Dream Work as Embodied Sublimation

Are Wolffe and Johnson encouraging us to act out our dreams, shadow material, and all? Yes, but not necessarily in a literal sense. In the context of Johnson recalling his memory with Wolffe, Johnson emphasized moving the “airy thoughts,” dreams, into an embodied action. The dream must move from psyche into soma. An alchemical image of the dove descending into the grail or the spirit into matter. Wolffe’s “come back when you mean business attitude emphasized the critical combination between the dream and the body to metabolize into soul transformation.

When we are pushed to “do something” about our dreams, what do these scholars mean? Taken together, dreams are to be worked on the "subjective level." As von Franz recalls, Jung’s approach to his dreams took the shape of a stage. Where all the figures and characters appear as aspects of his psyche, like a symbolic drama.

How might a kind of “dream theatre” evolve where you are the director and the scenic and lighting and costume designer … the props master and the stage manager? I like to consider that each role played out in my dreams is not merely an image to interpret but a perspective to inhabit. I ask myself how the meaning of the dream changes when I place my ego awareness into the Other, whether a person, animal, place, or thing.

Contemplating a personal paradigm that includes cultural privilege and context makes it difficult to tune out the rational signal and drop into my embodied Self. When I move beyond these limiting confines, the texture of the imaginal enlarges and deepens. Holding the images while tuning into the feeling, sensing, and instinctive nature of somatic experience opens a new dimension of meaning-making closer to the soul than the intellect.