Reverie . and . Dreams

The links in the table on the left take you to sub-headings in this article.

What is usual about a psycho-analysis is that the person begins it in a state of vague self-knowledge. All his/her ideas concerning life and the world are based on feelings and prejudices ; he/she normally has little ability to articulate their problems.

What the process of psycho-analysis can do is to clarify and transform these vague ideas into intellectual understanding.

In the previous article on Awareness, sub-heading ‘Feelings’, I gave the view that the foundation of modern consciousness is feelings. A long and deep psycho-analysis changes this. The person moves the foundation of their consciousness from feelings to intellect – all the vague ideas based on feelings will be transformed into clear ideas that can be intellectually formulated and articulated. These clear ideas can then govern and direct his/her emotional motivations into creating an harmonious life.

Intelligence .and .Intellect

I go on a short diversion to compare two terms, ‘intelligence ’ and ‘intellect ’. In the first article on Emotion, I gave the distinction as follows.

Intelligence links to will and to feeling, and intellect is the source of abstraction. The former expresses the activity of the mind, whilst the latter is an indication of the degree of maturity of the mind.

One way of defining intelligence is that it is the ability to learn from experience, the ability to apply logical thought to experience. Whereas intellectuality is a mental trait that is cultivated by applying that intelligence to problems in order to generalise the answers. Intellectual capability is the intelligent application of theory, the ability to see beyond the immediate problem, the ability to think at the level of abstraction. Intellectual ability can transform sequential, logical thinking into pattern thinking. This distinction is required in order to discern the difference between knowledge and understanding. Knowledge is information that is passively absorbed ; only by applying it to experience does it transform into understanding.

Each person attempts to construct an adequate (for them) understanding of reality, that is, each person desires to make sense of life. Each person’s understanding of reality arises from the process of understanding their experience, which is only the process of self-discovery. This is an on-going process as they evolve over numerous incarnations. The ability to do this depends on the person’s level of intelligence. The ability to passively handle knowledge has little effect on the existing level of intelligence, whilst the process of understanding one’s experience has the effect of deepening one’s level of intelligence.

I put these ideas another way.
The ability to absorb knowledge depends on one’s existing level of intelligence – the major mental skills needed are logical ones. The process of understanding that knowledge then deepens one’s level of intelligence – now intuition is the major mental skill needed. Finally the application of that understanding to other areas of thought cultivates intellectuality – inductive reasoning skills are required.

Therefore, since the process of psycho-analysis is a process of acquiring understanding of one’s life, a process of self-discovery, so psycho-analysis can have the effect of deepening the person’s level of intelligence ; it can also develop the person’s intellect if he / she is committed to acquiring a wide base of ideas. The results of psycho-analysis depend on the intensity of it and the length of time that it is sustained.

Expanding . Consciousness

In my view, one of the purposes of human evolution is the expansion of consciousness. Where does reverie fit in this view ? . Now the average person has only a vague self-knowledge, and such vagueness can produce only a vague self-consciousness. The process of developing self-consciousness goes hand-in-hand with the ability to intellectualise and articulate that state of consciousness. In other words, to develop self-consciousness means to expand the totality of one’s consciousness. Reverie fits in here by facilitating the development of self-consciousness.

Consciousness has several factors, such as self-consciousness, beliefs, imagination, various abilities, etc. Of these factors, self-consciousness is the most important since it can give intelligent direction to the development and use of the other factors. The way to achieve the deliberate development of self-consciousness is through the cultivation of self-awareness.

Self-awareness requires the use of both intuition and rationality. Of these two factors, intuition is the more important, since there have been numerous very-intelligent thinkers who, nevertheless, had a low degree of self-awareness. The function of reverie is to facilitate this overall process of expansion of consciousness by fostering intuition. Intuition links feelings with the intellect. Therefore every intuition enables a person to understand a little better what his / her feelings want to express.

This overall scenario is :

Intuition (reverie) leads to self-awareness, which then leads to self-consciousness, which then leads to expanded consciousness.

Reverie requires the temporary reduction in the use of repression for controlling the subconscious mind. We need to switch off, as much as possible, our conditioned ways of thinking. Therefore reverie is best practised either early in the morning after awakening, or at any time of day after a period of deliberate mental relaxation.

Notebook .and .Journal

At all times the individual should carry a notebook with them. Intuitions come at any time of day or night and should be written down as soon as they appear. It is no good relying on memory. No matter how sharp an intuition is, it will usually be forgotten after a few minutes in the hurly-burly of life unless it has been recorded.

When an intuition happens, the person should allow, if possible, free association to function immediately. This carries the intuition deeper into the subconscious mind, allowing more self-understanding to develop. The peculiarity of an intuition is that usually it carries conviction only at the time of occurrence. If the person puts off till later the investigation of the intuition then he/she finds that nothing will happen : the feeling has evaporated from the intuition and he/she can no longer use it to connect with ideas in their subconscious mind.

However, intuition is never completely dependable on its own since it works within the confines of a person’s desires. Hence it is not infallible. What it does is to offer a better understanding of an issue than the person possesses at the moment, even if (in retrospect) it can be seen that the intuition was only partially correct. An inadequate intuition, if followed up, will sooner or later lead to the understanding of why it is inadequate ; then it becomes easier to see what is a better view of the original problem.

During an analysis the pace of personality change seems so very slow. On a day by day basis it appears that hardly any improvement is occurring. However, if the person contrasts their present state of mind with how it was, say, six months ago, they can immediately see the improvement. Hence it is a fundamental requirement of a long analysis that the person keeps a journal in which they record all their important ideas and states of mind. They should note when they are exhilarated, when depressed, when bitter, when jealous, etc ; these states of mind will eventually enable him/her to see that some emotions follow each other in certain sequences. It is the journal that will show the person the ways in which they are changing and the confirmation that they are becoming able to express their own ideas in more and more coherent fashion. This verification of change strengthens their morale.

Intuition . and . Reason

In an analysis, both modes – intuition and reason – of the intellect have to be used.

Intuition or insight is usually inductive rather than deductive and centres on the psychological needs of the person. So the degree of intuition that is attainable into the problem depends upon the intensity of anxiety that the person can handle. Therefore any serious problem is attacked first by whittling it down, through having many minor intuitions into its separate factors. When its intensity is low enough it can then be tackled directly without causing unmanageable distress. [¹]

Reason is used to check intuitions into a person’s problem ; only reason can detect self-deception. But reason is usually deductive ; it is not easy to generate novel ideas by the use of reason alone.

An harmonious way of reflection is to use both inductive and deductive modes of intellect : intuition generates a new idea, and reason is used to examine it.

Intuition can be separated from speculation by a mental peculiarity. When I have a major intuition into a problem, then for several days I keep re-iterating the new perspective, rather like hearing a repeating track on an LP record when the needle has stuck. This goes on even at night and makes my sleep even poorer in quality than usual, since I get less of it. I only calm down when the excitement produced by the intuition has worked itself out (the excitement is a product of catharsis, which is explained in the third article on Abreaction). This intellectual mannerism does not happen with speculation.

Dreams . and . Phantasies

Dreams and compulsive phantasies or daydreams are another means to connect with the subconscious mind. Dreams are an absorbing phenomenon. Some function so as to allow the dreamer to project his / her own wishes into them, and others carry meaning for him / her. The meaning may be destructive (as in nightmares) or constructive. When dreams are used as a way of communicating meaning then they fit into the dreamer’s requirements. If the dreamer likes to unravel long, complicated dreams then he / she will have long, complicated dreams. I pay attention only to short ones where the meaning is fairly obvious ; I ignore complicated ones. Hence I usually have just short, fairly clear dreams.

Dreams are adequately covered in numerous books. I mention only a few points.

Recurring unpleasant dreams are quite easy to handle. If a person frequently dreams of being chased by a lion or by a sword-brandishing devil, then such dreams produce intense body reactions in terms of heat generation and sweating, as well as terror. To neutralise such dreams all that is required is to recognise that the dream is happening, then stop running and turn round to face what is chasing you. Let the lion eat you up or let the devil carve you into pieces. Then you find that nothing happens ; no terror arises, no sweating is produced, so you can go back to sleep.

Once the person ceases to be afraid of such dreams then he / she can begin to analyse them. He / she needs to analyse both the reasons for trying to run away, and also the motivation of the pursuers. He / she will find that motivations in the dream usually revolve around anger, fear, paranoia, envy and guilt. For example, the motivation of any pursuers is usually envy, so this aspect of the dream signifies that the dreamer is turning his / her envy against themself (that is, the envy has become ‘internalised’ and destructive). [²]

The opposite polarity to the compulsive dream is the compulsive phantasy or daydream. This denotes compulsion being channelled into the ordinary surface consciousness directly by the subconscious mind. If this compulsiveness is not explored, understood, and reduced or eliminated then it will be likely to manifest itself in social behaviour in suitable circumstances. When the phantasy is a negative one, the risk is that if the compulsiveness of it becomes intense enough then the person will enact it in their social relations, causing disturbance, perhaps even violence (physical or mental), to other people.

For example, the person may regularly daydream of being attacked or persecuted by an enemy. The person feels that he is being victimised. To defend himself and get his revenge, he may resort to shooting the attacker. All this is phantasy. What is being played out in the mind is the symbolic interpretation of particular social situations in that person's life. The phantasy is only pointing out that he is very vulnerable and scared in those particular social situations. If the phantasy becomes intense enough, the person may take it literally, and end up actually shooting someone who seems to be persecuting him.

The way to use the phantasy is to let it act itself out during reverie whilst trying to be a neutral observer of it. The object is to determine what the motivation is, what the emotional dynamics of the phantasy are. Actually it is far easier to be an unbiased observer of a daydream or phantasy than of one’s own social relationships. And in the phantasy the person can enact out all their anxiety and frustrations – the goal that the phantasy achieves shows what the person intensely desires. This is often some concept of individuality, seclusion & privacy, or freedom.

Compulsive phantasies are attempts to reject and repudiate some forms of control and domination being exerted on the person, either from people or from social, political, or religious systems.

Antithetical . Dreams

Antithetical thoughts are thoughts that are opposed to, or the antithesis of, other thoughts which the person prefers or which he / she intends to manifest in action. If a person is contemplating the good things in life, then antithetical thoughts may arise and evoke ideas about the nastiness of life. For example, if a man is being excited by some aspects of sexual desire, then when he sees a woman who is sexually attractive to him the word ‘tart’ may pop up in his consciousness – the pejorative word is the attempt to repudiate the sexual interest. In Freud’s view these kind of thoughts occur to everyone, but are most marked in neurosis or in people suffering from nervous exhaustion. [³]

Handling antithetical thoughts
The skilful way of handling such thoughts is through the practice of mindfulness. In this practice the thoughts are noted for what they are and what they represent, but no value judgement is passed on them. In this way the person learns in time to ignore them - they are an inevitable product of having a subconscious mind.

Antithetical thoughts produce their own themes in dreams. So I call such dreams antithetical dreams. These are always derogatory and persecutory : they denigrate my personal integrity or my sense of idealism.

The conflict that is produced by such dreams represents a conflict between the two halves of a person's identity : the individual aspect of identity is at variance with the social aspect of identity. [ These two aspects of identity are described in the article Two Identities.]

I use a house as a dream symbol for the mind : the upper storey represents idealistic aspirations, the ground floor represents the worldly consciousness, and the basement represents the subconscious mind. For years during my 30s and 40s I had many dreams where I was living in a derelict house, or merely had a derelict house as part of the landscape. At those times I was focusing solely on forming my sense of individuality, by valuing my own mind and rejecting the traditional religious demand of ego-denial. I interpreted such dreams to mean that my repressed social identity was trying to persuade me that my personal integrity (as the centre of my existentialism) was worthless and was ruining my mind. The dream wanted to inculcate a sense of guilt in me.

In contrast, when I activated my idealism in a social way, such as imagining myself as a teacher who is helping people, my individual identity generated a dream that tried to convince me of the hollowness of such aspirations. Then I might dream of being a bank robber (or, more usually, three bank robbers) ; the symbolism was that I was trying to attain spiritual gold by counterfeit means. [The occurrence of three people (myself and two companions) in a dream usually indicates that the dream is a comment on my spiritual hopes.]

The situation becomes more complicated if there is dis-harmony between an idealistic ego and its soul. The soul is likely to encourage the disparaging dream comments from the repressed social identity. And in time the soul may become the chief critic of the individual identity.
[ The term ‘soul’ is ambiguous. I use it in the sense of being a ‘higher self ’ to the ego. The ego uses the body as its vehicle for expression. Similarly, the soul wants to use the ego as its vehicle of expression]. [4]

Such dreams should be treated in the same way as antithetical thoughts.

Influences of .Media

Compulsiveness in dreams and phantasies denotes internal conflict, internal violence. This internal conflict can be reduced by periods of solitude and relaxation, or stimulated by the media (especially visual forms such as television). The media are potent channels for intensifying or changing consciousness, including the subconscious mind.

Whatever the person is interested in, whether by liking it or disliking it, will stimulate the subconscious mind ; only material which is felt to be boring has no effect on the subconscious mind. This means that if the person frequently reads, hears, or sees sexual material then their internal sexual conflicts will increase in intensity, no matter what their conscious mind thinks about it. Similarly, the violence portrayed in the media will intensify the person’s internal violence. Whether the violence is real (as in news reports) or merely fictional makes no difference to the subconscious mind. As in childhood, it does not matter whether the event that the adult is experiencing is real or just a phantasy – it is how the adult emotionally reacts that produces the effect in the subconscious mind.

The difference between reality and phantasy is just one of time : reality affects a person faster than phantasy, but given enough time, phantasy will produce the same intensity of emotional effect on consciousness as reality does.

What needs to be understood is that the conscious attitudes of the person towards sexuality and violence have no effect on preventing that material from stimulating the subconscious mind (unless the material is boring).

Therefore, if a person regularly intakes material that features violence then they will slowly become more violent, including being sexually violent, in either physical or mental ways (as in domination by abusive speech). A person of strong will or moral control may successfully keep their violence repressed ; yet they will gradually come to accept violence as a normal part of social life, and begin to fear people as they grow old.

Similarly, the regular intake of ‘forbidden’ or spicy sexual material will slowly alter the person’s sexual mores in two ways. Taking an interest in spicy material indicates that the person feels that their sexual boundaries are too narrow. Alternatively, the sexual interest indicates that the person is using sexual excitement to counterbalance the dreariness and sorrow in their life. Either way, their subconscious mind will broaden their sexual boundaries, by incorporating, without any discrimination, both positive and negative sexual material into their character.

To be more specific about this process :
a personal experience, or an attitude to life, only becomes a problem stored in the subconscious mind when anxiety is attached to it. A film that features an aspect of violence that a person has never experienced may not have many negative effects on that person (though even in this situation, repeated viewing makes violence a part of a person’s ‘social learning’ experience). But when a film scene echoes an unpleasant memory or theme in the subconscious mind then the person will find his / her anxiety level rising. If the intensity of anxiety that is aroused is greater than the person’s moral control then it will result in some form of disturbing behaviour. Children are always more at risk than ‘mature’ adults are. [5]

It is quite easy to prove my views on the effects of media violence.
If a person is willing to go into solitude or to abandon the media (including newspapers) for a few weeks or months then they will find that eventually they become emotionally placid. Once this state of mind occurs they can then watch a television film featuring violence and observe their own reactions to it in phantasy and dream. They will find that the violence portrayed in the film becomes enacted in their own dreams (especially if they already have a problem with internal violence). Their subconscious mind has absorbed the violence. This was how I discovered the unpleasant effects of the media.

Language and Body

Long-standing body aches and symptoms usually have a psychological component to them. Language often indicates this. For years I experienced problems with neck pain. My attitude to irritating people was that they were a pain in the neck to me. A friend of mine had trouble with constipation – she referred to disagreeable people as a pain in the arse. If a person uses such figurative language then it points to the areas of the body where they store tension. Such symptoms will not disappear until the mental attitudes, which cause them, change.

In general, an important requirement in a long analysis is to examine all our bodily symptoms and pains. Part of the concept of self-responsibility involves assuming responsibility for our own physical health, where possible. So we need to recognise what state of mind is present when a symptom is being active. We note what is important to us, and how we think of life and society, whilst the symptom is in evidence. Many symptoms are associated with fixed attitudes and beliefs. Eventually we need to identify the emotion that is at the base of each state of mind ; this will thereby give us the emotion that supports, even generates, the symptom.

A difficulty here is that joint pain and pain coming from the attachment points of muscles and ligaments often have a time lag – the pain finally comes when the supporting emotion is fading or has faded away (and so a different emotion is then present). Hence, for example, it is hard at first to make an accurate examination of intermittent rheumatoid arthritis pain.

If a symptom is serious enough to warrant professional treatment, then drug therapy alone is likely to be ineffective whilst the fixed belief that supports the symptom is still dominant in the subconscious mind. When medical treatment fails then psychological therapy is needed. [6]

We can also explore body language to see how our body responds to social situations. Body posture reflects mental attitudes. When we are depressed our shoulders slump. By contrast, we can begin to change some mental attitudes by correcting poor body posture. Good posture counteracts the feeling that one is a wimp, that is, the decision to take control of one’s posture also has a knock-on effect of helping to take control of one’s states of mind. Control of posture can be achieved by using the Alexander technique.

A person also needs to train themself to relax. Yoga relaxation is excellent : the person lies down and effectively puts the body to sleep whilst remaining mentally alert.

Tunes

A tune or slogan may become associated with a particular state of mind and emotion, thereby becoming a mood indicator. Once we note the correlation we can use such tunes and slogans to identify the mood that we are switching into. After some trial and error in correlation I produced the list below ; these tunes, when they occurred, enabled me to identify my current state of mind. These tunes are probably particular to me ; other people’s subconscious minds may pick other tunes.

When I started humming ‘The Saint Louis Blues ’ this heralded the switch to guilt in self-pity mode, or even to depression. In contrast, the self-hate mode of guilt gave rise to Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ as I again went round the endless cycle of sorrow. I celebrated jealousy in love mode (non-sexual) by the drinking song from ‘The Student Prince ’ ; but the self-pity mode of jealousy sank me with the tune ‘Bless ‘em All ’, with the line ‘you’ll get no promotion this side of the ocean’.

For narcissism in love mode I chanted the slogan ‘Life is a song of joy ’. A victory over a social obstacle generated ‘La Marseillaise’ and signified pride in vanity mode. The hate mode of pride produced the tune ‘My world is such a beautiful world ’ – the emphasis being on ‘my world’ (this tune confused me at first since I thought that it pointed to narcissism).

Vanity was depicted by ‘The Trumpet Voluntary ’, the meaning being that I was blowing my own trumpet, exuding my own importance. Self-pity came up with ‘Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be ’.

Psychological . Attitude

What a long psycho-analysis can achieve is the replacement of moral judgements by psychological ones. When I make a moral judgement, it means to judge someone from the perspective of my standards. A psychological judgement implies the attempt to judge a person from their perspective and standards or, if this is not possible, to be non-judgemental. However, this replacement process is an ideal depiction. There may well be a long intermediary period when moral and psychological judgements compete with each other. It takes a long time to let go of the compulsion to make moral judgements – the person has first to let go of the desire to feel superior to ‘lesser mortals’.

The analysis of negative states of mind can induce in the person moral condemnation for their failures. The person needs to understand that their failures were caused by confusion in their childhood (including those of past incarnations). Hence they are not to blame. They still have to face the consequences of all that they have done, but they are not to blame for these consequences. An analysis enables the person to take on the responsibility for their life without needing to blame themself or other people for the past. A psychological attitude to life and to society facilitates the development of compassion, forgiveness, and tolerance. Morality, and the need to blame, is never the goal of life but only a half-way house to the full expansion of mind that psychology can help to produce.

To facilitate a successful outcome to a psycho-analysis, the client needs a wide understanding of life. The corollary to this requirement is that the therapist too needs such a wide understanding. Otherwise the therapist cannot competently discuss the relevance and significance of the client’s insights.

In the client - therapist relationship, what is the essential core of it ? . What is the indispensable attitude that facilitates the therapy ? . It has to be the attitude of trust. Without this the analysis is not likely to get off the ground. Some therapists have thought that the primary attitude should be love. But love in a relationship usually means jealous love. Many clients will be afraid of being swallowed up by the therapist’s jealous love, even if it is just a jealous sense of caring : such love may be overwhelming for the client.

Why is trust the essential attitude ?
Only trust will dissolve the fears that will sooner or later arise in the client. And in addition, for the disturbed client, only trust can neutralise paranoia.

The number in brackets at the end of each reference takes you back to the paragraph that featured it. The addresses of my websites are on the Links page.

[¹]. The differences between intuition and reason are discussed in the article Reason & Intuition on my website A Modern Thinker. [1]

[²]. The process of internalisation and the type of dreams that it produces is described in the article Internalisation of Mental States, on my website Discover Your Mind.

On my website Patterns of Confusion, there are three articles that describe dreams. Conflict dreams are briefly mentioned in the article Depression and Autism, sub-section Internalisation of Emotions.
More conflict dreams are described in the article Violence and Loss of Freedom, sub-section Violence in Dreams.
Dreams which feature either paranoia or revenge are described in the article Destructiveness, sub-section Dreams of Conflict. [2]

[³]. Antithetical thoughts are described in more detail in the article Antithetical Thoughts, on my websites Discover Your Mind and The Strange World of Emotion. [3]

[4]. Ideas about the soul and its relation to the ego can be found on my website on spirituality - Patterns of Spirituality. [4]

[5]. Anxiety is an emotion. My definitions, descriptions, and analysis of emotions are given in the three articles on Emotion. See home page. [5]

[6]. Psycho-Somatics is an article on the psychological components of various disorders, and is on my website Patterns of Confusion. [6]

Books

Nyanaponika, Thera.
The Heart of Buddhist Meditation. Rider, 1983.
A standard exposition of mindfulness.

The articles in this section are :

Self - Awareness

Reverie & Dreams

Copyright © 2002 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

The copyright is mine, and the article is free to use. It can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.

Ian Heath, London UK

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