Dreams and Human Transformation
Robert Hoss, MS, USA,
author of Dream Language and Executive Officer and Past
President and Chairman of the International Association for the
Study of Dreams. He has been teaching dreamwork for over 30 years
and is presently on the faculty of the Haden Institute for dream
leadership training, and the adjunct faculty at Scottsdale College
in Arizona.
Stanley Krippner, PhD, USA,
is professor of psychology at Saybrook Graduate School, a Past
President of IASD, and co-author of Dream Telepathy and
Extraordinary Dreams and How to Work with Them. In 2002 he
received the American Psychological Association’s award for
Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of
Psychology, and in 2003 the Ashley Montagu Peace Award.
Nigel Hamilton, PhD, UK,
is a psychotherapist and Director of the Centre for
Counselling and Psychotherapy Education, a Transpersonal
Psychotherapy Training Centre and Clinic in London. He is the UK
representative for Sufi Order International. Originally trained as
a Physicist, he worked at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology for the use of light in Energy Storage Research.
Abstract
Although all panelists will
participate in a robust discussion of this important topic, each
will also present material from their own studies and experiences.
The abstracts of each presentation are included below:
Stanley Krippner, PhD
Transformation Through Spiritual
Dreams And Personal Myths Dreams have played a major role in
religious and spiritual traditions throughout the world. In our
cross-cultural study of 1,666 dream reports, 131 could be
classified as "spiritual" on the basis of content analysis. We
used the Casto Spirituality Scoring System that defines
"spiritual" as a hypothetical construct that refers to one's focus
on, and/or reverence, openness, and connectedness to something of
significance believed to be beyond one's full understanding and/or
individual experience. The Casto System, which we found to be
highly reliable, has specific criteria for identifying objects,
characters, activities, emotions, and experiences that are
"spiritual" in nature.
We
also found that the use of spiritual dreams in counseling and
psychotherapy demonstrates that most of these dream reports
contain implicit or explicit "personal myths" that address
spiritual issues in the dreamers' lives. Personal myths are
defined as statements or stories that address existential issues
in one's life, and have behavioral consequences. Personal myths
can be functional or dysfunctional, and can conform to religious
doctrine or be idiosyncratic. When T.L. Davis and Clara Hill
worked with 51 spiritually oriented volunteer subjects, they that
the inclusion of spirituality in the counseling sessions produced
increases in spiritual insight as well as in their existential
well-being. For example, a female dreamer, in the Davis and Hill
study, reported a dream about endlessly chewing bland, flavorless
bubble gum; in the counseling session she realized that her life
had become too bland and predictable. A male dreamer, in our
study, dreamed that he was a young man and that everything was
"bright and new." Suddenly, he changed into an old man; life's
freshness seemed to have faded. In his waking life, he held a
personal myth that if he meditated, he would become "eternal." The
dream reminded him that he could not escape the aging process, and
he resolved to supplement his meditative practice by becoming less
passive, doing something useful for the world. Working with dreams
can reveal which personal myths are functional and life-affirming,
as well as which one's are dysfunctional and in need of revision
or change.
Nigel Hamilton, PhD:
The Role of Dreams in the Study
of Human Transformation: A recent study of fifteen hundred dreams
of nineteen people who underwent a silent, solo spiritual retreat
has shown that dreams can be used to monitor the stages of a
psycho-spiritual transformation process. They can also be used to
monitor and mirror the differing degrees of altered states of
consciousness that are encountered in such a transformation
process. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses, used
independently of each other, arrived at the same conclusions. The
dream data seemed to be basically unaffected by differences in the
retreatants age, gender, culture and the degree of exposure to
spiritual ideas, texts and teachings. The results also appeared to
be basically independent of the types of spiritual practices
prescribed, although the retreatants acknowledged the importance
and helpfulness of their practices in their process. The spiritual
practices, together with the confines of the retreat environment,
served only to trigger off an inner transformation process which
had its own time and involved the experiencing of several subtle
levels of self. Surprisingly, although different retreat guides
were used with different retreatants, and in some cases more than
one guide was used in the same retreat, there was little
observable impact on the data. This only served to emphasise the
primary impact of such an inner process on the subject, which when
unleashed, seemed relatively independent of the external factors.
The
results of the retreat dreams study were then compared, using the
same qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis, with over a
thousand dreams of a subject who did not undergo a spiritual
retreat but who experienced a profound psycho-spiritual
transformation over a period of two years. This person’s dreams
showed three distinct cycles of transformation, each of which
developed exponentially from cycle to cycle. However, the results
of the retreat dreams study showed very similar patterns to those
found in the long term, single case study.
Two
main conclusions were drawn from this research. Firstly, the
process that people undergo during a psycho-spiritual
transformation can be divided into four basic stages. During these
four stages, six possible subtle levels can be encountered, in a
specific sequence or order. Secondly, that dreams which include a
spiritual or sacred dimension, impact the dreamer in a way that
facilitates their psycho-spiritual transformation.
Robert Hoss, MS:
Transformation Dreamwork:
Recognizing and Applying the Imagery
Two great luminaries in the world
of dreams, Carl Jung and Fritz Perls both observed that if dreams
have an ultimate plan in mind, it might be a natural tendency
towards establishing balance and wholeness. While this goal may
sound simple, the process can be quite involved, including the
integration of a fragmented personality and restoring the self
when it is under attack from without or within. Jung described
this as a process of transformation, which is cyclical and
evolutionary. Some cycles can last throughout a night of dreams,
some throughout years or a lifetime. Our dreams both reflect the
stages of this transformation, as well as help to bring it about.
Jung
proposed a model of the psyche that contains a realm of
consciousness, populated largely by the ego and persona and a
realm of the unconscious which is populated by repressed material
that was once conscious and a deeper level he called the
collective unconscious which contains a model of our potential
self. The ego and persona are essentially who we believe and
reveal ourselves to be – this is the “ME” of our personality. The
repressed unconscious material is largely made up of parts of our
selves, what Fritz Perls called alienated fragments of our
personality, that we dislike or are uncomfortable with or
emotional traumatic material we can’t easily deal with – this is
the “NOT ME” of our personality. The greater collective
unconscious contains models of all that we can become which are at
times personified in what Jung called archetypes – this is our
evolving potential self. Jung stressed that our individuation and
ego-self evolves in cycles from within the collective unconscious,
under the influence of an organizing force he called the Self. So
if we have this vast store of potential, then what is preventing
us from tapping into it more readily? The simple answer is that
the alienated fragments of our personality, the Not Me parts, can
become a barrier to the evolution of our potential. These shadow
fragments become a “wall” of sorts that we simply can’t see or
move past, without one or more of them looming into consciousness.
It is hard to envision ourselves as greater than we are, if some
fragment of a memory (perhaps past ridicule or failure) looms
forth each time we try to capture that vision.
This
evolution of Self, that Jung spoke of, therefore becomes an
involved process, a process that Jung related to a symbolic
“death” of the existing view of self, in order to bring about a
“rebirth” of the new self. This process, by which the ego-self is
transformed from the old to the new, might be represented as
containing four stages or events, that can be observed in our
dreams:
1) Death of the Ego: first the
ego-self must abandon the old view, usually because it does not
work anymore – this is a death of that old view. At this point we
find ourselves lost, turning within, descending into the darkness
of the unknown.
2) Search for Self: The symbolic
death is generally followed by a search for a new self, a new
decision about who we are in relation to life, one that will work.
Here we meet and struggle with dealing with and adopting aspects
of self we have alienated or new aspects we have yet to fully
realize.
3) Compensation: Carl Jung stated
that dreams act on a natural tendency towards balance or
wholeness, and generally employ compensation as the means to
achieve this. Some action or event in the dream compensates for
the ego view of self and reality, bringing about a reversal in
thinking or direction that enables the ego to embrace some
previously alienated fragment of self and an integration takes
place.
4) Rebirth: As the ego accepts a
new view or newly integrated part of self, the old self is
transcended and the new ego-self emerges.
In
relation to dreams, there is also a fifth stage that is important,
and that is Actualization. The message from the dream must somehow
find a way to actualize and maintain itself within the experience
of the waking ego. This is perhaps where the role of effective
dreamwork comes in – by establishing the message within the waking
consciousness and taking action accordingly.
These
stages of human transformation can be observed in our dreams, both
at times of major spiritual transformation (the big “T”) as Nigel
Hamilton discussed, or in lesser more frequent transformations
(the little “t”) that we experience on a regular basis as our
dreams follow that natural tendency toward balance that Jung and
Pearls discussed. Perhaps a few examples can best show how these
elements might appear in the “little t” transformation dreams.
Dream
example #1: “The dream seemed to go on for the entire night. It
begun as I descended into a dark underground river within a cavern
with black walls. I was a passenger on a boat on what seemed like
an endless boat journey aimlessly following the river going
nowhere. All night I seemed to be searching for a way out but
there seemed to be no one in charge of the boat. Suddenly a
shadowlike person approached me and asked “why don’t you try
steering the boat?” I then grabbed the cross-shaped controls and
when I did, the boat emerged from what had now become a white ice
cave and a crystal stream into a beautiful, sunlit, colorful land
with trees and mountains and singing in the air. At one point I
struck a large black rock and it rang like a bell.” In this case
the dreamer was searching for some direction in his life which he
considered to be going nowhere. He was letting life move him
along. The compensating message in the dream was “take charge of
your life’s direction”. The dream further permitted the dreamer to
experience the transformation that would take place once the
dreamer took charge.
Dream
example #2: “I dreamed I was leaving a very large college I had
attended. A woman was stuffing all kinds of colorful red, yellow,
blue and green fabrics into my bag. I opened a door and to my
surprise saw the hallways and rooms empty with workmen beginning
to paint everything white. I felt like it was the ending of
something and the beginning of another phase in my life.” Here the
dreamer expressed the definite sense of a completion of one phase
and the transformation and transition into a new phase.
Dream
example #3: “I dreamed I was in a stone castle. I went down some
stairs into an underground room. I saw on my left a large stone
archway and a room beyond. On the left side of this room was a
young woman. Suddenly a beam of sunlight streamed in and she came
forward, and I saw that she was me. She walked toward me and we
blended into one person.” This dream came after a long period
where the dreamer was searching for her own identity. In other
dreams at the time the dreamer was repeatedly asked to identify
herself whereby she would answer her name or show her identity in
various ways. This was the final dream in that identity series.
Dream
example #4: “I dreamed a large building fell on me and I was
crushed under the rubble. All went dark and I stopped breathing. I
knew I was dead and it was all over, there was no future. Then I
became another person in the dream who was strong and determined,
and dug my body out of the rubble. Suddenly I came back to life
and realized that I could go on.” Here the dreamer had come to a
low point in her life where she felt that there was no future for
her. The dream permitted her to experience another part of herself
that had strength and determination, which could provide a path
into the future.
These
three dreams illustrate just a few of the common characteristics
of transformation dreams which I will summarize here by stage:
a) The symbolic Death –
is often evidenced in dreams as descending or going into darkness
as it was in examples #1 and #3 above. It also can appear as an
ending to something (as in example #2) perhaps a threat of death
or actual death of the dreamer as in example #4.
b) The symbolic death of
the ego is often followed by the Journey or Search – which can
take on aspects of a seemingly endless search for a way or a
solution (as in example #1) or a maze, puzzle, or house of doors
as in example #3. This is also the point at which we meet and deal
with the various alienated or archetypal fragments of self, which
can show up as the shadow self (examples 1 and 2) or as objects in
the dream that stand in our way as the building and rubble in
example #4.
c) At some point the
natural Compensating Forces will appear in order to bring about a
reversal in direction and thinking or an integration with the
previously alienated side of the personality. This natural
compensating force can appear as guiding words in dreams (whether
vocal or written) or as guiding entities such as the shadow figure
in example #1 that suggested to the dreamer “why don’t you try
steering the boat”. It can appear as surprise imagery combinations
as the merging in example #3, or as surprise actions as the image
of the white hallway in example #2 , the realization that the
dreamer was not really dead in example #4 or sometimes humor. It
is often the message in the dream “parable” or positive dream
ending as in example #1. What Jung called symbols of the Self or
symbols of unification often dominate transformational dreams.
These include patterns of completion, such as the four
“psychological primary” colors being packed away in example #2;
patterns of unification such as the cross shape of the controls in
example #1; nature imagery such as the black stone representing
the collective unconscious as in example #1.
d) Finally the Rebirth
phase is evidenced by images of emergences, newness, light, color,
celebration and integration. As Hamilton indicated, substantial
increases and light and color are observed as the dreamer moves
toward the point of transformation – this was seen as the dreamer
emerged from the ice cave in example #1, the four colors grouping
in example #2 and the beam of sunlight in example #3. Newness is
often symbolized by whiteness. Emergence and newness was observed
in example #1 (emerging from an white ice cave) and example #2
(opening the door to a hallway being painted white). Rebirth is
also represented by integration, such as the merging of the two
selves in example #3 or even the resurrection which involved the
two sides of self in example #4.
Recognizing these compensating
actions in the dream can be important because you can then use
them to help transform inappropriate decisions and myths that the
dream is dealing with. A suggested approach to working with
transformation dreams is as follows:
1) Look for one or more of the
compensating activities listed above. Did a dream event provide
guidance, a message, a reversal or a new approach OR did the dream
end with a positive resolution?
2) What were you trying to do
before the compensating event and how might that be analogous to a
situation you are in, or something you have been trying to do, in
waking life?
3) How did the compensating event
change your thinking or actions in the dream?
4) How might this dream reversal
or “message” be a metaphor for a waking life solution?
5) Restate the dream actions and
solution, as a waking life solution.
6) Check it Out: is the restated
solution healthy, appropriate, allowing progress?
7) Next Steps: if the solution is
healthy and appropriate, what specific next step(s) can you take
in your waking life, and when, in order to bring this solution
about?
