Your Dreams: A Life Therapy Perspective, Part 3 of 3

How to Interpret Your Dreams

Which Dreams to Interpret

The emotional impact, mental effect, or both of some dreams make them stand out from others. They are worth your time and attention. Analyzing them might release their meaning and give you an important message.

Recording and Analyzing Your Dream

In Life Therapy, you analyze a dream by separating its parts and attending to each one. As you do, you allow the dream to release its meaning to your mind’s awareness. With only your attention, not effort, the meaning emerges on its own.

First, write the story of your dream. You’re not writing for publication or anyone else to read. You’re writing for yourself, to understand your dream.

Let go of concerns about spelling and grammar. Just write the story of your dream. Include the important settings, people, their actions, and the events that occur.

Second, make four lists in parallel columns. One each for the important settings, people, their actions, and eventsof your dream. Make your list look something like this:

SETTINGS	PEOPLE	THEIR ACTIONS	EVENTS

Third, on a new page, with plenty of room between each one, write one word or short phrase for each setting. Draw a circle around each one.

Fourth, relax and gaze, one at a time, at each setting. Each setting is an image. Allow memories and emotions associated with each setting image to freely arise. 

Fifth, around the circled setting you’re gazing at, write one word or short phrase to record the associated memory and emotions as they arise. Allow associations to arise until they stop. Circle each one. Now draw a line from the setting to each association to connect them. Make your drawing look something like this:

Complete all five steps above for each important setting, person, action, and event.

Interpreting Your Dream

After you analyze and record the elements of your dream, you’re ready to interpret it.

The images of your dream—the settings, people, their actions, and events—are words. Instead of words written in letters, they are image-words.

The image-wordsand their associated memories and emotions are the language of your spirit. Your spirit uses them to speak to your mind.

The definitionsof the image-words are the associated memoriesand emotions they stir up in you. Specifically, your emotions tell you what the image-words mean. 

As you attend to the image-words and emotions, you allow your spirit to speak to your mind. Focus your mind’s full attention to what your spirit is saying to it. Listen. Listen deeply.

Make notes of any connections between the emotions stirred up by the image-words of your dream and your awake reality. If you feel fear in response to an image-words in your dream, how does it relate to your awake reality? Is something threatening you in your awake reality? If so, how are you addressing it? 

If you feel anger, sadness, guilt, or any other emotion in response to other image-words in your dream, how do they relate to your awake reality? What action do you need to take?

Attend to your whole dream and all of its image-words. Allow the meaning of your dream to come together and emerge out of the process of mentally attending to what your spirit is saying to your mind.

Write the meaning of your dream and take its message seriously. 

Your Dreams: A Life Therapy Perspective, Part 2 of 3

In Life Therapy, not all dreams are the same. There are at least seven different types. The outstanding feature of a dream determines its type. The types include—

Process dreams: Process dreams feature events of the previous day or two. They’re generic, neither remarkably good nor bad. Your emotional responses are mild. They’re forgettable.

They’re often narratives about difficulties getting where you want to go, falling, being busy, going different places, or being in crowds of strangers. They might or might not give you insight from reflecting on them.

Pleasant dreams: You wake up smiling after pleasant dreams. They feature pleasurable stories about things in safe places, being loved, sexual pleasure, receiving help or gifts, and other enjoyable experiences. They stir up emotions of contentment, gratitude, desire, and gladness. Milk them. Get every drop you can out of them.

Nightmares: You wake up feeling troubled after nightmares. Sometimes they shock you awake. Some are toxic and infect you the rest of the day.

They feature troubling stories about being threatened, wronged, doing wrong, not getting what you desire, being repulsed by horror, and tragic loss.

They stir up intense and painful emotions of fear, anger, guilt, disappointment, disgust, and sadness. They’re also mentally confusing and difficult to understand.

Message dreams: Message dreams feature stories in which you receive information. The information might be an insight, guidance, or foreknowledge.

• The insight might be an answer to a question, solution to a problem you’re struggling to solve, or knowledge of something that just happened to someone you’re emotionally connected with.

• The guidance is often a directive that either warns you against or encourages you to take some specific action.

• The foreknowledge gives you preview of events to come. Like many insight dreams about something that just happened, foreknowledge dreams are often about someone you’re emotionally connected with.

Visitation dreams: Visitation dreams feature narratives of visits with people you know. You usually have a strong emotional connection with them: family members, lovers, close friends, or pets. Often those who visit you are deceased and come to comfort you. 

Recurring dreams: The outstanding feature of recurring dreams is their recurrence. You dream the same dream two, three, or more times. Rarely, if ever does a process dreams recur. A recurring dream is usually a pleasant dream, nightmare, or message dream. But it is the same every time. 

Lucid dreams: Any of the above six types of dreams can be lucid, but the outstanding feature is how vivid and realistic it is. Regardless of the story, it is like it is actually happening at the time.

Your Dreams: A Life Therapy Perspective: Part 1 of 3

Dreaming Dog

If dreams fascinate you, this three-part series is for you. It gives you a new perspective on dreams.

This three-part series is about dreams from the perspective of Life Therapy. Life Therapy views things from a human perspective. It focuses more on describing phenomena than on analyzing and interpreting them. It has a unique view of what dreams are, their different types, and how to interpret them.

First, consider what dreams are. In Life Therapy, your dreams have at least five characteristics, maybe more.

Your dreams are natural phenomena.Humans and other animals dream from the earliest to the latest years of their lives. Perhaps plants and other living things dream too. They’re fascinating mysteries of your life, well worth wondering about. 

Your dreams are yours.You dream them, no one else. They come from within you, your own spirit. You know them in your own mind. They’re not something separate from you. Even if someone makes you dream dreams, you dream them. They’re yours.

Your dreams are stories: Your life is a story, so are your dreams. They’re narratives intimately associated with your life-story, not static symbols with set meanings apart from the context of your life-story. 

Sometimes they’re complete stories with a clear beginning, middle, and end. More often they’re snippets of stories already in progress when you join them.

Your dreams are unique: Your life and each day of it is unique, so are your dreams. No one else dreams your dreams. They are unique to you.

The dreams you dream each night, except for the occasional recurring dreams, are also unique. You haven’t dreamed them before nor are you likely to again. 

Your dreams are informative: Your dreams are both informed by and inform your unique life-story. The meaning of your dreams is in your life-story itself. It’s in you, not a dream dictionary or professional who analyzes and interprets your dreams for you.

Part 2 of series describes seven different types of dreams you have.

The Story I Tell...

Hear these words. Take them to heart and live by them:

Wonder of wonders! You are alive!

What a profound mystery! You are alive rather than not!

Be wondered by the mere fact that you are alive!

You’re alive and you’re not alone. You’re alive with others.

Among all the others, you aren’t just rare. You’re one of a kind. You’re of inestimable worth.

You are living a once-in-forever, here-and-gone life. You get no rehearsal. This is your one chance to weave your life-story into the grand, living tapestry of life. 

You have no script to follow. You must improvise and make it up as you go. You have only the life-affirming desires of your heart to guide you.

Live from your heart and spirit, the core of your being. From there improvise the life that’s yours alone to live.

Compelled by the life-affirming desires of your heart, weave your strand in the grand tapestry of life. Your life-affirming desires compel you to do what you must do, what is necessary for you to do.

In the grand, living tapestry, your life is necessary. Everything depends on the life-story you weave.

All of the life-stories woven in the grand tapestry before you, make you necessary. The life-story you’re weaving now, makes everything after you necessary. 

You must weave your necessary strand. Only you can.

You weave your necessary strand in the grand, living tapestry by what you actually do. What you actually do matters above all else. It affects you personally and everyone else too.

Do what values your life and everyone else’s too. Do what fulfills the life-affirming desires of your heart. That’s what you must do. Let nothing stop you.

Give yourself whole-heartedly to fulfilling your life-affirming desires. Do your best weaving the necessary, life-story that is yours alone to live.

What I say to you is for all others too.

Spread the word!

_______________

When you’re ready to heal your hurts, use your strengths,

make your way to a better place in life, and

fulfill your unique life-affirming desires,

contact meat mark.w.neville@gmail.com

For secure and confidential online therapyconnect with mehere.

To stay in touch, connect with me on—

FaceBook:www.facebook.com/MarkWNevilleMDiv

LinkedIn: Mark W Neville

Buy my book, Re-Visioning Spirit: A Brief Introduction, from Amazon, click here.

To purchase it from Barnes and Noble, click here.

Grieving through the Holidays

“Merry Christmas!” and “Happy Holidays!” often feel like stabs to your heart when you’re grieving the death of a loved one. You’re not celebrating the holidays, you’re surviving. You’re doing your best to endure and get through them.

There is no recipe for how best to make your way through the holidays while you grieve. There is only the way that works best for you. You learn what works best for you by trying things, keeping what works, and dropping what doesn’t.

It helps to make decisions about what you will and will not do. To help you decide, write, actually write, your answers to these three questions:

1.    What remains? What have you done in the past that

       you want to keep doing?

2.    What ends? What will you no longer do either because

       your loved one is not physically present or because it’s

       just too painful?

3.    What new opportunities are on the horizon that you are

       willing to try once? You do not have to do anything you

       don’t want to do.

       When you try something new and it’s not good for you,

       you can walk away anytime. When what you try goes

       well, you can try it again, if you want to.

As you make your way through this holiday season, grieve, feel fully all the emotions you feel, honor the life of your loved one, take good care of yourself, and do your best to create some new good holiday memories.

___________________

When you’re ready to heal your hurts, use your strengths,

make your way to a better place in life, and

fulfill your unique life-affirming desires,

contact meat mark.w.neville@gmail.com

For secure and confidential online therapyconnect with me here.

To stay in touch, connect with me on—

FaceBook:www.facebook.com/MarkWNevilleMDiv

LinkedIn: Mark W Neville

To purchase my book, Re-Visioning Spirit: A Brief Introduction, from Amazon, click here.

To purchase it from Barnes and Noble, click here.

Why Wait Any Longer?

Life Therapy is the informed and skillful art of healing and making your way through life's most difficult challenges, like-

• Death of a loved one
• Divorce or dismissal from work
• Distressed personal and professional relationships
• Dealing with or caring for someone with a chronic disease
• Discovering yourself and your purpose in life

With me as your Life Therapist, you have a safe, caring, and experienced professional who understands and helps.

Why wait any longer?

Benefits of Life Therapy with Me

Mark W. Neville, MDiv

Since August I've participated in many local business networking groups. I also sponsored a local conference.

I've met many wonderful people at these events and engaged in thought-provoking conversations. Those conversations helped think about and articulate seven benefits of engaging in Life Therapy with me.

Here's the latest version. Heart-felt thanks to everyone who talked with me about Life Therapy and helped me identify these seven benefits!

Even more thanks to my clients who teach me so much in our sessions together!

Benefits of Having Me as Your Life Therapist

1.     Time: You do not wait. We meet at our scheduled time. I do not limit our sessions to 7 minutes (average length of physician visit) or 50 minutes (standard length of psychotherapy sessions). I spend 60 to 90 minuteswith you listening and asking questions about what is going on with you and your life, caring for you, and making sure I hear and understand what you’re telling me.

2.     You and Your Whole Life: I do not restrict my clinical assessment to one dimension of your life—physical vs mental health problems, personal vs professional, individual vs relationships, etc. Since the challenges you face affect you and every dimension of your life, together we attend to your whole life.

3.     Description, no Diagnosis: I do not diagnose you with a mental disorder and attach an ICD 10 code to your name that becomes a part of your permanent medical record. Rather than diagnosing, I work with you to accurately describethe challenges you’re dealing with in your life right now.

4.     Circumstances of Life, not Symptoms: I do not treat symptoms. Your symptoms are not the problem. They are your friends. Stress, pain, depression, anxiety, grief, shame, guilt, relationship problems, and unhappiness are usually, not always, but usually appropriate, normal, natural, healthy responses to the circumstances of your life. They are not primarily medical or mental health problems. Your symptoms are alarms indicating that serious difficulties are challenging your life. Together we attend to your life and circumstances, help you heal, gain insight, and identify how to get to a better place in life. I help encourage, equip, and empower you to make your way that better place. 

5.     Your Primary Health Care Provider: I am not your primary healthcare provider. You are. It’s your health. It’s your life. You are responsible for your life and health. I don’t tell you what to do and expect you to follow my orders. I educate you, explore options, and help you make informed decisions about what you’re going to do to heal and make your way to a better place in life. 

6.     Customized Care, not Conformity to a Protocol: I do not make recommendations based on protocols for treating the majority of people who have the symptoms you have. You’re a unique individual, living a unique life. You are a case of one.The recommendations I make emerge from our conversations about what you’re experiencing, your circumstances, and what you want for yourself. Your care must fit you rather than have you conform to protocols based on “most people” and averages. 

7.     Referrals to Other Providers and Ending Therapy: I know the scope of my practice and limits and work within them. When I think you need medical therapy, psychotherapy, or some other therapy that I do not provide, I tell you and refer you to a recommended provider. When I believe you’re ready to move forward on your own, without me, I tell you. We plan your discharge. I remain available to you as needed.

Grief is Messy...