Have you ever noticed how dreams that arouse our deepest fears in the night can seem silly or insignificant later in the day?
Have you ever had a dream in which you felt deep love or desire for an individual only to wake up surprised or repulsed by those feelings?
Have you ever behaved in a dream so contrary to how you would behave in waking life that you’re ashamed of who you were or what you did in the dream?
Even those of us who don’t remember so many dreams on a daily basis do remember those dreams that leave us with strong feelings we don’t typically feel during the day while awake.
These are feelings to pay attention to; even if they are unsettling. And these are dreams to record, even if you feel shame, embarrassment, or terror upon waking.
In fact, when I start to work with dreamers, I always instruct them to pay attention to when they feel resistance around recording a dream or sending it to me. (That said, I never try to strong-arm a dreamer to work a dream they aren’t ready to.)
Embarrassing dreams are often the ones that reveal what we need most to face into and dreamers may find that working them in a session, while vulnerable, leads to insight, liberation, or healing. The meaning dreamers quickly make of a dream the next morning is many times a surface layer understanding and this is what may be leading to the embarrassment. Dreams are multi-layered and the images are rarely meant to be understood the way we understand images with our alert, analytical, meaning-making, reactive minds. They are meant to be felt deeply, which is not as easy as it sounds. We have developed many coping strategies for not feeling our feelings.
In my own personal dreamwork, I have come to learn that more often than not, when I bring a difficult dream to a dreamwork session, I find myself very surprised by what arises in session. More often than not, my practitioner’s response to my dream makes me feel less embarrassed, and less anxious, not more. He sees something new in my dream, something my ego mind (the “I” that identifies with my thoughts, beliefs, and conditioned self) can’t or won’t.
I invite you to be open to the possibility that your dream provides you with provocative images and encounters with the intention that you will feel something. The You that dreams the dream may be trying to connect with the You who — with good intentions for your safety and well-being — refuses to feel certain feelings while awake, or has forgotten how to.
Our restful minds respond differently to images than our active minds. This is why we are able to feel more deeply or authentically in the night than during the day while awake. (I also believe this may be the source of chronic insomnia for certain otherwise-healthy individuals: deep rest leaves them vulnerable to feeling more, and therefore they may subconsciously resist sleep. This may especially be the case for people with trauma. Dreamwork can be supportive.)
The most common strong feeling that arises at night that does not so easily emerge during the day is terror, in the form of what most of us call “nightmares.” The most emotionally shut-down person can be brought to childlike trembling in the night as a result of a terrifying dream. I am not talking about anxiety dreams here. I am talking more about dreams of life-threatening danger, harm to one’s physical self or loved ones, or incredible loss, pain, or rejection.
However, you might be surprised to learn that people can be just as disturbed by feelings of joy or pleasure in the night, as they are by their nightmares or dreams that evoke loss or grief. It can feel just as vulnerable to acknowledge our desires as it can be to face our fears. It can be just as disturbing for someone to wake up from a dream in which one is sexually aroused, as it is to wake up from a dream in which one is being threatened by a bear.
In general, we do a really good job of repressing our deepest feelings while awake and it can be overwhelming when our dreams invite us to feel that which we think is too dangerous, too painful, or even too hopeful to experience, even in a dream. However, those of us who are seeking self-knowledge, personal growth, or healing would be wise to bring forth from the night the feelings that emerge there.
My suggestion is to record the middle of the night feelings — even if you can’t really recall all the details of a dream and even if you write it in a private journal you lock with a key and don’t look at for a while. You don’t even have to feel the feeling again any time soon if you don’t want to. Bringing the feeling forward from nighttime to daytime can sometimes be enough to kickstart a process of transformation or healing. Bringing the feeling forward a few times or writing down the dream you feel too embarrassed even to privately recall can be one step toward willingness to accept its existence, which I promise you, your dreaming self wants for you to feel ultimately for your benefit and healing, not terror or shame.
