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What Lies Beneath:
Dream Work and Its Relevance Today Published by New Times, February, 2002 www.newtimes.org By Judy Knight, M.Ed  Back To Dreamspace
Because dreams and dream images emerge from a vast reservoir of life
experience dating back to the beginning of time, attending to dreams is particularly imperative
during this difficult period in our personal and collective history. The use of the word
"imperative" is significant since it connotes a force or energy at work beyond conscious
intention. The Encarta World English Dictionary defines "imperative" as something "absolutely
necessary or unavoidable." It’s precisely this necessity to pursue the art and practice of
dream work and, in particular, its urgency for me now that I will explore in this article.
As I begin, I invite you to stay with your own experience and to consider these questions:
Where is the urgency in my life? What in my experience seems "absolutely necessary" and how
am I being drawn to respond?
For me, the events of September 11, 2001 interrupted a somewhat ordered life. Over the weeks since then, the profound cognitive and emotional disturbance within and around me has demanded my attention. I could respond, of course, on several different levels. Unlike the seemingly rational and comprehensible response of a nation now at war, my response requires something else. For me, something so utterly irrational and incomprehensible as the rapid physical and psychic devastation in the aftermath of these terrorist attacks necessitates a relationship with something equally irrational and incomprehensible. It is the unseen, all-encompassing container of psychic energy, vital as the air we breathe, that holds the wisdom from which I draw in these troubled times. While this "vast reservoir" or unconscious space has yielded its secrets over the course of time, it is by nature intangible, unfamiliar, and unknown. Among the many ways it manifests is during sleep, via the imagery of dreams. In the face of what I cannot understand, let alone explain, I attend to these nocturnal visits and find meaning and purpose in relationship to their mystery through the practice of dream work. If you and I could have a conversation now, I would want to know: What holds the wisdom from which you draw during these troubled times? How do you find meaning and purpose in the face of what you cannot comprehend? I reread the above paragraph and noticed my use of words that expresses this imperative: "demanded," "requires," "necessitates." Where does this forceful energy originate? Is it my initiative or the initiative of something beyond me? In answer, I once again acknowledge that I respond to life’s incongruities and attend to the dream because I am drawn to doing so. Since image-making is a function of the psyche, I move toward the dream, because this is the way psyche draws me to itself and relentlessly pursues my attention. While I realize that there are many expressions of this psychic dimension of reality, I personally attend to psyche’s intention toward me and its dynamic expression through dreams in the practice of dream work. As I reciprocate with equal intention, I discover over time that in addition to the practical applications of this work in my daily life, I am initiated into the ways of what David Whyte, in his poem What to Remember When Waking, called the "other more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world where everything began." I think the world of which Whyte speaks is the realm of psyche, or soul. The indigenous language of this realm is image and metaphor. As I learn to speak the language of the psyche as it has been spoken through the ages in dreams, music, art, poetry, religious ritual, etc., I pay closer attention to the voice of the dream as it shows up in my daily life experience, and in current events both here and throughout the world. I’m descending a beautifully carved wooden spiral staircase. In my arms, I’m carrying a heavy stack of newspapers. I decide to unburden myself by throwing the stack over the banister. As I throw the papers, I look down several floors below. I’m concerned that when I get to the bottom I’ll find a big mess. The value of practicing dream work during these unsettling days is not so much to diminish fear and anxiety, though this may happen. The value is more in assisting me to bear the frightening reality in relationship to the source of psychic life, which permeates and informs this reality. In the above dream segment, for example, my dream ego, as it makes its way downward, stands solid on the stairs. Even though concerned about the ensuing mess, it throws the papers over the banister into the unknown. As I carry these dream images consciously in my awareness during the day, I am more able to maintain a balance between my concern for others and myself in the midst of the tremendous unknown facing us today while maintaining a connection with an underlying psychic reality that connects all life. Even in the midst of so much destruction, I trust that this "other more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world where everything began" sustains us even now. I recently read in The Seattle Times a comment by a photojournalist that best describes my experience of dream work. He was speaking about the photos now emerging from Afghanistan of injured and starving townspeople. Each photo is a challenge to the rhetoric supporting the bombing. He said, "Talking heads cannot compete with the power of images." How true. It is precisely the power of images, and particularly dream images, that has informed my life in a conscious way for over twenty years. Through consistent attention to the world of dreams, I am discovering the most rewarding outcome of all: a relationship with a creative source of inspiration that sustains me when logic and reason fail. When I finally reach the bottom of the staircase and look around, I discover the newspapers neatly stacked in a pile. I’m amazed. Practical Suggestions for Those Interested In Pursuing the Practice of Dreamwork.
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