Amanda – People react so differently in the situation in your dream. You were married for 33 years, long enough to set in place habits; habits of your attitudes to what you allowed yourself in marriage, what you felt and what you lived.
Habits need time to retrain, for in the dream you wanted another man, but you habits, shown by your dream, stated that you thought you had got away with the man in your bed, and also the look of disgust from your dream daughter.
But dream figures such as your husband and daughter are not them, but are your habitual feelings and thoughts in regard to them. So, your dream is simply stating what you have been programmed to feel through long years of living differently; also there is the enormous influence of social programs/views/morals.
I have myself experience years of misery because of leaving my family for another woman. After years I found way through the misery into freedom. I had felt that I was a bad father, and was somehow inferior. It was a terrible load to carry. The thing was that having done what I had, I couldn’t go back. So, I was stuck in hell without a way out. In that situation I was no good to my children or my new partner.
I saw that such reactions were habits due to my cultural upbringing – ‘you left your wife and children and you are no good.’ As habits I could change them and be free of their crippling influence. I was free to choose what I felt. So, I chose to allow love for my children, to support where I was capable, and not creep around like a whipped dog. It worked.
You can reprogram your reactions by being aware of their influence and starting to build other reactions. Or while awake change the dream by imagining a different ending. This technique is wonderfully effective, and can change habits and patterns that we may be locked in. It does this by giving our mind/brain a different pathway and experience. In test it was found that imagining a situation is 70% as effective as actually doing it.
So, imagine yourself in the dream and continue it as a fantasy or daydream. Consider what it is that troubles you or is not what you want in your dream. Now take time to think how you would alter it and how to have an ending that would satisfy you. Now you can, in your imagination, enter your dream and alter the dream in any way that satisfies. Experiment with it, play with it, until you find a fuller sense of self expression.
It is very important to note whether any anger or hostility is in the dream but not fully expressed. If so, let yourself imagine a full expression of the anger. It may be that as this is practiced more anger is openly expressed in subsequent dreams. This is healthy, allowing such feelings to be vented and redirected into satisfying ways, individually and socially. In doing this do not ignore any feelings of resistance, pleasure or anxiety.
Satisfaction occurs only as we learn to acknowledge and integrate resistances and anxieties into what we express. This is a very important step. It gradually changes those of our habits which trap us in lack of satisfaction, poor creativity or inability to resolve problems.
Dr. Cartwright, who is Director of the Sleep Disorder Center at Rush Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, recommends the same procedure. She suggests “that you rehearse new endings to disturbing dreams. For example, if your father always degrades you, visualize yourself telling him that you are not going to listen to his abuse any more.
Tony
