Dreams......

• Irma Dream References by Vic Comello, 4/8/99
  
  

I am excited that we are beginning this discussion of dreams. I thank Vic for starting us off with some background, sane orienting and a very useful quote from Joe. Joe is very interested in dreams and has been collected his patient's dreams for years. There is a great class offered at the SFPRG's march workshop on the role of dreams by Marshall Bush and Paul Ransahoff. I wish they would write up their ideas so we could them include here but I fear it will be a while before they do so.

I too am interested in hearing Doug's thought on the dream as a reflection of the ongoing therapy relationship. I also try to understand a patient's dream from the perspective of what was going on in the patient's life when the dream occurred. Joe teaches us to look at the dream as a way one is trying to communicate some important content (often unconscious) to one's self (or the therapist). The act of dreaming helps one to be more likely to both remember the content and to take the message seriously. Joe offers us several ways to understand the possible function and meaning of a dream but they all include taking the patients frame of mind , circumstances, and the task they are tying to master as factors in understanding the meaning of the dream. I would be happy to try to apply some of his teachings to the dreams we discuss.

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