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August 17 Emotion in MotionI believe that emotions in dreams are often so strong because (1) the unconscious is trying to get our attention and...
...(2) we actually experience these powerful emotions during the day, but suppress the feelings.
However, Dr. Rubin A. Naiman presents me with a new idea in his book, Healing Night.
Naiman says that because we can't express the dream emotion through movement--as we can in waking life--the feeling becomes more powerful. He writes:
"Dreaming teaches us about a fascinating relationship between emotion and motion, between our feelings and movement.
"The word motion lies at the root of the word emotion. Interestingly, the nervous system pathways that control our voluntary muscles are rooted in the emotional center of the brain. Emotional energies in the brain generally flow into our muscles, resulting in a proclivity to move.
"Whether or not we choose to express emotions through some form of motion, we commonly say that we are moved by something that we feel strongly about.
"When the flow of emotional energy from the brain to our muscles is inhibited by sleep paralysis, our emotions cannot be expressed and discharged into the waking world. Depending on the intensity of the dream, we may experience a powerful backwash of emotional energies reverbertating within us, untempered by expression, raw and shadowy."
In any case, I believe our strong dream emotions tell us the truth.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com August 13 Good As GoldU.S. swimmer Brendan Hansen dreamed that he won gold the night before competing in the 100 meter breaststroke at this year's Olympics.
But he did not win the gold medal. He came in fourth, I think.
So what is the purpose of such a dream? It seems like a cruel tease.
Well, from what I can see, our greatest accomplishments usually go unheralded--unrecognized not only by the world, but also by ourselves.
So I believe Hansen's dream tells the truth. The dream is not cruel, but generous. I think the dream wants him to realize how much he's actually accomplished.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com August 10 Un-Macho Man Meets Macho ManI've found that you can have the same dream, over and over, without realizing it...
...because recurrent dreams can use different settings and characters.
In a recent dream (see August 3 entry), I bail out of a dangerous situation. A few nights later, I do the same thing in a different scenario:
I'm upstairs in a dark shed when a militia man herds some Iraqi women and children into the room and makes them lie on the dirt floor. I realize that he's going to gun them down. I run outside and look for help, but find no one.
Actually, it's good that I don't find any help--because it's my problem to handle.
I knew that if I tried to stop the macho militia man, I'd probably be shot myself. But there was no other way to save the women and children. I must surmount my fear and confront this killer. That's the goal of this dream: to get me to confront this shadow figure.
I may be the most un-macho man alive, but if this macho man is in my dream, he must be part of me. Something within me wants to destroy what is nurturing and full of the promise of life. This militia man sees those qualities as foreign and dangerous.
I need to understand him. I need to be aware of him. That's how I can stop him.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com August 06 Find Yourself in the DarkDr. Naiman advises us to take back our "Healing Night". I must admit, he makes a good case:
"I believe we may suffer from a darkness deficiency. Recent findings suggest that there may be beneficial effects associated with time awake in darkened space.
"Just as light stimulates the release of serotonin, which energizes us, darkness encourages the production of melatonin, the key neurohormone in our night biology, sleep, and dreams.
"Excessive light at night along with other features of modern life conversely inhibit melatonin, dampening the positive effects of darkness.
"Our very consciousness is in need of repair. Like the attention deficit world we live in, it is scattered--segregated, even fragmented. Sleep and dreams are sharply set apart from waking alhtough fragments of these states now cut and bleed into one another.
"We see an epidemic of wakefulness intruding into our sleep and dreams as insomnia. The resulting sleep and dream debt seeps back into our wakefulness as the dangerous mental smog of daze. We mistake the jittery buzz of counterfeit energies for natural vitality. Half-awake in our sleep and half-asleep in our waking, we are never completely at rest and seldom fully conscious."
The above passage can be found in the book Healing Night by Rubin R. Naiman, Ph.D.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com August 03 You Can't Put Fire On HoldOn one level, this dream works as a fable...
In the dream...
I go to the house next door, though I know no one's home. As I arrive, fire jumps from an outdoor hot water heater to a window.
I rush back home and call "911". I tell the operator it's an emergency, but still, she puts me on hold--and keeps me on hold.
I watch, helplessly, as fire engulfs my neighbor's house. I realized the flames could quickly spread to my place.
Is this fair? I do the right thing, but it backfires.
Or did I do the right thing?
When I considered the situation, I realized that if I had acted immediately, I might--might--have been able to put out those flames.
Well, I did respond quickly--I ran right over to my house and called 911. I did what we're told to do in such emergencies. I handed over responsibility to "authority". Though I acted spontaneously, I acted out of fear.
I like to believe that, when called upon, I'd step up and perform the heroic act. Maybe I could have put out the fire--maybe not. Maybe the hot water heater would've exploded.
But if there's no risk, where's the heroism?
Even if 911 would have responded immediately, the house--old and dry as it was--would probably have been lost.
As in any wise fable, decisions come with a cost: because I didn't save my neighbor's house, my own house is endangered.
Fortunately, it's "only a dream". I believe it's good to have these symbolic "trial runs". Now, hopefully, I can step up when I encounter those "fires" that sometimes surprise us in our waking lives.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com earnest audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com July 30 Reason for ConcernChomsky just sits there like a chump.
In a recent dream...
Noam Chomsky (author, linguist, professor) sits in a chair in a large dark room. In the background, I see some insane professors standing in a small bright room, talking, having a little party.
One of the professor emerges, walks over to Chomsky, takes the man's glasses, bends them in half, then hangs the glasses on Chomsky's left ear.
Chomsky doesn't flinch. He remaines seated, as if in deep thought. The crazy professor goes back to his friends.
What do I associate with Chomsky? Many things, but this dream makes me think of his calm. He can speak out against war crimes and social injustice without raising his voice, without getting overly excited.
As I went into this dream, I realized that Chomsky wasn't really a chump--he just wouldn't let the jerk professor rile him.
The professor and his friends were in the light--the bright light. The bright light of reason, perhaps. But reason, when disconnected from feeling, can be used to justify all types of abhorrent behavior.
All over the world, "bright" people use neat and tidy reason to support the wildest claims. Such reason is ill-logic.
Chomsky may have been in the dark, but it was an expansive room. He had gone within. As such, he could endure such abuse.
However, his glasses did get seriously messed up. It's good to meditate, to ruminate. But apparently these other thoughts can invade and ruin my "vision". I just can't ignore them--passive resistance is not passive.
My dreams keep telling me the same thing: awareness is the key.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com July 27 Talking Sleepwalking #2A sleepwalker may endanger himself (see July 23 entry)...
...and also those he encounters.
An Ontario man fell asleep one night in May 1987 while watching television. A few hours later, he awoke in a police station, dripping with blood, telling officers that he might have "killed some people".
While asleep, Kenneth Parks had driven across town and assaulted his father-in-law and stabbed his mother-in-law to death. Then, still sleeping, he drove himself to the police station.
Parks' gambling addiction had placed his family in severe financial difficulty; he had prepared himself to confess the problem to his in-laws the following day. He apparently had a good relationship with the couple. His mother-in-law referred to him as "her gentle giant".
His defense--that he had no conscious awareness of his actions--was a hard sell. However, EEG tests showed that Parks had an unusual sleep pattern. He was known to sleepwalk periodically. The crime seemed to have no motivation. Kenneth Parks was acquitted.
The "sleepwalking" defense has been used in a number of cases, with varying degrees of success. It's also worth noting that Parks was sleep deprived. Sleep deprived persons are more prone to sleepwalk.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com July 23 Talking SleepwalkingPeople perform surprising feats while sleepwalking
However, contrary to popular belief, somnabulists do injure themselves when up and about. Sleepwalking can even be fatal.
The stories below come from the files of the American Sleep Disorders Association:
* A woman awoke to find herself wheeling a cart filled with fifty-six boxes of cornflakes down a grocery store aisle.
* A sleeping woman drew a map of the United States on her bedroom wall and wrote in the capitols of every state.
* A woman gained over forty pounds by eating chocolates while asleep.
* A sleepwalking man stepped from the door of a moving trailer and was killed on the highway.
* A woman drove to the airport, bought a plane ticket, and was halfway to California before she woke up.
I found these stories in Power Sleep by Dr. James B. Maas. The book's subtitle is: The Revolutionary Program That Prepares Your Mind for Peak Performance.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com July 20 The Title Is: "Titles"Imagine if Gone With the Wind had been called Away With the Breeze...
The right title can capture the essence of a work in a few words--often, the fewer the better. The original title for Casablanca was Everybody Goes to Rick's. Seriously.
My dreams are creative works and writing the dream down is itself a creative act. So I title each dream in my journal. I try to find a word or phrase that goes beyond the obvious.
Sometimes, a title that comes to me spontaneously can state the dream's essential message--before I've even thought about the dream. While writing this entry, I decided to list some of my recent titles...
...and as I did, I began to detect some recurrent themes. Make of this list what you will:
"Red Paint Blood"
"Bill of Health"
"Healthy Hard Times"
"Painful But Necessary"
"Hard Case"
"Fire Won't Wait"
"Cold Comfort"
"Cold Treatment"
"Bearing Up"
"High, Low"
"Destruction, Recovery"
© 2008, Michael R. Patton July 16 Seven Times Out of Ten Isn't Good EnoughBlame it on St. Jerome.
According to Dr. Robert Van de Castle, in his book Our Dreaming Mind, when the Pope asked Jerome to translate the Bible into Latin in 382...
"Jerome apparently deliberately mistranslated the Hebrew word for witchcraft, anan, which was considered a pagan superstitous practice, as (observo somnia) 'observing dreams.'
"The word anan appeared ten times in the Old Testament; seven times Jerome correctly interpreted it, as a witchcraft or a closely related practice, such as divining; but in the other three cases...he redirected the condemnation against dreams.
"Thus, the prohibition 'you shall not practice augury or witchcraft' became 'you shall not practice augury nor observe dreams.'
"Since he had correctly interpreted anan seven times, Jerome was clearly aware of the word's accepted meaning...
Church officials may have ordered the change. Van de Castle believes Jerome had personal reasons.
In any case, he states that the mistranslations had quite an impact...
"Jerome's mistranslations changed the course of Christian belief and practice regarding dreams. Within two centuries, [Pope] Gregory the Great...would cite the mistranslated passages in discouraging the faithful from giving too much attention to dreams.
"This link between dreams and forbidden practices had its main effect in the Latin-speaking western Christian church; the favorable view toward dreams in the eastern Christian church, which followed the Greek Bible, was not significantly altered."
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com July 13 Don't Keep On Truckin'Just do it?
In the dream...
...A man offers me a job of driving a semi-truck and trailer over the hills to another town, about seventy miles away.
Though I've never driven a semi in my life, I accept. Why not? The man seems to have complete confidence in me.
But right from the start, I have problems. I drive into a small store--the truck ends up inside the store and I struggle to back it out. Fortunately, no one gets hurt.
I'm about to hit the highway when I decide I can't go through with this job. I'm just not prepared. I think about taking a truck-driving course.
It's tough to exercise restraint when you want to prove yourself.
The prospect of driving that truck over the hills was very tempting--scary, but tempting. I want to take on new challenges. I want to built my confidence. But that's not the way to do it.
Often in my dreams I compound one bad decision with another. But here, I'm able to correct a bad decision, to go against my first impulse. At the beginning of the dream, I trust another's judgment. At the end, I trust my own. So, after considering this dream, I came away with a positive feeling--and a just little more confidence...
...even if it was "just a dream".
© 2008, Michael R. Patton sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com earnest audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com July 09 24/7 Rhett Finally, for once in his life, Rhett Lamb can sleep. News reports say that the three-year-old had remained awake "nearly" 24 hours a day since birth. Naturally, he was irritable. And his parents, David and Shannon Lamb of St. Petersburg, Florida, had to watch him at all times. After a number of tests, he was diagnosed with an extremely rare condition called chiari malformation. The brain is literally squeezed into the spinal column. The compression of the brain stem can affect many functions, including sleep. A recent operation removed pieces of bone from his skull and spine to take the pressure off the brain stem. The procedure apparently has helped, but long-term results are not guaranteed. I’m guessing that, before the surgery, he suffered from hallucinations. That’s a typical symptom of sleep deprivation. It’s as if our dreams burst into our waking hours. The online news reports don’t mention how lack of sleep has affected his cognitive and physical development. Sleep apparently plays a major role in learning and development. Sleep needs are highest during infancy, but also go up during adolescence. So we require more sleep during times of peak growth. Humans can go longer without food than they can without sleep. So Rhett must be one tough fighter. He’s been living without a basic necessity since birth. © 2008, Michael R. Patton July 06 Upside-Down Gives One a New PerspectiveA dream symbol can have so many layers...
...it sometimes takes years to peel them all away.
In one dream, over six years ago...
...I'm walking down Lincoln Road, near where I live. I pass a simple, middle-class dwelling. On the side of the garage, I see a large, upside-down American flag.
When I first considered this dream, I realized that "upside-down" would represent a situation in which life seemed upside-down, topsy-turvy.
I felt that this dream related not just to me, but to my nation. But I also felt that, though we'd started to tilt, we were not yet upside-down.
Then, a few months ago, I learned from the movie, In the Valley of Elah, that an upside-down flag is used as a distress signal--a cry for help.
That added a little more to my understanding of the symbol. But as I thought about it again, I wondered why the flag hung on a garage. Why not on the adjacent house? Or from a flagpole?
Well, garages are where we park our cars. Our gas-burning cars. So perhaps this symbol relates to our dependence on oil, and all the troubles that dependence can cause us--and has, and will.
But again, though we have definitely tilted, I don't feel we're upside-down yet.
As for the significance of walking on "Lincoln Road"...
...I'm still working on that one.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com earnest audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com July 02 Shaman ShrinksLong before Sigmund Freud...
...long before Carl Jung...
...the Iroquois of North America practiced their own form of psychotherapy:
"The Iroquois believe that disease, illness, and other calamities arise in dreams and that dreams are closely related to the desires of the shadow, or soul, of the individual.
"They assert that dreams are an avenue between the conscious behavior of the patient and the desires of the unconscious, and that any discrepancy between the two must be resolved through the granting and fulfilment of whatever it is the soul wishes.
"Although unsatisfied desires are thought to cause unhappiness and illness, the desires of the soul are inborn and concealed, and only the shamans, who are both dream and thought specialists, are able to identify them. Once known, such desires may be satisfied, subject to the sanction of the community and with its support, the patient can recover."
The above passage comes from Norman Bancroft Hunt's excellent book, Shamanism in North America.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton June 29 The Tooth of the Matter"Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
And it shows them pearly white"
-- Mack the Knife from The Threepenny Opera
A simple enough dream. A simple enough message...
...but not so easy to follow. In the dream...
...a film crew shoots a documentary about sharks. This film will show how sharks are necessary.
I see a shot of two sharks, side by side, touching their snouts together.
So what do I know about sharks? Well, I know they can track blood for incredibly long distances through the water. I know they act on instinct. When they see a possibility...
...they strike.
I think this dream may relate to my recent "mafia" dreams (see entry for June 22). My shark dream tells me that I'm not seeing the positive side to this lower energy--this survival impulse.
I need to use this raw instinctual energy.
I know that when I follow my instincts--or, by another name, intuition--I point myself in the right direction. When I act spontaneously on that information, I succeed or, at least, avoid disaster.
But my life is a little more complex than the world of your average shark. I have considerable considerations to consider.
And that's the problem--the complications do get complicated. I need to use my acute shark instinct to cut through all that bric-a-brac and arrive at what I truly need.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com ear-nest audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com June 25 A Real Story"It's true that it's a real story." - from the movie, No Country for Old Men
This story comes from an excellent book, Shamanism in North America, by Norman Bancroft Hunt. Make of it what you will:
"In a Haida [tribal] tale, a young boy dreamed he had visited the Ghost World. He had vivid memories of the journey and of meeting people who told him they were his deceased relatives and invited the boy to join them.
"A matronly woman, his dead aunt, showed special affection for him, and a girl his own age invited him to play.
"He recalled how kindly everyone was, and that if they had not told him they were dead people he would never have known they were ghosts.
"The chief, however, forbade the boy to touch any of the food they offered and asked if his mother knew he was there. When the boy said she did not, the chief told him he was not yet ready to die and should go back to his mother.
"On waking, the boy was told that he had been in a death-like coma for four days, and that it was only the intercession of a powerful shaman which had persuaded the Chief of the Ghosts to send the boy back, thus saving his life."
So does this story have any reality? Of course it does--it's a story.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com June 22 Mafia Lamb"The lamb will lie down with the lion. But the lamb won't get very much sleep." -- Woody Allen
I'd rather be covered with leeches than hang out with mafia types. So this recent dream troubled me:
I'm walking down a city street toward mafia headquarters with a tall, thin mafioso.
I don't want to go to there. But I this guy can be erratic. If I try to back out, he might explode.
Inside the door, he disappears down a hall. I have to wait in the lobby. I see a coffee urn, but don't find any cups.
We're here for a group meeting--though I'm not actually part of the group. I know I can't trust these fellows. They can turn on you in a flash.
What do I associate with the mafia? Basic survival energy. Not just survival in the physical sense, but also survival of the ego. Anyone can be seen as a threat at any moment.
That's why they're so erratic.
But I'm certainly an easy prisoner: no one has to hold me, no one has to force me. I go along because I'm afraid to oppose this low form of ego energy.
Well, it is powerful--like a wild animal. How can I control a wild animal?
I can't. But I can keep it from controlling me. I may be afraid, but I can act in defiance of my fear. It's possible--as long I remain aware. I can go in the opposite direction, away from that drab gray building and toward freedom. Toward a place of cups.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com earnest audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com June 18 Sober Depictions of Our Intoxicated Days What are dreams? A question with many answers. Here are a few I've run across recently: "Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions." - Edgar Cayce "The dream is memory itself changing before your eyes." - Bert States, professor/author, Dreaming and Storytelling "In man, dreams are a window on the neural process whereby, from early childhood on, strategies for behavior are being set down, modified, or consulted." - Jonathan Winson, neuroscientist "Dreaming is, above all, a time when the unheard parts of ourselves are allowed to speak." - Deirdre Barnett, author, The Mind at Night "Dreams are illustrations...from the book your soul is writing about you." - Marsha Norman, author, 'night Mother "A dream is a microscope through which we look at the hidden occurrences in our soul." - Eric Fromm "In dreams the soul confronts "In dreams the mind beholds its own immensity." - The Upanishads
"Those dreams that on the silent night intrude, and with false flitting shapes our minds delude ... are mere productions of the brain. And fools consult interpreters in vain." - Jonathan Swift "Dreams are as advice given by a very wise--very drunk--old man. A wealth of knowledge behind them, yes, but always, always to be treated with cynicism." - M.J. Morris I don't know the dreams of M.J. Morris. But I'd say that our dreams are actually sober depictions of our intoxicated days. © 2008, Michael R. Patton June 15 Progressive MovementNice to know I'm making progress.
In a recent dream...
...I've arrived in a desert city like Las Vegas. I'm at my hotel, preparing to go out.
I plan to bypass the strip with all the casinos and go to a college campus. Maybe I can see a movie there.
Well, there's nothing wrong with college campuses--I'd rather go to college than to a casino.
But why rush?
I'm not a gambler. But maybe these dream casinos are about "taking a chance". Taking a chance--instead of heading back to the old familiar. I see movies all the time.
Well, I must have taken this dream message to heart. Because, in a dream a week later...
...I'm in a casino, at a bank of five video poker or slot machines, wondering which one I should play.
That's the benefit of keeping constant tab on my dreams: I'm able to see when I'm making positive change.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com June 11 Dreaming on Film"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again..."
So begins Alfred Hitchcock's classic film Rebecca. As the camera eye moves through a wrought-iron gate and up a long driveway toward a dark, haunting mansion, we realize we are witnessing a dream. Not the flashiest dream scenario in movie history... ...however, Hitchcock did get one thing right. Most dream sequences in film and television present the action from a 3rd-person perspective. That is, the dreamer sees him/herself in the dream--unlike the majority of our dreams. So the opening of Rebecca looks more like a typical dream. I know I'm being picky here. But with a little cleverness, a little work, directors and cinematographers could give us an experience closer to what we see and feel when we dream. By doing so, they could approach the mystery of the dream, the mystery of the unconscious, the mystery of life. But right now the mystery is... ...why so many people watch "reality" television. © 2008, Michael R. Patton |
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