Tony Crisp Interpretation:
See dream processing.
Most societies, ancient and modern, have had professional dream interpreters. India had its Brahmin oneirocritics; in Japan, the om myoshi; the Hasidic rabbis in Europe fulfilled this role; in ancient Egypt, the pa-hery-tep; ancient Greece had the priesthood within the Asclepian temples given to dreams; among the Aztecs, dream interpretation and divination were the prerogative of the priestly class teopexqui, the Masters of Secret Things; in today’s world the Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysts fulfill this role. Some of the most ancient written documents are about dream interpretation and are direct expressions of the attempt to understand or interpret dreams. The Chester Beatty papyrus, for instance, dates from 1250 b.c., from Egypt. This contains records of two hundred dreams and their interpretations according to the priests of Horus. See Introduction; key words in Introduction; peer dream work; plot of the dream; processing your dreams; series of dreams, working with; symbols and dreaming.
Fritz Perls (1893-1970) was the main influence in an approach to dream work that was not interpretative. Unlike the Freudian or Jungian work, which includes a lot of interpretation on the part of the analyst, Perls encouraged the dreamer to explore and express their own sense of each character and object in the dream. This develops personal ability and insight in the dreamer. It enables the dreamer to arrive at direct perception of how they have unconsciously formed their dream. The insights into their own behavior arising from this enable them to more wisely make decisions about action. It also opens a door of direct experience regarding the enormously potent feeling content of dreams. Gestalt work lends itself to peer dream work, in which there is no external authority to judge the dreamer’s insights, or to tell them how to work. This has great benefits in that dream exploration can be made by many people who cannot afford, or do not wish to undertake, psychoanalytic work. Its drawback is that the dreamer may avoid their own resistances to uncovering deeper material, and conflicts or fears. See peer dream work; processing your dreams.