Solve the mysteries of your emotional life! This theory of mind offers a set of ideas that will illuminate hidden parts of your inner world. Explore your unconscious emotions, thoughts and feelings using age-old concepts, insights and tools.
Dreams are specific and well timed messages that slip out the back of our minds. Their aim is to express emotions we have ignored or suppressed.
Unspent emotional energy spills effortlessly into our sleeping mind. Imagine dreams serving the same purpose as a waterfall; they both transfer energy into a new space and transform it.
As my dream images take shape, they slip fluidly out the back door of my mind. As I awaken to consciousness, they lurk hesitantly - waiting to be invited in through the front.
Dreams use symbols from recent events and ancient times to express what we already know, but may not see.
As the dreamer, I select a message and use whatever symbols, metaphors, rhythms, and dramatic themes are handy. Because dreams are fueled by emotional energy, their contents naturally shed light on emotional complexities, hidden conflicts, and persistent problems.
Freud noted that seeking meaning in dreams is like looking for pictures in water. Although confusing at first, the astute observer can find meaningful reflections amongst the shifting and distorted images. He believed that the best interpreter of dreams is the person who can best grasp similarities and associate freely.
As a force of nature, dreams must inevitably reveal situations as I know them to be - they are unedited.
When a dream arrives, I - the recipient-dreamer-actor-observer – have a chance to understand myself better. My challenge is to find similarities or parallels between the feelings, contradictions, and complexities of my dreams and my current situation.
C. G. Jung imagined dreams as gifts, messengers from our psyche that can reveal our unconscious goals. Gifts must be opened and explored to get the most from them.
Remember, we don’t choose our dreams.
Our dreams choose for us.
Dreams offer clues to emotions and perceptions of which we are unaware. They can reveal startlingly new perspectives or elaborate something we already know. Dream images often convey messages about things we kind of know, but don’t realize as significant.
Remembering your dreams takes a bit of effort and practice.
Put a notebook and pencil by your bed.
Search for your dreams when you first become conscious, before opening your eyes. Focus your attention inside your mind. If you find ANYTHING at all then replay it before opening your eyes. Don't judge or ponder its significance! Just focus on collecting details. Once you have rehearsed your dream's images or story lines sufficiently to have them firmly in your mind, grab your pad and write down every detail - no matter how trivial.
Even a tiny dream fragment can be useful once you know what to do with it.
When I feel out of sorts, I make a point to try to remember my dreams. As I go to bed I double check that my notebook is nearby and remind myself to search for my dreams in the morning. Sometimes even then I fail to capture my dream because it seems so ordinary that I don’t even realize it is a dream.
To get more meaning from your dreams, tell them to someone else. You can also draw or paint images from your dreams, regardless of your artistic skill. It's surprising how much you can learn about yourself and your inner struggles by taking 5 minutes to draw your dreams.
Keeping a notebook with all your dreams is a great way to keep a record of yourself.
Focusing attention is like turning on a mental flashlight. What we see leaves its impression and becomes part of our memory.
In the steady quiet of my consulting room I can easily devote my attention to another person. Although my mind may wander, it stays inevitably connected to my client.
Outside my office my attention is up for grabs. Unless I am particularly careful or intent on something, my attention often ends up wherever it lands. When on the street, it can be captured by birds, advertisements, homeless people, or trash. When at home, it can be commanded by anyone - at least for a while.
In an inspiring book about neuroplasticity called The Brain that Changes Itself, Norman Doidge, M.D explains that paying attention releases a chemical called BNDF. This chemical helps build links in our minds that allow us to learn and remember. As children we absorb information like sponges because BNDF is very plentiful. When very young, we pay attention to almost everything so that learning seems automatic and effortless.
As adults we are less globally curious. Our location and roles determine much of where our attention will land. When we select whom to have as friends, whether to pursue an education, what to do for a living, whether to have children, which parts of life to explore, and which parts to avoid we are guiding our attention. We naturally attend to what is around us.
I have spent a great deal of my life trying to understand emotions not really because I decided to, but because it seemed necessary.
Our life choices can often occur automatically, almost as if by default.
As adults, we need to pay attention to where we focus our attention. Sometimes we must set the stage to learn something new. By shifting our focus, new understanding comes naturally.
One moment of focused attention can lead to a new awareness; many moments repeated over many months can lead to new patterns and lasting change.
One day my husband came home from a business trip and immediately asked me what had happened to our neighbor's tree. Only then did I realize that the beautiful tree that had shaded our property for decades had been chopped down. Days before I had "sort of" realized that the front of our house had become sunnier, but had given it little thought.
These kinds of thing happen to me with some regularity. I "sort of" notice something, but pay no attention -- until later when I discover new information that sheds light on what has actually transpired. It often surprises me, in hindsight, how little attention I have paid to things of which I am aware.
For a mini-experience of this phenomenon, take a moment to look at this well known Jasper Johns lithograph. What captures your attention?
The image simultaneously depicts one goblet and two profiles, as you may already have known. We can literally "see" both the goblet and the profiles, but are only "aware" of one at a time. Even though I know the trick, it still usually takes me a moment to become aware of both images.
Life has taught me that I miss a lot; perception and awareness are two different things. My "aha" moments (like discovering the tree had been chopped down) focus my attention on the things that I have ignored, even though I have "sort of' noticed them. This experience of "sort of knowing, but not really" is a common feature of human life. There is so much happening in our world that we are don't know, so much that we don't even know that we are missing. The truth is that there are only a finite number of things to which we can pay attention.
Take a minute to try this awareness test if you haven't done so before.
When it comes to your emotional life, "sort of knowing something" can become a clue for "really knowing something" -- if you know where and when to pay attention. Had I given some thought as to why my living room had suddenly became sunnier, I surely would have figured out that my neighbor's tree had been chopped down. However, I didn't really care.
If you really care about straightening out your inner world, start paying more attention to your emotional life. You will likely begin having many more "aha" moments, when you put two and two together about your emotions and your experience and something clicks about who you really are, and how you really feel. You will begin to know more about your true self.
For example, you might "sort of" know you are mad at someone, but pay no attention and believe that everything is fine. By thinking about your fleeting feelings of anger, you might realize there is a problem in your relationship that can be addressed, or at least one that is important to understand. Or if you find yourself crying at a sappy commercial, you may "sort of" know that you are sad about something more personal, without paying attention to what you are "really" crying about. If you notice your sorrow and ponder its true source, you might realize that you haven't finished mourning an important loss. The payoff for this kind of attention might be that you are able to complete your mourning, and are freed to move one.
What parts of your emotional life are you "sort of" aware of, but not paying attention to?
We often learn what we are missing only after other people bring things to our attention, as happened to me when my husband noted the absent tree. Once you decide (and believe) that your own emotional reactions are important, you will start paying more attention to them. By becoming more consciously aware of your feelings, you will then be better able to align your inner emotional world with your conscious thoughts -- to feel more whole.
Reflect on what kinds of things you pay attention to.
Are you oriented to your senses? Which ones capture your attention? Do you focus on aesthetics, regularly noticing small changes in your visual world?
Do you pay attention to small changes in your body?
Do you notice your own emotions?
Have you paid attention to how you feel about significant experiences in your past?
Do you tend to notice other people's emotions? Are there certain people whose feelings you are more sensitive to than others? Why might that be?
Paying attention to your emotional responses lets you know how you really feel about the changes that happen in your life, and allows you to address them. What you aren't aware of can hurt you; playing with a full emotional deck can free you to have a richer, truer, and more satisfying life.
Dr. Meyer has worked in private practice in West Los Angeles for over 25 years, and is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at UCLA. She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from UCLA and her B.A. from Oberlin College.
