Steering by Starlight by Martha Beck

Author:Martha Beck [Beck, Martha]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Friendship
ISBN: 9781623361976
Publisher: Rodale Books
Published: 2009-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

Analyze This!

Vivid night dreams often accompany the waking transitions that occur as you begin to emerge from your dungeon of thoughts. Writing them down as soon as you awaken will give you a star chart, a map of the next steps toward your destiny—but the map is drawn in symbols the waking mind won’t understand. I’ve never analyzed a dream of my own that didn’t turn out to have useful information I’d missed entirely before the analysis. What’s more, decoding the dream message, because it comes from your own core self, packs a powerful psychological punch. So now I’d like you to learn the method of dream analysis that’s been most effective for me and my clients.

I agree with science that dreams are probably produced by the brain as it synthesizes data it’s accumulated during the day. I don’t believe that dream objects always symbolize the same thing. For example, I disagree with Freud’s assertion that snakes or skyscrapers—or for that matter, anything longer than it is wide—are necessarily phallic symbols. Sigmund seems to have been a tad preoccupied by everything going on inside his underwear, but perhaps you are less so. When you dream of snakes, it might be because of an Animal Planet snake-wrangler who reminds you of your jolly uncle: Dream-Snake symbolizes Uncle Bob. When I dream of snakes, I might be thinking about hiking through the desert: Dream-Snake symbolizes Danger.

On the other hand, I don’t completely buy into the idea that dreams are simply brain chaos. I’ve had precognitive dreams myself—night dreams that later came true in the real world—so it would be disingenuous for me to reject all claims that dreams may sometimes be a conduit to the Dreamtime. Whether your dreams are just data processing or messages from the Force, analysis often reveals knowledge you’ve been holding just outside consciousness or a message that has profound insights for your waking self.

Dream Analysis, Step 1: Keep a Dream Journal

We all dream. Even hibernating animals periodically raise their body temperatures—at a high energy cost—enough to create dream states. However, most of us forget the majority of our dreams. Keeping a dream journal right by your bed is the best way to remember dreams, even if you think you aren’t having them. If you do remember a dream when you wake up, write it down immediately. Be as detailed as you can, because even if the dream is intense, you’ll probably forget it. I used to wake up in the middle of the night, thinking, “Boy, I’ll never forget that!” and write a few key words down on a notepad. In the morning, I’d have no idea what made me scribble “Bus stop peanut butter shoes!” or “Fuzzy bagpipes. Lady Bird Johnson?” in my dream journal.

Dream Analysis, Step 2: Act Out All the Parts

My dream analysis technique is based on the theory of Carl Jung, Freud’s wacky, mystical renegade disciple. Jung believed that every part of a dream represents some aspect of the self that has been “split off” from consciousness, and he often used role-playing to help unify the self.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.