Perls' Gestalt Dream Analysis and the Awakener
In an effort to enable his clients to explore the dimensions of their functioning, Fritz Perls, noted Gestalt therapist, would often help his clients to explore their dreams. He cited Freud, who called dreams the golden road to the unconscious. His book, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, described his thoughts in this therapeutic process
His dream work was fascinating. If a person was climbing a ladder up a castle wall, fleeing a monster, he would have the client be the climber and describe the feelings. He might then have the client be the ladder and (by changing chairs) enter into a dialog with the climber. Next he might have the client play the part of the castle wall. It was intriguing to read the relative ease with which clients could take on these unexpected roles. Finally he might have the client become the monster, which was generally more challenging. The monster role as I understand it would be our shadow. The part of ourselves that we repudiate and cannot own. In these therapeutic dialogs, Perls was uninterested in calm and placating conversations. Instead he tried to heighten the tensions, and the sharpen the distinctions between roles.
I have tried this technique with clients, and though as a therapist I never rose above rank amateur status, it was clear that the process worked, and was viable.
Perls explained that this can happen because the client is the creator of the dream, and though he identifies with particular roles, and is alienated from others, it is his (or her) ego structure that dictates all of the details of the dream.
The parallel with Meher Baba starts when he points out that all of this life is a dream, and that He is both the dreamer and the Awakener. In a recent book Rustom Falahati pointed out that Bhau would often assemble residents and workers at the Trust office at 4PM ever day just to remind them that all of this is a dream.
Just as Perls would try to heighten the conflicts between dream characters, Baba would try to heighten conflicts between people, before fostering a spirit of love and reconciliation.
So?
Well for me the earlier Gestalt dream work helps me to understand that I who am writing this brief piece, and you who are reading it, are being dreamed by the same eternal Beloved. What is challenging is the recognition that even when I encounter a monster, a person who threatens my core ego, that it is all a dream, and that Baba is the same dreamer in each of us.
Baba tells us that to love those we cannot love is the way to learn to love God.
His dream work was fascinating. If a person was climbing a ladder up a castle wall, fleeing a monster, he would have the client be the climber and describe the feelings. He might then have the client be the ladder and (by changing chairs) enter into a dialog with the climber. Next he might have the client play the part of the castle wall. It was intriguing to read the relative ease with which clients could take on these unexpected roles. Finally he might have the client become the monster, which was generally more challenging. The monster role as I understand it would be our shadow. The part of ourselves that we repudiate and cannot own. In these therapeutic dialogs, Perls was uninterested in calm and placating conversations. Instead he tried to heighten the tensions, and the sharpen the distinctions between roles.
I have tried this technique with clients, and though as a therapist I never rose above rank amateur status, it was clear that the process worked, and was viable.
Perls explained that this can happen because the client is the creator of the dream, and though he identifies with particular roles, and is alienated from others, it is his (or her) ego structure that dictates all of the details of the dream.
The parallel with Meher Baba starts when he points out that all of this life is a dream, and that He is both the dreamer and the Awakener. In a recent book Rustom Falahati pointed out that Bhau would often assemble residents and workers at the Trust office at 4PM ever day just to remind them that all of this is a dream.
Just as Perls would try to heighten the conflicts between dream characters, Baba would try to heighten conflicts between people, before fostering a spirit of love and reconciliation.
So?
Well for me the earlier Gestalt dream work helps me to understand that I who am writing this brief piece, and you who are reading it, are being dreamed by the same eternal Beloved. What is challenging is the recognition that even when I encounter a monster, a person who threatens my core ego, that it is all a dream, and that Baba is the same dreamer in each of us.
Baba tells us that to love those we cannot love is the way to learn to love God.
Labels: Awakener Perls
posted by David | 8:28 PM
3 Comments:
Further into this, I was reading about the growth of the middle class in Brazil. The expression "chasing the dream" was used.
It reminded me of lying sleepless in bed at night, knowing that I have a big day on the morrow. What I am literally waiting for is a dream to chase, one that will pull me into the world of sleep.
In Baba terms, I think we often chase the dream in this world, especially dreams of lust, greed, pride, and anger. They pull us in so deeply, that we forget God, and forget this is all a dream.
It is some comfort that these karmic conundrums, these gestalts, all act in the service of some greater good: some destiny that makes up Baba's will.
I long for the day, though, when I will sincerely want to awaken. When I will really burn for His love.
Above, I mentioned how Perls would try to bring two "dream identities" face-to-face, through this process of acting out the roles, and I mentioned that Baba would draw out our negative sanskaras through a process of facilitating conflict with outher, then leading us to forgiveness. This month in the Glow magazine, an excerpt from Don Stevens's new book addresses that:
"Perhaps one might take a beginning clue to the puzzle (ed.: of love and unity) from the conditions necessary to start the process of bringing latent consciousness into a state of manifest reality. This is, that consciousness is very evidently enlivened by tension created by opposition or contrast, whichever way one prefers to put it. This is not a lightly suggested definition of conditionality, but one supported by the apex of modern psychology, in addition to the commen sense observation of the average you's and I's. A bit of honest reflection shows at once the manner that darkness is brought into a starkly creative role when it is compared to and contrasted with life. Something springs into being that had not been there a moment before, and we call this consciousness the light state."
I think this paragraph is pertinent in explaining what Perls attempted to do, as he brought into juxtaposition the portion of the ego with which we are able to identify (the protagonist of the dream), and the part with which we cannot yet (easily) identify. His work was to break down barriers and to expand consciousness.
But Don Stevens is not limiting himself to night dreams. He is referring to the dream we walk through in everyday life as we search for the Beloved. He seems to say (in context) that we must encounter opposition, feel the conflict (Baba doesn't want us to be a bunch of stones) and then to resolve it through forgiveness. To me it sounds a bit like thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, but a process of heart-consciousness rather than an accomplishment of brilliant ego-mind.
I really appreciate the work Don Stevens has done in opening windows between psychology and Meher Baba's published literature, and recommend his multiple books for various insights in that line.
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