Dream Analysis

There have been many misconceptions about dreams. Throughout history, there have been theories relating dreams to higher powers and fulfilling desires. Whatever the reason for our dreams, they open a door to our subconscious.

For many people, it is difficult to remember dreams. Some wake up daily remembering that had occurred. One way to help yourself remember your dreams is to keep a journal next to your bed, to record your dreams as soon as you wake up. Using your phone to dictate or record dreams could also be helpful.

Sigmund Freud, father of psychodynamic theory, said that “dreams are the royal road to the knowledge of the unconscious activities in the mind.”

Dream analysis was used to uncover and discover unconscious processes, having a central contribution to important material for clients to further work through. Freud assumed that every dream has meaning that can be interpreted by finding associations and meaning of the unconscious material. Dreams are viewed as a symbol, representing some person, thing, activity present in unconscious process.

Cabaniss and colleagues (2016) conceptualize dreams as elements from the dreamer’s recent past, which link to related memories and unconscious fantasies, uncovering information about concerns at the client’s surface of mental life. Dreaming includes the following cognitive processes of accumulation of semantic and autobiographic memory and visual and auditory memory, creating a narrative sequence for the dream scene that enacts waking memory.

Dreams contain related memories, unconscious fantasies, and surface level concerns.

Stickgold and colleagues (2003) study the dream elements and the relation to waking and sleep, finding that dreams reflect the activation of memories, allowing both memories and associations to be altered during the process of reexperiencing.

Waking events are stored in the brain and integrated into dreams, incorporating day-time experiences, previously stored memories, and emotionally salient material involving the hippocampal or medial temporal lobe (Stickgold et al. 2003). Research finds that emotions play a central role in the functioning of the brain while dreaming, due to the amygdala influencing the activation of emotions during sleep and dreaming process (Stickgold et al, 2003).

Three step process:

Listening: First, therapists listen to the dream story, which is what the client remembers and reports about the dream, and listening for dream associations, which include the linking to related unconscious elements. Therapists will listen for mood and affect in the dream, which can provide information about the elements close to the surface, points of clarity, which can be associated to deeper material, the dreams dominating theme, and connections and nodal points, which are patterns of words and/or symbols.

Reflecting: After the therapist actively listens to the clients dream and associations, therapists will reflect upon the given information, attempting to understand and interpret the dream in relation to unconscious material. Therapists will enter the reflecting step of the dream analysis, finding key elements in the dream that represent, or are connected to unconscious feelings, fears, and fantasies common dream themes, including transference themes, unconscious fantasies, representation of relationships, and self-perceptions. Transference themes include thoughts and feelings about the therapist incorporated in the dream, often uncovering elements of transference or perceptions of the therapeutic relationship. Unconscious fantasies can manifest as aggressive or intimate feelings toward a particular individual or situation, which may reflect the clients unconscious fear or fantasy. Representations of relationships are dreams which include people, providing insight into the client’s relationships with significant individuals (Cabaniss et al, 2016). Self-perceptions are dreams that include information pertaining to how the client views themselves.

Intervening: Intervening is the last step in the dream analysis steps provided by Cabaniss and colleagues (2016), recommending therapists use psychoeducation to teach clients how to interpret and use dream interpretation. Therapists may teach clients to focus on themes and patterns of the dream, rather than translating the dream story as a whole. Clients should also be taught that dreams do not have a universal meaning, rather dreams help provide information about related themes from the client’s awareness (Cabaniss et al, 2016).

References:

Cabaniss, D. L., Cherry, S., Douglas, C. J., & Schwartz, A. R. (2016). Psychodynamic psychotherapy: A clinical manual (2nd ed.). West Sussex, UK: Wiley.

Crook-Lyon, R. E., & Hill, C. E. (2004). Client reactions to working with dreams in psychotherapy, Dreaming, 14 207-219. doi:10.1037/1053-0797.14.4.207

Hill, C. E., Gelso, C. J., Gerstenblith, J., Chui, H., Pudasaini, S., Burgard, J., Baumann, E., Huang, T. (2013). The dreamscape of psychodynamic psychotherapy: Dreams, dreamers, dream work, consequences, and case studies. Dreaming, 23(1), 1–45. https://doi-org.turing.library.northwestern.edu/10.1037/a0032207

Hill, C. E., Liu, J., Spangler, P., Sim, W., & Schottenbauer, M. (2008). Working with dreams in psychotherapy: What do psychodynamic therapists report that they do? Psychoanalytic Psychology, 25, 565-573. doi: 10.1037/a0013539

Jacobs, M. (2017). Psychodynamic Counselling in Action. Sage.

Pap, G., Lackinger, F., Kamp, G., & Löffler-Stastka, H. (2021). Analysis of a dream series by the Dream Coding System developed by Ulrich Moser. Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.4081/ripppo.2021.538

Stickgold, R., Hobson J. A., Fosse, R., et al. (2001). Sleep, learning, and dreams: Off-line memory reprocessing. Science. 294 (5544), 1052-1057. doi: 10.1126/science.1063530. PMID: 11691983.

Schlesinger, H. (2003). The Texture of Treatment, Analytic Press, Hillsdale NJ, p.109.