Sleep, Dreams

Once I was telling one of my dreams to my therapist. It was my first therapist I had seen as an adult. I knew she was Jungian. I thought she would love the dream. Also, I was severely hung over, and I hadn’t admitted to her how much I drank and what a problem it was in my life. I needed some dazzle camouflage.

I needed something. I wanted someone to understand the depths of my psyche who could explain it all to me, and drag me up from my constant self-destruction.

It was a dream about a cliff, a spider, a horse, a tall man. She said, “Why are you telling me this?”

Crestfallen, I replied “I thought it might mean something.”

She said, “Dreams are like free therapy while you sleep. Don’t worry about them.”

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I like dreams. I don’t subscribe to any particular dream analysis style, and usually when someone I work with tells me a dream, I get curious about what they make of it. Someone I work with recently told me a dream that seemed to me fairly banal, but they were clearly disturbed by. When I asked why, they told me about Freud’s dream perspective, that everything was symbolic of pscyhosexual repression, desires and the mind trying to hide forbidden desires through dreams.

I wanted to argue Freud, who based half his theories on his inability to believe that so many women were abused by the men in their families, and therefore their “neurosis” and dreams must be born of a subconscious desire for this abuse. If an entire premise is faulty shouldn’t the whole thing fall? But I try not to argue in therapy.

Jung, on the other hand, liked to look to the wisdom of dreams. Each element of a dream could be an archetypical part of you. You are the father and the mother. You are the cliff, the spider, the horse, the tall man. Dreams are the unconscious inner conflicts playing out and trying to find resolution.

Some theorists believe dreams are a way to process the emotions from the day’s events, and move the short-term memories into long-term storage. Others think it is just the brain being trippy and creative and cool.

One year when I was having constant nightmares of ineffectual fighting back or standing still amidst a natural disaster, my aunt told me to focus on the thought “I can change my dreams” as I was falling asleep every night. I did this, and eventually it worked! I landed my first punch in a dream when a dream voice came to me and said “This is a dream. You can do this!”

One night I dreamt I was in a cove with a tidal wave coming at me. The “this is a dream” voice came, and the tidal wave turned to girl scouts.

Yesterday, someone I work with said “I do all the sleep hygiene things, no phone or scrolling, bedroom for sleeping only, go to the bed at the same time each night, no caffeine or alcohol for 6 hours before bedtime, but I still have trouble. Do you have any special tips?”

Usually I don’t have tips, and if this was someone I was new to working with, I might dive in to why they would think I would have the answers. But this person I’ve worked with for years now, so I told her all my ridiculous things.

Posture: develop a sleep posture that you only do for sleeping. This can trigger the brain to know “I am supposed to sleep now.” My posture is ankles crossed, hands crossed and layed on my chest. It’s a laid out in a coffin type posture.

Counting: count the breaths. Whenever your mind wanders away from counting, return to counting. The goal isn’t to get to a number, but just to bring the mind back from wandering.

Prepare a thought: Develop a mantra, like “even if I don’t fall asleep, resting the body is close to sleep,” and then track the muscles from feet to head, noticing if any are bracing, and letting them soften.

Prepare a dreamlike topic: Decide ahead of time something to think about. The more dream like the subject is, the better. For example, my subject is often my garden, but not the specifics about what month to plant things, but rather playing with flower colors next to each other, ideas for trellis’ and pathways. And again, whenever the brain moves away from the predetermined topic, bring it back in.

If you try any of these things, let me know. Or if you have any interesting dreams, post below.