Tony Crisp Interpretation: There is a level of human experience which is typified by intense emotional and physical response to life. Such emotions and bodily drives may remain almost entirely unconscious until touched by exploring our dream content in the right setting. When such feelings and bodily movements arise, as they do in dreams, we may be amazed at their power and clarity.
See dream processing; sleep movements.
If we take away the images and events occurring in a dream and simply look to see what feelings or emotions are evident, the dream is often more understandable than if we try to interpret the symbols. Feelings in dreams are nearly always undistoned. We therefore do not need to interpret them, simply to acknowledge them and see if we can recognise where they occur in waking life.
The images in a dream may be the way we unconsciously pictorialise our flux of feelings and the play of internal energy flows.
For instance love or sexual drive can give rise to physical movement—as in sexual intercourse. Repression of sex or love also represses such physical movements, leading to tension and conflict, which might be presented in the drama of a dream.
Example: ‘I was with my wife, walking along a street, on holiday with her. But I felt awful tension. It was the son of stress I feel when I have turned off my sexual flow—as I have at the moment’ (Brian V). Brian can easily see the connection between the dream feelings and his everyday life, although sometimes we need to practise this. But the situation could as easily be expressed as a dream image of a blocked river.
The underlying feelings would then be less easy to grasp.
Example: ‘I was in a very ancient crumbling building, confronted by a large stone door, deeply engraved with many designs and creatures. I began to open the door and felt high feelings of anxiety. I realised this was an initiation and I must calm my feelings in order to pass beyond the door, i.e. if I were controlled by my feelings I would run away’ (Derek F). How we meet the emotions in our dreams illustrates our habitual method of dealing with them.
The feelings of anxiety in Derek’s dream were met and moved beyond, but this is unusual. This is because most of us change our direction as soon as there is a hint of fear.
The amount of nicotine and alcohol human beings consume suggests how poorly we meet anxiety. Going beyond fear or pain is an initiation which opens doors for us. We might now apply for the job, ask for the date, raise the issue, express the creativity, make the journey abroad, which anxiety previously kept us from. We see this in the next example: I had a ring on my marriage finger. It was a thin band of gold. I woke up frightened’ (Angela). Angela is not married and feels anxiety about the commitment.
Dreams give us a safe area to express emotions which might be difficult or dangerous to release socially. Anger in a dream may be expressing what we failed to express in a waking encounter, or it might be our habitual response. It may also be directed against ourself. Dreams also contain many positive emotions. Sometimes they present a new aspect of feeling which is life enhancing.
A person who habitually felt at odds with her father and relatives experienced a dream in which she felt forgiveness for the first time. This was entirely new for her and led to a reconciliation with her family.
Some feeling states in a dream are subtle, and may be more evident in terms of the symbols than the feelings.
A grey drear environment suggests depression and lack of pleasure.
A sunny light environment with flowers and colour shows pleasure and good feelings.
A country landscape depicts quite a different feeling state to a smoky busy city street. We can define these for ourself using the techniques described under dream processing.
Whatever feelings or emotions we meet in our dreams, many of them are bound to be habitual responses we have to life. Where these habits are negative we can begin to change them by working with the dream images as described in the last question under dream processing.
See love; hostility.
There is a level of your experience that is typified by intense emotional and physical response to life. The intense response to pleasure and pain seen in babies is still alive in you, though perhaps buried. Such emotions and bodily drives may remain almost entirely unconscious until touched by exploring your dream content in the right setting, or revealed by dramatic events in your life. When such feelings and bodily movements arise, as they do in dreams, we may be amazed at their power and clarity. See processing your dreams; movements during sleep. Whatever feelings or emotions we meet in dreams, many of them are bound to be habitual responses we have to life. Where these habits are negative we can begin to change them by working with the dream images as described in carrying the dream forward under peer dream work. See love; anger.
What do you feel in the dream? Define what is felt emotionally and physically. In the physical sense, are you tired, cold, relaxed, or hungry? In the emotional sense, did you feel sad, angry, lost, tender, or frightened anywhere in the dream? This helps clarify what feeling area the dream is dealing with. It is important also to define whether the feelings in the dream were satisfyingly expressed or whether held back. If held back they need fuller expression. See . Is there a “because” factor in the dream? In many dreams something happens, fails to happen, or appears ... because! For instance, trapped in a room you find a door to escape through. All is dark beyond and you do not go through the door, “because” you are frightened of the dark. In this case the because factor is fear. The dream also suggests you are trapped in an unsatisfying life situation through fear of opportunity or the unknown. Am I meeting the things I fear in my dream? Because a dream is an entirely inward thing, we create it completely out of our internal feelings, images, creativity, habits, and insights. So even the monsters of our dream are a part of ourselves. If we run from them, it is only aspects of ourselves we are avoiding. We can never escape ourselves, so we might as well find a way of internal ease. Through defining what feelings occur in the dream, you may be able to clarify what it is you are avoiding. It is also helpful to replay the dream several times while awake and relaxed, and imagine facing or meeting the things one fears or is running away from. It is of enormous help also to rephrase, or rescript the underlying messages attached to one’s fears. For instance, you may have had very reasonable fears as a baby/child that your mother would abandon you—perhaps because you went into hospital and felt abandoned. So the original message might have been, “The person I love and utterly depend upon can leave me and I am powerless to make her love me in a way to bind her to me.” The new message might be, “I am not a baby any longer, and can actually survive alone, though I love having a partner to share life with. So I don’t need to feel complete panic when there is any sign of them withdrawing or getting emotionally distant.”