Dream: There is a 5 year old girl crying, standing in some water. I left her there. I am walking towards her and I say out loud to myself, “Maybe she is hungry.” There is a woman behind me that says, “Of course she is”. So I walk out into the ankle deep water and pick up the girl and carry her out. On the way out I ask her what she wants to eat and she says a sandwich. I am going to make it for her but then we see Adrian (a not so good “friend” of mine) and the girl says she wants to have a “runny nose” to eat. So I accidentally (on purpose) knock the girl down a set of stairs towards Adrian. Adrian makes the girl what she wants. It’s an egg that is cracked and cooked on a vertical frying griddle. The egg drips down the griddle and cooks like that. The girl thinks that it’s a fun way to cook the eggs. I feel relieved that Adrian is helping her. It had felt like a big responsibility caring for her.
That’s my girl standing in the water. She is my soul self, standing there in the water – in her feeling and she is crying out to me. Rodger asks me what I am feeling when I see the girl. I “feel” a sense of obligation to go take care of her. But obligation is not a feeling. The girl is feeling pain and wants me to connect with her but instead I go straight to a thought in my head, “Maybe she is hungry.” I am learning that when I go to thoughts like that in my dreams, it is usually something pulling me away – not wanting me to feel. There is also a voice that I hear saying, “Of course she is.” further keeping me from the girl.
We do a gestalt process to help me feel what the girl is feeling. It’s where I talk to the girl in the dream and ask her questions. Then I answer the questions as the girl. At first blush, the process seems a little forced and a little like I’m making stuff up. But in the session, I ask the girl, “Why are you crying?” She answers, “Because I am not loved.”
What follows are some notes that I took after the session:
What I feel is a strong energy running through me with the pain just under the surface. It starts to emerge. I can feel it but it stays just under. I feel like I am in a different state of consciousness. I am deeper down. I feel energy running throughout my body. The pain is close to breaking through. It’s a strong feeling that I have never experienced. It is intense. I am not thinking – only feeling. Rodger gives me the space to just be with this feeling for a bit. Even though there is time left in the session, we both know there is nothing else to say.
Later that day I wrote this:
Today’s session was different in that I could feel during almost all of it. It is hard to identify the feeling. Maybe somewhere on the edge of fear and love maybe pain. But really full of energy and perhaps a feeling of being on the verge of something. Sometimes close to tears. A very full feeling. A good place really. Other sessions I feel more cerebral or intellectual… taking notes, trying to take in everything that is being said etc. This session was different in that I forgot about taking notes for a lot of it and had my eyes closed for most of it. What Rodger was suggesting was really deep and I was taking it in at a feeling level more so than a thinking level. A couple of times I almost cried which usually never happens during a session. I often can get to a feeling place when I am by myself but rarely in front of someone else. Usually I stay entirely composed during a session. When Rodger asks me to “close my eyes” it means that he is going to ask me to imagine something from a dream and feel the feelings from it right there in front of him. I don’t like doing that. I feel put on the spot… he is right there observing me and I find it hard to get there. I often shut down as soon as he says, “close your eyes”. But this session was different. I got into that feeling place and forgot about being self-conscious.
Homework:
Go out into the water and be with the girl.
The next day I took part in a journaling workshop where we did an interesting “gestalt-like” exercise. Guided by the leader, we moved into a relaxed state of mind. Next, we asked a question to an “aspect” of ourselves and then wrote the answer. It seemed natural for me to ask my girl a question and so I did. I then sat with my eyes closed and typed the answer. In a way, it was similar to the gestalt process in the dream session. I was able to get into a pretty deep, feeling place as I typed. Reading what I wrote was quite surprising. Again, my logical self wonders if I am just making stuff up….. but my feeling self doesn’t think so!
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