This was going to be a short post, a ‘benefits of counselling’ snippet. However, I have wanted to write about dreams for so long, and the opportunity arose here. So, tuck yourself in and let’s do this.
A particular benefit of engaging in talking therapy occurred to me whilst taking a lunchtime walk with a colleague. We were discussing the counselling process and I can’t remember exactly how we got to it, but I described to my colleague a recurring dream I have. And it was her response that got me thinking about this particular benefit.
Note: I do not prescribe to the notion that dream symbols have objective meanings in any way. Dream interpretation must be highly subjective and personal, always within the context of the person who dreamed it (couldn’t say ‘the dreamer’ as is sounded too cheesy in a Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat kind of way. Not a bad thing, but not here).
Dream analysis
Before getting to the benefit of counselling, a bit about dream analysis: I began taking note of my recurring dreams a couple of years ago after reading Imi Lo’s page about dream analysis on her fantastic website, ‘Eggshell Therapy and Coaching’, during my search for advice on how I might know myself better. Dream Analysis – Eggshell Therapy and Coaching
After reading this I realised that I had been thinking of ‘recurring dreams’ as meaning the repeat of the exact same dream. Of course, that’s possible. But it’s more likely that it’s particular images, situations, objects, environments, and people the recur, not necessarily the exact same combination of them to make up the dream. Paying attention to this has been entertaining and surprising – I have many recurrences! Recognising them has become comforting, like greeting an old friend. The main reason I’ve wanted to write about dream interpretation is that it feels so good. In the way that the practice of Focusing leads to a sense of comfort, wholeness, and self-advocacy, so too does dream analysis, even if the subject in question is a difficult or distressing one.
Some of my recurring dream symbols:
- Rows of seats – usually a lecture hall, but can be a theatre or cinema, even a court room on one occasion! (I think I was a witness to something … )
- Corridors – usually in hotels, staying as part of a holiday or field trip, or in block of flats including university halls of residence. I am in the corridors, getting lost forgetting which room I’m supposed to be in; wandering and trying to find my room or my way out.
- Small domestic animals – rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, mice, hamsters. In these dreams I am responsible for these pets and have taken on too many. I find them difficult to manage, I forget about them and feel bad.
- Packing/unpacking things – boxes to move house, suitcases etc.
- Family home – my ‘dream’ house. It’s big. So big, I barely ever see some of the rooms. Sometimes I forget the rooms are there and when, I’m surprised. There’s a lot of fascination with the size of the house, the CORRIDORS. The focus usually on a bathroom down a long CORRIDOR/forgotten wing of the house.
- Haunted house – usually a visit to an old stately home or castle. Turns out to be a scary, avoid-the-ghost/chase/murder mystery scenario.
- Being in a plane – usually it’s crashing or about to crash.
- Trains/train stations – the feeling associated with this one is a little more vague than the others. Something about not knowing where I am going/how I will get there, getting on a train and hoping for the best.
- Rejection/abandonment dreams – the most painful and most frequently recurring, with the most obvious meaning. In the dream I am rejected and abandoned by people, usually friends and colleagues. I usually don’t remember what I’ve done that’s so awful. What is worse is the feeling that there is nothing I can do about the damage I have caused. In the dream, people look at me with hate, they walk away, and that’s it.
It was a rejection/abandonment dream that I recounted to my colleague while we were out walking.
The dream: I was working with two of my real-life colleagues, but in a book shop rather than hospital. It was a big bookshop. I remember stepping from behind the counter to help a customer. One of the colleagues shouted for me to come back and I tried to signal that I was going to help a customer. When I returned to the counter, I opened one of the cupboards in which I had stored my paperwork (interestingly not my bookshop paperwork, but my real-life, hospital job paperwork). My paperwork was soaked with water because someone had put a bag of ice in the cupboard. It had begun to melt, and the water went everywhere, soaking into my paperwork. I expressed anger at this – why would someone put a bag of ice in the cupboard! – and my colleagues turned against me. They looked at me with hate, giving me that feeling – I am so terrible, they will never like me again, I am bad.
Some of the meaning behind this is glaringly obvious and familiar to me – my two colleagues turning against me reflects my feeling of being inferior, of being the outsider, left out, of feeling guilty about expressing anger. All familiar feelings from a long time ago.
But the ice? That’s interesting. Why ice? Of all things that could ruin my real-life job paperwork, ice is not the most likely destructor. Soup? Yes. Coffee? Most definitely. Even a leaky ceiling after heavy rain. But ice?!
Coming back to Imi Lo’s writing on dream analysis, I applied her techniques to the dream to know it better. She says that in order to make sense of dreams, you must think of everything significant in the dream (significance meaning there is some emotional charge behind the images and people), consider their features, and apply each to aspects of yourself. The ice in my dream was significant as it caused my anger, which resulted in rejection by my peers and my subsequent shame and remorse.
I considered the features of ice. Ice changes, from solid to liquid, as it warms. Solid is rigid, structured. Liquid can flow, be absorbed into paper.
So, I could say that the ice represents the ‘melting’ of my defences, my old ways of being. In particular, keeping my anger internalised for fear of hurting others and losing them as a result; my self-structure, rigid as a way of hiding my true self for fear it will be rejected, now melting, able to flow and ‘absorb’ new experiences, able to percolate into new situations.
In the dream the melting ice caused damage to my paperwork, representing my fear and belief that both ‘being myself’ and psychological change could damage my relationships, my life, everything for myself; my fear of changing – If I loosen up, something horrible inside me will come out, or it will turn out I am inherently bad.
The dream hasn’t revealed anything that I didn’t already know – I’ve applied my understanding to the dream to apply my own meaning. Although it does help to highlight and consolidate aspects that may not be quite as clear or in focus during counselling. But what really made me smile was the following:
This dream occurred at a time when I had been considering the hope and excitement I feel when I think of books – all the wisdom I get to take in, all the learning I can do, and how I think of books when I feel sad or alone or anything upsetting – as well as a quote from Amelia Earhart that I recently came across:
‘If we are in the abyss, there are the wings of new understanding to set us free.’
And where was I in the dream? In a book shop! Filled with books I turn to when I need to increase my understanding and feel understanding. That this horrible ice melting destruction of my very ordered and organised paperwork, of my very rigid and restricted self, should happen while surrounded by books! How amazing! When I realised this, I smiled so much, I was beaming! It felt wonderful, like something (me) was telling me, I see you, and you’re ok.
The original point of this post
Back to the original point of this post: I mentioned this dream to my colleague (not in this much detail, just the recurring fear of rejection/abandonment theme) and she laughed. Then she apologised, explaining she was laughing because, ‘you know’. And I did know. She said I am so loved and that it’s laughably ridiculous that I should be afraid of doing something so bad that my colleagues would turn irrevocably against me; that I could have a bad day, show my irritation, be short with people, and lose them forever.
This was both comforting and annoying. First, she’s lovely, and I see her point. Part of counsellor training has been to hear feedback from others on how we come across – very revealing! But also, this is a genuine fear of mine, one that’s such an ingrained part of me and has had such an influence on my life. I feel so differently about myself compared to what other people see, and for this to be so unseen …
And THAT’S why counselling is important. My colleague highlights the chasm between how I’m perceived and how I feel. She’s one of the warmest, most compassionate, empathic people I know, yet she struggles to understand how I can have such fear of badness and abandonment.
Counselling is a bridge over the chasm. We can bring the facade and the authentic self into the counselling room and begin to build a bridge. Feels like two parts of self finally meeting in the middle.
Dream analysis is part of reinforcing the bridge. It’s another language to help with making sense of what the hell is going on. It’s addressing the same things from different perspectives, from the top, middle, and bottom, examining the past and present and using different languages to reinforce the learning, be it a dream, a painting, a poem, or other creative practice. Through what we create, we can see different angles. But more than that, we can see ourselves and bring our edge-of-awareness stuff into focus.
This is the main reason I would like to continue my counsellor training in an integrative way. I have found it beneficial to engage in therapy in a holistic way, and would not want to be restricted to offering one mode of being in the therapy, nor pushing my particular preference onto another.
When I’d finished analysing this dream it didn’t matter so much that I might not be fully understood. No one can be completely and fully understood by another of course, and we all have different aspects of ourselves that we reveal at different times to different people. The chasm inside me was a result of not accepting the part I felt, and had no access to the part other people could see. I suppose I felt quite alone. My dream analysis feels like a precious secret, a valued gift, a small achievement that needed no one else’s understanding or approval, a fist bump, a cheer. It’s a bridge of my own making, built to last.
