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The Language of Dreams: A
Psychotherapeutic Transpersonal Approach
This paper was given at the World Psychiatric Association Symposium on
the Psychopathology of Dream and Sleeping, and first published in
Psychiatria Fennica Supplementum 1985, 159 – 165
Léo Matos
Is a dream real or can we just call real our everyday ordinary
perception of reality?
Dreams have fascinated and baffled humans since time immemorial, most
probably because dreams raise a question about reality, and man’s
interest in the awesome mysteries of the dream world is probably an
attempt to discover what is “real” and what is “not real”. This is
exemplified by the story of the Chinese emperor who had dreamed he was
a blue butterfly and, when awakened, was not sure if he was an emperor
who had dreamed he was a blue butterfly or if he was a blue butterfly
now dreaming that he was an emperor.
Freud (1965) understood the function of dreams as twofold: to preserve
sleep depicting supposedly potential disturbing wishes as fulfilled,
and as an expression of a primary-process release of tension.
Aserinsky and Kleitman (1953, 1955) and Dement and Kleitman (1957a,
1957b) were pioneers in the relations between electroencephalograph
(EEG) and electrooculogram records and dreaming. They found that the
stage 1, low-voltage, fast EEG activity and REM (rapid eye movement)
periods, were reliable indicators of dream activity. A number of other
investigators (Foulkes, 1962; Goodenough, Shapiro, Holden &
Steinschriber, 1959; Orlinsky, 1962) have reported similar findings.
Kamiya (1961) and Kleitman (1961, 1963) found that 20 – 25% of sleep
time is REM time, which in a usual night’s sleep equals four or five
periods of 20 minutes each. In this way it was possible to deprive
subjects of their dream periods (by awakening them as soon as they
started to dream). Dement (1960) experimented in this direction, and
found that his subjects deprived of dream made increasing attempts to
dream (more REM periods per night’s sleep). After five nights without
dreaming these subjects were allowed again to sleep undisturbed, when
the dream periods increased significantly up to the point where they
obtained a sort of quantitative compensation for the amount of dream
time lost.
Lerner (1967) attempted to show the inadequacy of Freud’s (1965)
formulation in the light of new evidence and suggested a possible
alternative explanation in terms of the relations between kinaesthetic
fantasy, body image, and ego integrity. Based on the above mentioned
findings Lerner (ibid.) concluded that dreaming is not simply a mere
device to maintain the sleeping state and in this context she says
(idem, ibid.):
“Dreaming appears to be neither an accidental nor even a subservient
function and indeed, instead of dreaming in order to sleep, one may
sleep, at least partially, in order to dream.”
It has been observed that the psychological effects of dream
deprivation (Dement, 1960; Dement & Fisher, 1960; Fisher &
Dement, 1963) comprise heightened levels of tension, anxiety and
irritability; difficulty in concentrating: marked increase in appetite
with consequent weight gain; lack of motor coordination; disturbance in
time sense and memory; intrusion of primary-process thought into waking
consciousness; feelings of emptiness and depersonalization; and
hallucinatory tendencies.
Dreams have been considered as serving to express a unique
psychological function, namely the release of tensions by providing an
opportunity for primary process expression. However, many psychotics
experience primary process all day long without any deviation from the
normal in the amount or percentage of their nightly dream time (Dement,
1960).
The mentioned experiments, theories and conclusions of Western
scientists in exploring the dream world bring light into uncovering
this awesome expression of our unconscious existence. However it seems
to me to be of utmost importance to examine dream psychology and
practice with a cross-cultural, historic and transpersonal approach.
As transpersonal psychology is yet little known here in Europe I found
it my obligation to briefly define in this paper the model and
approaches of this “new” school of thought and practice.
Transpersonal psychology is a science which approaches and studies man
in his wholeness. Here the human being is not only seen as an
individual per se or an individual in society, but the ecological and
cosmic relationships are of utmost importance. In this way
transpersonal psychology encompasses other scientific approaches such
as medicine, anthropology, sociology, physics, chemistry, mathematics,
astronomy and metaphysics. This “new” science is basically
intercultural, and in this way other cultures from all times, with
their various approaches to life (psychological, religious, medical,
philosophical, social, etc.) are studied.
Transpersonal psychology uses elements of other schools of psychology
such as behaviorism, psychoanalysis, Jungian analytical psychology,
humanistic psychology, and especially studies human consciousness which
transcends the persons and ego concept (Ego here means the individual’s
conception of himself, the way he imagines he is.). Therefore
transpersonal psychology can be defined as the scientific study of
states of consciousness.
The model of transpersonal psychology is very close to the
quanta-relativistic model presented by the modern sub-atomic physics
(see: Matos, 1979). In studying states of consciousness, one of the
major areas of interest in transpersonal psychology is the state of
consciousness we call dream. Dream here may be understood in its narrow
concept of dream being only night dream, but also can be understood in
a broader frame of reference where we may include day dreams,
imagination, and various fantasies which are projections of the
unconscious experienced by “normal” persons as well as by persons
suffering from different mental diseases.
When we think logically about what is a dream we may first and simply
define dream as a specific state of consciousness. But, what is a
dream? Who dreams the dream? As it is you who dream a dream (a night
dream, a fantasy or a hallucination) then we can start by stating that
the dream is a product of yourself and, as being a product of yourself,
it is a part of yourself. Being a part of yourself then the dream is
yourself. This is the approach for interpreting and working with dream
of gestalt therapy (Matos, 1975). And in this way as in most Occidental
psychotherapeutic methods dream here is seen as a message from you to
yourself.
Observing the language and messages of dream we may observe that there
are two basic types of dreams: the finished and the unfinished dreams.
A dream is like a story with a beginning, a middle and possible end.
There are those dreams without ending (like for example dreams where
you are going to some place and suddenly you awake, or nightmares where
you may awake in the middle of the night with feelings of fear,
anxiety, etc.) and dreams where you can observe the unfolding of a
whole story. Usually this second type of dream will offer to you in
your awakening to an ordinary state of consciousness a feeling of
satisfaction and completeness. In this way working with dream and
dreaming in the last decennium I came to the conclusion that dream is
not only a message from the unconscious but much more than that: when
you dream you are trying to do psychotherapy to yourself. You are using
the mysterious language of dream to accomplish the task of completing a
psychological gestalt, which otherwise you have not been able (or even
aware of a need) to accomplish in the ordinary waking state of
consciousness.
Working with dream in a transpersonal psychotherapeutic context we must
extend our psychodynamic horizons (the Freudian frame of reference) to
pre-natal, perinatal and transpersonal memories. Here various
techniques may be used to facilitate the person opening the gates of
the unconscious and allow more dream material to emerge into
consciousness.
In order to attain this purpose I have developed a techniques I named
“day dream catharsis” (Matos, 1977). I mostly use this technique in
working with unfinished dreams, and in order to facilitate the dreamer
to getting in touch with his dream, I ask him to lay down in a couch,
close his eyes, relax and then get the feeling (not only thinking) of
his dream. Then I ask the dreamer to retell to me the dream now in
present tense, as he would be dreaming again. In this way the dreamer
will not feel that the dream is like an event which has happened in the
past and is separated from himself, but soon he starts to realize that
he is dreaming the dream here again in a relaxed awake state of
consciousness. When he gets to the point where he awakened from that
dream I ask him then to allow his imagination freedom and just continue
the dream any way his imagination will bring it to. Most persons will
be able, in an environment of safety, to, then, get in touch with the
continuation of the lost dream material and will be capable of
completing and finalizing the dream. With such an approach the presence
and being of the therapist is of utmost importance, for he must
function here like a facilitator or guide, and not interfere at all
with any interpretation or interruption but only guidance through the
intricacies of the person’s own unconscious until the dream is
completed. Then, if necessary (in case the person requires it) I will
give an interpretation of the dream. Basically all persons going
through this process will state at the end of the dream session a
feeling of well being, where the symptomatic residues provoked by the
unfinished dream (as feelings of fear, anxiety, phobias, etc.) will
have disappeared. In this inner psychotherapeutic dream journey the
person may move from psychodynamic to perinatal and transpersonal
levels of consciousness. And here the psychotherapist must be well
qualified and prepared to guide the person in these various realms of
his or her own unconscious.
DREAM IN OTHER CULTURES
In the thirties the American psychologist Kilton Steward (see Tart,
1972) heard of a cultural group of people called Senoi living in the
jungle of Malaya. What astonished Steward was the information that
among that people there were no armed conflicts, serious crimes or
mental illnesses. He travelled to Malaya and spent one year living with
the Senoi and studying their customs and psychology of life. In the end
of that year (1935) Steward concluded that the reason why the Senoi did
not have the problems most common to other groups of human beings
inhabiting this planet (as for example serious crimes and mental
dis-eases) was due to the way the Senoi experienced, comprehended and
worked with their dreams. They used to live in large houses inhabited
by three families and the first thing they did in the morning when
awakening was to gather together and spend sometime telling to each
other their dreams. They had a specific way of dealing with the dream
material of the previous night and then integrating this material into
their own individual and social life. If, for example, a child had
dreamed that he was falling from a precipice and got scared and awoke,
the grown up leading the dream morning session would advise the child
“next time you have a dream in which you are falling then you may do
either of two things: you allow yourself to fall because down there you
are going to meet something which is important for you; or if you are
too afraid of falling, then you shall transform the fall in flying and
then go to some place where you will find something or someone which
will be important for you”. And very soon the child would learn the
technique of being aware in a dream that a dream was a dream (lucid
dream) and able to control the events taking place in the dream world.
If an individual would tell that he dreamed with someone who taught him
a song, now in the group meeting he could sing the song, then everybody
would sing the song with him and this song would now be integrated in
the folklore of the tribe.
It is not difficult to understand from a socio-psychological point of
view how in a society where this so important material springing from
the unconscious was widely accepted and emphasized, that the various
ways of working with dream by the Senoi would work like an effective
preventive psychotherapy to each individual and to the whole tribe.
What the Senoi were doing by using dream was the accomplishment of the
goal of most therapies (v.g. psychoanalysis, Jungian analytic
psychology, Adlerian psychotherapy, gestalt therapy, transpersonal
psychotherapy, etc.), which is to make the unconscious conscious.
In the works of the anthropologist Carlos Castaneda (1970, 1972, 1972a,
1976, 1981) we can appreciate how the wise shaman Don Juan led Carlos
from a mechanistic Cartesian-Newtonian ordinary reality into the
transpersonal intricacies of the dream world, which have been explored
and studied by pre-Columbian civilizations during millennia. These
pre-Columbian civilizations and its remnants (the Red Indians of North
America, and the Indians of Central and South America) have been using
dream not only as a psychotherapeutic and social integrative device but
even as prophecies (Bruce, 1979) to relate their past and present to
the future.
Among the living human cultures, probably, the people who know most
about dream psychology are the Tibetans. They have a scientific,
intricate, and extensive mode of working with dreams which permit the
person not only the integration of the unconscious material into the
conscious but, with well-architectured techniques, the Tibetan
psychological dream methods permit the person to tread an effective
path to personal and spiritual growth (Guenther, 1963). An important
part of the dream methods are various preparations (e.g. techniques of
body relaxation and breathing before sleeping) previous to the S’s
night’s sleep; as well as methods for analyzing the dreams (Tson-ka-pa,
1981).
When I was giving a dream seminar in the Esalen Institute (Big Sur,
California, USA) in 1976 I met there a young man who had been living
for six years with the Huichol Indians of Mexico. I asked him how the
Huichol related themselves to their dreams. Prem Das, the young man,
who was a student of Don José (a famous medicine-man of the
Huichol tribe, aged one hundred and two years), told me that his
teacher, who, in spite of his advanced age presented an unbelievable
physical prowess and mental clarity, was able to perform unconceivable
feats by using dream, like for example traveling to places (out of body
experience), predict the weather, harvest and other future events by
interpreting his dream omens. Prem Das told me further that they had
recently held elections among the Huichol to elect the new chief.
Curiously, I asked him how they elect their new chief – and the way
they do it is by dreaming.
In transpersonal psychology we study, research and integrate into an
Occidental psychotherapeutic context psychological techniques developed
by other cultures. I have developed a form of dream seminar, where a
group of people live together, usually in a tranquil environment in the
countryside, surrounded by green nature, for 3 to 7 days. Here in this
seminar the participants have the opportunity to work
psychotherapeutically with their own dreams, and to learn techniques of
East and West for exploring their own dream world. In this context of
quietness and safety the person becomes able to integrate the dream
world in a meaningful way into the world of everyday ordinary reality
in order to enrich one’s own existence.
SUMMARY
Throughout time humans have tried to understand the meaning of dreams
and dreaming and various theories and methods have been developed both
in East and West. Here in this paper the author examines the language
of dreams from a cross-cultural and transpersonal perspective. The
emphasis on this paper is on cross-cultural comparison of the use of
dreams; typical Occidental approaches such as Sigmund Freud’s
psychoanalysis and Frederick Perls’ gestalt practice are complemented
and discussed in relation to the dream techniques used by the Senoi in
Malaya, the Indians of the North and South American continents and by
the psychological dream tradition in Tibetan Buddhism.
The author has originated the theory and techniques of “day dream
catharsis” which is based on the concept and practice that humans have
an innate capacity of delving into various realms of their unconscious,
solving, duly guided by this technique, traumas and problems related to
the psychodynamic, perinatal and transpersonal levels of existence.
This technique is here presented and, discussed and compared with
further techniques for working with dream material and for integrating
the dream content into everyday life to enrich one’s existence.
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