Another example to help you understand your dreams.

KEY POINTS

• In analyzing dreams, the greatest challenge is identifying what might be the optimal real-life remedy to the problem(s) the dream dramatizes.
• Curiously, the deeper meaning of an explicitly erotic dream might not be sexual at all—and the reverse can also be true.
• A certain “soul-searching” element exists in many dreams that’s hard to target. But with sufficient introspection, it’s decipherable.
• In IFS, the dreamer—doubtless, the dream’s sole creator—can be seen as having their different parts “incarnated” by its various characters.

This example will illuminate how the theoretical framework of Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) described in Part 1 of this series can account for almost every element in a dream, however obscure or trivial. And in a large variety of instances, the essential meaning(s) of a dream will reference unresolved feelings of ambivalence and, beneath that, old, exaggerated, or distorted feelings of anxiety or shame—typically reaching all the way back to childhood.

A Negative Dream With a Positive (Though Hidden) Meaning

Curiously, many dreams are explicitly sexual, yet their deeper meanings aren’t really erotic. Other dreams would seem anything but sexual but are best identified as predominantly erotic. And still other dreams unite the first two alternatives in confusingly ambiguous ways, which nonetheless can be profoundly revealing.

The dream I’ll be presenting (whose details are too elaborate to fully delineate here) fits best into this third category. Similar to so many dreams, it portrays a problematic, anxiety-laden situation. And for me as a therapist, the ultimate challenge was in making the dream therapeutic for the client. What was required was that he, “Chad,” be able to correctly infer what might be the optimal real-life remedy to the problem(s) it dramatized: a solution the dream broadly hinted at but didn’t expound.

There’s a certain “soul-searching” factor in dreams that’s hard to target, but with enough introspection (and maybe some outside guidance), shouldn’t be too hard to decipher. Concealed like a hidden Easter egg, with enough patience it can be brought to light.

To change the metaphor, here are the “bare bones” of this client’s intricate dream:

Chad, in a large bedroom, is asleep. But he’s awakened by his son, now in his 20s, being orally serviced by a girl of 9 or 10. Meanwhile, his wife is having abandoned sex with several other women. It’s all quite noisy, so there’s no way Chad can go back to sleep. Too hesitant to assert his needs or feelings, either to his lecherous son or wife, he gets up and, pillow in hand, searches for another part of the house where, feeling exhausted, he can return to sleep. But all the rooms are cacophonous, full of loud kids’ romping around. So despairingly, he gives up, recognizing his situation as hopeless.

Then—for real—he wakes up.

A False Dichotomy: Nurture Others or Yourself?

The dream was mystifying and extremely upsetting for Chad. So we started its analysis by examining what in his life he was currently dealing with.

Most important was that he was in the process of divorcing his wife who, despite years of couples counseling, remained unresponsive to his needs—such that he’d finally decided to call the marriage quits. Although consciously he claimed he felt no guilt, even though his wife strongly opposed their splitting up, the dream suggested that, deep down, however perplexing, he was indeed afflicted by some remorse.

Rather than the dream bringing up anger and resentment, for no one in it seemed to have the slightest regard for his needs, what it left him with was a hopeless sense of being different from others, not fitting in, and not being worthy or likable. And that harked back to his early childhood when both his mother and father were so narcissistically self-absorbed that he was terribly neglected by them—at the same time, they made all sorts of unreasonable demands of him.

Consequently, he determined not to assert his needs but to cater to theirs. After all, feeling his bond to them as tenuous, yet still dependent on them for literal survival, he couldn’t very well protest their treatment of him.

Although in reality Chad was the one initiating the divorce, unconsciously it felt that it was his wife who was planning to leave him (a projection or displacement fairly common in dreams). As such, the dream reflected ancient feelings not just of victimization but, too, of fearsome insecurity. And I should add that in the IFS model, the dreamer—who, doubtless, creates the whole dream—is also to be seen as having their various parts “incarnated” by the various characters in it.

As regards the illicit expressions of sexuality so dominant in the dream, Chad had himself been molested at an extremely young age by two much older, morally bankrupt husband-and-wife relatives. And though the unwanted experience was terribly humiliating to him, afterwards he developed a compulsive interest in seducing little girls, aggressively endeavoring to force his will on them and override their frightened reluctance. Despite rudimentary feelings of guilt, he continued to try to coax young girls to engage in sex with him—even to have intercourse with him (fortunately without success).

As convolutedly complex as this dream was, I’ve actually greatly simplified it to focus on how we spotlighted its most important themes. Employing the language and methodology of IFS, we were able to identify the many managers, protective parts, or defense mechanisms implicated in the dream. We could also understand how different parts signified his distrust, anger, resentment, cynicism, withdrawal, social isolation, and ancient feelings of unacceptability.

Richard Schwartz, IFS's originator, would view all these parts as “concerned protectors” because the dream’s dominant protector, or manager, would appear to be one of his inner critics, instructing him not to confront anyone but retreat from them and locate a place to independently meet his needs. Consciously, he’d been blaming others, particularly his wife, for his frustrations. But unconsciously, his inner critic was blaming him, telling him to take total ownership for his longstanding predicament.

That tyrannical self-critic part also seemed in league with his (overly) responsible part, frequently the controlling part in our work together. For as a child, and beyond, he’d concluded that if he wanted others to befriend him, he had (as with his parents) to ignore his own needs and focus on theirs. And exceptionally bright and extraordinarily adroit in so many areas, he excelled, ironically, in placing himself in positions whereby others could hardly resist taking advantage of him.

In a sense, his dream was indirectly reminding him of what outdated adaptive programs he ought now to be working on changing. So I reminded him that he did have some good friends, and that without having to (excessively) “perform” for them, ample evidence existed they’d still see him as likable (i.e., intrinsically so). Moreover, as regards the guilt he experienced in the dream, we talked about his having consciously concluded that he had every right to divorce his exploitative and self-centered wife—that his primary responsibility was compassionate self-care rather than sacrificing himself to her almost endless demands.

Also, that he still needed to forgive himself for his childhood insensitivity to little girls’ feelings, for at a very young age his empathy wasn’t much developed and his residual feelings of guilt no longer served any useful purpose. His precocious, or premature, eroticism wasn’t finally something he’d consciously chosen but unconsciously engendered by his own, never fully assimilated molestation.

In the end, the message of the dream was that he needed to “let it all go” (i.e., forgive both himself and others) if he were to start the new life that his upcoming divorce could finally grant him.

I'd describe this dream in far greater detail and how breaking it down into its component (IFS) parts explained so much that was going on in his life. But regrettably, space limitations don’t make that possible.

In my next post, I’ll offer another, quite different instance in which I was able to employ IFS to assist a female client in bringing into full awareness a marital conflict she was struggling mightily to get her head around.

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