AHP Perspective is a magazine published bi-monthly for members of the Association for Humanistic Psychology. It includes interviews, articles, essays, updates on member activities, conference announcements, and book reviews. Members receive the complete AHP Perspective as part of their membership.

AHP PERSPECTIVE February/March 2000 Table of Contents

Using Bosnak’s Method to Track Dreams — Isa Gucciardi

Working with Robert Bosnak’s book, Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming, one can use this remarkable method to track the plethora of information from dream to dream. By using his methodology, we become aware of the parallel universes in which we live our lives. We also become acutely aware of the patterns and connections between the worlds and the way in which they inform one another without our even realizing it.

His method is juxtaposing similar images across a series of dreams. This is an innovative technique that creates a map to travel by through the psyche, even beyond the realm of dreams. This method for individual dream mapping, which I use in my practice, traces the steps outlined in the box. I use all of them in mapping my own dream life, but I may only use the information gained in one or two of the steps in any given hypnotherapy session. (For a more in-depth set of guidelines, I strongly recommend Bosnak ’s Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming.)

Creating a Map Across Dreams

1). Record a series of dreams in a journal.

2). Make a foldout of 20-50 dreams by taping them one next to other, numbering each one and noting their chronological order.

3). Create an infrastructure by making connections and marking similar images across all of the dreams with the same color of colored pencil or marker. 4). Identify clusters: look for themes and bring all the images in each cluster together. Create a separate document for each set of clusters.

5). Muse over the life of the cluster—indulge in free association with the images contained in each of the clusters.

6). Reminisce with the images and see what conscious memories the images evoke. 7). Write along with the cluster’s chronological format: Use one descriptive paragraph for each element or image in the cluster, then rewrite it, expanding the meaning of the image, drawing connections between conscious life, as in the reminiscence.

8). Write a poem, a story, or a dialogue, depending on what suits the text. Weave in things that the story reminds you of. Significances will come up because dream images bounce off similarity. A contrasting story can be woven in.

9). Come back to the work about 10 days later and see what condensation of narratives and comparisons you can make. Switch clusters around. See if there is new light thrown on the images.

A brief example drawn from a series of 10 dreams I dreamed over a 6-day period illustrates this mapping process. The mark “//” defines a separation between dreams.

A brief example drawn from a series of 10 dreams I dreamed over a 6-day period illustrates this mapping process. The mark “//” defines a separation between dreams. The following is an example of steps 1-4. This is a cluster of images drawn from about 10 dreams along the same theme of: Foreign countries and languages, new places. I am in a new country. At one point, I am taken to a classroom where their writing is on slates —it looks like Russian. I wonder if I am in Russia—with all the secrecy and the high rise, it would make sense—but the script isn’t Russian. Someone points to it and I suddenly can read it directly without translation. The words dissolve into English. I see the words: “utility, forge, strength, strong.” I hear that language I heard before—kind of like Russian. // They are from all over the world. I hear lots of languages as I head toward the building. People are sitting in the sun—and all seem so depressed. They are speaking all different languages, Spanish, Chinese, they look Indian/Mexican. // The voice I hear is heavily accented with an accent I do not recognize. A Turkish man stops the taxi and tells me something about buses and time. He is fair.// I manage to turn the conversation to Lao Tzu. I am in a far off country. It seems like Europe. // She speaks a language I don’t know. Somehow, I realize she wants me to help her home to the Serbian quarter of the town. Suddenly, she is a little thin boy whom I lift onto the train and ask for a seat for him in German. There is a man who says he is a Spanish teacher. I say, “Que hablemos espanol.” My German is really bad for some reason. I tell him I speak like a CentroAmericana because I don’t say “grathias.” He is offended, but remains nice. // Two little fat German kids with rosy cheeks and blue eyes and blond hair are hassling me by putting white cups on my shoulder with a little water in them. They pretend they did not do it. I turn around and address them with the “du” form. This pisses them off. I find my German and give them ‘what for.’

The following condenses the process in steps 5-7: I do a lot of traveling in my dreams —as I have in real life. On the one hand, I like being an ambassador of sorts for these Russian-type people, but on the other hand, I don’t like them much. This seems to be true of the way I feel about people (including myself) in general, which I rarely let myself admit. These people from all over the world—the third world in particular—are so desperate. I wonder why I am so lucky not to be like them, but I am determined never to be like them—so powerless and helpless. Is this because I feel I really am powerless and helpless in spite of my first world pedigree?

This Turkish (sometimes Persian) taxi or bus driver figure keeps popping up—sort of the guide who says he knows everything but does not know a thing. I want to believe him, but know I am fooling myself if I do. It is interesting that a Turk would be concerned about time—which seems to be an abstract in that culture. Maybe that is another reason I wonder if he is Turkish—besides the blond hair and blue eyes. The people on the train are quite a mix. The Germans are so irritatingly superior to everyone, but the Spanish guy feels superior the Central Americans and does not like me poking fun at his “th” pronunciation of “s.” Everyone in Europe is always trying to feel like they are better than another nationality. I am with the Serb, who is at the bottom of the heap at this time, and yet I address the Germans with du. I have always enjoyed breaking the social rules in Europe—doing something totally shocking (but really very minor) to the mores and rules of the silly hierarchies the Europeans have created. They are comical in their self-importance. Am I? I had no idea my dreams were so filled with far away places. My constant yearning to learn new languages and understand new cultures may be the way I express the need to know all the aspects of myself.

The following is a shortcut to the writing suggested in point 8: Accents/We try to speak one another’s language/Accents hide our misgivings./Sound travels across the sea on sailing ships/And when it returns/ The ways the wind has changed it makes all of us uneasy/Words/A new country/Words dissolve into miscomprehension/Empty eyes/look back at me/as I spiral/higher and higher/away/From the desperation/of language/lost/in lack of meaning.

The following illustrates step 10: This particular set of images taught me a lot about my feelings, on which I often don’t allow myself to act. In particular, I try not to act out of a negative point of view I have about Germans or even admit that I do have this negative view. But these dreams do not let me hide from this part of myself. I used this information to look at what it is I find so distasteful about Germans (I had to face that I think all Germans are Nazis, which is a prejudice I would not consciously admit to myself). I had to find those places within myself that reflected the need for this type of outward-directed prejudice. It was like a pheasant hunt: flushing out the hidden hatreds I direct at Nazis and seeing how I direct the same type of knee-jerk, negative judgments at myself. Most painfully, I had to face the damage I do to myself in this process.

This series also amplified my rebelliousness when caught in social hierarchies. This helped me look at the ways in which I am limited by my acculturation and find the ways in which this has crippled my relationship with my self at a soul level. Also, it let me see my deep fear of being powerless as people in the third world seem to me to be; I realized I often mask this fear with “acts of kindness” toward people from those countries. Surely, there is compassion in those acts, but I was forced to really see that the fear that I am powerless drives me to these acts of kindness.

This is information that I would not willingly look at because it tarnishes the persona of goodness I want to project into the world. But only by embracing these issues can I be authentic. I doubt I would have access to this information without dreaming because it never would never have gotten my past my conscious defenses to these realities—which do not allow me to pretend I am always good and kind.

However, I also learned first-hand and experientially how to look into the way images and information emerge in a completely non-rational way. The experience with the Russian-like language taught me about the process that provides information without using the loop of the rational mind. I definitely would not have had access to the mechanics or experience of this process through the tools available to my conscious mind. And this information is utterly invaluable in my line of work. This work relies heavily on the dynamics in which information emerges through non-logical channels. This type of information is not available to the conscious mind just for the reason that it does not rely on logic to be understood. The methods described here give us access to an almost infinite amount of information. If we could spend our days understanding our nights, we would emerge infinitely stronger and wiser—if our conscious defenses could bear this challenge to their domain.

Isa Gucciardi is a certified hypnotherapist. She also teaches classes on hypnosis, altered states of consciousness, and dream interpretation.

AHP PERSPECTIVE February/March 2000 Table of Contents

AHP Perspective Editorial Guidelines Advertising Information