Dreams are an endless source of fascination, and an almost miraculous part of the human experience. Some baffle us, others inspire us, still others scare us. But each one stands out as a puzzle in our waking mind, whose potential meaning evokes our deepest curiosity.
Our curiosity — but not, apparently, our therapeutic attention. Compared to other techniques, dream interpretation plays a smaller role in the average psychotherapy practice. In case conceptualizations, we might find sections like ‘physical activity’ and ‘social history’. Rarely do we find a section like ‘dream-life’.
Despite that, my experience with clients has convinced me that working with dreams is a rich and meaningful pursuit, and is therefore an important technique in the psychotherapist’s toolkit. Here are some lessons I’ve learned from working with clients’ dreams.
Prompting is rarely necessary
Dreams are an intimate part of our lives, and we should approach them carefully. We’re essentially asking a person to share with us the visions, sensations, and thoughts that occurred to them during their most private and secluded hours. It’s as if we knock on the door to a little house, known only to them, and ask: What’s been going on in here? Best not to be intrusive.
Fortunately, I’ve found that most clients will offer their dreams by themselves, without needing to be prompted. And specifically, I’ve noticed two general occasions in which this happens:
- At the beginning of the session (“A couple days ago I had this dream, and I have to tell you about it…”)
- In response to something brought up during the session (“Actually, that reminds me of a dream I had recently…”)
There’s something elegant about letting the client bring up their dreams spontaneously. A self-selection process seems to happen, leading the client to offer those dreams which are most significant and relevant to their current life situation. Like many other areas in therapy, we should trust the client’s intuition about what’s important.
However, if we do find ourselves wanting to ask about a client’s dreams, I’ve found that asking about sleep serves as an effective ‘gateway question’. Sleeping habits are an important marker of both physical and mental health, and we should be familiar with this aspect of a client’s life. Questions about any significant dreams can be added to a routine assessment of these habits.
An eclectic approach is best
During my training, I’ve come across two major theories of dream interpretation, each of which gives their own technique: the psychoanalytic theory, and the Gestalt theory. Although each of these will be described independently, I try to use them both in a flexible and adaptive way.
The Psychoanalytic Theory
The psychoanalytic theory of dreams was introduced by Sigmund Freud, and it has two basic tenets:
- The appearance of a dream, its ‘manifest content’, is only a disguise of its true meaning, the ‘latent content’, which remains unconscious
- This disguised meaning of a dream can be be found by having the client free-associate to the material of the manifest content
To use an analogy, the psychoanalytic dream interpreter presupposes that the appearance of the dream is only a curtain. Then, using the client’s spontaneous associations, the therapist pulls back the curtain to reveal the dream’s true meaning.
The dream is divided into discrete elements, and the client is prompted to curiously explore what associations each element evokes. These associations can take numerous forms, including:
- memories (mnemonic associations)
- sensations (sensory associations)
- words and phrases (verbal associations)
The disguise assumed by the dream elements can be nothing short of poetic. I was amazed to find, for example, that the appearance of a battery in one client’s dream was a symbolic expression of the concept of taking charge, which was relevant to their therapeutic process.
The Gestalt Theory
The Gestalt theory of dreams was introduced by Fredrick Perls. Here, the dream is not considered a disguise, but rather, a fragmented presentation of the client and their existential situation. The goal is to help the client recognize, reclaim, and assimilate these fragmented parts, leading to their growth and healing.
In this process of integration, the client is not prompted to free-associate to the elements of the dream, but rather to enact the ‘scripts’ played by each element of the dream. For example, if a client dreams of a looming clocktower, they may be asked to become the clocktower and speak from its perspective.
Perls would prompt this kind of enactment in a variety of ways. The following are some quotes from actual sessions with clients:
- “Be the lake. And lake, tell me your story.”
- “Let’s have these two rugs have an encounter”
- “Now play the child, and talk to your mother.”
It may take time for the client to get used to this perspective-taking. But only a few examples are needed to show that it results in important insights about the dream. During one session, a client spoke from the perspective of a small animal which he had hidden away in the dream. This led him to become aware of a hurt and resentful part of himself which had apparently been disavowed and disconnected.
Putting them together
On first glance, the psychoanalytic and existential techniques look very different. The first treats the dream as a code to be solved; the second treats the dream as a call to integration. However, the following advice from Perls will provide us with a guideline to use both techniques together:
“No interpretation. You know everything — you know much more than I do, and all my interpretations only would mislead you. It’s simply a question of learning — of uncovering your true self.”
Whether we use the free-associative technique of Freud or the integrative technique of Perls, their goal is one and the same: helping the client discover something new about themself. Using both of these tools, letting your intuition guide you, and remembering that in many ways the client knows best, will be the most productive way of exploring clients’ dreams.
The interpretation should be collaborative
Many clients believe that, as soon as they’ve narrated the dream to us, we’ve already glimpsed something about its meaning — or even, that we’ve understood it completely.
Even if this is the case, we should resist the temptation to deliver interpretations to the client. Rather, the meaning of a dream should be discovered collaboratively. If the therapist has any hunches or hypotheses, they can be shared with the client, or used to guide further questions.
To develop this collaborative tone, I’ve learned to preface dream-work with an introduction similar to the following:
“As you probably know, some people believe that dreams are meaningful — that they can teach us something about ourselves. In my experience, I’ve come to believe that this is true. If it’s alright with you, I’d like us to explore this dream you’ve just told me in some detail, in order to find whether it brings up anything useful. What do you think?”
This formal introduction has many advantages. First, by demarcating a process, it empowers the client to stop at any time. Second, it reinforces the collaborative nature of the work. Third, it emphasizes that the process is a mutual exploration, discouraging the client from believing that I have the ‘final say’, which encourages them to share their ideas with me.
Incorporating Dreams
Exploring dreams has been an important part of my work with clients. Dreams can serve as a rich gateway into the processes and conflicts that clients are dealing with, both consciously and unconsciously. Additionally, working with dreams is an inherently sensitive and collaborative process, leading to the growth and deepening of the therapeutic relationship.
Gaining skills in working with clients’ dreams has greatly improved my practice, and I hope that it will improve yours too.
