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.