Listen to Your Dreams Hannah O
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Listen to Your Dreams Hannah O. Haskell [email protected] I. Eight Common Misconceptions: 1. “I don’t dream. Some people do, but I’m just not a dreamer.” 2. “Dreams are just electrical impulses in our brain firing while we sleep. The images in our dreams are random and meaningless.” 3. “Dream analysis was pioneered by Sigmund Freud, a godless, anti-religion psychoanalyst. Christians do well to stay away from his stuff.” 4. “Delving into dreams is a New-Age thing. It is, at best, a superstitious practice. At worst, it borders on the occult.” 5. “When we dream about bad things happening to someone we know, it is an omen. We need to warn them.” 6. “Frightful dreams or nightmares are from the Enemy, the Evil One. We need to pray against them.” 7. “Dreams are prophetic messages from God. He has gifted some people with that special ability.” 8. “We need an expert, an analyst, to analyze our dreams, or a dream dictionary to understand what our dreams mean.” II. Listening to our dreams enhances self-awareness and our attunement to God 1. Dreams bring up our concerns, past and present, and our hope for the future (Dream #1). 2. Dreamwork1 enhances our understanding of ourselves (Dream #2). 3. Dreamwork leads to self-integration (Dream #2). 4. Dreamwork invites us to make attitudinal and behavioral changes (Dream #2). 5. Dreamwork helps us explore family dynamics (Dream #3). 6. Dreamwork enables us to connect deeply and rightly with God (Dream #4). 7. Dreamwork turns our nightmares into our friends (Dream #1). III. Dreamwork is a valuable tool in Christian counseling 1. It facilitates in-depth self-exploration (Dream #5). 2. It accelerates therapy (Dream #6). 3. It can provide a fresh start in therapy. 4. It produces an affective response. 1 Dreamwork refers to being intentional and methodical in attending to dreams, i.e., recording them, seeking to discern their meaning, and then asking ourselves what kind of response might be called for. 1 Dream Summaries Dream #1 I am underground, in a sort of dungeon. It is dark. There is a big window directly in front of me and a door at my side. Both the window and the door have screens on them. There are stairs that lead in and out of the dungeon from the outside. I feel that it is urgent that I get out, that I get away. I sense dangerous people approaching. But before I can get away, these dangerous people are coming in, blocking the only way out. They are coming down the stairs, slowly, like zombies. It’s too late! I am panicking. They’re here! There’s no way out! I hope I locked the door. I hope no one tries to turn the doorknob and get in. The people are both men and women. Their clothing and hairstyles are from the 1940s. And they are all glaring at me. As they get nearer, I know that they are going to kill me. But all the while I act cool, calm, and collected. I do not show how terrified I am. One woman approaches the window and I too lean toward the window. To my shock and horror, the windowpane and screen are gone! At the very same time, a man turns the doorknob and opens the door. It is not locked! I know I have no way out. I’m trapped. Dreamwork Process: 1. Images that 2. Additional details 3. Associations – feelings, 4. Link your dream to stood out people, events current waking life Dungeon It’s dark and dank, a sort of Scared, discomfort, helpless, Are there situation(s) in which prison trapped I feel trapped? Like I have no way out? They were all glaring Glares paralyze me, render My mother glared at me all I know I have major at me! me petrified my growing up years unfinished business with my mom. Acting cool, calm, Incongruent with the position I present myself that way. It is not true that I have it all collected I was in Everybody sees me as having together. My dream describes it all together: the perfect how I really feel. family, husband and children. 1940’s attire and My mother was born in 1942. hairstyle It’s her era. “I hope…” I hope I can be open and I feel trapped, unable to speak honest about feeling trapped. or to escape from pretending that everything is fine. This feels like death. 5. What is my dream telling me? I come across as having everything together, my life under control. But my unconscious knows better. My emotional life is not altogether. Far from being cool and calm, deep within, I have a sense of dread, of feeling trapped, engulfed. I am still living under my mother’s glare. That is paralyzing. I hope to be able to talk with her, now that she’s 72 years old and I’m 40. I feel I have no voice, I feel trapped, no way out, encroached upon. The honest part of me knows better. That is how I feel with my husband. I have no voice, I am powerless in his presence. I hope to be able to share how I truly feel with him. 6. What is my dream inviting me to do or change? Now that my true feelings have surfaced. I don’t want to ignore them. I will continue to process my feelings with my counselor and gather courage to open up with my mother and husband. Maybe my husband first, then my mother. I’ll start at least. I know this can’t be a one-time thing, but rather a new way of being. 2 Dream #2 I go downstairs. I find the wooden door unlatched, so I latch it. I find another latch behind it. I unlatch the first one, reach out to the second one and latch both. Then I notice the steel gate to the room is wide open. I undo both latches of the wooden door to reach the steel gate. As I do so, a young person’s face appears at the door. Soon five young people appear, standing abreast, shoulder to shoulder, filling the whole doorframe. They are looking in with great interest. I am very scared. I do not like them intruding on my privacy. I do not want them to come in. I want them to leave. I ask them to please close the gate. They ignore me. They stand and wait, looking at me expectantly. I am increasingly terrified. I holler for help. I fear that one of the young people will clobber the old woman for screaming. Dreamwork Process: 1. Images that stood out 2. Additional details 3. Associations – 4. Link your dream to feelings, people, events current waking life Door, gate and latches I feel a sense of urgency to It is our family room, in the Thinking what am I trying to latch the door. keep away? To lock out? To basement. avoid? They seem placid, harmless, Five young people What is the significance of I am turning 50 in two just looking in expectantly, the number 5? weeks. I am dreading it. I wanting to come in but not feel 50 is old. forcing their way in. 5. What is my dream telling me? I am turning 50 in a couple of weeks. There is nothing I can do to stop it, but I’m still resisting it. Thus the urgency to keep the door latched. The five young people must represent the five decades of my life. 6. What is my dream inviting me to do or change? Rather than fearing the approach of the 50th birthday, see it as reason to celebrate 50 years of God’s faithfulness in my life! The five young people represent the five decades of my life. Let them in, don’t reject them. Welcome and embrace them as a whole. They are not intruders, but parts of me that make me whole. I can rejoice and celebrate turning 50, rather than dreading and resisting the inevitable. 3 Dream #3 I am in bed beside my husband. Above him, all the way up to the ceiling, is a dense swarm of mosquitos, hovering over him, from head to foot. It is disgusting! I sit up. I try to peer at the swarm of insects, trying to make sense of what’s happening. I keep asking myself and my husband, “What is this!?” “What is this?!” I awoke, sat up, turned on the light. There was nothing there. My husband didn’t even wake up. I went back to sleep. I am lying in bed, beside me is my husband. The wall beside him is swarming with cockroaches. It’s disgusting! I sit up, panicking, frantically asking myself and asking him, “What is this!?” “What is this!?” Dreamwork Process: 1. Images that stood out 2. Additional details 3. Associations – 4. Link your dream to feelings, people, events current waking life Mosquitos They bite, they harm us. I am in a situation that I feel I have been thinking that They carry disease; they can is unhealthy. It is sick. the current arrangement I make us sick. have with my husband is not healthy. (We are officially separated.) Cockroaches They are disgusting! I find my current situation I must, in truth, be more disgusting. disgusted than I let on. My husband laying there – That is how I feel about my We are separated but I let There’s a part of me that is passive and uncaring husband, he is passive.