Synecdoche, New York, and Dreams, Part 2

More dream goodness from the Fresh Air interview between Terry Gross and Charlie Kaufman
(screenwriter for Being John Malkovich, Adaption) - lending insight into what intrigues Kaufman about dreams:

"And I wake up often from dreams feeling so emotionally affected - devastated - and I can't shake it for an entire day ... or just full of longing ... and sometimes really happy ... and sometimes angry or hurt"

Emotions are a big part of dreams - both the emotional aftereffects, like these, that sit with you during your waking life and those emotions embedded within the dream itself that usually only emerge in the retelling - the reengagement with the dream.

It's funny, the emotional part of dreams tends to be buried under chains of associations and interpretations - Good Doctor Freud had a little something to do with that.

In my practice, and in the practice of many others, we focus on the emotional narrative of the dream as a key component of what the dream is trying to convey to us.

Synecdoche, New York, and Dreams, Part 1

Synecdoche Defined:
n. A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword). [sun-, syn-: "to take on a share of" + ekdekhesthai: "to understand" [ek- : "out of" + dekhesthai : "to take"]]

Charlie Kaufman is doing a LOT of interviews in support of his film, Synecdoche, New York. In one of them, Terry Gross of Fresh Air talks dream. Terry Gross is an awesome interviewer - and she was on Wait Wait ;):

Terry Gross: "I know you're very interested in dreams and how stories are told in dreams.
Do you follow images or structure from your own dreams?"

Charlie Kaufman: "I do think a lot about dreams and with Synecdoche, New York, I intentionally decided to try to structure it as a dream with dream logic and dream images - not that the movie is a dream."

Kaufman goes on to describe what interests him about his own dreams, besides finding them "kind of amazingly well written":

"What's also really interesting to me about dreams. Sometimes is that they're so structured that I keep the ending from myself until I get there - And I don't know how I do that. Sometimes there's a surprise ending and it makes sense. But I made it up - How do I lead myself to that without telling myself what the ending is? ... Very mysterious to me."

Have you had dreams like that - that carry you along in the story and surprise you at the end?
That seems totally magical. What a mighty creative force a dream is to tap into, huh?

Mad Men and Tarot

Dreamcurrent is a very tarot-friendly place.

In The Mountain King episode of Mad Men, when Don is offered a tarot card deck to put his palm to, he scoffs: "It's an ink blot. You see what you want to see."

I'm actually with him in a non-scoffy sense. But I'd change it a little: you see what you see and it is interesting.

As with ink blots and with dreams - what you see in the cards is guided by your own unique filters based on who you are and experiences you have. (I'm assuming here that you're actually LOOKING at the cards and not at a little white book of interpretations or keywords)

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By the way, if you are slave to the LWB (which is DIFFERENT than an LBD, which I fully endorse being slave to), there is a super exercise featured in teachings by Ruth Ann and Wald Amberstone (of The Tarot School) that is a really good and fun way to get you focused on the cards themselves: spend 5 minutes studying a card, then turn the card over so you can't see it, and try naming 3 unique features of the card, then 4 more, then 5 more, then 7 more. It's especially challenging in a group setting, when other people can use up your answers - I recommend getting their class recordings so you can play along with their group. You really start noticing flags flying left or right, headbands, belts, hoods, birds, number of towers in the background, number of masts on a ship, etc.

Dream in Color?

Imagine my surprise when this week's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me Listener Limerick Challenge (where, along with The Daily Show, I get my weekly allotment of Important and Topical news) featured something about dreams. Wait Wait is also where I learned of the impact of cheese on dreams.

So let's get to it - Many have asked:
"does everyone dream in color?"
"is dreaming in color indicative of artistic or creative talent?"
"do colors in dreams have meaning?"

On the first one - whether you dream in color depends on what kind of television you watched as a child: those who watched black and white television as a child were more likely to dream in black and white; those who watched color television as a child were more likely to dream in color (Eva Murzyn, Dundee University).

Oracle of Omaha

"I dream a lot," he said the day before leaving for San Diego, and the dreams could be disturbing. "I have a multiplex going on in there. It's a full-time occupation."
Alice Schroeder, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, p. 754

These dreams had nothing to do with building wealth, which is what Warren Buffett is mostly known for. These dreams came as his wife Susie was undergoing cancer treatment.

Some find healing in dreams - comfort, instruction, clues for treatment direction.

For others, it is difficult to deal with the dreams that come unsolicited during times of distress.

Dear Readers, you know I love dreams - having them, looking into them, listening to what they have to say - but there are times when I, too, would prefer not going to sleep because I can't face any more unsettling dreams.

The last time this happened, I "righted the ship" by:
1. doing the standard physical (adjusting my eating and drinking, engaging in exercise) and emotional (talking to people within my circle of support) activities one does under extreme duress.
But also, in the dream sense:
2. writing down ... actually writing OUT the dreams I remembered, as in, "getting these nasty things OUT of me."
3. asking - BEGGING - for a dream of comfort

Dream Mining

Mining a dream journal can be fun. I've been doing that lately, dipping into the 2003s, when I started jotting down my dreams.

In Feb 2003, I incubated a dream, asking Caroline Knapp, "what do you want me to know" "what do you want me to do"

What I got was weird.

First: Dark words transformed into innocuous ones. Like "macabre" turning into "massage," "corpse" turning into "course."

Next: The words "into the woods"

At the time I wrote:
-famous musical,
-walking dogs in the woods,
-being interested in woodworking and custom furniture.

I wasn't really clear on what action to take from this … what I was supposed to know or do.

Part of me did want an excuse to commission custom furniture, a process I love being part of. But what I want isn't usually what dreams come to tell me (dammit).

Looking now, I am still not clear - even though I have learned some more stuff since then:
-"going into the woods" also can suggest going into one's shadow.
-in 2006, in waking life, I ended up moving to a house that's amid a bunch of woods.

Maybe the dream was prophetic and that was what I was supposed to know - or maybe not.

What I seem to be getting from the two dream parts, when I get around to NOT mining for meaning, is: Chill. It's not as bad as it seems. And being sort of hidden and reclusive is where I am most comfortable (see High Priestess).

Sometimes it's better, with dreams, to not think so much.

Overengineered Quirk

credit to: Truthful TV Title Cards by Glark on October 17, 2008

I'm posting this here because last night I could not get Pushing Daisies out of my head - not sure if it was a dream outright or something hypnopompic - and then today I came across this TV title card.

Synchronistic advice?

Possibly.

So ... what action am I carrying forward from the dream/waking life sighting combo? Quit trying so hard to be clever.

I'll let you know how this works out, k?

Etiquette of Dream-sharing Tip #3

Tips #1 and #2.

#3: Choose your audience carefully.

"(Dad, I should mention, did not believe in anyone's counsel except his own. He thought psychotherapy promulgated nothing more than a great deal of handholding and shoulder massaging. He despised Freud, Jung, Frasier, and any person who thought it fascinating to instigate a lengthy discussion of his/her own dreams.)"
Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, p. 357.

Fun book - especially for the overeducated set. Reviews point to vigor and vivaciousness and I heartily attest to this truth.

The quote from father Van Meer again points to the etiquette of discussing dreams. Some plain don't like the practice. If you have dreams and want to share, choose your audience carefully. Stick with those you know would love to hear them - and maybe even resonate with them interestingly.

Etiquette of Dream-sharing Tip #2

See tip #1 here.

# 2: Don't assume that family members will be eager to share in your dreams.

Case in point - I started to share a sketch of The Most Meaningful Dream of My Life thus far with my mother, who abruptly said: "I don't believe in that stuff. I don't want to get caught up in that stuff. What did she look like?"

See, this dream featured my grandmother, who also happened to be my mother's mother.

There may have been the tiniest bit of interest, evidenced by that last statement, but I didn't go further down that track. Instead, I shut up and listened while she continued.

"I have a lot of dreams about Greg (my brother, gone missing in 1985), like he's trying to come to me. I don't want to concentrate on it. I go and pray and I don't see him any more for a while."

I guess you could claim this as evidence that prayer works. Prayer made a disturbing image go away. To me, though, it is very sad to use prayer as a silver cross.

If it were my dream, I would wonder what brought Greg forward at the time of the dream and what he has to say.

Dreams can lift you and your spirits. No interpretation required.

I'm wearing a glittering sari and sitting on a dapple gray horse. The horse is being led up a set of stairs by a man on the left. It's as if I'm a bride being brought to her wedding. It's tricky, but the horse gets me up to the top.

In waking life I've been feeling disconnected, unsupported, unclear, at a loss … for a variety of reasons, underscored by the abrupt closing of Lehman Brothers and the volatile market trading.

I'm mostly a pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps person (credit that strong Kansas/Nebraska heritage) which made my malaise more distressing: Why am I not snapping out of this? Why am I so … NEEDY. WHINY. SIMPERY. Ugh.

So I begged and prostrated myself where it was safe to do so. In my head - to God, to the Force, to Whatever It Is That Knows Better Than I What's In My Best Interest.

And thus came the dream where I'm brought upstairs with the assistance of a guide and a dapple-gray surefooted horse.

It wasn't really important to me to "interpret" the dream. It was great just to have it, write it down, and think about it. It was very bright and happy - like a bollywood wedding. It also anticipatory of good things (a bride being brought to her wedding).

Key for me was the feeling of being carried up and the horse's support. That horse managed the complexities of forward upward progress when I simply couldn't deal with it anymore, and carried me, providing a support I couldn't articulate a need for in waking life.

It's pretty amazing, how a dream can suggest just the right antidote in image and sensation form to an unspoken hurt or need.

Love how the unconscious delivers. And due props to Whatever It Is That Knows Better Than I What's In My Best Interest. So mysterious, so wonderful.

Sweet Dreams

Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Eurythmics, 1983

What ARE sweet dreams made of? My guess is that it varies by person -

Apparently, though, there is research on what sweet dreams are DUE TO.

Eating cheese, of course:

Across a week-long study, in which participants ate a 20 gram piece of cheese half an hour before going to sleep, 72% reported sleeping well every night, 67% remembered their dreams and none recorded experiencing nightmares.

Who am I to disagree with that?

Jacob's Ladder

The Bible is full of dreams and visions. One particularly famous one appears in the Book of Genesis 28:11-19 American Standard Version (ASV).

11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set. And he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep.
12 And he dreamed. And behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
13 And, behold, Jehovah stood above it, and said, I am Jehovah, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.
14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee, whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land. For I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely Jehovah is in this place. And I knew it not.
17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

This dream has been interpreted and interpreted and interpreted. It comes to my mind now not to interpret again - I like evoking and tugging at dreams, asking questions of them and the dreamer - not interpreting them.

When a dream is shared, as this one has been for eons, it's interesting to see what aspects of it resonate with different people at any given time.

What resonates with me lately about this dream is the connection between heaven and earth, perhaps because I saw a most beautiful rainbow during the Days of Awe, and the motion of the angels: the climbing up toward heaven and the climbing down back to earth, perhaps due to reading some of the work of Rabbi Sharon Brous.

What strikes you about this dream of Jacob's?

Etiquette of Sharing Dreams, Tip #1

Apropos of a parenthetical comment of a recent post, I came across the following in a Miss Manners book:

Dear Miss Manners:
Is it polite to tell other people your dreams? A man in my office who is, I believe, in analysis, recites his in a loud voice the first thing every morning to whoever will listen and all of us around the coffee machine can plainly hear every word. Sometimes they involve s*xual fantasies about women at the office.

Miss Manners went one way with her reply, discussing the dubious privilege granted to this public recovery process. I'd like to go another way.

#1. Broadcast not your dreams, especially in the workplace.

No it is not polite to broadcast your dreams as if on a soapbox, especially if they are of harrassment-lawsuit material.

It is polite to ask permission to share a dream with someone. Do it privately or in a confidential setting, and be delicate about it, okay? How would you feel about being told you appeared as a character in someone's dream ... especially if you showed up in that dream in a compromising or unfavorable light?

Whallop-Packing Dreams ... and Pancakes

Some dreams at first glance look inconsequential, heading one way, and end up packing a whallop, pointing 180 degrees in the other direction.

Following is a dream from 2003 that has continued to nourish me to the present. If you read it, it might look like nothing special, but to me, having the dream and the work done on it was transformative. It made me feel loved and cared for, which is something I'm not exactly accustomed to. I hope all who read this is reminded of a deep and connecting lovely dream of his or her own.

I reside in a big apartment, in a nice building in a city, upper floor. I notice shiny brass plates at the downstairs front entrance. The rent is great - pretty extraordinary actually, for such a lovely apartment. There are many windows directed toward the heavens, I can see dark sky and stars through them.

I'm separating my clothing from my ex-bf's clothing. Then shift to having a phone conversation with a girl whose mother is the landlady of this apartment. The girl is angry with me, like I missed an appointment. The landlady has apparently been waiting downstairs for me to buzz her in.

The landlady, having come upstairs, walks through the apartment. She is lovely - refined, older, but with glowing skin. We talk about rent - I'm careful not to be too enthusiastic about how great the rent is. She asks me how I found the apartment. I say, I let X (ex-boyfriend) take care of it. She looks at me with raised eyebrow.

She asks if I mind if she digs through the cupboards. I figure she wants to inspect something so I say I don' t mind. She asks if I mind if she make pancakes. She sets up several appliances that have griddles inside. There's one pancake already made and being turned.

I thought this dream was about separating from an ex. But it was five years after the actual bust-up.

This is how some of the work on this dream went:

-At the top, the dream shows progress in that you're clearly separating your things - and taking what's yours and leaving what's not.

-The upper floor apartment with the windows pointed to the heavens was a "higher self," a spiritual self, that was actually and surprisingly within my reach. (That made me sigh with relief and with joy - whoda thunk something so wonderful could be something I could afford?)

-We focused on the landlady character: "Who in waking life is like this landlady, who makes you food, nourishing food that is also a treat?" The answer came quickly: "My grandmother" (deceased, whom I knew best of all my grandparents and whom I adored.). Things started to unfold a bit from there: "Ah, and this landlady, like my grandmother, is a mother of someone but not my mother. And the angry girl on the phone is her daughter, my mother, angry at me because I didn't treat her mother with sufficient respect."

-It seemed like the landlady character might be good to talk to, in that she was providing nourishing food in a spiritual place, so I went into the dream to talk to her. The dialog went something like this:

-Are you in the dream? Can you see the landlady? What do you see?
-Yes, she's at the elevators. It's weird, she could come up if she wanted - it's not like she's outside a locked door and needs to be buzzed in. She's the landlady - she could come into the apartment at any time - but she's waiting for me to invite her.
-Do you want to invite her up into the apartment?
-She can come up.
-You see her in the apartment?
-Yes, I can see the apartment. I can see the windows with the night sky. She hasn't started poking around yet or making pancakes.
-Is there anything you want to say to her?
At this point I start crying, as what occurred to me to say was: I love you. I think about you all the time ... well not all the time, but a lot. You're a model to me.
-What happens next?
-I move to hug her. She hugs me back. She's not as tiny as she was in life.
-What happens next?
-She tells me: I won't leave you. I'm with you always.
-Look around now, is there something you can take back with you from the dream into waking life to remind you of this connection with your grandmother?

This last part was really important - the bringing the goodness of the dream into waking life. I think that at the time I put photos and belongings of my grandmother up into clearer view so I could think about her and the dream where she glowed and made me special pancakes, just like she did when I was little.

Dream Into Action #1

Just speaking a dream can yield remarkable things - insights, perspectives, ideas for action.

I shared a dream in a group and we worked on it. Later I shared a piece of the dream that didn't feel quite "done" with another willing person.

Note: Ask First. According to the Happiness Project, a dream is #1 among the top seven topics to avoid if you "don't want to risk being a bore." Fortunately, the people who connect with me already now I love dreams and that I have a reputation for diving right in and asking dream-centered questions - and welcome the same.

The dream fragment was this:
I'm touring a large glassed-in corporate building, guided by a male real estate agent. there are indoor plants, well-placed and well-spaced, lining the route i'm walking. the plants are plastic-looking, but real - they have a coating on the leaves, like a rubber tree plant has. the scene sort of shifts to an inset scene, where I'm clinging to the edges of a room in a house (which is sunny and has light blue or lilac painted walls and a white baseboard) using Lysol or some sort of cleansing agent, spraying into the edges and corner with great vehemence.

The first look focused on the difference between the glassed in corporate building and the painted house walls in the inset.

Within that first look, we dove deeper into emotions felt at different points:
-in the corporate atrium, the feeling is both small and weak of power, cramped by the too-high atrium ceiling and the echoes it affords, the regimentation in the spaced plants, but also in the driver's seat - a prospective buyer in a buyer's market.
-in the inset house, an anger or defiance, in fact, I'm acting out in the safest way i know - in the corners and edges ... there's something satisfying in the zshhhhhh of the spraying. and I'm concentrated and thorough about it.

The second look focused on the real estate agent character.

1. When real estate agents have appeared in dreams they often signal something about the authentic self ...
-being out of sync with it,
-realigning with it, or
-the authentic self is stepping in to show the right and proper path is being followed, or there is a choice or change coming up, something like that ...

2. The real estate agent in this dream is walking me through the place, showing (me): "this is how it is." I remember noting the plants were healthy, even though they're not my kind of plants (I like looser, freer, outdoor kinds of plants). The way the scene works structurally, it seems like I'm withdrawing from the corporate story and closer to the walls in a "safer" more home-like place ... but I'm not exactly happy with that either.

You may be thinking to yourself: What are the actions here? It all looks like pretty static and stagnant insighting to me.

Here are some Action Ideas that occurred to me, based on the work done thus far:
Any or all of them seem easily doable and not likely to make a person run screaming.

1. Note where you're hiding in the shadows, hanging out in the safe sidelines, in waking life and pull yourself more into the center.
2. Incubate a dream on "what is the change that needs to happen in the service of my best and highest self."
3. Seems like the spraying is overkill. Note where in waking life where you are overreacting.