Over the years I've become more impressed with and more excited about what I call non-interpretive dream work. One example would be re-doing a dream in fantasy, changing the outcome or some action within the dream. Another would be Senoi dreamwork. Still another would be symbol or action manifestation; drawing, painting, sculpting, singing, dancing or otherwise bringing dream symbols into the waking world.
There is no attempt to understand the meaning of the symbols with these methods, although understanding may come. Instead, the symbols are allowed to interact with and act upon the dreamer and with other symbols. What this kind of work has taught me, contrary to the thrust of traditional psychoanalysis, is that it's possible to use dreams to make life changes without ever understanding what the symbols mean or where particular blocks and fears come from.
Recently I came up with another non-interpretive dream aid which I call Symbol/Pattern Activation (S/PA). You will see echoes of other dream work techniques here but for me it's a slightly different perspective or framework and l've found it to be helpful and tun.
The concept is quite simple but it rests on certain assumptions which help to vitalize it for me. One common dream work approach is to see all parts of the dream as representing parts of the dreamer. In S/PA, this idea is taken very literally. I assume that all of the symbols, actions, emotions and even settings in the dream exist as patterns in the psyche. One of the purposes of the dream is to activate certain of these patterns. But activate to what end?
Some dream symbols or actions activate certain behavioral patterns or attitudes which our subconscious has decided we're ready to look at and possibly change. Sometimes fears are activated, giving us an opportunity to face them, transform them and release their energy for our creative use. Some dreams present us with power symbols or highly evolved spiritual beings. These are also designed to activate corresponding patterns within our psyches, drawing us forward toward our highest potentials.
These pattems also exist within the body, in cells, in our hormonal system and as particular nerve pattems within our nervous system. As patterns in the psyche are activated by dream experiences, so are pattems in the body. Patterns are also de-activated, de-energized or transformed. You may have a pattern which represents a particular fear. If you overcome that fear, through dreams or waking actions, a pattern is de-activated or a blockage in a pattern is opened up. A new pattern is turned on, new neuronal connections are made, releasing energy into your psyche and your body which had been tied up in your fear.
The dream state is a highly charged physiological state. I believe that one of the functions of dreaming is body maintenance. We have dreams that get our adrenaline flowing and cause all sorts of hormonal and nervous system adjustments. It's possible that incipient illnesses are actually healed in the dream state before they ever manifest. So S/PA has an important physiological component and can be used for healing or other physiological changes.
Symbol/Pattern Activation is nothing more than a technique for helping the dream to fulfill its function/intention. It's a way of joining our conscious intention with the dream's intention. I feel that this can enhance and accelerate the work the dreams are trying to do.
In this brief space l'll give you the "bones" of the process and you can play with it and "meat" it out yourself. I've been playing with the idea of patterns; belief and attitude pattems, fear patterns, patterns like pathways leading to certain events or not leading to certain events. I played with the idea of consciously trying to de-energize pattems that I could see were not working or were taking me where I didn't want to go. I would then consciously energize a new pattern which would represent the resolution I sought. Again, I saw this as pattems in the body as well as the psyche and I was surprised at the body sensations and emotions that came up when I did my pattem work.
A particular dream caused me to join my pattern work with dream work:
I'm in a room with a bunch of psychics. Each one of them (five?) is going to do a reading for me. I'm sort of volunteering as a guinea pig. I'm seated cross-legged on the floor across from the first reader. The first reader is Chris C. who shortly becomes Marta T. I have some dark sand in my hands. This is to be the medium for the reading.
Marta begins singing a chant and I'm to repeat it after her. It's in a strange language and too complex for me to follow or repeat. I try the first word (which begins with an "A") and get it wrong. She repeats it. I decide I'll never get the chant right so I fake going into a trance. She buys it and decides the chant wont be necessary. I open my eyes and act alert again.
As I look at the sand, it suddenly increases in volume and spills over my hands. I'm amazed! I call it to Marta's attention and she's not impressed. She tells me that the baby put the extra sand there. Now I realize that there's a woman sitting to my right with a baby girl in her left arm. I really don't think the baby put that extra sand in my hands but I realize that, wherever it came from, it will change the reading.
All of the sand falls from my hands and now there's a hole in the floor and in the ground between us. I reach into the hole to gather up more sand for the reading. There's regular dirt and some rocks but not much of the fine dark sand. I try to scrape enough together.
Then I see a figurine in the hole and take it out. It's a painted rubber figure of a queen about seven or eight inches tall. Then she becomes an Egyptian queen with a circular headdress like Nefertiti's. Her robe is white with gold trim.
I squeeze her legs slightly and her neck elongates. I think that's interesting and squeeze harder. A second headdress pops up through the first and as I continue to squeeze, an entire duplicate of the queen emerges out of the top of the head of the first.
This is the kind of dream that lends itself to all kinds of work, but I want to share how this particular dream triggered the idea of pattem activation. The most obvious thing about the characters is that they are all women. The action has to do with psychic abilities. The women doing the reading are both dark intuitive females. It was clear to me that this dream had to do with my desire to open up to my own intuitive psychic abilities. My belief is that women are naturally more intuitive than men and so I stirred up all of that female energy. I also reached into the ground to pull up the powerful self-replicating queen energy.
I did a lot of my usual kind of work with this dream but decided that what I really needed to do was activate the pattern of the psychic female within myself. All I did with this first dream was to re-vision the various characters in the dream, including the statuette, and imagine that their energy was being "turned on," activated within me. I also called on other meaningful female symbols to assist with this activation. One of the first visualizations I ever did involved a temple to Artemis with the goddess Isis inside. I visualized and activated those two goddesses. (The day of this dream I received in the mail a book I had ordered a couple of weeks earlier, Jean Shinoda Bolen's Goddesses in Every Woman.)
It's difficult to explain what happens with this process. You have to play with it yourself to see what effect it might have for you. When you do the activation, pay attention to body sensations and to feelings. Also watch for behavioral or attitude changes. I have talked about only one aspect of activation - in this case the central figure/theme of the dream - but you can go through every aspect of any dream and activate all parts of it including setting, objects, animals and people, actions, interactions and emotions. Richard Lind's categories can be used to help you think of various aspects of the dream to activate.
Finally, you will also want to activate and energize so-called negative parts of the dream because they need to be acknowledged. But you will then allow those negative aspects or actions to transform and energize a new and healthier pattem. There's much more to Symbol/Pattern Activation dream work but this should give you something to start with.
