Gestalt Dream Therapy Process

[Flow]

Hi, this is so interesting! Thank you 13 Twirling Triskeles for explanation. It seems to me like a great way for and experiencing myself better. I was wondering, since I rarely remember my dreams, are there maybe some ways or techniques in Gestalt therapy for remembering dreams? Like maybe something before we go to sleep or something? Because my experience is, very often when I wake up in the morning and lying in bed trying to see what's going on, I just don't remember anything. There is no images, parts of dreams, associations, nothing...

This was supposed to be a "correction" to my previous post. And then I noticed that I'd reached the "magic" post number of 50 posts -- so I could modify/correct/edit that post myself. Glory Hallelujiah!

Many apologies for the confusion. It's almost 10:00 pm. Maybe I need to head off to dream land myself right about now since I seem to not be alert enough to know to whom I'm supposed to be responding.

Sayonara -- Zzzzzzzzzz

Hahaha, it's ok, no problem at all! :D Good night and have a nice dreams!

 

[13 Twirling Triskeles]

Hi Flow --

In the beginning, I, too, rarely remembered my dreams. So, I followed the advice given in the dream book I read -- which is based on the idea that our dream cycles are approximately 90 minutes long. Here's what I did.

Set an alarm clock for 90 minutes. Take a nap. Alarm goes off and I awaken. Nearly always, when the alarm woke me up, I was in the midst of a dream. And I was able to remember and recall the dream sequence. Then I wrote out the dream in a notebook -- as well as how I felt emotionally during the dream and upon awakening.

Thank you, I will definitely try to do it today.

Wishing you well, Flow. I’d be interested in knowing whether using that nap/alarm clock technique worked out for you.

The most important factor is to immediately write the dream on paper. You can do the gestalt dream conversation work at any time -- even years later. The most important part is writing all you can recall of the dream immediately after awakening -- because dreams have a habit of wafting off into memory holes and are more difficult to reconstruct and recall the more time passes after awakening.

I did this several times on week-ends so that I could confirm for myself that I did indeed dream. Once I assured myself that I do dream, I then gave myself suggestions before falling asleep at night. I used the "past tense" for this In other words, I made my suggestions as if they had already occurred. For instance, I would suggest to my sub-conscious/dream mind that I had recalled & remembered any dreams I had during the night -- that I awakened at the end of any dreams I had -- and that I wrote them down immediately after waking.

What seemed to work best for me, however, was to ask myself the same question I ask myself when using the I-Ching or the Tarot -- "What do I most need to know now?" or "What do I most need to focus on now?" Now being the operative principle for that mind. It operates in "Now" -- not in future time, or past time. It's always "present" time to the dream mind/sub-conscious mind. At least, that is my current understanding of how that mind works. If other Forum Members know differently, I would appreciate being corrected. Thank you.

I don't know if this will work for others -- it's just a suggestion for you to try if it indicates or resonates for you, yes?

It seems very interesting to me, really. And reminds me of something I also do, movement or dancing. What I try to do is, to move or dance with my sensations and emotions, and whatever emotion come, I just try to put it in motion, move it, and just experience it and see what's going on. It looks and feels sometimes very silly, but it gives me so much joy. I feel more connected to myself and started to have that inner feeling that everything is gonna be good. Also it gave me some inner "space" of support and nourishment for myself. It seems for me like kind of moving meditation or something.

Also I think it's just amazing how many different ways of Work and learning there are!

Dancing: Yes. I may dance similarly. I just let the music dance me — I’m sort of along for the ride. I’ve done ballroom & other types of structured step dancing as well — like hula & all those dances which were the craze during my growing up years.

I also took roller-skating dance lessons — learning the ballroom dances, but performing them on roller skates.

The benefits of learning structured dancing is learning correct dance posture and how to move different parts of the body gracefully — how to stop-on-a-dime in mid-motion — how to lead and how to follow — effortlessly.

I’ve always enjoyed those old Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers movies — and stage dance performances as well. And the River Dance Troupe never ceases to thrill my spirit.

But I admit, there are definitely times when I prefer to let the music dance my body rather than choreographing or following rules. The music itself dictates the type of movement which matches the rhythms & beats. Like the music & I are dance partners — and the music is leading me & I follow. A totally different sensate experience. More in synch. It’s like a perfect marriage!

Yes — moving meditation is how it “feels” to me also.

Responding to your last statement — I agree. It IS amazing how many different ways of Work and learning there are! Happily and thankfully!

I wish you good luck with recalling and writing down your own dreams, Flow. Also hope that using the gestalt conversation method will be of some benefit for you in accessing and learning about your own inner psyche and the many little "i's" wanting your attention. They're sort of like little children who need to express what's up with them. Once they feel heard and acknowledged, they seem to feel relieved and don't feel "compelled" to try to take over and run roughshod over our waking lives in more covert ways.

There's also another dynamic which I neglected to mention and which can occur -- both in dreams and during hypnosis sessions. It's called, "Top Dog vs. Underdog". I can make a separate post about that because that phenomenon can sometimes get into a war-like stand-off with each side wanting to be the "winner".

Great, I would like to know more about that. Thank you. :)

Ok. I will post that Top Dog vs. Underdog information in a separate post.

What most amazed me was that so many "nightmare" type dreams turned into so many "Wow!" and "Aha!" moments -- actually making me laugh out loud at the creativeness of my sub-conscious mind. I consider her my very good friend and enjoy her communications to me -- albeit in symbolic language pictures rather than logical word language.



Cheers -- and Aloha Blessings.

Wow, amazing. I hope that I'll be there some day too. :D For now, I sometimes have that one sleep paralize where something pushes me and I can't breath. And the first reaction is to run away and wake up, but I can't do it. But there is that voice that says that I shouldn't do that, I should just be there, see what's going on and stup running away. Because it seems like I'm running for my fears, and I have that feeling that it's time to let them be and it's time for me to know them better.

Cheers, 13 Twirling Triskeles, and thank you so much!

That “some day” you speak of happens when you understand the message in your dream. According to the gestalt principle, all the dream characters are just aspects of our own psyche. The dream mind finds fictional or real people whom we know in our waking lives to use as “symbols” or archetypes to illustrate some specific message the dream mind is holding up as a mirror for us to see. In a way, it’s sort of like a networking feed-back system.

Our subconscious mind is attempting to get our conscious mind’s attention and get a message to us — but it can’t use words or rational logic for its communications. Instead, it uses pictures, symbols, metaphors, sounds, emotions, and archetypes to illustrate its message.

So when something or someone “scary” appears in our dreams, it’s sometimes a message from our sub-conscious mind that we need to pay attention to some aspect of our own psyche which we’ve neglected for whatever reason. The dream character may terrify us during the dream, but after we consciously find out the true meaning of that character’s message after awakening, that character’s fearful aspect just drops away and we feel like it was our friend & ally after all.

Note: That isn’t true of every scary dream character. For instance the “Dark Man” dream characters. However, even with “Dark Man” dreams — although they appear frightening during the dream, when we uncover the hidden message, and identify the Dark Man in our waking life, we can also perceive that character as alerting us to a waking-life dangerous situation we’ve been oblivious to or avoiding facing for some reason.

I also used to have dreams where I was running away from something or someone scary. But I could always lift up off the ground and fly to escape.

Wow! I’d totally forgotten about those dreams. I haven’t had those in years and years. I wonder if there’s any correlation between my waking life and my dream life because when I began to stop avoiding difficulties in my waking life and faced them more head-on and stood up to abuse or manipulation by others (particularly in my working life), I stopped having those “escape” dreams around the same time.

OMG — that reminds me of another dream I had back in the late ’80’s — which would have been around the same time I was doing a lot of emotional work & inner child work on myself and getting in touch with all those times I’d neglected, failed, repressed, or felt unable to express what or how I felt about other’s behavior — past or present. Lots of “be nice” programing, most likely. In those days, I didn’t even know what I was feeling myself.

But that dream was a huge turning point for me. It took place in a Catholic Church. When the priest walked down the center aisle holding the monstrance (communion wafer in an ornately decorated cross — usually gold), we were supposed to all genuflect (kneel on one knee) and make the sign of the cross as he passed.

It was a big deal — with incense and a large procession. My father & four other siblings and I were all in a row towards the rear of the church — and as the priest reached the pew where I and my family were standing, I refused to genuflect or cross myself. (Oooops! I'm in trouble now! LOL)

Well, OMG, the procession came to a grinding halt, and the priest & his entourage, as well as my father & siblings and the entire congregation all turned towards me and furiously glared at me — willing me to submit & obey.

And I just would NOT do it. It was my own personal act of civil disobedience. LOL I’ll tell you though, when I awoke I felt so empowered and exhilarated — like I had just stood up to the entire patriarchy and would not bow. :D

I’d forgotten that dream. But it did have a powerful influence. Or maybe my waking life was influencing my dream. I think that was right around the time I was also reading a lot of books written by women — older suffragettes as well as more modern writers — in addition to doing a lot of therapy work on myself. So it’s possibly one of those synchronous events where the dream reflected changes I was undergoing during my waking life.

OK Flow. I wish you well with your own dreams and dream works and I’m interested in learning how your own work progresses.

I’ll post that info regarding Top Dog vs. Underdog next.

Cheers!

I find when I take melatonin to help me sleep I remember my dreams way more and they are much more vivid.

Note: I also agree with Iainey that taking Melatonin will help you sleep even more deeply (which is where the richest dream material is found) and you will most likely remember your dreams better and they are certainly more vivid -- just as Iainey states. Thank you Iainey for pointing that out and giving the C's quote as support. :)

I was not taking Melatonin back in those days. If I had done so, it's quite likely any dream work I did then would have been more beneficial. I do take Melatonin now -- since 2011 -- and for the first week I actually did sleep more deeply and recalled my dreams more effortlessly. After taking Melatonin for 2 weeks, the number of hours I slept also increased. So it was a win on all counts. Do give the Melatonin a try, Flow, and see how it works for you, yes?

Aloha Blessings

 

[13 Twirling Triskeles]

There's also another dynamic which I neglected to mention and which can occur -- both in dreams and during hypnosis sessions. It's called, "Top Dog vs. Underdog". I can make a separate post about that because that phenomenon can sometimes get into a war-like stand-off with each side wanting to be the "winner".

Great, I would like to know more about that. Thank you. :)

Ok. I will post that Top Dog vs. Underdog information in a separate post.

OK Flow -- below is that Top Dog vs. Underdog information I promised to post.

Top Dog vs. Underdog​

I found the following article which I think sums up the concept of Top Dog vs. Underdog fairly well. The quoted portion below is not the entire article — only the portion which applies to the Top Dog vs. Underdog concept.

The last part — regarding the Authentic Voice and references to Lao Tzu’s writings — are included as well, although I’m not specifically agreeing or dis-agreeing with those statements -- nor any of Nina Bingham’s interpretations or conclusions either for that matter.

I typed it out myself as I was unable to copy/paste it — so any errors, typos, etc., are my own. I have taken the liberty of breaking the text up into smaller paragraphs and changed some basic punctuation for easier reading. The link is included if you wish to read the original.

Article by Nina Bingham
June 20, 2011

Link: _http://www.booksie.com/health_and_fitness/article/nina_bingham/expressing-your-authentic-voice:-how-phony-roles-prevent-us-from-experiencing-vitality

* * *
In Gestalt Therapy, the two facets of personality seen most often are referred to as the Top Dog and the Underdog. Dr. Frederick (Fritz) S. Perls described these trouble-makers as, “The two fighting clowns,” because we can dialectically “play” both roles at different times and they both vie for control of the personality.

The Top Dog role can be described as: superior, judgmental, demanding, perfectionist, and mostly righteous, or having to be right. It’s the part of the human personality which insists his view is the right view, his religion is the only religion, and his politics are the best.

The second role we can play is the Underdog, who apologizes for her existence, second-guesses her decisions, feels insecure, tries hard to be polite and say the right thing, puts others' needs ahead of her own, and tries desperately to meet others’ expectations of her.

Dr. Perls often worked with these two polarized (opposite) expressions of the fragile Ego when facilitating therapy. Examples of the Top Dog role would be the supervisor who treats employees as if they are his possessions, with disrespect or unfairness, instead of leading by example.

He might lead with his head and seldom his heart, and as he commandeers the role of Top Dog, he forgets his humanity while playing the important supervisor, too busy to notice his employee’s struggles.

The Underdog might work for the Top Dog, and realizing her mortality, she apologizes for it. She is hyper-critical of herself, while excusing the behavior of others. She is ultra-polite, self-abasing and subservient. Her behavior expresses, “You are more important than I.”

Examples of the Underdog role are seen in the “seen and not heard” demeanor of the maid who “cleans up” after other people’s messes (mothers, wives and minorities favor this role).

Playing Top Dog or Underdog creates a psychopathological problem: we are not free to be ourselves. We are busy playing a phony role, “living up” to someone else’s expectation of us. The Top Dog supervisor wants to be a skilled leader, but doesn’t know how, so he resorts to a phony authoritarian role in discharging his duties. He “lives up” to his idea of what a boss “should be.”

Because of his pretending, he denies his potential to learn to be a real leader. He substitutes a “dummy role” for the real thing, with which he falsely bolsters his fragile sense of Ego.

This substituting what is not real for what is real is to cheat himself out of the opportunity to learn and grow. It is to cheat those around him as well.

The Underdog has been conditioned by her environment (family and culture) to, as the song says, “Take what is given (‘cause I’m working for a livin” …).” She has been taught not to hope or ask for more. She has been conditioned to show gratitude, and not to question authority, so she “keeps her head down” and tries not to make trouble.

The trouble with playing this phony role is that she denies herself the freedom of expression. While the Top Dog over-expresses his demands and wants, she under-expresses. She keeps her thoughts to herself. In playing the silent observer, the submissive, her potential is diminished. Ever so slowly, like the tide that sneaks the sand from the shore, her potential and vitality are washed out to sea.

The Three Virtues of the Authentic Voice
Lao Tzu said, “At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

If this is true, if we know what we want, why can just being ourselves prove to be so challenging?

Becoming an authentic and free person is not as easy as it may sound. It requires three virtues: Openness, Teachableness, and Honesty.

Openness is the ability to consider alternatives. It is the opposite of having to be right. There is a flexibility inherent in openness; I must be willing to change my position and consider others’ opinions or alternatives.

Teachableness is the quality of eagerness to learn. To learn is to discover that something is possible (Perls). To learn is to explore, and the willingness to question our assumptions and try alternative methods.

Honesty is the undisturbed self. It is the essence of who we are; at the core of everyone is the unmolested self. This self is the self that Lao Tzu spoke of: this self knows the truth about us. This self knows what it wants, knows what it should be doing, and knows its thoughts and desires.

Of the three authentic virtues, honesty is the one which is most important to cultivate, and here is why: Without acknowledgement and expression of the undisturbed self, we have no inner compass by which to guide our lives. If we remain inhibited by denying our thoughts and desires, we will become a slave; institutionalized. We will conform and constrict our expressions to please the institutions of religion, government, society … sometimes even a partner becomes that institution.

Vitalness and Your Authentic Voice
When we stop thinking for ourselves, we stop dreaming … a moratorium is placed upon our vitalness … we are diminished. Though a certain amount of law-abiding is appropriate and necessary to live in society, to give up one’s birth-right to self-expression helps no one. There has never been another person exactly like you, nor will there be. When we consider this truism, we see clearly that each person has a responsibility to contribute in their own way that which is uniquely theirs to contribute. To say only that which has already been said is an echo, and not a voice.

End of quoted material.

And the point of all this? Just to realize that it is possible for our psyches to get into these internal little dogfights which can seemingly go on forever with no resolution — which re-emphasizes the need for a network such as this Forum which can give us feedback when we get stuck in an argumentative inner dialogue loop from which it can be difficult to extricate ourselves.

It’s not just two individuals who can play out these Top Dog vs. Underdog roles in our lives. We can internalize both these roles within our own psyches as well and become quite frustrated with ourselves and these two inner “i” voices when attempting to resolve these inner clashes.

I’ve observed this can sometimes happen while doing these Gestalt dream-work dialogues.

If we notice we’re caught up in one of these endless inner spirals, it’s probably a good idea to just stop and ask for some feedback from other Forum Members here.

At any rate, Flow, since you asked for some info regarding the Top Dog vs. Underdog concept, I hope this lengthy excerpt helps explain it satisfactorily for you.

Cheers!

[Edited to correct one punctuation error -- to delete several excess carrier returns at the end of my Reply -- and to explain my editions.]

 

[Flow]

Thank you so much, 13 Twirling Triskeles! Thank you for your your responses and effort!

Here is an update about my dreams: I was a little busy these days so I didn't have a time for nap. But i did remember one dream! I woke up in the morning and remembered 3 scenes! And I followed your advice and wrote everything I remembered in my notebook. Also, as much emotions and sensations I could remember. So the dream was kind of hard for me and connected with my daily life. One of the scenes was about my parent who is an alcoholic. It is, emotionally, very hard situation for me. It includes sooo much different feelings that I couldn't process even in my dreams. It was very painful. Another scene was a death of my aunt and it also was very hard. The third scene was about relationships and love. It was a dream about a man and I felt loved and accepted. But there was that situation of myself doubting about that. Like I couldn't believe that it was truth. How could somebody love me? Also I was very afraid of betrayal and was confused. It is very connected with my daily life because these days I'm dealing with, well, unrequited love. It is something that last for long time and I know I have to deal with it, I have to process that, but I'm just buying time. So, here it is. I think that I'll try to do, for the beginning, writing conversation. I'll try for beginning to explore the third scene, about relationship with that man. So I'm excited how it's going to be. And I can't promise, but I'll try to encourage myself to share that experience here!

 

[Flow]

That “some day” you speak of happens when you understand the message in your dream. According to the gestalt principle, all the dream characters are just aspects of our own psyche. The dream mind finds fictional or real people whom we know in our waking lives to use as “symbols” or archetypes to illustrate some specific message the dream mind is holding up as a mirror for us to see. In a way, it’s sort of like a networking feed-back system.

Our subconscious mind is attempting to get our conscious mind’s attention and get a message to us — but it can’t use words or rational logic for its communications. Instead, it uses pictures, symbols, metaphors, sounds, emotions, and archetypes to illustrate its message.

So when something or someone “scary” appears in our dreams, it’s sometimes a message from our sub-conscious mind that we need to pay attention to some aspect of our own psyche which we’ve neglected for whatever reason. The dream character may terrify us during the dream, but after we consciously find out the true meaning of that character’s message after awakening, that character’s fearful aspect just drops away and we feel like it was our friend & ally after all.

Note: That isn’t true of every scary dream character. For instance the “Dark Man” dream characters. However, even with “Dark Man” dreams — although they appear frightening during the dream, when we uncover the hidden message, and identify the Dark Man in our waking life, we can also perceive that character as alerting us to a waking-life dangerous situation we’ve been oblivious to or avoiding facing for some reason.

I also used to have dreams where I was running away from something or someone scary. But I could always lift up off the ground and fly to escape.

Wow! I’d totally forgotten about those dreams. I haven’t had those in years and years. I wonder if there’s any correlation between my waking life and my dream life because when I began to stop avoiding difficulties in my waking life and faced them more head-on and stood up to abuse or manipulation by others (particularly in my working life), I stopped having those “escape” dreams around the same time.

OMG — that reminds me of another dream I had back in the late ’80’s — which would have been around the same time I was doing a lot of emotional work & inner child work on myself and getting in touch with all those times I’d neglected, failed, repressed, or felt unable to express what or how I felt about other’s behavior — past or present. Lots of “be nice” programing, most likely. In those days, I didn’t even know what I was feeling myself.

But that dream was a huge turning point for me. It took place in a Catholic Church. When the priest walked down the center aisle holding the monstrance (communion wafer in an ornately decorated cross — usually gold), we were supposed to all genuflect (kneel on one knee) and make the sign of the cross as he passed.

It was a big deal — with incense and a large procession. My father & four other siblings and I were all in a row towards the rear of the church — and as the priest reached the pew where I and my family were standing, I refused to genuflect or cross myself. (Oooops! I'm in trouble now! LOL)

Well, OMG, the procession came to a grinding halt, and the priest & his entourage, as well as my father & siblings and the entire congregation all turned towards me and furiously glared at me — willing me to submit & obey.

And I just would NOT do it. It was my own personal act of civil disobedience. LOL I’ll tell you though, when I awoke I felt so empowered and exhilarated — like I had just stood up to the entire patriarchy and would not bow. :D

I’d forgotten that dream. But it did have a powerful influence. Or maybe my waking life was influencing my dream. I think that was right around the time I was also reading a lot of books written by women — older suffragettes as well as more modern writers — in addition to doing a lot of therapy work on myself. So it’s possibly one of those synchronous events where the dream reflected changes I was undergoing during my waking life.

OK Flow. I wish you well with your own dreams and dream works and I’m interested in learning how your own work progresses.

I’ll post that info regarding Top Dog vs. Underdog next.

Cheers!

I find when I take melatonin to help me sleep I remember my dreams way more and they are much more vivid.

Note: I also agree with Iainey that taking Melatonin will help you sleep even more deeply (which is where the richest dream material is found) and you will most likely remember your dreams better and they are certainly more vivid -- just as Iainey states. Thank you Iainey for pointing that out and giving the C's quote as support. :)

I was not taking Melatonin back in those days. If I had done so, it's quite likely any dream work I did then would have been more beneficial. I do take Melatonin now -- since 2011 -- and for the first week I actually did sleep more deeply and recalled my dreams more effortlessly. After taking Melatonin for 2 weeks, the number of hours I slept also increased. So it was a win on all counts. Do give the Melatonin a try, Flow, and see how it works for you, yes?

Aloha Blessings

I enjoy so much in reading this and thanks again!I'm very glad I have a chance to learn from you. It gives me much hope, faith and joy. And also your story is very inspirational and moving. Very interesting experiences! I can only imagine how deliberate that dream in church was! And also your other dreams.
About melatonin, I remember first time I read it I wished to try it. But I don't know, there is just that thought, probably from some book I've read, that maybe there is reason for not remembering my dreams or rarely remembering? Like maybe it will be too much for me? I don't know, but I just have that thought that maybe it's ok to put that aside for a while.

About Top Dog vs. Underdog concept, thank you for writing this! It is something I can relate to. There are lot of interesting thing to work with and I'm sure it will be useful in my practice.