Focus on Dreams: How They Can Work for You

You may not remember them or even be aware of them, but you dream several times a night, every night. Dream periods can be monitored by electroencephalograph during periods of Rapid Eye Movement (REM); wake a sleeper during a REM period and he will report a dream in progress. Much can be learned from these unstructured stimuli. They are similar to Rorschach ink blots; without personal associations and projections, they mean nothing; in context, they reveal valuable information. A dream record kept over several months may prove quite practical in forming the continuum useful in dream analysis on a personal basis. Frequently people claim that they do not dream; actually, they simply do not remember the elusive dream. Much as ocular vision is divided into central and peripheral vision with two distinct types of receptors relaying information to the brain, memory is selective. Like central vision, frequently used facts are more easily recalled than the peripheral-vision equivalent—the dream. Retrieving dreams i's simply a matter of training. Before retiring, make up your mind to recall the dream immediately on awakening. When you do wake up, keep your eyes shut and concentrate on the dream. A tape recorder positioned near the bed may aid in collecting dreams, but paper and pencil are just as practical for recording the vital thoughts, images, and emotions of the dream.

After successfully recalling and recording a dream, what do you have? Early analysts, Emil A. Gutheil among them, believed in a single correct interpretation of a dream. To Freud, a dream was a personal conflict that is symbolized, condensed, and displaced through “dream work.” This conversion is necessary in allowing the dream to enter into awareness and to be recalled. Associative work, Freud wrote, will be required to reestablish connections that were disconnected by the dream work. This reconstitution may be compared to the flavor of instant coffee: straight, it is a bitter, foul-tasting stuff;