sobbing and shaking uncontrollably.
At this point I awakened – 3:50am. The sense of humiliation was flooding my psyche and body. I explored it a bit and became aware of the judgmental part of the experience. The superego was having a field day kicking my butt.
I find shame and humiliation some of the most difficult work. The power of the inner critic attacks is severe. Becoming lost or trapped in the identity of the humiliated one seems easy when confronted with such powerful forces.
Inner Critic / Superego Judgments
We will never win a battle or an argument with the superego/inner critic. What’s needed is disengage from the attack so we can explore our experience. Having worked with the superego and identifications for over twenty years, I often work with the attack by just agreeing with superego and then go about looking into my experience.
The interesting thing about shame and humiliation is the raw, searing quality of exposure present. There is such a pure sense of being stripped naked and exposed to harsh elements. I worked with these elements for a couple of hours – in and out of sleep.
The Relative is a Bridge to the Real
In exploring the actual phenomenological experience of humiliation, I found the elements of exposure and nakedness were really openness, space and transparency. When the identity of the humiliated self or even a historical self is allowed be challenged, it will often dissolve. What is left is the experience of our experience.
The qualities of openness, space and transparency are aspects of our true nature.
Opening my eyes to the world at 7:10am – a glorious day was blooming!
Links of Interest
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Items of Interest
Again, I am confronted by a person who seems to have zero capacity to