More Dream Talk

Dreams sometimes yield information immediately. I drew meaning from my "bird and cat" dream almost as soon as I woke from it. The bird and the cat personify aspects of myself that are neglected and at odds. My "self" of the dream is my ego, reclaiming the neglected parts (the bird) and wrestling with the self-destructive parts (the cat).

Dreams yield more information when contrasted and compared to other dreams in a series. When one records dreams, and reads them together after time, a theme, or themes, emerge that do not necessarily present in any single dream.

This dream of mine-- the "bird and the cat"-- fits into a series of dreams I've had that suggest a sense of being attacked without fault. Other dreams with other characters, other plots, other settings, also suggest the same sort of personal attack that I suffered from the cat, an attack that I did not deserve.

I have had many series of dreams over the years. I've had many dreams in which I try to travel to Italy, but I miss the plane, get on a wrong plane, forget my passport, etc. These dreams are vivid and varied, but the theme is always the same. I never get to Italy, but Franco and Rosa are waiting there for me. This series does not allude to any profound spiritual or psychological turmoil; I've had these dreams since my passport expired several years ago. I need to renew my passport.

I've had "elevator dreams" for years, in which I get on an elevator and it falls, or shoots out the roof, or rotates in circles, or tilts back and forth. Those dreams are terrifying. I don't have them often any more.

Most of my current dreams are about driving my car, or losing my car, or having it stolen. These dreams are the grown-up version of my recurring childhood nightmare, "Highway in the Sky," in which Mom was driving on a highway that looped into the sky, like a roller-coaster, and my sister and I sat in the back seat scared. At the apex of the loop, and of our fear, I would lean over to ask my Mom if she knew where we were going, and I'd find that she was no longer sitting in the driver's seat. In fact, she was no longer in the car. My sister and I were in the car hurtling faster and higher into the sky on a highway from which we then fell, and I would wake up trying to scream.

I used to record my dreams religiously, but I have fallen away from the habit, just as I've fallen away from this blog. I swing back and forth, in a widening loop of a figure eight, where the center is the center, balanced, content, free of pressures, urges and prickly emotions, and the loop is like the top of a roller coaster, promising thrill, intensity, captivated by centrifugal force.

The center remains the goal, the place of peace, where I want to throw off my shoes and stay awhile. Sometimes I do. Mostly, I am caught by the wind of some passion, and fling myself towards the outer loop of another circle. Maybe I'm not yet old enough to know how to sit in the center. I am not certainly not wise enough to do so, but someday... maybe...

The center draws me, thankfully. It draws me today, and every day that I sit in front of a keyboard. Writing is the magnet that pulls me in.  Where do dreams lay on the figure-eight continuum? I think they lay mostly on the outer edges or even beyond, but I'm not sure. It doesn't matter, at least for tonight. It's bedtime. Good-night.

The Bird and the Cat-- A Dream

I dreamt I was living in my childhood home. I went into the basement to get something-- I don't know what-- and was startled to find a large bird cage holding my Blue and Gold macaw. (In reality, I had owned the macaw twenty years ago but sold her when I left the country to accept a job in the Middle East.)

The bird was still alive, after all these years! Furthermore, she looked none the worse for wear, albeit slightly thin and dull of feather, but perfectly alive. Amazed, I talked to her, saying, "You poor dear, have I neglected you all these years? I am sorry! I will bring you upstairs into the light. I'll feed you, give you water, stroke your feathers, and make your life healthy and pleasant again, like it was when we were together twenty years ago."

I dragged the cage upstairs, put water into a small bowl and inserted it into the cage. The bird drank it with a croak of thanks. Then, I found some bird food and put it into another small bowl. As soon as I opened the cage door, she approached the food and started eating. I knew she'd recover. I was so happy!

The sun was shining, and the bird sat in the sunny part of the cage, rocking from foot to foot, just as she used to do when she felt energetic.

Just then, a big orange cat entered the front door, which had been left open. Immediately, I saw trouble. The cat would notice the bird and try to jump in the cage to kill her, so I distracted the cat, herding it back in the direction of the door. The cat did see the bird, and the bird saw the cat, but the bird was captive in the cage and couldn't fly away. The cat tried to approach the bird, but I scooped it up and carried it to the still open front door. I started to throw the cat out the door, but it turned on me, extended its claws, hissed, slapped me and grabbed me just as I slammed the door. It still clung to me, and the door was shut half on its body.

The cat was half in and half out of the house, with the door (and my body) holding it in place. All I could think about was protecting my bird, but how would I continue? The cat was strong and determined to get back into the house. I was strong and determined to finish ejecting him. We were matched, and the dream ended here, with me in turmoil, not knowing how to resolve the conflict, how to protect my bird.

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This is an example of how we record dreams in Progoff's Intensive Journal. We write the dream, or fragment thereof, as we remember it, without embellishment or explanation. We record the facts as well as the feelings of the dream in the Dream Log section. We date it, and leave it.

Later, we work with it in another part of the Journal.

Dream Work

Dream work holds an important place in Progoff's Intensive Journal. Since the Journal is non-analytical, however, even the dream exercises do not seek to analyze. One might ask how a participant learns the meanings of his/her dreams, given that the dream exercises do not analyze. The answer is that meanings are not actively sought. 

They emerge, they pop, but not by any direct, identifiable route. You write the exercises in the Dream Enlargements section. Dream Enlargement exercises simply take a dreamer back into a dream, not while sleeping, but by writing after having induced a meditative state. You write out your experience. You correlate the material with other entries in the Journal. The symbolic then yields to the concrete; the irrational reveals the rational. Two plus two equals more than four. That is what is meant by "non-analytical." The beauty of bringing directed consicousness to bear upon one's inner life is that growth can proceed more deeply and perhaps more quickly.


When I was young, years before I'd heard of the Intensive Journal, I used to wake up fretfully from intense dreams, feeling unsatisfied, interrupted. I used to consciously decide to go back into the dream and finish it off to my satisfaction before either resuming sleep or getting up. What I didn't know was that my deliberate return to a dream was a form of non-analytical dream work. I always felt better after "completing" a dream, but I never examined the process, and I certainly never asked other people whether or not they did the same thing. I've done lots of Dream Enlargement exercises. Recently, however, I've actually by-passed the need to do the exercises, at least with certain dreams. Recently, I have woken from dreams and known immediately what my unconscious wanted me to know.

Next time, I'll write a particularly vivid dream, and then show how to work with it in the context of the Intensive Journal.

My Father's Shadow

I've been thinking about the Shadow since Ellen first explained it to me-- years ago. I never understood it until recently, when I read this article on Ashok Bedi's blog, Path to the Soul:  http://www.pathtothesoul.com/articles/.

The article, Personal Shadow and World Peace, in the Articles section of the blog, says (just like Ellen explained it):

"Each one of us has an unconscious, neglected, split

off part of our personality, which we repress and

then project onto the other: onto our adversary, the

minority, the illegal immigrant, the foreigner, the

one that provokes our fear, anger, mistrust,

discomfort." 

The meaning is clear enough, but applying it to one's own life is a task that seems impossible, at first. I can hardly accept that the qualities I detest in other people are actually present in me!
Bedi continues:

"Now if we put our reflective lens on ourselves and explore what irks us about this other, in this mirror, we almost always will see a refection of our unconscious shadow self. When we hate a controlling coworker, when we blame the illegal immigrant for stealing our job, we may be coming out of our own trickster, manipulative core, when we see a certain person  as criminally inclined without evidence, we may be coming out of our own unlived criminal shadow."

Well! I must confess that I did not understand this easily with respect to my own life, my own shadow, so I applied the concept to one of my father's attitudes, and now I understand what I did not understand for years regarding his extreme prejudice.

My father spent his adult life despising people who didn't or couldn't work as much as he did, or as hard as he did, people who "blamed everyone else" for their failures or their poverty. He inveighed against "government hand-outs." He expounded disdain for people who hadn't crafted circumstances as fortunate as his own, whose talents had been lacking, whose family had eroded rather than supported efforts to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps."  My father nursed prejudices against all classes people not originating from the same white, middle-class group in which he raised me and my siblings.

One would assume that my father did not understand poverty, could not identify with people whose socio-economic background gave rise to psychological difficulties translating into social problems or deviance, in addition to mere poverty.

In fact, my father grew up in poverty. His parents-- immigrants from Italy-- accepted welfare in order to provide for their eleven children. As a child, my father did not have ten cents to attend a movie on Saturdays with the neighborhood children.  In winter, four siblings shared a bed, keeping each other warm while ice grew along the bedroom walls. Bread and tomatoes  composed many of his childhood meals. The family ate sausage only on holidays.

My father vowed that when he grew up, he would eat sausage every Sunday. Gifted with the blessed combination of ambition, talent and energy, my father distinguished himself in the business of automobile sales, taking a small dealership and growing it into a well-respected regional enterprise, winning honors for quantity and quality all along the way.

Even as a child,  I realized that my father's driving ambition originated from his terror of falling back into biting poverty.  My father realized it, too, and even said so, yet never connected his own experience of poverty with his adult rejection of people who'd never escaped the same.

The Shadow is easy enough to identity in other people, but the task at hand is to shed light upon my own as it dogs me, pulls me down, keeps me in a feedback loop that perpetuates aspects of my life that hinder me from growth as opposed to opening doors.

I've got some ideas. I actually do see it, at times, and I can admit of a portion of it to myself, but only to myself. I can't write about it, at least not here on a public blog. Occasionally, in courageous moods of optimism, I can address the issue in my private journal, but I haven't been able to keep the momentum long enough to effect an improvement. Maybe that will never happen.  Maybe the nature of the Shadow, being unconscious, can never be neutralized completely. I don't know. I'll have to research the issue.

No, I'll have to stop intellectualizing. I'll have to get back to that personal journal and make deliberate efforts to dig into my personal Shadow. Can I do this without an analyst? Can I do it using the concepts and exercises of Progoff's Intensive Journal? I think so, at least a little bit, and maybe a little bit will go a long way.

Progoff, Marie, et. al.

I have remained loyal to Progoff all these years, and I've tried to ignore my suspicion that his method might not be the best one for the atmoshpere of this century. Personally, I respond best to Progoff's method, in the workshop setting, but I know that most people would not want or be able to devote the time and attention needed to attend workshops.

In the past, I've perused the practices of contemporary leaders in journal practice, specifically Kathleen Adams and James Pennebaker. I am impressed, probably because I detect strains of Progoff's theories threading through the work of these leading journal writers. I considered using Adam's method instead of Progoff's method, with respect to how I might enter the field of conducting journal workshops. Jon talked me out of it. He commands complete loyalty, and I understand that. The Intensive Journal offers the most benefit in terms of non-analytic pschological work, but the newer methods are more accessible.

If I blast through bedrock, will I discover that I no longer really want to offer The Intensive Journal, but another one, or perhaps craft my own method? Will this realization stress me even more than the familiar possibility that I may not be as good as I'd expected in offering Progoff's method?

The only way to get the answer is to take the ride. I will continue to survey the field of journal writing for personal growth. One sure conclusion is that I will not be ready to enter the field in a public way until after retirement. I admit and embrace that my good mental health hinges upon keeping my commitments somewhat flexible, and my schedule full of free time in which to do my personal reading and writing. I am who I am-- a person who needs lots of private time in which to read and write according to the needs of my nature.

I will still use this blog to explore publically the ways in which Progoff's method interacts with my life, to work out my relationship with The Intensive Journal, and to explore the ideas of Carl Jung, from which Progoff drew much inspiration for his Intensive Journal. I will also remain open to the ideas of Adams, Pennebaker, and others who draw upon the work of Progoff, and/or who duplicate his findings through academic research.

Resting on Bedrock

It's been nearly ten years since I attended my first Progoff workshop, and seven years since I attended my last.  It's been nearly five years since I started this blog. When I started it, I anticipated having become a leader for the Intensive Journal by now. Nothing has stopped me except myself. I'm simply not ready.

Will I ever lead a workshop? Jon Progoff encouraged me strongly. When I entered the Advanced Study program, he asked me, "What took you so long?" After spending eight months doing the preliminary work, he said I was ready to organize a workshop.

It's true that my father became ill, lingered and then died. It's true that my four grandchildren were born one right after the other. It's true that my job claims the best of my energy. It's also true that I dislike the prospect of having to organize my own workshop. I made some contacts, attended some meetings, and tried to interest appropriate people in sponsoring workshops, and wasted my time. 

Then I froze.

I disliked the phone calls, the publicizing, the selling, organizing and all the rest of what must be done before a workshop occurs, and therein lies the ostensible reason for my failure to have become an active leader by now. I'm an introvert.

If I dig deeper (and I have) I make contact with the part of myself that thinks I'm not good enough, and that people will not only not attend, but worse, will attend and not have an enriching experience, because I will not have done a good enough job.

If I dig deeper than that (and I have) I find that I've already reached bedrock. Blasting through bedrock would not be an advisable venture at this stage of my development. I think I'll rest here somewhat longer. If anyone wants to know, I will say that my father became ill and died, my grandchildren were born, and my job claims the lion's share of my energy.

The rest of it is mine, and mine alone, to accept and work with when I'm ready. If I am never ready, I will have to accept that, too.

Writing Silently, in Longhand

One of the Intensive Journal's important guidelines is maintaining complete silence. The first workshop I attended had more than fifty participants. We all sat at tables, in a huge meeting room. We didn't converse with each other, not even by the obligatory social greetings.  As a tool in maintaining silence, we wrote in longhand. This, too, is a founding principle of the Intensive Journal-- writing in longhand.

Silence and longhand are two qualities that may discourage people from attending an Intensive Journal workshop. People gather together as strangers, and they remain strangers, yet they sit together and write in longhand about the most acute aspects of their lives. Sharing is not encouraged. In fact, sharing occurs at the invitation of the leader, and only then at fixed intervals. When sharing occurs, response is not allowed. When a participant reads a small portion of what he or she has written, the group does not show a reaction. The leader may ask one or two questions, like, "To what is this drawing your attention?" or, "Where else in the Journal might you go with this?" 

The idea is to provide a space in which threatening psychic material can emerge without threat, and be processed within a framework that does not overwhelm the participant. In practice, a charged atmosphere grows out of the combination of people keeping silence and writing in longhand. Each person supports and witnesses the efforts of the others, but without having to risk judgement or rejection.

One might ask, "In what way does the Journal atmosphere differ from that of a library?"

People who sit in silence and write in libraries do so with differing goals. One person might write a resume, another a novel, a letter to Grandma, or a term paper. Some people use computers, others use pens and paper. They sit in silence, yet they do not enter into a psychic meeting ground, and they do not effect each other's efforts.

In a Journal workshop, however, all participants are writing from their own personal resources; they're writing about the conditions of their lives. They are writing in response to prompts arranged in a particular order within the structure of the Journal. A trained leader facilitates the flow of exercises. A sort of entrainment grows out of the silence, as if all participants unite somewhere in an area not defined by the walls of the room. Progoff offers the metaphor of the underground stream, to which each person is connected by a private well, the well into which they descend whenver they participate in a Journal workshop.

They write in silence. Sometimes they pause to think, to feel. Sometimes they write so fast their wrists become sore. Each knows the others are experiencing the same process, and each respects that the emotions of the others are strong, and sometimes not pleasant. That's OK. The atmosphere of the Journal workshop holds everyone together in silence.The soft pushing of pens along lines of paper is the predominating sound.