“I think if someone took one dream and did all the work on it, that would be all the therapy they needed.” F. Perls. It is well known that the purpose of sleep as a physiological phenomenon is to restore the active functioning of the body. At the same time, a dream performs another important specific function of self-tuning of the psyche - this is the process of recoding information received by a person from the internal and external world. The dream state is physiologically characterized by intense activity of the frontal cortex of the right hemisphere of the brain, as well as activation of the limbic and hypothalamic systems. (1) The dream itself is a series of visual images, often illustrated auditorily, or, like a kind of film, showing fragmentary fragments, or , with a certain looming plot, reminiscent of viewing a work of art. The plots of dreams largely determine the cultural characteristics of a given era and the earliest sensory experience of a person (even perinatal). However, it has been noticed that some plots and symbols among people, regardless of time and era, are similar and are associated with what we can call our history, “past lives” imprinted in our body, the collective unconscious, unfinished situations, suppressed or repressed feelings and experiences, dreams as “existential messages”, etc. A brief historical excursion into the history of dreams. Even in ancient times, people became interested in the meaning of dreams; then they were considered “messages of the Gods.” Mentions of this are found in the monuments of Chinese culture of the 18th century BC; Confucius drew his Wisdom from them. (2) Dreams intrigued people and forced them to look for clues to deciphering messages: in Mesopotamia, already 3 thousand years BC, there were prophetic interpretations and therapeutic uses of dreams. It is known that during this era, dream interpretation was a revered profession. According to legend, 24 prominent oneirologists (dream specialists) served at the court of the Babylonian king. One day the king had a dream, which caused a premonition that it contained an important message. Each of the oneirologists offered their own interpretation, and the king was surprised and embarrassed. Since all 24 predictions came true, thereby brilliantly demonstrating the polysemy (multiple meanings, “multi-layered” meanings) of any form of expression of the subconscious. (3) In ancient Greece, during the Hellenistic era, there were 420 temples of Aesculapius, where incubation was practiced, a ritual in which a person remained asleep in the temple in order to see a dream leading to a cure for illnesses. The sick slept on the bloody skins of sacrificed goats and rams, while “two-meter snakes slid slowly all night along the marble slabs among flower petals and the bodies of sleepers.” Real shock therapy! (2) The practice of therapeutic or prophetic dreams was also developed in Egypt, Assyria, the American Indians, Gauls, Celts, etc. Every morning Mohammed asked his companions about what they saw in their dreams at night, and only then made his decisions. (2) The Jews believed that an uninterpreted dream is an unread letter, that is, an insult inflicted on the author. (3) S. Freud called dreams the “royal road” to the unconscious, and believed that dreams have the power to heal and console. Only this is not a transcendental message coming from above, but an immanent message from below, from the “dark continent” of our unconscious impulses (drives). After Freud's famous work "The Interpretation of Dreams" (1899), it became generally accepted that the secret of dream images should be sought inareas of instinctive mental life. Repressed or unexpressed impulses and desires manifest themselves in the encrypted form of visual images and symbols. Freud proposed a simple classification of sexual images. The symbolism of “male” sexuality is all objects that have an elongated shape. The “feminine” principle is represented by symbols and shapes of objects of enveloping, rounded shapes. Decoding these images helps to understand what is happening to a person and what his repressed desires are. While for Freud a dream is often a “neurotic symptom,” C. G. Jung returns the dream to its more sublime meaning, connecting it not only with the psychological or biographical characteristics of the individual, but also with her unconscious perception of the common cultural fund of all humanity . For Jung, dreams are inextricably linked with both the past and the future: a dream does not hide some repressed desires, but, on the contrary, reveals the content of the collective unconscious (archetypes) and even contains messages with esoteric meaning. (2) He deciphered archetypal images and plot lines of dreams by analogy with myths and fairy tales... In this regard, the therapist must have a certain competence in cultural history and mythology. Even before Freud, for centuries, lovers of dream interpretation used ready-made “dream books” - lists of images that had to be read like dictionaries, which still exist today. But the training of creativity, imagination and observation in connection with dream interpretation cannot be overestimated. Dreams in Gestalt therapy. In their work, Gestalt therapists pay special attention to the client’s dreams, using them to better understand the dreamer. “In their opinion, a person’s dreams reflect various fragments of his personality. When playing individual passages of a dream, through its experience, it is possible to determine the hidden meaning, without resorting to analysis and interpretation, as psychoanalysts do.” (4) On the other hand, the therapist and the client should be sensitive to the nuances of emotional and somatic reactions. Not that the dreamer remembers and talks (interprets) about his dream in the past tense: “I walked along a mountain path and met strange plants that brought me pleasure...", - and: "I walk along a mountain path, see strange plants and experience pleasure..." - which allows you to dive into your own dream more deeply and experience with greater force the emerging experiences right here and now... gestalt- The therapist looks at dreams in several ways. F. Perls, expressing a point of view first developed in Gestalt Therapy, characterized dreams as projections. The technique he developed: “identification with the dream image,” in which the person who saw the dream acted out its elements, was created so that the dreamer would re-integrate what he had projected. Perls later called dreams “existential messages,” i.e. brief messages about the current or general state of the dreamer’s life. Acting out the dream in this case was aimed at making these messages explicit. (4) Here is how Perls puts his vision in his dream work seminars: “Gestalt therapy is an existential approach, which means that we are concerned not with behavior, not with a symptom of character structure, but with the general existence of the personality. This existence and its problems are especially clear in dreams. Freud once called sleep ViaRedia, the royal road to the unconscious. And I believe this is the royal road to integration. I never understood what the “unconscious” was, but we know that dreams are the most spontaneous production we have. The appearance of dreams does not depend on our intentions, desires, or thoughts. Sleep is the most spontaneous expression of human existence. Whatever you do while you are awake, you are at least partially in control of what is happening and can intentionally intervene in it.Dreams are another matter. Every dream is a creative work, it is more than a novel, it is a whimsical drama. Whether this art is good or not is another question, but there are so many movements, struggles, meetings, all kinds of things in it. Moreover, if my point is correct, then all the different parts of the dream are fragments of our personality. Since our goal is to make ourselves a complete person, which means a unified personality, without conflict, we must put the different fragments of the personality together. We must re-acknowledge these projected individual parts of our personality and re-acknowledge the hidden potential that manifests in dreams. Because of fears and flight from awareness, the material that is part of us has been separated, alienated, rejected, thrown away. Much of our potential is not available to us. I believe that the potential is available, but in the form of a projection. To begin with, I will say something incredible: everything that we see in other people and in the outside world is, in fact, a projection. This may be extreme, but we are constantly projecting and not paying attention to what is actually happening. Acknowledging our feelings and understanding projection go hand in hand. You have to work to understand the difference between reality and fantasy, between observation and imagination. By projecting ourselves completely onto other things or people, we can assimilate our projections and bring them back to ourselves. Pathology is a partial projection. Total projection is an artistic experience, it is an identification. Here, for example, is one idea: in Zen you are not allowed to draw a branch until you become that branch... In Gestalt therapy we do not interpret dreams. We do something more interesting with them. Instead of analyzing and dissecting the dream, we want to bring it back to life. How to do it? Re-live the dream as if it were unfolding right now. Instead of talking about it as a story that has already happened, put it into action, play it in the present, so that it becomes a part of you, so that you feel its reality. If you understand the principle of working with dreams, you can do a lot for yourself. Just take some old dream or fragment of a dream. As long as you remember the dream, it is alive and accessible, and contains an unfinished, unassimilated situation. When we work on sleep, we usually take a small piece, because even a small piece contains incredible possibilities. If you want to work with yourself, I suggest you write down the dream and make a list of all the details of the dream. Isolate each person, each thing, each mood, and then work with it, become each detail. Act it out and truly transform yourself at each point. Really become this thing, any object from a dream - become it. Use your magic. Enter anything from the dream fragment and stop thinking, leave your head and turn to your feelings. Every little thing is a piece of the puzzle, and together they will make up the whole - a stronger, happier, more complete real person. Then take each of these points, characters and parts, and let them meet each other. Create a scenario. What I mean by "scripting" is this: build a dialogue between two opposite parts, and you will see - especially if you have the right opposites - that they always start fighting each other. All the different parts, any parts in a dream, are you, this is your projection, and if they are not compatible with each other, if they contradict each other and fight with each other, it means that there is an internal conflict in you, a game of SELF-TORTURE. As DIALOGUE develops, MUTUAL KNOWLEDGE is born, and, in the end, we come to understanding and acceptance of differences, to unity and integration of two opposing forces. The civil war is over, now you can use the energy for development and personal growth. Each assimilated piece moves you one step forward. In principle, you can be completely cured - let's call it a cureor growing up - if you do this with every detail of the dream. All here. Dreams change, but when you start working with them, you will find that the dreams become more and more and the existential messages become clearer. I would like to emphasize the importance of working with dreams. We discover everything we need in ourselves or in the canvas of sleep, in the space of sleep. Existential difficulty, lost parts of personality - it's all here. It is something like an attack directly into the center of your non-existence. Sleep is a great opportunity to discover holes in your personality. They appear in the form of emptiness, blank stripes, and when you fall into these holes, you become confused or scared. This is a terrible experience, an expectation: “If I come close to this, there will be a disaster. I will turn into nothing”... This is a dead end where you hide, where you are overcome by phobia. You suddenly become sleepy, or remember something very important that you need to do. Therefore, if you are working with dreams, it is better for you to do it with someone else who can show you where you are resisting. Understanding a dream involves being aware of your escape. The only danger is that this other person may come to the rescue too quickly and tell you what is going on in you, instead of giving you a chance to discover yourself. And if you understand the meaning of each when identifying with the details of the dream, then every time you turn it into a self, you increase your vitality and potential...” (6) “I think that if someone took one of their dreams and did all the work on it, that would be all the therapy they needed!” And here’s what Laura Perls writes about the dream: I remember a dream I had many years ago: “The evening before, I read Crowe Ransom’s poem “The Tightrope Walkers.” It ends with the line: “Leave them lying dangerous and beautiful.” In my dream, I was walking along the beach, where I met Paul Goodman and his son Matthew. They collected shells and stones. I said: Don't collect them; when they dry, the shells will break, the stones will turn gray and fade. Leave them to lie dangerous and beautiful. (in the original rhymed poem - Y.K.) This is my existence: I am Paul and Matthew, teacher and student, observer and classifier. I am shells and pebbles, fragile and dull, thrown ashore, at the mercy of scientists and collectors. I am the beach, the ever-moving shoreline where the dry past is periodically revived and enlarged or diminished by the waves of the present. I am the sea, an ever-renewing, rhythmically moving life force. And I am a poet who knows what scientists have forgotten.”(7) I have just given you a somewhat shortened example of working with sleep in Gestalt therapy. What I discovered while working with this dream, and what I am trying to tell you, especially as it applies to today's question, is that sorting and summing up the Gestalt therapy experience into classes labeled Theory, Techniques, Extensions, and Expectations of Achievement do not resonate at all with the holistic and organismic philosophy of Gestalt. (7) Naturally, by experimenting with dream material in the waking state, a person in some way increases the “volume of awareness” in an area previously more accessible only to the unconscious. This idea is based on some general ideas about the nature of dreams and the connections between “up” and “down”. This technique and some theoretical ideas that justify this technique are common to different areas of modern psychotherapy, except for Gestalt, in Jung’s analytical psychology, psychodrama, psychosynthesis, etc. (8) In Gestalt therapy (following Otto Rank, Cal Jung) it is accepted, that all objects in a dream that are mentioned as nouns, phenomena or living figures, or spontaneous phenomena, or fragments of landscape that the dreamer mentions are reified projections, often framed in a fantastic form. This may be a projection of a feeling, a personal role, or somecondition. The system of relations between individual elements of a dream reflects the system of relations in the client’s inner world and in the space of his relations with the environment. (9) The technique of working with dreams is aimed at awareness, experience and assimilation of the projection. A dream is usually perceived by the dreamer as something that comes from outside and cannot be controlled. When parts of the dream are enacted as aspects of one's own existence (8), responsibility thereby returns to the individual and the dream becomes the starting point for new experiences. One should also take into account the possibility of projecting relationships of a “somatic” nature, that is, a conflict between the organs of the body: the heart and the liver (as an example). Therefore, the main techniques for working with dreams are aimed at helping the dreamer to be aware of the projection. Projection is the alienation of parts of the “I”, the perception of something as not belonging to the person himself. Behind the projection lies something rejected by the client: a need, experience, feeling, action, suppressed thoughts or desire, which the person directed “inside” his space and displayed in the topological relationship of dream images, which does not have an open exit to awareness and new ways of behavior. The opposite of alienation is the identification of disparate parts or images of the dreamer aimed at integrating these alienated parts so that the person feels whole. By “whole,” Perls means well-functioning, self-reliant, and able to continue to grow as a person. (1) Some Gestaltists, for example, Isidore Frome, go even further and consider the dream (especially the night before or after a therapeutic session) as a retroflection, that is, as a major violation of the boundary - contact between the client and the therapist: the dreamer unconsciously speaks to oneself what was not expressed explicitly to one's therapist. “...Otherwise, “retroflection” could be called “censorship” or “containment.” Thus, Frome more or less explicitly introduces the concept of transference: “Transfer is the equivalent of “here and now” (...) Transference is interesting in that it creates the opportunity for unfinished situations of the past, which any type of therapy has to deal with, to be completed in the present... We do not encourage the development of transference, but we do not exclude it, but ask questions in order to warn our client about the presence of transference and remove it. "(3) In addition, this can be viewed more broadly - as retention (suppression, rejection, ignoring, etc.) one’s feelings and impulses towards significant ones in the dreamer’s environment. That is, in dream images a person encounters those desires, needs and experiences that he did not dare to manifest in his conscious life. J.M. Robin suggests proceeding as follows. The client tells his dream. After this, the therapist, in precontact, discusses with the client the feelings caused by this dream, the feelings associated with the dream. Next, information is collected about the client's feelings towards the therapist. The similarity of these feelings is sought. At the next stage, it is possible to identify the dream character and the therapist. The easiest way is if in the dream it turns out to be a human figure. A variant of this “shuttle technique”: searching for commonality between the function of the dream figure and the function of the therapist in the relationship with the client. At the final stage, the client is offered the action of speaking directly to the therapist about feelings, while the therapist remains “in the role of a character from the dream.”(8) Another option for working with a dream as a retroflexed experience, Serge Ginger suggests, is to identify with the characters in the dream, for example , pronouncing an emotional monologue addressed to another dream character - with conscious feelings and desires, and then, remember and compare whether there is a similar similarity in relation to real life: “Who in your life could you address these feelings?”, and also, identify the current need associated with them. Such work in the “shuttle technique” reflects the transition from the energy of internal space toreal life in external space. However, there is some danger here of destroying the dream. Therefore, the dream text should be considered as a completed object. It cannot be changed, just as there is no need to redo the text of a classic poem from an anthology... “It is worth looking for episodes in everyday life that are similar in emotional themes and feelings to dreams. And make these experiences more conscious. You shouldn’t ruin your dream in order to find in it a semblance of the feeling of everyday life. In other words, it is worth using dream images to enrich reality, but you should not use reality images to enrich dreams. The therapist can do a variety of things with regard to this text: look for parallels with social reality; immerse yourself in the somatic associations of this text, deeply activating the experiences reinforced by the dream. The work is aimed at identifying the situation of relationships in a dream, at identifying feelings. (8) In dreams one can often encounter in symbolic form the manifestation of suppressed or repressed tendencies. What is most difficult to comprehend in reality. You can also give preference to working with polarities. For example, in a dream a theme that is opposite (polar) for a person may appear: in his daytime life he leads a modest lifestyle, working as an ordinary employee, but in a dream he sees himself as a commander; a well-mannered boy sees stories about robbers in his dreams and is frightened by his fantasies, which contradict the idea of ​​​​what is good and what is bad; in life, a modest young man is afraid to approach a girl with a declaration of love, and in a dream he sees pastel scenes of intimacy with her, where he is the hero of her novel, etc. A dream based on the principle of polarity can support a tendency that is important for a person, but is not manifested or is deficient. Freud also pointed out that a dream often encodes an important experience, a complex topic, not with a direct illustration, but with an image based on the principle of “contrast”, its “opposite”. One of the options for such work, which provokes awareness, is the technique proposed by Daniil Khlomov: “Tell the dream in reverse” or “Antison”. The very act of “telling it backwards” activates the person's understanding of his own attitude and awareness of the original dream material.(8) The dream therapist will always find it useful to observe how dream images reflect different mechanisms of breaking contact. In addition, the very nature of the image can suggest how they can be implemented in a therapeutic session. For example, animals move (the client can also move to enhance awareness), have their own space - an area, a partner with whom relationships, feelings and desires are possible, a characteristic type of nutrition, etc. Plants often do not move, but grow, they can fill space or move along another plant - a liana, they have a certain structure, state, for example, flowers - open or closed, they develop, grow, bear fruit, multiply... People talk accordingly, live, communicate, fall in love, conflict, worry, make peace, be born, die; and natural elements: easily express difficult to define emotional states: calm, earthquake, rain, snow, underwater current. In such dreams, where the dreamer’s mental life is presented in complete pictures, for example, these can be natural landscapes or fairy-tale scenes, which generally reflect a person’s experience, but are not differentiated, and there are often no manifestations of emotions in them (a dream as a merger), however less, they can be observed by the dreamer with pleasure. Experiments with such dreams can be aimed at identifying feelings, art techniques, amplification of bodily manifestations, adding text in those episodes where the uniformity of energy distribution is disturbed. Strengthening energy creates the basis for further shaping of the figure. It can be assumed that the dream reflected an introject if, when retelling the dream, the client gives information about “compulsion”, an oppressive state. Sometimes the clientreports the strangeness and surprise of feelings and images, about his experience of bewilderment about them. It’s difficult to be aware of your feelings, but there are a lot of vital experiences: “Something happens inevitably, against my will”; there is something that you want to take out of your soul and forget; sometimes the client simply conveys the dream to the therapist as something alien, imposed. Work with such experiences can be based on identifying experiences and images with individual figures from childhood. Identify the figure that creates the “you must” message. Reinforce this message by creating a context where the client can increase his energy and create a dialogue with the introjecting figure. Express your attitude towards this figure. In essence, a metaphorical composition is created based on and on the theme of the dream, which is then played out regardless of the plot of the dream. Most often, such a composition will be a return to a person’s childhood experience. In more rare cases, working with such experiences leads to the reproduction of experiences of mental trauma. And further, it can be built on parallels of images-memories from life and images-quotes from dreams. In these cases, the dream as a text is considered as an attempt (incomplete) on the part of the psyche to free itself from traumatic experience, to process trauma, to free itself from introject.(8) “Terrible dreams” become a reason for experiencing. These are dreams with dangerous and frightening plots, for example, “dead people”, “monsters”, “monsters”, when someone frightening is chasing you or the hero of the dream, pursuing or wants to commit violence, and a fight occurs in some cases, and in others - a feeling of sacrifice and hopelessness, when you witness something terrible, painful, aggressive, or something formless but full of horror happens, and at the moment of highest tension - a person wakes up in sweat with a feeling of fear and even horror. Oddly enough, all these dreams can be considered as ordinary projections. There is no danger in playing a dangerous character (anti-hero); the more dangerous he is for the dreamer, the more energy he accumulates. In other words, your tension of internal conflict gave rise to retroflection. Therefore, “horror dreams” occur during severe emotional stress, during somatic illness, as an option when somatization of anxiety occurs. In other cases, anxiety provides the basis for diflection, and the person does not dare to start moving. He “sees” an image (picture) or hears a sound, but cannot allow himself to experience the energy physically, physically, and loses sensitivity. It makes sense, when working with such dreams, to return attention to the body, using techniques of slowing down the pace and intensifying the movement, techniques of repetition and amplification. Sometimes therapists (in merging with a frightened client or with a client trying to unconsciously frighten the therapist with his “bad dream”) also become frightened, thereby freezing their energy. Here it is necessary to remember, looking at the situation from the outside, that “this is just a dream” - the client’s dream, and not reality! Accordingly, all sorts of horror stories in a dream are a reason to work with the most energetically charged dream characters. One of the variants of “terror dreams” is dreams with suppressed aggression - they are revealed as a projection of forbidden aggression. The stronger the ban, the more terrible the character's appearance. Technique of work: assign physical activity, mode of action, feelings, need, rather than the image and personal part of the projection.(8) “For some people, especially those who see frightening landscapes in their dreams, projective vision of a dream can give strength and open up new ones possibilities. For example, a person can see how he is being sucked into a whirlpool. He is the helpless victim of a powerful and inexorable life force. Perhaps he has his own reasons for being helpless and not using his own energy. But the mere thought that he is not only the unfortunate victim of a dream, but may also be a powerful whirlpool, brings him relief. Troublein a dream, as in life, can be overcome when contradictory forces are contained in one person, and are not between him and a hostile world. Asserting power over your own life is an encouraging attitude in the face of internal contradictions. In addition, when a person discovers kinship with many aspects of his dream, he experiences a variety of feelings. In this way, he expands his experience of knowing himself and places himself at the center of his world. Otherwise, a split occurs: “the world outside” and “I” - these two will never recognize each other. The new, expanded “I” provides energy for the development of diverse personal material. Instead of a frozen and lifeless image of oneself, with contradictory characteristics, a person gains freedom to find new ways to integrate his own “I”. (10) Some people in a dream can easily move in space and time, fly, fall, etc. During a bodily experiment with dream images, the value and completeness of the experience increases if movement is involved. This happens due to the fact that a new parameter is turned on - movement in space, inhibited during “viewing a dream”, which allows a person to master physical space, with strengthening and activating the work of muscles: the body, arms, legs. The experiment is about movement and the feedback that a person receives from space when he moves. Another option for enhancing the expression of the body is associated with the internal sensation and experience of the image, penetration into the depths of the unrealized... The text is played in physical space, and this adds opportunities for understanding the experience and expanding awareness. The figurative part or text of the dream does not change! (8) Keleman believes that a dream can be seen as our internal reality, using socially accepted language to communicate to indicate something that happens but remains unrealized. Therefore, working with a dream somatically (physically) means feeling the characteristics of a dream as desires or feelings seeking embodiment in reality, awakening. Sleep is part of the real life of our body. The dreaming process connects the body “that we are now with the body that we will become.” Therefore, it is necessary to translate the dream into the language and experience of the body, its images and characters must be seen as an expression of the state of the body. (10) “Often group members ask questions about phenomena similar to seeing the future in dreams. Some authors note that clairvoyance cannot be completely denied, including what Kempinsky points out when discussing the phenomenon of “déjà vu.” We can well expect a similar mechanism in the work of dreams. Clairvoyance and experiences associated with clairvoyance frighten the client more than the content of the dream, therefore, fear about the fact of the experience itself often becomes the topic of discussion. In fact, we know so little about the biochemistry and electrical activity of the brain that we cannot ignore such phenomena that are called “extrasensory”. In practice, we note that cases of clairvoyance in a dream are quite rare. Much more often, a person considers a clairvoyant dream, which contains a passionately anticipated event or information known to the person, which he represses. Or, it is easier for a person to interpret his experience as mystical than to experience contact with the reality of his feelings and experiences. For example, such dreams, which are understood by the dreamer as harbingers of events, turn out to be a reflection of repressed information or a transparent projection of known facts, or a reflection of hopes, dreams or fears. In addition, the effect of a “self-fulfilling prophecy” is triggered. In these cases, it can be recommended to work with dreams as a projection. (8) The communicative meaning of the dream is also very important: “What does your dream tell you? What answer does he tell you? There is another way of working - dialogue and experiencing the relationship with sleep. Sometimes this is a relationship with a non-existent dream, especially for clients who do notremember their dreams. Here the dream itself becomes a character. The client is asked to “be a dream” and tell why he dreamed and what it is needed for: “Now I want you all to talk to your dreams and for the dreams to respond as if they were living beings. “Dreams, you scare me”, “I don’t want to know about you”, say something and let the dreams answer (...). And now I want everyone to play the role of their dreams, for example: “I come to you very rarely, and only in fragments...”, since you see your dreams. I want you to become my dream. Change the role, become a dream and talk to the group as if you are a dream and talking to yourself,” comments that F. Perls gave at his seminars. (6) So, the therapist’s task is to encourage the client to contact: - with the dream world; with your feelings; - with the people present (and the therapist); - with real people to whom any feelings are addressed, through traditional, for the most part, Gestalt techniques: inducing awareness, embodiment, monodrama, amplification, working with polarities, taking responsibility, exploring contact and retreat (using dream elements with a therapist, with one of the group members, etc.). Of course, in this case, mechanisms of avoidance or disruption of contact (“resistance” or defense mechanisms) will be detected. All words “this”, “it”, etc., are replaced in addresses with “I”. At the same time, the Gestalt therapist flexibly changes emphasis, choosing what is needed for him and the client at a given moment in time. There is no specific sequence or predetermined algorithm. The therapist's range of responses depends on his own sensory awareness and the client's sensory awareness. (1) Thus, work with dreams is characterized by the following areas: 1) The work of the dream itself, its unconscious functions (viewing the genetic program, integrating experience, processing and “treating” traumas). 2) Conscious restoration of the dream content in memory, and in particular, the cathartic effect of its verbal presentation. 3) In the context of a relationship: client-therapist. 4) A dream reflects an unfinished action in a social context that needs to be revealed, considered and completed. 5) Search for a symbolic understanding of the dream - as a message. The first direction assumes that sleep itself has a therapeutic function. Leading to a cathartic effect, they act as autoregulators of affective stress (Ferenchi), allowing them to be relieved or reduced and desomatized by anxiety (Fisher). At the genetic level, ordering and consolidation of new experience occurs - “genetic reprogramming”. (Jouvet) We seem to be reaching the level of “molecular reading” to revise the lessons of the Great Book of Life, in which all the experiences of the human race are recorded. Information coming from the depths of our unconscious is regularly reviewed and supplemented by the experience of the past day. (9) Thus, dreams allow us to harmonize acquired and instinctive behavior, integrating individual memory into our collective memory. (2) In fact, dreams themselves are usually our free psychotherapists. Their noble work in repairing and improving neural networks is worthy of every gratitude. On the other hand, during a dream, immediately after a mental injury, a traumatic experience is recorded, or, metaphorically speaking, quite serious damage and breakdowns may appear in the neural network. This leads to an obvious practical conclusion: “Psychotherapeutic work with mental trauma before the first sleep is appropriate and useful!” How much faster and easier is a stable therapeutic effect achieved if the work is carried out in hot pursuit - on the day of the injury. (2, 9, 11) Therefore, involvement in the process of providing professional assistance to a person in need, from your loved ones and relatives, may consist of contacting a specialist working in this field on the day of the injury, before the onset of the first sleep. Ifdreams that immediately follow a stressful event rather lead to the rooting of the traumatic experience, then in the future they also allow you to “digest” the trauma through unconscious training in overcoming stressful situations. First of all, this applies to recurring dreams, which, from the point of view of Jacques Pic, lead to a softening and further to “erasing the affective aura around the traces of a stressful situation remaining in memory.” (2) So, Gestalt therapy in general considers dreams as phenomena of existence that have traumatic (healing) and, more broadly, therapeutic functions. (9) The second direction in working with dreams is associated with the conscious restoration of the content of the dream in memory and especially its retelling to someone (better if it is a dream specialist). Retelling a dream in the present tense, which is accompanied by deep sensory experiences, (than telling about it in the past tense), and since it happens in reality, the client can monitor his reactions to what is happening here and now. In this context, a presentation to another person contributes to the transition of the dreamer’s unconscious material into the conscious zone, and has a therapeutic component, which ultimately leads to an expansion of awareness (the basic principle of Gestalt Therapy). (See below: Technique of working with dream) The third direction in the client-therapist context. The dream or report of a dream is seen as part of the contact between therapist and client. And information about the plot and form (phenomenology) of the dream is discussed as a reason for contact between two people: “Why exactly this dream is remembered by the client at the moment, how the dream reflects the relevance, or deficits of contact, how the relationship between the client and the therapist is projected in this dream, and so on.” Further". A dream is seen as a reason for contact and a specific message. The therapist is guided by how this dream reflects the characteristics of the therapeutic relationship. The fourth direction is characterized by an unfinished earlier situation (action, feeling, word, etc.), which began in a recalled dream. If a dream is interrupted suddenly, but the content is not completed and causes strong irrational anxiety, then it can be completed at the dreamer’s request, in accordance with his inner truth. At the same time, the dream itself is not altered, but played out, giving the client the opportunity to translate his anxiety into action and complete the unfinished situation as his nature requires. If we are dealing with a recurring dream, then this relates not only to an important existential problem, but also to an unfinished situation. After “deciphering”, it is possible to create a bodily metaphor in playing out the dream, after which muscle tension is released, emotional stress is removed, the material is integrated and a fundamentally new symbolic and bodily experience is gained. The fifth direction is associated with the search for a symbolic understanding of dreams - as an existential message concerning our existence, belonging to F. Perls. A dream is associated with the search and discovery of one’s true “I”, reflecting the individuality and uniqueness of the dreamer. This is similar to writing a picture, a poem, reproducing a performance on stage or a choreographic composition; this is a means of creative expression of oneself, allowing the dreamer to come into contact with the very personal, deep and previously unconscious. “This is not just an unfinished situation or an ongoing problem, it is not a symptom or a reactive formation. The dream has an existential meaning, it is an existential message. It concerns our entire existence, our entire life scenario.” (F.S. Perls) When disruptions in the contact cycle occur, a person becomes static and, as it were, “enters pathology.” This pathology is clearly manifested in dreams as part of the dreamer’s holistic existence. An important function of the existential message of a dream is to provide the dreamer with “holes” in his personality. They make themselves known in dreams like voices,empty spaces, avoidances, objects or people with whom it is impossible or scary to identify. Dream work draws attention to those needs that were not “met” in the waking state, the pattern of their satisfaction being interrupted, perhaps, at the earliest phase of the contact cycle associated with their awareness. This is most directly related to recurring dreams. According to Perls, recurring dreams are “the best”, the most important dreams.” (6) In working with them, he invites the client to tell his dream in the first person, stopping after each phrase and saying: “And this is my existence!”, Realizing what this statement means in the context of his only life. The therapist becomes sensitive to every fleeting manifestation of the dreamer: the timbre and tone of the voice, sudden freezing of the body and cessation of breathing, changes in color and facial expressions, bodily manifestations, etc. If an energetically saturated phrase is identified, which the client pronounces, identifying with one or another character in the dream, including in the dialogues being played, then the therapist asks the dreamer to repeat it several times with intensification and attention to feelings, offer to address this phrase to someone in the group, so that he would return the projection to him. For example, a client utters a phrase in the image of a painting: “I’m just hanging there, and no one pays attention to me. I’m an empty place and I’m lonely... (the client begins to cry).” Return of the projection: “You just hang around and no one pays attention to you. You are an empty place and you are lonely...” From another character in this dream, the “cat,” the client expresses: “And I am free to do what I want, and I get what I want...” - “You are free to do what you want, and you get what you want...”. (The client stayed at home with her child for a long time and was afraid to go to work, although the team was waiting for her return). In further work, the client becomes aware of both parts in himself, gets to know them through dialogue, where a turning point occurs in the session and the client receives an existential message that “When I go to work, I will begin to get what I want!” Techniques for working with dreams. 1. The main technique is identification with the projection of a dream (with figures from a dream). When telling a dream, a person presents it as a kind of story. He usually does this in the past tense. The therapist writes down or remembers the narrated dream verbatim. 2. The therapist asks the client to narrate the dream in the “first person,” as if he were reliving it in the present tense. The client is immersed in a special state, presumably the one that was when “viewing the dream,” inside his phenomenology, in the experience of his own images. Recording (memorizing) a dream allows the therapist to sequentially move from figure to figure, creating episodes of immersion in feelings in order to live each individual dream character more deeply and meaningfully, since the client is awake and can approach the dream more consciously. In such work, the plot of the dream does not change - it is played out, or, if there is incompleteness (the dream is abrupt), then the completion is built the way the client wants, taking into account his inner truth. The therapist can draw the client’s attention to individual details of the experience, helping focus, and at the same time, be an outside observer and not actively engage, for example, in a dialogue with one of the dream figures. The therapist seems to be outside the fantastic action being played out by the client. And with her presence she gives the client enough courage so that the client can face a variety of dream experiences. The therapist maintains his curiosity and neutrality in relation to any dream figures. (8) 3. Lively acting out a dream. The client takes on the role of a dream director (integrating role), which must be restored to the fullness of life. When identifying with each of the dream images, the client “moves” like a dream character (person, object, element), deepening his feelings and experiences. In this dream there arecharacters, animate and inanimate, to which the client will react differently. In order to more deeply feel the state of sleep, you can build dialogues, thus getting acquainted with different parts of the personality and appropriating the energy that was previously suppressed. Then, focus on the experiences and maintaining contact with these experiences, return from the dream world to “real” life. Find the projection of these relationships and feelings that were manifested when experimenting with dream images in the events of everyday life. (Shuttle technique). We have already said that projection is a way of interrupting contact with a need by abandoning a part of yourself, your own thoughts, feelings and desires. They are attributed to people from the outside world. Returning to yourself any unpleasant part (feelings of anger or suspicious thoughts) can be very unpleasant, only in these parts of the “I” valuable, not yet realized energy is hidden. The therapist makes sure that a wide variety of dream figures get the opportunity to “express themselves.” Often the most inconspicuous object in a story gives rise to a serious revelation of feeling and the discovery of new experience. For example, if the client has a dream in which he enters an empty house where there is a box, one can suggest identifying with the box, with the floor of the house, with the walls, as well as with missing parts of the interior, for example, doors, windows, and so on. There is an identification and integration of parts of experience that go towards the creation of the dreamer himself. (This is the case if the person does not resist and is willing to identify with previously rejected parts of experience in his life.) Where in the replay of each dream Perls liked to ask the dreamer: “What are you avoiding and how?” The transition from figure to figure is carried out either one by one, if it is possible to work through the entire dream, or, fragmentarily, where the client himself chooses the most “energized” and “charged” figures (from one to several). To enhance focus when working with projections, the therapist may ask the client to draw illustrations of dream sequences, or to act out the dream using objects in the room, such as pillows, books, figurines, or anything that might attract the dreamer's attention. If the work is in a group context, the therapist may suggest constructing the dream composition in physical space, using group members to represent the dream figures. This can be a very spectacular and creative action. (8) How to work with dreams in a group. (Based on materials from N. Lebedeva, E. Ivanova) The most innovative group method is the approach of Joseph Zinker - working with dreams as a theater (dreamworkastheater). It really is like theater, where the group members act as actors acting out parts of one of their dreams. (12) We can distinguish two basic options in acting out dreams - plays. 1. The dreamer is given the right to become a director: he distributes roles, including his own; and then makes adjustments, calling on one “actor” to act with great passion, another to show less aggression, speak louder or quieter... stopping the play at one point or another. 2. Group members choose their roles themselves. At the same time, the participant whose dream formed the basis for the script of the play, in one version of this version, can act as both a director and an actor playing some role from his dream; and in the other - to be only an actor, leaving the functions of the director to the therapist. Sometimes the therapist turns out to be both a director and an actor, playing, for example, the role of soil. In addition, the play can be run through with little or no intervention from the director when the actors are given freedom to improvise. The described options sometimes flow into each other while working with one dream. At the same time, during the course of the play, remarks “from the audience” or the appearance of understudies on stage along with the main performers are quite acceptable. Even observations. 147 – 148.