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Dreams as a Mirror of Change in Personal Mythology (Part I) by
Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. and Christopher Ryan
The word “myth” has been tainted by common
usage in which it has come to refer to a falsehood. This is unfortunate
for each of us as individuals and for society in general. Rather than
being judged as “true” or “false,” mythology can be best thought of as a
way of making sense of reality – an interpretive tool. As such, a myth
can be judged only insofar as it is functional or dysfunctional for
positive growth and development at a particular point in time for a
given individual, family, or group.
Just as each culture organizes reality according to its mythology, each
individual also views his or her life through a unique mythological
lens. As we move through life, we are called upon to update our basic
mythological understanding of the world. Accepting that our conceptions
of reality are mythical in nature makes it easier for us to revise and
reformulate old ways of thinking rather than to feel pressured to defend
outdated views. Our personal mythologies, therefore, are our
ever-changing systems of complementary and conflicting personal myths. A
personal myth is a cognitive-affective structure or schema – a pattern
of thinking and feeling that gives meaning to the past, defines the
present, and provides direction for the future. It serves the functions
of explaining, guiding, and sacralizing experience for the individual in
a manner that is analogous to the way cultural myths serve those same
functions for a society.
We can think of our personal mythology as including all the interacting
and sometimes conflicting thoughts and feelings we consciously and
unconsciously have about our world. These thoughts and feelings shape
our comprehension of what the world is and of our place in it, and they
help determine the actions we will take as we live our lives. Although
our myths do not always engage our conscious mind, they are always
intimately affecting our lives. We are most likely to become aware of a
given myth when a change is occurring within it. Because dreams appear
to synthesize one’s existing mythic structures with the data of one’s
life experiences, any incongruity between these elements is often
presented to us in dream content. It appears to be the task of many
dreams to resolve any disjuncture between our personal mythology and our
actual experience.
Indeed, personal myths appear to form in a manner that is parallel to
the way dreams develop. We can hypothesize that personal myths and
dreams are both related to the brain’s propensity for language and
narrative structure. Humans have often been described as
“meaning-seeking animals.” Our personal myths may be a way for us to
find meaningful structure in our experience, while dreams perform the
same function with the torrent of images and feelings welling up from
the unconscious every night. As Montague Ullman has written, “Our dreams
serve as corrective lenses which, if we learn to use them properly,
enable us to see ourselves and the world about us with less distortion
and with greater accuracy.” The same can be said of our personal
mythology.
Since our personal mythology has its roots in the ways we learned to
make sense of our world during childhood, there is frequently a conflict
in one’s personal mythology which is affecting one’s feelings, thoughts
or behavior, and a mythic crisis is apparent in regard to personal
development. This crisis occurs when a prevailing myth becomes so
outdated or otherwise dysfunctional that the psyche generates a
counter-myth to organize perceptions and responses which the old myth
cannot accommodate. When this occurs, the psyche is in conflict as each
competing myth becomes a psychological entity attempting to dominate
particular situations with its particular modes of perceiving and
responding.
While personal myths shape our awareness, they themselves operate
largely outside of ordinary consciousness. It is possible, however, to
willfully bring many aspects of our personal mythology into our
awareness. Because it is the nature of dreams to expose and puncture
dysfunctional personal myths and to shed light on the self-deceptive
strategies one uses to avoid initiating a more functional pattern of
behavior, dream appreciation can be one of the most effective means of
bringing these myths into conscious awareness. Awakening to the mythic
dimension of our lives is to achieve the freedom to inspect and revise
that which for most people controls them unaware.
One can develop a categorization system which describes several aspects
of dreams in this ongoing dialectic. A particular dream may include one
or more of the aspects outlined below. For people who have learned to
understand inner events in terms of personal mythology, this can be a
useful framework for understanding their dreams.
1. The dream may attempt to strengthen an old, self-limiting myth
(particularly when it is challenged) by (a) emphasizing past experiences
which provided evidence for the validity of the old myth; (b) resolving
conflicts between the old myth and daily experiences through the
assimilation of these experiences into the structure of the old myth;
(c) providing visions of a future dominated by the old myth – a preview
of the future according to the old myth, often with a sense of
inevitability.
2. Dreams may create or strengthen a counter-myth which has grown out of
the old myth’s deficiencies by (a) reworking old experiences and
interpreting them in a less self-limiting, more affirming manner
providing an alternative to the old myth’s template of reality; (b)
interpreting new experiences in this manner and/or accommodating the old
myth to fit new experiences in a manner that corresponds more closely to
the counter-myth; (c) by organizing possibilities into a positive future
with wish-fulfillment qualities; while inspiration for pursuing these
possibilities is often present, instruction for how to translate them
into daily life is not generally evident.
3. The dream may facilitate a cognitive integration between the two
myths. As ongoing experiences bring the two toward a compromise, they
become more compatible, an integration of essential elements of each
becomes possible, and the cognitive forces that work against conflict
begin to integrate the two myths. This process is suggested in dreams
which (a) highlight experiences from the past in which the mythic
conflict was evident and show ways it could be integrated; (b) highlight
the conflict as it emerged in recent experiences and show ways of
resolving it; (c) portent a future where the conflict is resolved, often
instructing the person in how to accomplish the resolution.
Feeling tone often gives a clue as to the function of the dream. “Old
myth” dreams typically feel defeating, hopeless, and draining in terms
of energy and vitality. “Counter-myth” dreams typically tend to feel
hopeful, optimistic, even exhilarating. “Integration” dreams tend to
produce a calm, positive, realistic feeling.
In summary, dreams can play an important role in presenting to the
dreamer his or her mythic structure. Dreams can itemize each aspect of
one’s personal mythology and can point out when an old personal myth has
become inadequate for life’s current issues. The dream can point out
when personal myths have become outdated, can provide a dialectical
encounter between old and new myths, and can mediate conflicts between
myths, even providing new mythic structures and facilitating synthesis.
(For further exploration of the concepts and techniques presented in
this article, please see The Mythic Path by D. Feinstein and S. Krippner,
New York: Putnam/Tarcher, 1997. The second part of this essay, appearing
in a future issue of Dream Network Journal, will apply these techniques
of dream appreciation to some well-known popular songs in which dreams
are presented). |
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