On Dreams, and Dreaming

One of my most transformative experiences in graduate school was working with traumatized veterans at the VA hospital in a dream rescripting group. This group of clients- most of whom had served in Vietnam- had been plagued with recurrent nightmares of traumatic combat experiences for decades- some terrorized by the same repetitive dream- or some version of it- since they had returned from war over 30 years prior.

The dreams showed overt conflict - memories of having abandoned a wounded friend alone to die on the battlefield - obeying an order to evacuate, but resulting in the friend’s death- that the veteran could never forgive himself for, for example.

In our group, which met weekly for a number of months, we slowly worked with the vets to rescript the dreams- dismantling them, rewriting them, piece by piece, and helping them learn to instruct their brains to dream the dream according to the new version they had created.

The dreams could not have happy endings, of course, because the real life endings weren’t happy. That would have been to tell themselves a lie. Their friend did, indeed, die. There was no way to undo that horror.

But we would help them to create, consciously- meticulously- an ending they could live with. Imagining they could, magically, go back and re-live that day- how would they do it differently, if they had a second chance, for example?

So in the above example, the veteran might rescript the dream in such a way that he could find 30 seconds to go to his friend and tell him how sorry he was he was going to have to leave him, but promise him that he would tell his wife and his children of his bravery. And swear to him that his death wouldn’t be in vain.

And once he had rescripted the dream, little by little, over the course of months, the veteran would- if therapy was successful- be able to dream the new version, and sometimes, let the old nightmare go, finally resting easy after decades of a tormented conscience that gave him no peace, even in his moments of rest.

I later used this technique with an undocumented client who had crossed the border illegally, and under threat of death from his smuggler, had to leave a friend who’d gotten injured behind in the desert alone- lest the whole group be detected by immigration due to their slow pace, and risk being sent back.

When that client’s friend was never seen or heard from again, he was so tormented by the promise he’d made to his mother to protect her son before they attempted to cross the border that he couldn’t rest easy.

So we used this technique with him, and he finally found peace.

Personally, I always suspected that we weren't just rescripting dreams - I wondered if my clients actually met their friend’s souls in the dream world and the friends spoke back to them, reassuring them that they were well , and that the client should let the past go and go on living, free from the agony of a conscience plagued by guilt.

Of course, I couldn’t prove that theory, but I always wondered if there wasn’t something a bit more mystical to this process than a simple reimagining of the past to make it less burdensome to the conscious mind.

Dreams can be understood in a multitude of ways, depending on your lens - scientific, emotional, spiritual, or mystical. And really, the reality is that they are an amalgamation of all of the above. Dreams can serve a number of roles:

As a mirror for real emotional concerns and experiences, helping us process feelings and manage stress.

To assist us to consolidate our memories- replaying recent events, to help our brains file the day to day occurrences of our lives away in some meaningful way.

As symbolism, giving us insights into life circumstances or showing us the right way in regards to decisions we should make.

As spiritual guidance, showing the path to the Divine Will.

Throughout history, dreams have guided religious leaders and people of faith. In Muslim tradition, “Roya Nabi” (رؤيا النبي) refers to the unique and soul-stirring experience of seeing Prophet Muhammad in a dream, which has been understood in some Muslim traditions as a sign of glad tidings or God’s mercy. The Baha’i Faith teaches that dreams can impart Divine inspiration, and, if the dreamer is in spiritual headspace, free from the influence of the ego and the lower nature, God can inspire him with what he needs to know or do. We are taught that many secrets are deposited in dreams, many wisdoms treasured, many worlds concealed, and that when we dream our intelligence and emotional capacity is even greater than in waking life. Additionally, when we dream we can unravel intricate problems, which we may not be able to solve in a waking state.

Einstein proved this was true by discovering the principle of relativity after having a vivid dream in which he was sledding down a steep mountainside, going so fast that eventually he approached the speed of light. At this moment, the stars in his dream changed their appearance in relation to him. He awoke and meditated on this idea, soon formulating what would become one of the most famous scientific theories in the history of mankind. Other great thinkers similarly credit their discoveries to insights gleaned from their dreams.

Native Americans thought of special dreams as spiritual encounters and sometimes embarked on healing and vision quests, seeking clarity and purpose through their dreams.

There have been times in my life that dreams clarified things that would not as easily have been understood when confused by my waking thoughts.

Once , when conflicted about a job offer that was tempting me, but something felt wrong about that I just couldn’t put my finger on, I dreamt a dream that distilled the issue so clearly I understood immediately upon awakening - what my waking mind could not unravel through reason, the symbolism of a dream immediately made clear to me.

In the dream, a former employer from a city I had previously lived in was offering me a job (unrelated to the real life job offer). She showed me around the premises of her new office. It was dreamlike. They had enchanting gardens, a beautiful office space where I would work, and a lovely group of staff to work with. The job was idyllic- too good to turn down. But as the dream concluded, my former employer said these parting words to me just before I woke up, “....and just imagine, our new facility is just a few miles from the house you live in.”

And then I woke up, with those words echoing in my mind. I pondered them, trying to make sense of the meaning of the enchanting dream ending in this odd way with these bizarre parting words.

Then I understood: In real life, I no longer lived in that same city or the same house my employer was referring to. What would it benefit me, then, that the new job was just a few miles from a house I now lived hundreds of miles away from?

Then I was able to interpret the symbolism of my dream: the house in the dream represented me as a person. In other words, I no longer lived in the headspace that would have made that job perfect for a different version of me, a few years prior.

I turned down that job as a result of the dream. It was the right decision. I don’t know if I would have understood why a decision that was excellent- on paper- would have turned out to be wrong for me, long term, without the assistance of that dream.

Of course, not all dreams are inspired. Some are troubling, some are confusing. But my favorite understanding of dreams comes from a book called The Seven Valleys . In it, a man named Luqman is trying to prove to his son that there is life after death, and he uses the dream as a proof.

He says to his son, “If you are able to sleep, you are able to die; and if you are able to awaken after sleep, you are able to rise after death. Just as there is waking after sleep, there is rising after death.”

And I think that’s my favorite thing about dreams, above all other possible reasons- they are excellent proof of something greater than this day-to-day existence, after all.

Because, who among us is in control of our waking moment? Whether or not we like it, we all wake up in the morning.

So, it stands to reason that the moment our eyes close forever, there is another form of awakening that we cannot control, understand, or predict.

The proof of such a thing can be felt every morning when our eyes open to a new day.