This is my first dream session. I am nervous. I haven’t told my husband Mark that I am trying this. He will think I am crazy! Since Mark doesn’t know about it and he works out of the house, I decide to have the session in my car. This seems like a good idea since I spend so much time in my car anyway.

I am sitting there in my car, ready to talk to Rodger over the phone. I feel very nervous but finally we start talking and I like him from the start. His voice is calming and I sense compassion in him that I can connect to. We spend some time talking about why I am there and then we get started on a dream. It happens to be my most recent dream.

Dream: I’m driving a car and a snowstorm comes up. I can’t see. My eyes won’t open. I am terrified that I will crash the car. My car stops and I feel this person next to me. Relief. There is someone here to help… turns to… Oh no, he’s going to try to rape me. He’s young, maybe in his 20’s. When I get out of the car he brings me over to an area where a bunch of young (teenage?) boys are playing a game. He seems to change his mind about raping me and we join in the game, tossing balls back and forth towards targets and it’s a lot of fun.

So, I had the experience of “working” my first dream. We talk about my feelings at each part of the dream. Rodger lets me know that the man is not there to rape me, he is there to love me. He tells me that the man is the “animus”. I find it hard to believe that Rodger knows anything about the man in my dream but I make the decision to trust what he says. Rodger gives me homework. Every session ends with some type of homework. In this case, I am to imagine or visualize the dream again but if I get the thought “he’s here to rape me” I am to stop and think “he’s here to love me”. The idea is to briefly “dip in” to the feeling of the imagined dream throughout the day, perhaps once an hour or so.

As is explained in Rodger’s book, this type of dream work is called “archetypal dream work”. There are archetypes that show up in the dreams to be in relationship with you or possibly to point out your “predicament” in life. The man in this dream is one of them. I find it fascinating.

We really don’t talk about what it meant that my eyes were closed or that I was driving a car in the snow storm. We talk more about my feelings at different places in the dream. The homework is also about going into feelings.

In doing the homework, I am able to let go of the rape idea pretty quickly. I imagine the man sitting next to me in the car and I am able to think of him as a friend, a helper. Over the next few days, something unusual happens. As I continue my homework, I feel a sense of love coming from the man. It surprises me. I can physically feel it in my heart. Sometimes it feels strong and other times it fades a bit but it is almost always there when I “dip in” to the feeling of the imagined dream. It is a warm feeling. It really is rather peculiar but I like it. The feeling fades a bit after a week or so which kind of worries me. I don’t want it to go away.