Gestalt Dream Work

April 2021. From the very beginning of Gestalt therapy dream work has been an important working mode. And my own work using the gestalt process has utilized dreams right from the start. I’ll share what I can of the process, drawing on insights from numerous trainers, and above all on Fritz Perls’ original insights and procedures and those of Robert K. Hall, with a few additions from my own experience.

The essentials of the process outlined here can be used with either a classical or a dialogical-relational Gestalt working session, which are the two principal variations of Gestalt counseling and therapeutic work in use today. The first step of choosing the dream is the same for each approach. The second step, telling and describing the dream, is also the same in both these approaches. The next step, active exploration of a person’s dream, leans more on enactment in a classical approach and more on conversation in a dialogical-relational practice. I’ll emphasize the classical approach in this description, but transforming an acting-out dialogues into an interpersonal dialogue can easily be done. When concluding your dream work, the last step can be almost the same in either a classical or a dialogical relational session. It’s likely to be almost the same in an individual session.

SELECTING THE DREAM

The client may relate a dream that just happened last night, or previously. Very recent is usually better than older. The most important exception is a recurrent dream—one in which the principal theme recurs again and again over a period of weeks or months or even years. That’s always a message that some important message is lurking in that dream.

Ideally a dream should be written down immediately on waking. The pen and tablet or other recording device can be kept on or right next to the bed so that it is not necessary to get up to write. Ideally dreams should be recorded in a notebook or journal—not scraps of paper—and each dream should immediately be given a title at the top of the page with its date. A book full of dreams with titles that allow you to immediately recall the dream when you hear its title can be very useful, and its theme easily consulted. After a month or more of dreams have been recorded in a dream book you can go through it and look for patterns of dreams that are essentially similar. For instance I once found a series of dreams, interspersed among others, in which I would work on some project, or go somewhere, and make a mistake or take a wrong turn. For example, I was a bus driver and I took the wrong road, and I had to backtrack and then take a different one, or a mechanic and I had the wrong part, and had to redo what I’d done using the right one, etc. The dreams turned out to be a message to slow down and do things carefully and correctly the first time.

TELLING THE DREAM

This describes the gestalt approach described by Fritz Perls with two of my personal small additions. Instruct your client to describe the setting, people, and events in the dream like events in a movie, step by step from beginning to end as if it is happening now as they speak. As if they are in it living it in present real time. I often find that it’s useful to ask the person to close their eyes from its start to finish so they can fully visualize what’s happening (unless that’s too scary or overwhelming). And not to omit anything, because details can be significant.

I also find it useful to ask the person to describe how they feel at each point in the dream whenever they sense a change in the way they’re feeling. Typically there may be just three or four of these change-in-feeling points, but they often to point to what’s most important. If as I listen I seem to sense such a change in the emotional tone of the dream but the person hasn’t mentioned it, I may stop him or her for a moment and ask, “How do you feel at this instant? Can you tell me in just a word or a phrase?”

Often someone may recall just a fragment of the dream. Whether short or long, treat it as the whole dream. Ask them to tell that fragment with feeling points emphasized as described just above. The fragment that’s remembered is likely to hold an important message.

WORKING WITH THE DREAM

Once the dream is described from beginning to end you have choices about how to proceed. One option is to focus on what feels to you like the most important or significant part of the dream. While this choice can be made on the basis of the symbolism and what you know about the client, usually it’s best made by assessing where the emotional energy of the dream feels strongest. If you’ve asked the client to mention how they feel as they go through the dream, often it becomes obvious which part of the dream is most significant. Or you can ask the person something like, “Without trying to figure anything out, what jumps right out at you most powerfully from the dream?”

Then you began to work with that scene and the deeper work begins. Often it will be a dialogue between two dream characters. Ask the person to identify with one of them and see what statement the character has to make about himself or herself. And what statement to the other character. Then do the same for identification with the other character. And after that you can move to encouraging short, crisp statements from each character to the other, back and forth, back and forth. As therapist you will be attending to every dimension of body language while this occurs, as it will tell you about at least two significant and different aspect of the client’s character and personality. If the person starts to make a statement that starts to feel like intellectualizing and analysis, immediately ask him or her to ‘’switch” or “change’” to the other role. (A long statement that is a personal message from the depths is another matter and you will want to reach the punchline at the end.) After a minute or two of such a dialogue, if the person feels to you to be even a little too tangled up in words and thoughts, you can suggest, “Okay, now say just one line from each side as you continue.” About three statements from each side will often lay out the bare bones of the two sides of an inner or outer conflict. (Occasionally you may hear your client discuss a third perspective.)

It’s also possible for the dialogue to be between ‘the person himself or herself’’ and a person or object in the dream. Or between a person and an object. Or two objects or even scenes.

Usually there will be at least one object or scene or person that is significant without a dialogue. Simple identification is a useful tool that avoids the head-tripping pitfalls of “interpretation.” For example, a house or building in the dream should almost always be explored. Ask the person to “become” the house and describe himself or herself: “I am a big old brown shingled two-story house with many rooms. I look a little scary, like maybe there are witches and ghosts in me.” (Make a note to explore those witches and ghosts when the house has exhausted its own secrets!) “I am sitting near a cliff near the ocean and waves are breaking against the shore.” Lots of symbols can be discussed here. No telling what may be significant. A classic example from a dream explored by Fritz featured a path from the gate to the door. When asked to “become the path,” the client began to complain about everybody walking on him and shitting and pissing on him. Or instead of a scary house fully of witches and ghosts a person might describe a sterile new house trailer with no furniture in it. That person may feel somehow “less than.” That points to another key insight: to pay attention to what’s missing in a dream as well as what’s present. When there are no people in someone’s dream, tread carefully. Within a house a single room may hold varied messages. If it seems worth doing, try asking the person to describe himself as each piece of furniture in the room. I recall a dream with a living room that had no chairs. The dreamer felt like she was inhospitable and didn’t know how to welcome people and help them feel at ease.

A specific dialogue in a dream may or may not prove productive. You may need to choose a different one. In one dream the client was in a ring boxing with a listless opponent where there was little action. Then he watched the next bout that featured one small agile boxer who was fast and relentless. Asked to identify with that boxer, he came to life, punching and active and energetic. His issue turned out to be getting in touch with his ability to say “no” and otherwise be assertive with others who were trampling on his boundaries.

If you or the client has selected a dialogue that’s the key one, working with that alone may be enough. If the energy isn’t there, remember Erv and Miriam Polster’s key concept of “neon arrows.” Be alert to an arrow pointing to something else in the dream where the energy is and follow it. The principle holds both in and out of dreams. A young woman who began working with her father somewhat listlessly mentioned “except for that other thing” quickly in passing. The therapist saw and felt the neon arrow, and that “other thing” turned out to be her sister’s suicide. That’ where the work was.

A second way to enter the dream is to notice what looks like it may be central and then instead of going right toward it, begin with something that looks like it may be peripheral, identify with it, and explore and nibble around the edges before moving into what appears central in the dream. This approach can be useful in getting a sense of the larger context in which the dream action takes place, which sometimes is vital. Or it can help someone who’s scared of what’s most important in the dream feel at least a little more safe and grounded before moving into the heavy stuff. Or it may turn out that some of what looked like it was just scenery parked around the edges turns out to actually be the main event.

Finally, in a dream with more than one scene, if most of your work has been with the scene that felt central but there is not a clear sense of closure, don’t forget to explore the secondary scene or scenes. They can sometimes turn out to be the key to resolution of what was left unfinished in the main scene.

If you work from a dialogical-relational perspective you can adapt the steps and insights above to your own way of working. My own preference here is obvious. Like the adage for fiction writers, “Show, don’t tell” which means that scenes and dialogue are usually more effective than narration, I get countless clues to what’s going on with someone from their posture, gestures, voice tone, and emotional expression as they identify with and act out the things and people and scenes in a dream. I don’t want to give that up — except when someone is uncomfortable with identification and enactment. In that case I give up my preference in favor of theirs and move into a conversational mode, and all elements of gestalt theater disappear. After all, the key principle is to do what will be most useful for the person. And if you’re a psychoanalyst of a dialogical-relational gestalt therapist, you’ll probably use some of the cues and methods described above as reference points for exploring the relational dynamics between yourself and the client. I’ll leave writing about that to someone else.

CLOSING THE SESSION

I work primarily with individuals in a group setting. I try to time the working process so that there will be at least ten minutes at the end of a person’s session. Then each other person in the group has a chance to say something, with everyone else listening. I’ve found that clear rules are needed for this. A person can speak only once, to avoid big-time talkers monopolizing the talking space. If they have more than one thing to say they have to say all of it in that one turn. I ask them to be concise —no more than a minute, to leave space for others, and I flash a “cut the scene” gesture if they show signs of rambling on. It’s not a go-around structure. Rather anyone who has not yet spoken can speak when another has finished. In such a response session, intellectualizing or “telling what you think another person’s dream means” is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. If anyone starts to do so I immediately intervene and stop them. Instead, this is a time for people to tell how they feel in response to the person’s work with the dream. It’s personal, and only personal. Any kind of judgment about what the person has done not done is not allowed. This is essential.

That ten-minute closing period is usually enough time for someone who is emotionally ragged at the end of their work to pull themselves together, calm down, and walk out the door ready to meet the world. Or to be ready for the next person’s work. If not, we have an agreement that one or more group members will be with them one-on- one in the room or the hallway for as long as needed.

Of course if you work primarily one-to-one in a consulting office, you’ll have your own way of ending that works for you and your clients.

In another post I’ll describe a very different group-oriented way of working with dreams in which everyone is a full participant throughout.

<<<>>>