The "I" of the Dream

“You learned to run from what you feel, and that's why you have nightmares. To deny is to invite madness. To accept is to control.”
― Megan Chance, The Spiritualist

This quote is powerful because some do have nightmares, and often.  Learning to take control of those dreams is huge.  I believe in Creative Expression, in fact, I used it all through my career, in counseling programs I wrote.  Remember that, sometimes, you can have a nightmare and not know you have, so that is why you wake up with a bad, foreboding feeling and it hangs on all day.  Journaling is one way to take control of your unconscious self so you can work through the real meanings and things to work on that is showing up as metaphor in your nightmares.    it is worth looking at again, I think.

With every dream, you need to capture the emotions in as much detail as possible.  Remember you are not the "I" of the dream.  You are the observer.  Write down as much as you can remember, as quickly as you can.  Then leave it for a whole and come back to it.  Read over what you have written or scan what you have painted, for meaning deeper than literal meaning.  Once you have done that, think of a title you could give the dream.  Pay attention to puns (a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings), that will help lighten the mood of trying to figure out a way to understand the deeper meanings of the dream.  As you continue to do dream journaling, the more you will discover the patterns that show up in all your dreams/nightmares.  Write down even those bits and pieces and flashes of dreams.  Even write every gruesome image that comes.  They hold meaning too. 

Some write, some draw, some paint, some use their phone voice-to-text programs.  It does not matter how creative you are, the keeping track is what is important.  Every little detail is important.

 "[H]ere we are not dealing with isolated dreams; they form a coherent series in the course of which the meaning gradually unfolds more or less of its own accord. The series is the context which the dreamer himself supplies. It is as if not one text but many lay before us, throwing light from all sides on the unknown terms, so that a reading of all the texts is sufficient to elucidate the difficult passages in each individual one… Of course the interpretation of each individual passage is bound to be largely conjecture, but the series as a whole gives us all the clues we need to correct any possible errors in the preceding passages." (Jung, 119-120, italics in original)

To truly dig in and describe everything about your nightmare, is to take the chances of having the same dream again away.  Once you write/draw/paint it in your Dream Journal, and really seek the meanings of every little bit of that nightmare, it relieves the reason for the nightmares.  Writing it down is like being a detective, your own personal detective story comes to light.  There are clues as to the reason.  Don't guess at the meanings because you may miss the most important small tidbit that is new to you.

I wish you peaceful dreams.  I wish you sweet dreams.  xoxoo sister friends.

©Carol Desjarlais 8.22.19