Barasch's Healing Dreams
“A healing dream seems to demand its own being in the world” (Marc B. pg. 34 p. 6). What sets apart a healing dream from a little dream, which Jung refers to as the everyday dream made from everyday experiences (Tick pg. 68 p. 9), is that these dreams are transformational. You wake up from them feeling different, knowing that something within you is changed or is going to change. John Sanford says, “When we have an image of what is happening within us, this same power of the unconscious is healing and transformative.” (pg. 34 para. 2) These dreams can work as a warning or shed some light on a problem that you are having. In Barasch’s book, Healing Dreams, he tells of a woman’s dream that led her to get a second opinion on her fibroid tumors. The dream is as follows: I am on an old-fashioned plane that’s waiting on the
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runway.
There’s a woman outside the window trying to warn me about something. She is frantic, hanging on the window, but I’m not paying attention. The plane begins to taxi and the woman runs alongside. A handle of the plane _catches on the woman’s overall strap, forcing her to run faster and faster to keep up, trying desperately to get my attention. She is sure she’ll have to lose her feet in the effort to warn me-she imagines the bottom of her legs with just exposed bone-but this is nothing compared to the danger if this plane takes off. (Barasch pg. 63 p. 1)_ This woman awoke with a feeling of urgency and felt it related to her current health problems. She had been told in the first place that the fibroids were not serious, but after having this dream she got a second opinion and it turned out that the fibroids were cancerous. The dream itself had nothing to do with cancer but the feelings she felt upon from waking up urged her to get the second opinion. Barasch points out that healing dreams tend to have a peculiar persistence. (pg. 21 para. 3) A woman named Alice had this dream: It is a foggy
night. I am standing near an old post office. I am driven by a great urgency to mail a package of letters which contain crucial information. These letter_s, in fact, are going to save the entire world of all the unnecessary pain and suffering that people endure. I am terrified that this most important mission on earth will be intercepted. _ _ At last I mail them. Then I anxiously run down an alley looking for a safe place to hide. I see a man walking slowly toward me. I am terrified he will find out about the letters. He calmly approaches me and tells me that he thinks what I had been contemplating has been very brash. Now I get up my bravado, coc__kily informing him that it was too late-I had already mailed the letters. But in a very nonpunitive tone, he suggests that I don’t understand the consequences of my actions. With mounting defensiveness, I maintain that I certainly do-I am saving the world. The man challenges me, protesting that it is just for the purpose of growth that we go through pain. Reflecting on this, I suddenly get what he is trying to say. I go through a complete about-face. I am convinced that it is essential to our evolution that we live though our suffering. I am struck by the realization I have been totally wrong to try to short-circuit that process for people. Now I am desperate to get those letters back into my possession. As I run up the alley to the post office, I experience myself surrealistically rise off the ground, as if I am running on air.”11 (B. pg. 112 p. 3)_ Growing up Alice had always been the one to help others, so her career choice landed in human services. She had this dream as she was finishing up her training. After waking up these were her feelings, “As I lay in my bed, my body still felt very light, as if I were still running on air…. I had to defy a compulsion to run out the door and find that post office.” (B. pg 113 p. 1) before this dream Alice had been overbearing in trying to help people, but this dream made her realize that her over protectiveness was actually hurting people and not letting them grow on their own. This dream has stayed with her years later, and when she does start to try and control people, the anxiety from the dream comes to her and she backs down, remembering the dreams message. “Healing dreams change our lives not merely by showing and telling but by making us feel the truth.”(Barasch pg. 113 p. 4)
runway.
There’s a woman outside the window trying to warn me about something. She is frantic, hanging on the window, but I’m not paying attention. The plane begins to taxi and the woman runs alongside. A handle of the plane _catches on the woman’s overall strap, forcing her to run faster and faster to keep up, trying desperately to get my attention. She is sure she’ll have to lose her feet in the effort to warn me-she imagines the bottom of her legs with just exposed bone-but this is nothing compared to the danger if this plane takes off. (Barasch pg. 63 p. 1)_ This woman awoke with a feeling of urgency and felt it related to her current health problems. She had been told in the first place that the fibroids were not serious, but after having this dream she got a second opinion and it turned out that the fibroids were cancerous. The dream itself had nothing to do with cancer but the feelings she felt upon from waking up urged her to get the second opinion. Barasch points out that healing dreams tend to have a peculiar persistence. (pg. 21 para. 3) A woman named Alice had this dream: It is a foggy
night. I am standing near an old post office. I am driven by a great urgency to mail a package of letters which contain crucial information. These letter_s, in fact, are going to save the entire world of all the unnecessary pain and suffering that people endure. I am terrified that this most important mission on earth will be intercepted. _ _ At last I mail them. Then I anxiously run down an alley looking for a safe place to hide. I see a man walking slowly toward me. I am terrified he will find out about the letters. He calmly approaches me and tells me that he thinks what I had been contemplating has been very brash. Now I get up my bravado, coc__kily informing him that it was too late-I had already mailed the letters. But in a very nonpunitive tone, he suggests that I don’t understand the consequences of my actions. With mounting defensiveness, I maintain that I certainly do-I am saving the world. The man challenges me, protesting that it is just for the purpose of growth that we go through pain. Reflecting on this, I suddenly get what he is trying to say. I go through a complete about-face. I am convinced that it is essential to our evolution that we live though our suffering. I am struck by the realization I have been totally wrong to try to short-circuit that process for people. Now I am desperate to get those letters back into my possession. As I run up the alley to the post office, I experience myself surrealistically rise off the ground, as if I am running on air.”11 (B. pg. 112 p. 3)_ Growing up Alice had always been the one to help others, so her career choice landed in human services. She had this dream as she was finishing up her training. After waking up these were her feelings, “As I lay in my bed, my body still felt very light, as if I were still running on air…. I had to defy a compulsion to run out the door and find that post office.” (B. pg 113 p. 1) before this dream Alice had been overbearing in trying to help people, but this dream made her realize that her over protectiveness was actually hurting people and not letting them grow on their own. This dream has stayed with her years later, and when she does start to try and control people, the anxiety from the dream comes to her and she backs down, remembering the dreams message. “Healing dreams change our lives not merely by showing and telling but by making us feel the truth.”(Barasch pg. 113 p. 4)