Much of dreamwork happens in an imaginary place. Dreams themselves have their existence somewhere intangible. Dreamwork sessions happen in the “real world” but often it feels more like we are straddling two worlds. One is awake during a dream session so it could be argued that it happens in the “real world” but the session is filled with a mixture of dream images and feelings. Are they real?
Some refer to imagination or dreams as if they are insignificant. Saying things like, “Well that was just a dream.” Or “It’s all in her imagination.” As if the world of dreams and images is somehow not real because it can’t be quantified or measured.
But did you ever have a dream that was so real? The images were so vivid. And you felt the feelings as if it were really happening? I find that the feelings in dreams are often stronger than the feelings that I have in waking life. Are they real? Absolutely. Waking up with a pounding heart in the midst of a fight-or-flight response or waking up with deep sadness and tears or even incredible love and connection. That is real. In a way it’s more real than the way I’ve lived my life. I’ve spent a lifetime covering up those feelings, keepings them buried so deep that the only chance they have to surface is through a dream. Dreams offer us a glimpse of real.
What if dreams were just as “real” as the so-called “real world?” What if what we think of as our “real world” is really a dream world? It can start to get a little mind blowing.
Movies give us that mind blowing sensation of crossing back and forth between different states of reality. In the process, they get us all mixed up – wondering which world we are in. The movie Inception (2010) plays with our senses, going back and forth between dreaming and non dreaming states. It confuses us even more with its dreams inside of dreams inside of dreams. Another movie, The Matrix (1999) plays with our minds as well, always getting us to wonder if we are in the “real” world or in “the matrix.” Maybe our human psyches love these types of movie experiences because we are resonating with the idea of it. In a way realizing that we actually do move back and forth between these worlds sometimes not knowing which one we are in.
In the movie, people living in “the matrix” think that they are living in the real world. They have no clue. They just go about their day to day activities never giving it a second thought. And why give it a second thought? Especially since the awful, devastating truth is that the earth is in ruins. The main character Neo has always been uneasy in the matrix. He’s always known there was something not quite right. He becomes aware that he’s been living in some kind of a dream world, (the matrix) and he is offered a choice between two pills. Take the blue pill and and return to the matrix and his “normal” life, never knowing the truth. Or take the red pill, learn the truth about the matrix and live in the real world, a place unknown to him. It’s a scary choice. The unknown is always scary. But for Neo the truth wins. Hesitating for barely a second, he takes the red pill.
Taking the red pill brings him into the depths of the truth. He finds himself without any of what guided him in his life in the matrix.
Maybe I am looking for them, but the parallels to the dreamwork seem obvious. In the movie there are two “realities”. The truth, which at its core is devastating and the fake world, where everybody goes on with their life, oblivious. Dreamwork helps us distinguish between the real world – which can be devastating and painful (and also can be filled with amazing joy and love) and the fake world, the world where our conditioning and our egos have built up protective mechanisms so that we end up living in our own matrix. A place we think is real, where everything is “just fine.” Dreams can wake us up to the fact that we’ve become so used to it, so oblivious just like those living in the matrix.
What pill would you take?
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