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You are taking a hike through a beautiful national park when you come to a rickety old bridge crossing a dangerously steep canyon. Do you:
- A) turn around to find another path;
- B) cringe and shuffle across, imagining you are somewhere else;
- C) freeze in fear; or
- D) leap forward confidently?
We often feel that we have no control over our dreams. The truth is, the habitual feelings, thoughts, and behavior of our waking selves influence the shape of our dreams (Sparrow, 2013). How we react to situations in waking life dictates how we behave in dreams; in this way, we are responsible for creating our dreams. Being aware of how we react to situations in waking life can help to foster more positive approaches to stressful situations, encouraging powerful and transformative dream experiences.
For the question above, which dream will you choose?
A) Turn around to find a different path.
This is a logical approach to avoiding a frightening situation: Physically changing your circumstances to search for another possible solution. In waking life, if undesired fear arises, averting your gaze or physically changing your situation are common responses to regulate it. In the given dream example, in order to avoid feeling frightened of the rickety bridge, you could decide to find a different path. Merely thinking this thought may stimulate the dream to present alternatives. Perhaps suddenly a flying bicycle conveniently appears at your side or you notice a stairway that allows you to safely descend into the canyon. It’s common for such things to happen in dreams. You may notice an obstacle and wish for an alternate path, then suddenly a bizarre solution presents itself, or the scenery abruptly changes.
Initially, these dream mechanisms may serve as distractions, diverting attention away from undesired negative or emotional content. The loose and associative problem solving skills available in the dreaming mind often provide creative and unusual solutions to stressful problems, which may help us confront situations in waking life.
B) Cringe and imagine you are someplace else.
Perhaps you would choose to cross the bridge, but try at all costs to avoid thinking about it or looking down, imagining you are somewhere or someone else. You may accept your fate but do anything in your power to avoid facing the fear involved. This is a technique of dissociation which can have powerful consequences in the dreaming world. For example, it is not uncommon for a dream to suddenly shift from first-person to third-person perspective. In other words, the dreamer is initially the main character acting within the dream, then suddenly the dreamer is outside of the main character, watching the dream unfold as if it were a movie. This essentially removes the self from confronting the stressful situation, while maintaining the dream narrative.
The dissociation enabled by the dreamworld may allow the dreamer to rehearse and imagine very frightening or emotional situations which they may not be capable of confronting in real life. This is very similar to therapeutic approaches aimed at integrating trauma memories. For example, in Visual/Kinesthetic Dissociation therapy, patients are asked to mentally replay a trauma memory in a variety of dissociative ways, such as imagine watching the trauma as a black-and-white film in a movie theater, then, imagine playing it backwards, or in fast-forward (Gray & Liotta, 2012). This procedure, and similar dissociations in dreams, may allow emotional memories to be integrated, while keeping the feeling self at a safe distance.
C) Freeze in fear.
Negative emotions like fear typically change matters for the worse. Fear can create a downward spiral in which the mind becomes more and more focused on the stressful situation, which magnifies the problem and amplifies your fear. For instance, being afraid of the canyon can lead to a cascade of changes. Fear in the first place is associated with feelings of tension and helplessness, and these feelings can start to become more pronounced in the dreamworld; your body becomes heavy, paralyzed, and unable to move. Fear can make the canyon seem scarier than it is. In dreaming, this perception becomes reality: The canyon becomes steeper and rockier; the wind picks up and the edge draws closer and closer. Soon you feel dizzy with fear as the canyon grows incomprehensibly steep and rocky, surrounding you closely on all sides.
In essence, fear creates a feedback loop, as the dreamer grows more afraid and the dream becomes more frightening. This is often how nightmares form, and is a pattern frequently found in the "central image" of a nightmare—a dream image that becomes increasingly powerful and persistent with intensifying emotion (Hartmann, 1996; see previous post here). In dreams, as in waking life, negative emotions can be maladaptive and block our ability to find a level-headed solution or to think rationally.
D) Leap forward!
Positive emotions, on the contrary, broaden our mental capacity, increase openness to others, and encourage curiosity and exploration (Cohn & Fredrickson, 2009). Positive emotions encourage vivid and elaborate dream creation. For example, leaping fearlessly towards the rickety bridge might lead to a dream of flying over the canyon, floating weightlessly through the sky as the beautiful scenery grows around you. Emotions like joy and love can open the mind to powerful and mystical dream experiences. The positive emotion leads to limitless possibilities in the dreamworld, and lends power to the dreamer in overcoming any obstacle.
In sum, our feelings and behaviors continuously influence our experience of the world, magnifying or evaporating our problems, providing creative or transformative solutions. Taking responsibility for our minds and intentionally choosing our responses to stress in daily life can vastly change the dreamworlds we live in.
References
Sparrow, G. S. (2013). A new method of dream analysis congruent with contemporary counseling approaches. International Journal of Dream Research, 6(1), 45-53.
Gray, R. M., & Liotta, R. F. (2012). PTSD: Extinction, reconsolidation, and the visual-kinesthetic dissociation protocol. Traumatology, 1534765611431835.
Hartmann, E. (1996). Outline for a theory on the nature and functions of dreaming. Dreaming, 6(2), 147.
Cohn, M. A., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2009). Positive emotions. Oxford handbook of positive psychology, 2, 13-24.
