Dream life, the self and healing

The interpretation of dreams

Dream life, the self and healing: The year 1900 is significant for the understanding of man since it was then that S. Freud’s monumental work “The Interpretation of Dreams” was first published. This is a work that analyzes the way in which the dream is formed, the mechanisms it uses but also the reasons why it is so confusing. More than a century has passed and this book is considered a milestone in human thought since it helped us better explain our inner life. Our mental life.

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing – Why we dream

The first basic question that arises around the subject of dreams is why we dream. We dream because we are repressed is the answer. What have we pushed back? We have pushed away, we have pushed towards the unconscious that is, feelings that have an unpleasant or threatening dimension or feelings that cause significant tension for some reason. In other words, we have repressed traumatic feelings. What one pushes into the unconscious cannot be accessed. You may hate your father, but you push it away because you both need him and fear him, so you become unconscious of these feelings. You may have sexual feelings for your sister but in the family these are not allowed so even this feeling is pushed to the unconscious. You may feel that you are not truly loved as a child but this is unbearable, so you push it away and turn it upside down, that your parents love you too much. In other words, you use an opposite mechanism and turn the feeling into its opposite. Instead of accepting indifference, you turn it into love.

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing

The dream life, the self and healing – Feelings don’t die

Repressed feelings don’t go away. They exist and continue their lives being hidden. Nor do they change where they are. They wear the same clothes as when you were a child, they eat the same food, they live in the same house, they have the same desires. The one who hates his father wants to kill him so he is constantly everywhere and always angry, the one who is in love with his sister wants to go with her but because this is not possible he always finds women with whom the relationship does not progress, the one who does not he got love he is always looking for people to reject him, he who envied his brothers will hate his mother who loved others besides him and so on. None of these feelings are lost. It is capable of living forever in the unconscious even if years have passed.

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing

The repetition of feelings

This means that the person repeats the same feelings throughout his life. He makes the same mistakes, sets the same traps for himself, recycles the problems and in the end passes them on to his children. This repetition has a compulsive nature. In other words, it is somehow forced since it is unconscious. The only way to stop this repetition and give a real sense of liberation to the person is to learn why they are repeating the same processes.

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing

Devaluation

But there one must come face to face with one’s repressed feelings. This is something that most people fear and it comes out in the form of understatement. When I fear something I devalue it to take away its value. Belittling works temporarily but of course not only doesn’t solve any problem but inflates defenses. Defensiveness will remain for a lifetime but at some point he won’t be able to stand it.

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing

The warning nature of the dream

The dream therefore reminds us that the defense is about to break, it can’t take it anymore, so it undertakes to show you little by little way that behind the repetition and defensiveness are hidden some forgotten feelings. In other words, it knocks on the door of your consciousness. He wants to tell you that what you have repressed is asking to go upstairs. They can’t stand being locked up down there in the basement where you keep them. This is what the dream does. That’s his job. When circumstances sometimes come to combine in a more difficult way, then it can show you more sharply and more directly. So there you have a nightmare.

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing – The indirect mode of operation of the dream

The dream tries to put us in touch with our hidden feelings. Things we don’t admit even to ourselves. But he knows that if he shows them as they are, the dreamer will wake up from his terror. So he won’t have achieved anything. And sleep will be disturbed and he will not be able to successfully convey the message assigned to him by the repressed feelings locked in the hold. So what does he do? It disguises the message. Shows you the competitive side of your father with the face of a kind old man you don’t know, or instead of showing you your sister, it shows you an attractive woman but you can’t see her face and you wonder who she is. This way he manages to tell you the message without scaring you.

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing

The dream speaks softly

It changes times, places, events, persons. It condenses and transposes so that it is not forced to show you the truth directly. This would have traumatic results. Just yesterday a patient of mine confided in me the need to tell him things very directly. Without preparing him. What he wanted me to do was repeat what a member of his family did which was very abrupt. What he was asking of me was unconscious. He was not asking me, but that family member to repeat that sharp pressure. Things should not be done this way because the fear grows and the person can be seriously injured.This is what dreams do. Every night. With ceaseless effort. We don’t remember everything, but we do remember some. The defenses when we sleep are weakened and thus the psyche finds an opportunity through the dream to bring us the valuable information.

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing

To be well we must know our true feelings

In psychotherapy we examine, among other things, dreams. There we see what they want to tell us. We see what we have hidden under the carpet for good. What we do not see becomes a symptom. Symptoms have the same mechanism as dreams. They have exactly the same function. If we resist too much and do not want to “see”, then the psyche enlists the symptom. Dreams are the most normal symptom in the psyche. It is the way to show the repressed feeling. So do the symptoms. The difference is that a symptom is of a heavier nature than a dream. There one realizes that there is some larger trauma that needs healing. So people don’t come to therapy to learn about themselves if they don’t get symptoms.

But this must change. People need to be in touch with themselves from a young age. Because they will be happier that way. The psyche is full of conflicts of jealousies, rivalries, fear of abandonment, fear of losing love and fear of annihilation which is the most basic of all. If we are in touch with them from the beginning, our relationships will be more pleasant and smoother.

Dream life, the self and healing

Dream life, the self and healing

*the article may not be reproduced without the written permission of the author

See also: The Psychology of the Infant
See also: Detention

The process of psychotherapy requires commitment, dedication and is addressed only to those who seriously see that they need to change their lives. If you are thinking of starting this journey, call me at 211 71 51 801 to make an appointment and see together how I can help you.

Mixalis Paterakis
Psychologist Psychotherapist
University of Indianapolis University of Middlesex
Karneadou 37, Kolonaki
I accept by appointment
Tel: 211 7151 801
www.mixalispaterakis.gr
www.psychotherapy.net.gr

Dream life, the self and healing