How many of you, inside a scary dream, have found some way to become lucid or aware enough to either wake yourself up from a nightmare or act in a way that shuts the scary element down or protects you from it?
Some research has shown that lucid dreaming –the ability to recognize one is in the dream state — can reduce the impact of nightmares or put a halt to recurring nightmares. I believe there is great therapeutic benefit to this, especially for certain populations (ie. those with recurring nightmares due to PTSD or with sleep disorders like night terrors.)
However, I don’t recommend lucid dreaming as a standard solution for facing unpleasant or even terrifying dream content. In fact, if you’re doing dreamwork in the hopes of greater self-awareness or spiritual growth, lucid dreaming can actually keep you from becoming aware of your deepest fears, longings, and wounds. Same goes for waking yourself up from frightening or uncomfortable dream content — which I understand isn’t always within one’s control. Sometimes we seem to just wake up.
Dreamwork can help us start to imagine what it would be like to face the fearful event or be in the unsettling encounter in the dream and to stay longer in it; especially in a dreamwork session with a person you trust to hold space for you deeply feeling your feelings, and expressing those feelings out loud, no matter how terrifying or shameful they may feel.
Unpleasant content for one person may not be for another. Sometimes just speaking the dream out loud to another person can reduce the charge of the dream event or amplify it in a way that feels cathartic. Sometimes not, though. And in many cases, what’s necessary is for the dreamer to stay long enough with the dream in order to feel the charge fully.
What does this look like in a dreamwork session? Typically, I ask the dreamer to read the dream slowly and to stop at the moment of the frightening or unpleasant event. Sometimes the dreamer isn’t even consciously aware that the dream event is so unpleasant or scary. Sometimes in response to unpleasant content, the dream will suddenly “shift” into a new space, setting, or even storyline. That’s usually an indicator to me that there is an unfelt feeling seeking to be known and felt.
The dream wants this for us…and when the dreamer is able to feel the image of the dream fully, there is often an insight, a memory, or a release that follows. When we wake ourselves up from the dream or when we try to control the dream, we lose the opportunity for that feeling, insight, memory, or release.
Of course, all of this is dependent on the dreamer’s willingness, desire, and capacity to be with the difficult content. I will never force a client to face difficult content before she is ready or willing, even if it’s obvious to me that it’s there in the dream. Certainly, I may gently invite her to get closer to a difficult image or stay longer in a frightening encounter in ways that feel safe to her in the moment. But it’s always up to the dreamer to decide how deeply she wishes to feel the dream.
Our waking lives are so busy and so filled with information, requests, demands, responsibilities, sounds, smells, etc. It’s near impossible for us to become aware of the deeper wounding, fears, and desires that drive our choices, behaviors, and emotional reactions in waking life, even when we are working hard at doing so. Especially if the deeper wounding is old (ie. from childhood), and deeply buried (as a learned coping strategy).
Dreams sometimes start to become more vivid –and sometimes more alarming — when somewhere inside our subconscious we know it’s no longer healthy to ignore or suppress certain feelings anymore. Often our dreams “know” before we do, and try to tease the feelings out with graphic images designed to provoke us.
Allowing the images to provoke us –and contemplating them, despite the distress they cause — may ultimately lead to healing. It’s courageous work, for sure. I’m not minimizing the effort it takes to face our most disturbing dream content. But it can prove to be transformative in our waking lives, illuminating long-held fears and beliefs that drive our behaviors in relationships, at jobs, and in social situations. Only once we know these feelings exist (through facing and feeling into them), can we consciously choose differently how and who to be in our waking lives. Ultimately, it’s letting go of control in dreams that may allow for greater control — through greater self-awareness — in waking life.
