Question about identity in Dreams. Nov. 5 2011
For those who don't know me, I have maintained a Dream Journal, for "3+? decades" and have used this dialogue as a growth experience and knowledge training opportunity, seeing patterns in rapid evolution, sifting out the repeated motifs, noting the 'unusual," as I sit here, listening to a video stream on NPR from Robert Louis Stevenson and his encounters with "the little people," who helped him in his writings. The question that was posed included the puzzle, who is the 'creator' of dreams. If I claim them to be of my own creation(?), how do I become surprised, or alarmed and frightened. James Hollis (Depth Psychology author/analyst) shares the thought of a multiplicity of "selves" only a fraction of which we have any volitional relationship. Are we directing our attention to the Self, the Objective Psyche as suggested by Robert Waggoner.
I have been doing DreamWork with others for more than two decades, and recently had an unusual experience, and I toss it into the stream to see if it floats, and who may pick it up.
I had a dream the other night, only part of which I will include here.
"I am in college with similar age related peers, in a lecture hall, engaging in the lecture, seated in rows of seats, 3 or 4 seats in from the walkway in the middle. I feel to be here appropriately, and am not surprised as the lecturer walks up the aisle, turns to look down my row, and directs a question to me 'directly' using a name (Walter), which while reasonably common, is not my name. But in the dream, my dream ego (the point of view of the one who experiences a dream) is immediately solid with the identity, feels like the lecturer is addressing me with an expectation that I should respond."
Only upon waking do I question the curiosity of being a differently named and identified person, which, from within the dream, seemed correct.
I have had many dreams in which I have been a women, animals, disembodied points of view within a scene, a third party observer watching myself, but in each of these cases I did not experience myself as personified by a different specifically named entity, but as myself inhabiting another identity. I currently only have two immediate associations to the personal name, which I will pursue for my own edification, but the question is directed to the aspect of identification being so distinctly other.
I have not "bumped" into similar dream reports by individuals I have worked with, nor in the body of literature I have read, thus the curiosity.
Listening at the door of the dreaming mind.
Jan. 10 2012
Our mind "dreams" continuously with bursts of notable activity at intervals in the night, only a few of which we notice. Like ignorant children listening at the door to adults talking, we gather little from the conversation, declaring it so much foreign language babble.
Oh the arrogance of the little "self" who rules the conversation in another language nonsense, reluctant to imagine there is knowledge transpiring to which we are not privy. Yet this activity is ongoing and is best thought to be the mind talking to itself, in commune with still deeper layers and potentially transpersonal components.
Some of the conversations are modest in scope, sorting through the items of the day that the little self has had to contend, putting them into the larger context of the Mind that has a far more comprehensive scope of future and past, and always in reference to a greater Self that transcends the individual.
Some conversations are Large, beyond the scope of the individual who experiences the dream, meant to be attended to by a wide audience, most cultures and thinkers reference these as "Big Dreams."
To imagine that I create my dreams, with my little self, denies reality. Why would I surprise, scare, puzzle and amuse, with images and concepts grandly beyond any that my waking ego self can imagine, if I am the creator of dreams.
I sit by the door of the greater mind, listening intently, gaining glimmers of insight, occasionally spoken to directly, but always humbled by the marvel that I am witness to, including the modest limits of my understanding. Learning to understand this language is a life's work, always with the assumption that at the end I will remain a child in the reflection of this larger Self.
Listening at the door again: Jan. 17 2012
To continue. There as many functions and types of dreams as there are people and commentaries, so any characterization, by me or others, is comparable to the parable of the blind men and the elephant, each only perceiving a small point of view, but fervently arguing it to be the truth. Recent research into the levels of norepinephrine during REM sleep suggest that as the stress hormone (one of it's functions) is decreased during REM, it allows more "relaxed" review of charged content, so as to consolidate and integrate, providing hope to PTSD individuals. Again, only one of many aspects of dreams (remember the blind men) and we are encouraged to adopt the attitude of "this/and" rather than "either/or" leaving the 'and' as an open end for further thought. What else might be going on....
Most recently, as I watched from the cracked open door at the conversation in the other room, I was struck by the variations of deconstruction and construction motifs in some of the content, albeit only a small portion of the flow, but it caught my attention. Since I know that my Mind is constantly updating, reorganizing and re-prioritizing it's use of the neurons (physical structure for the moment only) then some portion of the conversation that I "hear" at the doorway of consciousness, conceivably, will be my "dream egos" view and translation of this process of consolidating and re-building.
This is not to dismiss more comprehensive reflections on the content and images, but just a very narrow slice, for the moment. Since I only have the subjective lens of my "little self," to witness the "dream egos" view of this stream and dream content, my perception is limited. How I perceive it, invariably takes on the "garments in my subjective closet," which for me, are often "construction motifs." That I should have a dream one night of a dystopian landscape, and not feel an immediate connection to waking events, and have in a subsequent night, a dream of now cleared out space and buildings, followed by yet another night in which I am witness to "someone" connecting some intricate pipes and wires is a small arc of content, but the progression on this one thematic stream seems plausible.
There were certainly other aspects of the content that had more subjective "grounding" in my awareness, and the dreams were certainly more detailed and substantial that my brief reference here, but... at least some portion of the endless flow of images and stories that I listen to intently from my perch by the door, could be a reflection of this small, but important aspect of consciousness, as witnessed by my "dream ego."
My "self" is to my "dream ego" as it is to my "Mind" and as my "Mind" is to the greater "Self." An order of magnitude of unknown scale between each increment. My little "self" is but a small reflection of my "dream ego" and yet my waking attention perceives it (the small "self") to be the one who directs the flow, oh, the delusions of "self-importance." |
