As I teach my third year university course on Dreams and Dreaming (Theory, Research and Practice) I am again reminded how difficult it is for people to make the connection between the dream image and the meaning obtained from interpretation. The temptation is to keep going to the dream imagery and make it literal. We know that this can be the case but we also know that dreams have many levels of meaning.
For example, a dream about a sore leg can mean that in waking day the dreamer has an injured leg (continuity hypothesis!) but it can also mean that the dreamer has been dragging his leg on a decision, or, that he is unable to move on from a waking day issue, etc. etc. In fact it can mean all of these things in waking day. He could have fallen and hurt his leg, and he is having a difficult time in a romantic relationship because he cannot make the decision to commit to it. This may be due to the fact that he is unable to move on from a previous romantic relationship because he has not fully recovered from it.
The reminder here is that dreams have many, many levels of meaning and the more willing we are to delve into the dream, the more information we will retrieve from it. Dreams are far more complicated than what novice dream workers are willing to realize. The more interpretations we work with, the more meaning will be revealed and thus, the more fruitful is the result.
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Penso che le immagini nei sogni spesso “fotografino” meglio di qualsiasi altra cosa la realtà .
ReplyDeleteLa capacità di non limitarci ad una sola interpretazione, che non deve essere solamente letterale , è essenziale.
Per fare un esempio :
diversi anni fa seguivo una donna , della quale non mi ricordo la problematica per la quale mi chiedeva di aiutarla.
Mi ricordo invece un suo sogno , credo particolarmente significativo .
L’immagine di questo suo sogno diceva tutto della realtà che lei viveva in quel momento.
Questa donna aveva un rapporto molto invischiato , caratterizzato da molta dipendenza ,con i membri della sua famiglia (marito e figlio) , cosicché il figlio si sarebbe staccato con molta difficoltà .
Sognò un animale col corpo molliccio (come una lumaca senza guscio) , non definito nei contorni , gelatinoso , con tre teste ed un sol corpo.
L’immagine rappresentava bene ( ed avvertiva la donna del pericolo costituito da questo rapporto) le dinamiche di queste tre persone nel loro nucleo familiare : mamma , babbo e figlio erano privi di definizione e di chiari confini.
Il sogno , con la sua immagine , descriveva questo perfettamente ed io a distanza di tanti anni lo ricordo benissimo.
Donatella gives a great example of a dream that has both literal meaning and a meaning at a much deeper level. A patient of hers dreams of a snail with 3 heads, and this woman is emeshed with her husband and child. This illustration shows us how the dream meaning can be peeled away like the layers of an onion. The dream can mean that it is just about her and her family. It can also be bringing into the conscious mind elements of the relationship that are unhealthy (e.g. they are stuck together). Of course, the more willing one is to work on the dream by delving deeper and deeper into the imagery, the more valuable with results will be for waking life. Of course the hardest part is always getting people to look beyond the literal meaning and go deeper into their own life's meaning through dreams.
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