Category: Dreams

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Creating Safety in Dream Groups: Ideas from Ullman

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What’s the single most important factor in a successful dream group?

Safety.

This may be why the method of Dream Appreciation by Montague Ullman is the most popular dream group method. Every step of the way, the dreamer’s safety is considered.

What maintains the dreamer’s sense of trust in the process? Confidentiality of course, and the ability of the dreamer to stop the process at any time. Beyond the obvious, the main consideration is the deepest respect for the dreamer and their dream.

This means no leading questions or imposition of ideas from the group, however brilliant they may seem. Ullman said, “The goal is to lead the dreamer into a dialogue with their own dream.” Anything else “shifts the dreamer’s attention from the dream to the motives of the questioner.”

He uses the analogy of curling to help us understand this concept. In curling, the skip (aka dreamer) sends the rock towards its target. The sweepers clear the path for the rock, help it on its intended journey, but do not change its course. “We respect the importance of the dreamer, staying with the path of the dream rather than deflecting them into a path of our own making.”

Ullman advises against offering interpretations, ideas about symbolic meaning, or anything from outside what the dream itself contains. “I don’t think it is ever truly therapeutic to approach a dreamer with an a priori conviction about what a dream means based on a particular theory or preconceived ideas about what certain images mean.”

What kinds of inquiries should dream group members offer then? Ideally open-ended questions with no agenda other than helping the dreamer to further open the dream itself. Our questions “should always lead back to the dream.”

Questions with an agenda promote defensiveness. But if there is trust and safety, “the clarity of one’s emotional vision becomes sharper and deeper. Trust opens the dreamer up to the possiblity of discovery.”

 

From: Ullman, M. (1996). Appreciating Dreams, a group approach. Sage Publications.

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Jungian Dreamwork and Focusing: Delving Deeper in the Experience of Dreaming

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This article brings together my two favorite approaches in psychotherapy and personal growth: that of dreamwork and focusing. In my work, they are intertwined in ways that make it difficult to tease apart, so I am taking this opportunity to articulate the way they both differ and complement each other. I will highlight the work of Jungian dream workers who favor experiential processing, and will also summarize Eugene Gendlin’s ideas about how to work with dreams.

 

The Jungian approach to dreams

Although my interest in dreams is lifelong, I first formally studied dreamwork at Pacifica Graduate Institute, one of North America’s foremost schools for Jungian and depth psychology. While there are some branches of Jungian thought that can get quite theoretical, this is not the approach taken at Pacifica, where they stress the experiential aspects of depth psychology. There are strong parallels between the many dreamwork methods that I consider both Jungian and focusing-oriented. They key to both is the felt experience of the dreamer.

Carl Jung posited that there is not only a personal unconscious from which dream material arises, but also a collective unconscious common to all mankind and that truly numinous dreams have this kind of power. He called these universal forces archetypes, motifs familiar to us all: child, father, mother, lover, wise man/woman and so on.

Jung developed an extensive theory about the meaning of dreams, and believed dream workers should possess vast knowledge of myths, legends and symbols that could appear in any dream so as to amplify the personal aspect of the dream image into something more collective or archetypal. However, it is a mistake to assume that he was imposing all of this onto dreams from an academic pedestal. In fact, he was very interested in the lived experience of dreams, and developed a technique he called active imagination, suggesting that dreamers re-enter the dreamworld and continue where the dream left off, dreaming it onward in the therapy session and beyond. These experiential techniques are very like Gendlin’s focusing, an experiential method of inquiring into the body.

The beauty of dreamwork is that it can take many forms. One can work with a dream on a personal level and make great leaps forward in consciousness. One can also approach the dream in a sacred way that brings one closer to the universal source of dreaming and feel touched by its numinosity. I think the reason dreams are so fascinating is that they are truly magical, truly other and if one enters the experience of the dreaming, one cannot help but be enlarged by it. In fact, many dream experts believe the main purpose of dreaming is just that: to enlarge our perspective; sometimes they do this gently, and sometimes in a shocking manner. At times, a shock can be just what’s needed to jolt us out of outmoded ways of being.

 

Approaches to dreams from depth psychologists

Jungian scholars whose interest is depth psychology focus on the experience of dreaming; they talk about less mining of the dream for personal insight, and more about tending the dream. They often use focusing extensively in the way they do dreamwork though they may not use that term. In the course of their work, they have developed a reverence for the dreamtime. They ask not, how can the dream serve me, but, how can I serve the dream? What does it ask of me?

James Hillman (1979) in The Dream and the Underworld took issue with the modern method of mining dreams for personal meaning. He is a thinker, a contrarian and likes to turn widely-accepted ideas on their heads. Hillman said he follows Freud and Jung in some of their ideas: “Freud by insisting that the dream has nothing to do with the waking world but is psyche speaking to itself in its own language: and Jung by insisting that the ego requires adjustment to the night world. I shall not be following them in bringing the dream into the dayworld in any other form than its own, implying that the dream may not be envisaged either as a message to be deciphered for the dayworld (Freud) or as a compensation to it (Jung)” (p. 13).

Hillman goes on to say that the only valid way to approach dreaming is to enter into its underworld realm, subjecting ourselves to the descent, not trying to use it for our own purposes. He does not think we need to add anything, or compensate from what’s not there. “Each dream has its own fulcrum and balance, compensates itself, is complete as it is… We cannot see the soul until we experience it, and we cannot understand the dream until we enter it “ (p. 80).

Hillman eschews the gestalt tradition of having dreamers enter into the experience of various dream figures as though they are parts of one’s own psyche. “This mode of dream interpretation becomes just one more modern way of inflating the ego” (p. 99).

Still, entering into the consciousness of various dream figures remains an accepted means of working a dream. Robert Bosnak (1996) is one modern dream worker who relies heavily on this Gestalt method. He says that,  “While dreaming, there are several different carriers of consciousness.”  We most often experience our dreams from the point of view of our dream ego, but Bosnak believes “one of the purposes of dreamwork is to experience the dream from as many facets as possible.”

He talks about making transits into the experience of other dream figures, to relinquish briefly our habitual point of view and enter into something that is other. In fact, one can enter into not just the people and animals in a dreamscape, but any significant feature. He offers an example of a man who enters into a deep freeze. “This brings about a change of attitude, a different sense of being alive” (p. 54).

Bosnak believes we can work only with living dreams, ones in which we are still able to re-enter the dreaming experience. Fresh dreams can be from years past, but most are recent. They are dreams where we can still sense in a bodily way. Bosnak asks dreamers to go very slowly back into the dream recalling as much detail as possible, paying particular attention to the others in the dream. He suggests you drop down into a liminal state and then enter into the consciousness of the other in your dream through sensing into your body. He calls is making a “transit” (p. 44) into the dream other. This is very similar to the focusing move of entering the felt sense from its point of view.

The attitude is a focusing one of curiosity, acceptance, and a sense that there is autonomy in what we are encountering, something to resonate with, not something we try to bend to our will.  Both focusing and dreamwork take place in the imaginal world, the world of image. There is a sense of autonomy about the image, as in working with the felt sense. We can experience it but we do not control its movements.

Pacifica founder Stephen Aizenstat (2009) does believe in talking to the animals and other figures in dreams, but respectfully and only once one has built a relationship to the dream figure. His favorite approach to a dream is the question, “Who’s visiting now?” This, followed by  a receptive, clear space in which the dream itself can respond, in the present, in a living, embodied way.

Aizenstat suggests a way of working with dreams beyond the Freudian idea of association, or the Jungian idea of amplification, to that of animation. Aizenstat calls his practice dream tending — working with the living image. Although it is not a felt sense, the interaction with the dream figure has many qualities similar to focusing: the act of bringing your open, curious attention to it. Its autonomy. The need to stay with it even when it might appear scary — that with our loving attention to it, from an observing, safe distance, it will transform, as will what it represents in our life.

 

Eugene Gendlin on Focusing and Dreams

Gendlin (1986) offers a similar perspective in his approach to working with dreams. Although he posits his methods of dreamwork as a long series of potential questions to ask of the dream, the attitude he suggests one should bring to these questions is not one of interrogation. Like Aizenstat, he suggests that one should “love and enjoy the dream whether you interpret it or not” (p. 27).

He sees great value in dreamwork, and even suggests it is as a shortcut to learning how to do focusing. He says the hardest part of learning how to focusing is letting a felt sense come. “With a dream, that is often easy. A dream usually brings you a felt sense. If not, it soon comes if you attend your body while pondering the dream” (p. 3). Gendlin sees dreamwork as having two stages: the breakthrough, where you discover what the dream is about and a second stage, where you get something new from the dream.

He also introduces a technique he calls bias control to help someone working with their own dreams overcome the natural tendency to interpret a dream based on what one already knows. This basically entails entertaining the opposite of what we might be drawn to, entering into the consciousness of a dream figure we dislike, for example. “A new growth direction is often the opposite of what we value most. That doesn’t mean we change our value to the opposite, not at all. We merely expand them a little” (p. 61).

 

Completing the dream process: Carrying forward

If you go through the experiential process of fully tending a dream, it will require not just a widening of perspective, but some sort of concrete action or ritual to ground and symbolize the change in you. An even better way to look at it might be: what are you going to offer in response to this dream? These lines of dreamwork practice we have been following ask that we ponder how we will serve the dream, rather than how it will serve us.

In Gendlin’s model, this may come in the form of an action step, some small but concrete step we can take in response to the dream. He gives an example where a man’s “dream points to a small action step he might not otherwise have thought of. This may seem a tiny step when compared with the whole regime this dreamer might need… As you will see if you try them, small action steps have a lot of power. They are hard to do. They let you encounter and work through what is in your way. They change you… Only action ultimately resolves more problems. Therefore action steps are needed as an integral part of what dreams mean… and only in actions does your body get to live the new way for more than a few symbolic moments!” (p. 114).

 

Dreaming from the Source

Dreams and the felt sense in focusing come from the same source, what Whitmont calls the Guiding Self, or Jung’s Self, a “superior, if archaic intelligence, bent on offering meaningful new attitudes,” (Whitmont Perera, p. 17).

Both focusing and dreamwork are difficult to do alone because of this — because they offer a viewpoint different from our customary one. Dreams are perhaps further from the ego’s standpoint because they often originate from deeper in the unconscious. Or, they may originate entirely outside of our realm of consciousness in a realm all their own. Either way, they are a stretch for us to grapple with. They offer growth potential, but also the potential to be disruptive or disturbing. Focusing is more of a middle ground between dreams and ego, and focusing on dreams is yet another intermediate step, bridging the gap between dream and ego, making dreams more accessible and potentially accelerating change.

Dreams are a product of the life force within us, as is the felt sense we contact through focusing. There are no bad dreams. The question is how to come into relationship with them, as you would a felt sense, to gain ‘life-forward’ momentum. And then, how do you embody this shift in the world?

 

References

Aizenstat, S. (2009) Dream Tending, New Orleans, Louisiana: Spring Journal Inc.

Boa, F. (1988) The Way of the Dream, Boston, Mass., Shambhala Publications.

Bosnak, R. (1996) Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming, New York: Delta Publishing  a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell.

Freud, S. (1909) The Interpretation of Dreams, New York: Modern Library, Random House (1950 edition).

Hillman, J. (1979) The Dream and the Underworld, New York: Harper and Row.

Gendlin, E.T. (1986) Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams, Wilmette, Illinois: Chiron Publications.

Jung, C.J. Collected Works. Bollingen Series, Princeton University Press.

Jung, C.J. (1961) Memories, Dreams, Reflections, New York: Random House.

Whitmont, E. and Perera, S. (1989) Dreams, A Portal to the Source, London: Routledge.

 

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Why Do We Dream? Maybe We Should Ask Our Bodies

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Mark Blumberg, a University of Iowa researcher, has a new idea about why we dream – it’s our body mapping itself while we sleep. His research, recently featured in the New Yorker magazine, is a departure from existing theories that suggest in dreaming, we are making sense of our experiences, consolidating memories, processing emotions, possibly imagining things we fear or wish for – no one can yet say for sure.

Blumberg got curious about why newborn babies need 8 hours of dream-rich rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, while most adult humans need about one-quarter of that. He also wondered what babies have to dream about since they have not yet had any experiences to process. He also noticed that all animals, from sleeping dogs to the rat pups in his lab, twitch and jerk when in REM.

Are the dogs’ paws twitching because they are chasing imaginary rabbits in their dreams? Blumberg severed the connection between rat brain and body, and the twitching continued – suggesting these movements are not related to what we dream in our minds. He wondered if the reverse was true: that the movements were sending messages from body to brain.

Blumberg wired electrodes to the areas of the rat’s brain associated with movement, and assigned a different sound to each selected neuron. The amazing result was that each time the rat’s paw twitched, sounds would reverberate from the brain. Based on this, Blumberg articulated a theory that the brain uses REM sleep to map out the body, one muscle at a time.

During REM sleep, neuroscientists have long understood that the body is paralyzed from the neck down, presumably to keep us from acting out our dreams. Blumberg’s research suggests another possibility – that sleep paralysis allows our bodies to move a single, discrete muscle at a time, which enables discrete sensorimotor connections to form.

 

The body is implicated more deeply in dreaming than we thought

When people ask me how to better recall their dreams, I suggest they lie still upon waking, as this seems to make it easier to remember what they were just dreaming. This may be related to what Blumberg has discovered, a connection from the body that feeds the dreaming brain.

For the New Yorker article, Amanda Gefter interviewed Jennifer Windt, a professor of philosophy of mind and author of Dreaming, a book that explores what dreams can tell us about consciousness. Windt suggests the brain is not the centre of consciousness, mediating all that we experience, because what’s happening in our bodies shapes our dreams – for example through body positions that prompt memories, which are woven into our dreams. She told the New Yorker, “It’s through recognizing the contributions of the body that we can begin to understand why dreams feel the way they do.”

 

Reference

Gefter, A. What Are Dreams For? New Yorker, August 31, 2023.

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Resistant to Your Dream Life? Here’s why you should push through it

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Resistance to dreaming comes in many forms, and may be part of the reason we collectively forget so many of our dreams. In a dominant culture that leans toward the rational, empirical side of things, the magical, mysterious and unseen aspects of our existence can be lost or dismissed.

Lost or dismissed. This seems to be the fate of so many of our dreams. Even I, who spend much of my time studying, appreciating, writing and teaching about dreams, feel a resistance to them at times, unable to make time for them, too quick to think I understand them already. These are classic forms of dream resistance – to dismiss them as meaningless or as already understood. Yet when I do make time for my dreams, through art, imagination or discussion with others, the rewards are rich. I experience heartfelt connection with my dream partners and a deeper connection to myself and the larger world.

In my years of teaching clinical dreamwork and guiding dream journeys, it has often felt as though the path I’m travelling is slightly uphill, upwind, upstream; in some form or another, I encounter a fairly steady stream of resistance. One of my students had the courage to name this, and an interesting discussion ensued about the many forms of resistance to our dream lives. We often dream of emotional, provocative, deeply personal and at times difficult things, so it makes sense to have some resistance to turning toward all that, and especially to sharing it.

 

Interpetation as Disrespect for the Dream

One reason for the resistance to sharing dreams is the common experience that if we tell a dream to someone, they will impose meaning on it that may not be welcome or resonant. There is a tendency, based on popular but outdated notions, that dreams have a definitive meaning, that there are universal symbols, and if you learn these, you can tell someone what their dream means, what it says about them, and what they should do in response.

In fact, modern dreamwork is not like this. The International Association for the Study of Dreams actually states in its own bylaws that imposing a definition on someone else’s dream is not only unwelcome, but not even ethical. Still, the idea of dream interpretation persists widely, and dream dictionaries remain among the most popular ways of deciphering dream images.

What my dream-resistant student lamented, having been a victim of overly interpretive dreamwork herself, is that such dissection and analysis takes away the magic and mystery inherent in dreams. She asked, can we just enjoy them and all their strange, fantastic imagery without having to work at them or come up with a way to explain them? Can we just love the dream for its own sake, as we would a piece of art or breathtaking sunset?

 

Dream Loss as Resistance to Dreams

Sleep and dream researcher Rubin Naiman speaks of an epidemic of sleep loss, which he suggests is actually dream loss. He says that, collectively, we are resistant to our dreams because dreaming expands our consciousness, and unless you are someone who has psychologically and spiritually prepared for such a thing, this expansiveness can be scary and disorienting. In our collective culture, there tends to be a narrowing of our consciousness. We spend more time focused in little screens, less on being outside under the vast open sky – both literally and figuratively. So when we start dreaming, and we enter into an expanded sense of consciousness, this can feel threatening enough to affect sleep.

I would suggest that not only do dreams reflect a larger consciousness, but that they also reflect our deepest emotional life. This may also be something that we tend to resist in various ways – through overwork and busyness, through use of substances that numb us, and via attention to the many distractions at our fingertips.

However, as my student astutely observed, her resistance wasn’t the only force at work. After all, here she was, in a year-long dream course speaking about her lifelong fascination with dreams, and her strong desire to protect their profound and magical qualities. This resonated with the dreamers present – that we entertain our dreaming lives alongside and despite the resistance to them because the pull toward our dreams is even stronger than the resistance. We can respect our hesitation around dreaming, and at the same time, can feel and appreciate their consciousness-expanding properties, their wider wisdom and their creative genius.

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Dreamweaving: Introducing a Method for Collective Dream Experiencing

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Dream groups are a beautiful way to deepen into a dream, gathering a wider range of impressions and perspectives than we receive when we dive into our dream material alone or with a partner. I have led dream groups in many forms for decades, and love how the universality of dream images ultimately hold meaning and depth for all. Still, there is typically just one or two dreamers whose material is explored in any given session. I have been wanting to develop an experience that is more collective, where every member feels like an equal participant. With the help of my long-term Dream Circle of graduates from my embodied experiential dreamwork program, I recently created just such a method: Dreamweaving. The following is a brief account of the method, a process to invoke dream images to share, experience and weave into a tapestry.

Dreamweaving in Brief

Briefly, the method begins with an invocation, an internal experiential process for each group member to invite a short dream or fragment that seems to want attention. For example, if a group member has a big dream they want to share, the process invites them to find the particular image from the dream that intrigues them most. Once we have all been visited by a dream image, each member shares it, and we have a brief clarification process in which group members can ask the dreamer to say a little more about their image. This is not interpretation, but a deepening of the collective experience of the image, and an invitation to follow our curiosity.

Once all the dream pieces are offered and briefly explored, the group is invited to take a step back and take the entire dream collage in. Then, one by one, each dream member in turn can offer a prompt that invites an experiential exploration of any aspect of the collective dream that feels the most generative and intriguing to them. All members are invited to participate in the experiencing process, which could be a re-entry into a dreamscape, character or element, a dreaming forward from any image or dreamscape, or a conversation with a dream element. Then participants are invited to briefly offer a sense of what they experienced. Over the course of the session, the dream images come alive, and interweave until it really does begin to feel like a single, collective dream experience.

Here are the steps in brief:

  • Invocation
  • Dream sharing and deepening
  • A round of experiential prompts, with a brief sharing of experiences after each prompt

 

The Invocation

I always start my dreamwork sessions with an experiential inward journey to invite group members to find, embody and explore a dream or daydream image that is alive for them in the moment. The following is the transcript of the first Dreamweaving invocation, slightly edited (ellipses… indicate a long pause):

We’ll start with our usual way by just getting comfortable in your body, in your chair. Settle in, feel the ground underneath you, and do what you normally do with your body to prepare to go inward… Start by clearing some space, setting aside any distractions and opening yourself to the world of dreaming. As you’re clearing space, broaden your perception a little bit. Rather than being just with your own inner landscape, see if you can broaden it and feel into the group. We’re trying to expand our awareness and pick up what we can of the group dreaming…

When you feel settled, clear and connected, I’m going to ask you to invite an image or a dream snippet. You’re welcome to have an image arrive spontaneously right now. Or you can bring in an image from a dream that wants to visit. It could be a fresh one, a dream you’ve had recently or one from the past. Just invite what wants to come forward right in this moment. And welcome whatever arrives… You’re going to spend a bit of time with what came. First, start to notice the setting or the dreamscape that this image is situated in. Go ahead and flesh out the environment… Notice the temperature, the weather, what’s on the ground, what’s in the sky… Now begin to situate yourself in the dreamscape at whatever distance or wherever in this dream feels like the right place to be… And when you feel yourself there in the dreamscape, let this image play forward a little by finely observing the image that you’re with or letting it carry forward if it’s in motion or has a story that’s unfolding. Again, just see what the image wants…

Notice as you do this, as you’re following this image, what it brings up in your body. Feel into what kind of a felt sense arises as you interact with this dream image. Don’t do anything except notice what the felt sense is like, be friendly and curious with it… and before we turn away from this, just take a minute with your dream image and ask in a very open ended, invitational way if there’s anything this particular image wants to share, or wants you to share with this group. Just if it comes easily, don’t force it…

So we’re going to start to take our leave. Although we can keep the image with us if it feels good to do that, but start to come back to the dreamscape… and then back into your body sitting in the chair. Feel yourself back in the room. And when you’re ready, you can bring your attention to the screen… but take whatever time you need to exit. Don’t rush this. If you want, I’ll just give you a couple of minutes to jot anything down you want to record. We’re going to hear a lot of dream images. And so if you want to solidify what just came, feel free to write it down…

 

Tapestry of Dream Images

Some of the images that were offered by the group included a woman wearing a green sweater and holding the group safely; a sad little boy in blue pajamas; a forest bath; a beautiful and well-worn leather saddle; a violin on a table and a door to a stage; and dolphins shape-shifting into moose. I asked the group members to feel into the dream images and invited us all to experience where our curiosity would lead. By way of example, I started us off as follows:

What I noticed was that there are a lot of images of support, and invitations to go somewhere, move somewhere, do something. So I’m tempted to gather up the supportive image, like the support at the back of my neck in the forest bath, sitting on the horse in the saddle, and inviting the woman who is a safe guide for all of us… just kind of feeling into those supportive images and then going forward. Interestingly, of all the invitations, the place that calls to me is the open door to the stage with the violin. There’s an orchestra waiting… so I’m just going to give us all a few minutes to share this experience of gathering up the supportive images and then going forward onto the orchestra stage with the violin… we’ll have a few people offer what they experienced, but starting with the person who offered the prompt (me in this case).

Being in a saddle is a comfort zone for me. And I felt into the woman in the forest bath with the support at the back of my neck. Then I picked up this beautiful violin which was alive. I don’t play the violin but I just knew how to play it. As I went into the room with the orchestra, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I wasn’t playing the violin, it was playing through me, a beautiful solo. And then when I stopped and said something to the group, it was like everybody knew that now we’re going to play together. The orchestra starts and it just flows. It was a really beautiful experience.

This chiming in of the orchestra feels like an apt metaphor for the way the dream group members joined in the process of weaving these images and carrying them forward. The invocation brought a beautiful mix of dream images. Then the experiential prompts deepened our collective sense of these images, and the whole experience seemed to be carried along by our collective imagination. Here are a couple of comments from group members:

“I loved how this process gave us more permission to take each other’s dreams and try them on.  If I view it entirely from a personal perspective, I had the feeling that each person’s dream offered me a reflection of a different aspect of myself.  Although these aspects may be conscious (and of course some may be unconscious) I may not normally spend as much time experiencing them as this process allowed me to do.”

“As somebody who has a really rich and detailed imaginal world, both in waking and dreaming life, it feels beautifully intimate to weave our dream images together, to be impacted by other people’s imaginal content, and to hear the ways that the imagery I share is impacting others. I know we do an element of that in all dream groups, but it feels like there’s something different that happened today… it feels like more of a weaving of a shared tapestry.

 

Dreamweaving is one of the methods I will be teaching in the class I am offering early in 2024 on Leading Dream Groups. As I fine this method, there will be more offerings, so stay tuned!

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The Vagal Paradox: A Current Summary of Polyvagal Theory

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Porges’ recent article has two main purposes: first, to set out a clear, complete description of the Polyvagal Theory in accessible language to clear up confusion and misconceptions among those who apply and describe it; second, to systematically address criticism of PVT in the literature. This is a summary of the former, especially as it relates to the mental health professions.

Porges never dreamed that when he introduced the Polyvagal Theory (PVT) in 1994, it would attract both intense interest among trauma therapists, and also persistent criticism from some scientists. He wrote The vagal paradox: A polyvagal solution (2023) to correct some of the many misconceptions and misrepresentations about PVT in the literature. He takes pains to express the PVT as clearly as possible, aware that those without education in the foundational sciences required to understand the complexities of this cross-disciplinary theory will continue to apply it and describe it to their colleagues. He notes that “misunderstandings can become misinformation in the digital world.”

The ‘vagal paradox’ paper carefully describes the foundations of the theory, what it covers and does not. It is the clearest, most complete description of PVT to date. The following is a summary of the main ideas Porges presents about PVT, in particular what is new in how he describes the theory and what is of highest relevance to mental health professionals. It does not cover the sections where Porges tackles specific detractors of PVT, most often pointing out why their argument is irrelevant to PVT or shows a lack of understanding of its scope and foundations.

Porges devotes about half of the article to addressing his critics — the main point is that PVT is a respected and testable theory. It has been cited in more than 15,000 peer-reviewed journals. PVT has also been enthusiastically adopted as a non-pathologizing way for therapists to help those with a history of trauma to make sense of their body’s responses to threat, and to recover. As trauma therapists, we can use PVT with confidence that it rests on a solid academic foundation.

 

The vagal paradox

Much of the description of PVT is unchanged and will be familiar to those who have studied it. The theory came about as a solution to the ‘vagal paradox’ that the vagus nerve in mammals could be both health-promoting and lethal. Porges observed this paradox in his research with preterm infants, for whom the vagus, usually associated with helpful calming, could also stop the heart.

The vagus, a cranial nerve that travels from the brain stem to many organs, is the primary neural pathway of the parasympathetic nervous system. It is primarily sensory, with 80% of its fibres carrying information up from the organs to the brain. The other 20% are inhibitory motor fibres that can act as a brake on the heart and stimulate the gut.

How can the same nerve help or kill? Because it splits into two branches, emerging from the dorsal and ventral areas of the brain stem, and each function very differently. The PVT describes the anatomy, development, evolutionary history, and function of the two (poly) vagal systems.

The PVT had a focus on how the vagus nerve evolved differently in mammals (although modern reptiles and mammals share a common, ancient reptilian ancestry). Porges describes how in mammals, some of the cardioinhibitory neurons migrated from the dorsal to the ventral branch of the vagus to form part of the ‘ventral vagal complex.’ This allowed for down-regulation of threat responses necessary for nursing, co-regulation and attachment, which are distinctly social, mammalian features.

Porges describes how respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) can be used to track the impact of the two vagal pathways through early development. The myelinated cardioinhibitory fibers from the ventral vagal nucleus have a detectable respiratory rhythm. Research has shown RSA has lower amplitude in preterm infants, whose ventral pathways are not yet fully developed, and that this both improves as the infant matures and can be increased further through social engagement. By contrast, when bradycardia (slowed heart rate) is observed in preterm infants, this appears to be mediated mainly by dorsal vagal pathways (though further research is needed to determine if ventral pathways are also recruited).

 

Dissolution: Evolution in Reverse

An important key to understanding PVT is the Jacksonian principle of dissolution, the observation that evolutionally-newer circuits inhibit older ones except under stress or injury, when changes happen in reverse of this sequence. PVT extends this principle, originally applied to the brain, to include the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Our nervous system develops in this hierarchical fashion: older autonomic circuits (dorsal vagal and sympathetic nervous system) develop first, followed by the newer (ventral vagal, parasympathetic) circuits. It makes sense to Porges that older circuits “would sequentially be disinhibited to optimize survival… under challenge there is a progression that could be characterized as either evolution or development in reverse.”

Porges felt it important to note that the dorsal vagus has beneficial functions, especially related to digestive processes. “PVT proposes that when the ventral vagus is optimally managing a resilient autonomic nervous system both the sympathetic and dorsal vagus are synergistically coordinated to support homeostatic functions including health, growth and restoration. However, when ventral vagal influences are diminished… the sympathetic and dorsal pathways are poised to be sequentially recruited for defense.”  These steps are more commonly known as fight/flight and then collapse/immobility responses in the popular descriptions of PVT. In the body, these steps are observed as increased heart rate and suppression of the dorsal vagal calming of gut and heart. This sympathetic state is metabolically demanding. To reduce demands, the dorsal vagal influence may surge, lowering blood pressure, reducing heart contractility and clearing the bowel (dorsal vagal collapse).

 

Ventral Efficiency: A Dynamic Measure

The ventral vagus acts as a brake on the heart, which has an intrinsic rate of 90 beats per minute. “PVT specifically assumes that the vagal brake is mediated primarily through the myelinated ventral vagus and can be quantified by the amplitude of RSA.” Porges introduces a new measure, that of ventral vagal efficiency (VE), to account for the fact that the vagal brake functions in a dynamic manner in response to the environment. This involves evaluation of short sequential shifts or ‘epochs’ to capture the dynamic relationship between RSA and heart rate. Porges lists several studies using VE as a measure, including his own preliminary research showing lower VE for those with a history of maltreatment, which in turn mediated increased symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Porges suggests that VE reflects a disruption in feedback between the heart and brainstem that could lead to body numbness and index autonomic regulation to stressors and psychiatric symptoms. “Blunted VE may be a mechanism through which maltreatment induces mental health risk and interventions aimed at promoting efficient vagal regulation may be promising for improving resilience and wellbeing in trauma survivors.” He suggests VE could be a “powerful, low cost, easily quantifiable and scalable measure” for screening for low ventral vagal efficiency.

 

PVT: Five Key Principles

In order to understand PVT, Porges suggests there are five key principles. Most of them have already been described in this summary, but they will be explicitly listed below. PVT has evolved since its introduction 30 years ago, in part due to the intense interest and interaction with trauma therapists and survivors who found PVT to be a helpful and liberating explanation for their own embodied experiences. For example, many understood for the first time why they were unable to fight or flee when under attack.

In the process of developing PVT and interacting with the research and clinical communities that have embraced it – the notion of the vagal complex as a process not measurable through standard cause-and-effect principles has emerged. Porges describes PVT as a neural algorithm in which testing by traditional randomized controlled trials does not apply.

Instead, Porges envisions an index of autonomic signatures describing autonomic responses to specific situations. “Perhaps the most informative aspect of such an algorithm would be to identify the autonomic pathways that would support the ability to down regulate threat to enable mobilization and immobilization to occur with trusted others and not trigger defense… It is this process of functionally liberating mobilization and immobilization from defensive threat driven strategies that PVT hypothesizes to have supported the emergence of social behavior and cooperation in species of social mammals.”

This leads naturally to the first principle:

  1. Autonomic state functions as an intervening variable

This principle stresses the capacity of the ANS to dynamically respond, adapt, process and recover from challenges. “PVT emphasizes an important perspective missed by correlational research – how the ANS is part of an integrated response, not a covariate.” This notion transforms how research would be conducted since it emphasizes integration of autonomic, cortical and somatic systems, shifting research targets from correlation to all of the parameters that mediate such integration. Porges said this could curb the tendency to generate faulty causal inferences from high correlations that can lead to inappropriate treatments and poor outcomes.

  1. Three neural circuits form a phylogenetically ordered response hierarchy that regulate autonomic state adaptation to safe, dangerous and life-threatening environments.

This is the cornerstone of the PVT, and well documented in this and other polyvagal literature, however Porges continues to refine his description. The PVT emphasizes there are three neural circuits that regulate and shift autonomic state in response to signals of safety, danger and life threat. PVT describes the mammalian response hierarchy in terms of biobehavioural scripts initiated.

“The phylogenetic sequence is initiated by a dorsal vagus, followed by a spinal sympathetic system, and finally with the ventral vagus. By identifying the biobehavioural scripts of each of these circuits, we become appreciative of the efficiency of the three neural circuits in an attempt to optimize survival,” Porges wrote.  These scripts help us to identify when the system in a safe or threatened state, and if the latter is fight/flight or immobilization. PVT shows how in a safe (ventrally-mediated) state, the system supports health, growth, restoration and sociality.

  1. In response to challenge, the ANS shifts to states regulated by circuits that evolved earlier consistent with the Jacksonian principle of dissolution, a guiding principle in neurology.

This has been described above.

  1. Ventral migration of cardioinhibitory neurons leads to an integrated brainstem circuit (ventral vagal complex) that enable the coordination of suck-swallow-breathe-vocalize, a circuit that forms the neurophysiological substrate for an integrated social engagement system.

The ventral migration of cardioinhibitory neurons became integrated in the regulation of the striated facial muscles used in ingestion and expression. This led to the formation of a social engagement system in mammals that enables a shift from states of defense to those of connection through co-regulation. The PVT describes how the presence of trusted others, especially if they project calm and safety through voice and gesture, can help a person shift into a calmer state. Such features can also be incorporated into trauma therapy.

  1. Neuroception: reflexive detection of risk triggers adaptive autonomic state to optimize survival.

Porges coined the term ‘neuroception’ to emphasize that the scripts initiated by the ANS in response to perceived safety and threat operate outside of awareness and are not under cognitive control. Because these are survival responses, the time it takes to assess and think about a response might be too long, hence these processes are reflexive, “unimpeded by intentionality and cognitive appraisal.”

 

In conclusion…

This article has not only offered a complete, and accessible summary of the development and current state of the PVT, but has also shown that it rests on a firm academic foundation. In addition, it paves the way for future research, and prescribes a significant shift in how such research ought to be conducted to faithfully capture the dynamic and integrative nature of the ANS. Most importantly for clinicians, PVT offers a humane and hopeful path for those who have suffered severe trauma – both a way of understanding symptoms, and a supportive path toward healing.

 

Reference:

Porges, S. W. (2023). The vagal paradox: a polyvagal solution. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, 100200.

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Dreams of the Dead: Normal or macabre?

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In my daydreams, my grandmother and I sit on beach chairs and look out at the ocean. We’re on a deserted beach like something from Pirates of the Caribbean. She’s always there, contentedly sitting in a low-slung Adirondack chair amongst the grass tufts and dunes. When I drop in, she often tells me to slow down…

The secret is out: most of us maintain a conversation with deceased loved ones, in the form of dreams, sense of presence and/or some form of direct communication (telepathy, imagination, visitation…?) This recent finding by the Pew Research Centre is corroborated by the work of grief dream researcher Joshua Black, who says that dreams of the deceased tend to ease the process of grieving, offering messages of comfort and assurance.

Black became interested in grief dreams when he had a visitation in a dream about his father three months after his death. His dad had died suddenly, plunging Black into grief he described as numbness, “as if all the color had drained from the world.” In the dream, Black said his dad had an uncharacteristic lightness about him. “It was the first time I saw him peaceful.”

In the dream, Black got to tell his dad he missed and loved him. After that, the color returned to his world, and Black decided to devote his life’s work to researching dreams of the deceased. The desire to maintain continuing bonds with the dead is a key factor in such encounters and this is what Black continues to study.

For example, in 2020, he investigated the question: “Why are some dreams of the deceased experienced as comforting, while others are distressing?” In his study with 216 participants whose partner had died, he and his colleagues found that bereavement dreams appear to serve at least three distinct functions: they can assist with processing trauma; they can serve to maintain a bond with the deceased; and/or they can help regulate emotion. Taken together, these functions may “actively facilitate adjustment to bereavement.”

The recent Pew Research Centre study found that more than half of U.S. adults were visited in their dreams, or in some other way, by a dead family member. A third said they ‘felt the presence’ of a deceased relative, 28% said they told the dead relative something about their life, and 15% experienced the deceased communicating to them.

It turns out to be quite normal to have an ongoing relationship with loved ones who have passed away. Dreams, inner conversations and visitations are the typical forms this can take. A full 53 percent of the 5,079 surveyed said they experienced at least one of these interactions in the past year. This experience is more common to women than men, and greater amongst those who are moderately (but not highly) religious.

A question that arises is whether the dead have indeed spoken, through dreams or telepathy, or whether we are creating a personal representation of the loved ones we have lost when we dream about or speak to them. This depends greatly on what you believe about the nature of death and the possible continuity of consciousness beyond it. I like to think the dead really visit, similar to what those in Latin countries believe happens during the Day of the Dead rituals and celebrations.

Many cultures believe the deceased maintain communication with loved ones – and it is this belief that is at the centre of the Day of the Dead celebrations. During this period, which actually lasts several days, it’s believed that the border between living and spirit worlds dissolves, and souls of the dead return to feast and play with their loved ones.

Regardless of belief around the true nature of communication from those who have passed away, we know that maintaining a connection with the dead is common, and that it helps with the passage of grief and beyond. I still talk to my grandmother in my imaginal journeys, I feel her presence when I’m gardening and sometimes, just when I need it. I am heartened to discover that I am not alone in these comforting encounters.

 

Black, J., Belicki, K., Emberley-Ralph, J., & McCann, A. (2022). Internalized versus externalized continuing bonds: Relations to grief, trauma, attachment, openness to experience, and posttraumatic growth. Death studies, 46(2), 399-414.

Tevinton, P. & Corichi, M., 2023. Many Americans report interacting with dead relatives in dreams or other ways, Pew Research Center. United States of America. Retrieved from https://policycommons.net/artifacts/4775476/many-americans-report-interacting-with-dead-relatives-in-dreams-or-other-ways/5611706/ on 30 Aug 2023. CID: 20.500.12592/wcfmq3.

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How to Have Beautiful Daydreams: Reassign the Inner Critic

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The minute you turn your attention inside, are you greeted with a cruel, relentless voice that hits you in the most tender, wounded places? For some people, the invitation for the mind to wander leads directly to the inner critic. Below are some ideas to help make your inner world a more supportive place.

In our lives (and in our clinical practices), we have all encountered the inner critic, an inner watchdog alert to our every real or imagined misstep. This can be a true impediment to connecting deeply with ourselves from the inside. Although everyone has a different version, the basic experience is the same: that of a repetitive and demeaning refrain that knows our particularly sensitive spots and sends critical messages right on target. Often just as we (or our clients) start to feel good and strong, an inner voice enters that deflates us, telling us we are not smart/successful/good/pretty/talented… in some way, just not enough.

In my 20 years of clinical practice, I have encountered many versions of the inner critic and find that the more trauma someone has suffered, the more intense this inner voice becomes. I think it’s in part because as children, we rely so much on our caregivers that if something is wrong with the relationship, it is too scary to blame those we rely on for our very survival. So the badness must be inside of us. It is a protective idea that helps at the time but outlives its usefulness. However, because it was acquired at a young age, the critic’s message often feels ‘true’ and is accepted without question. You might want to consider its origin and question its message. It can be a revelation to simply say, you don’t have to believe your inner critic.

The inner critic is an ancient survival mechanism

Neuroscience expert Dan Siegel says the inner critic originates in our internal ‘checker,’ the vigilant part of ourselves that enabled our ancestors to survive. Those who were most alert to danger, and to something being wrong were more likely to survive and to pass on their genetic heritage. However, the ‘checker’ can manifest in many unhelpful ways such as obsessive compulsion, anxiety and also as the inner critic.

This idea that our inner critic is an outdated survival mechanism inherited from our ancestors may give us a bit of objective distance from it. The inner critic is not something to believe without question, especially as most of us now live in a world where physical survival is rarely at stake.

Siegel’s suggestions for working with the inner critic are: to get curious about the nature of that voice, notice what brings it up and what it wants for you. Or more often, what it doesn’t want for you, as the inner critic often stops us from doing things. Thank it for its protectiveness, notice the ways it has become too cruel or vigilant,  and mutually try to figure out a better way to forward.

Thoughts are not facts

Just because something enters our mind doesn’t mean we have to believe it’s true. This may seem obvious, but very often people in the grip of an internal attack do not stop to question the veracity of their thoughts. In depressed clients, I have often seen them make up a whole story that makes themselves wrong or bad, maybe involving other people they imagine are thinking disparaging things about them – and then react as though this entire fantasy is real.  I like to label these thought trails as fantasy. Then I invite them to inquire into the origin of this felt sense, and to tend to it from there. When the source of the self-criticism is tended to, the critic tends to shift and soften too.

The critic often has its roots in childhood, and from that vantage point, the message might make more sense, because it actually was, or felt like it was, true at the time. Or it somehow offered necessary protection, for example keeping us subdued and quiet so as to be less of a target. I suggest my clients give the critic a new job: Update the critic on the current situation, enlist their constructive help. The critic can become an ally.

Reassign the ‘Loyal Soldier’

Hiroo Onoda was a Japanese soldier who refused to surrender after World War Two ended. He spent 29 years in the jungle on an island in the Philippines, engaged in his military duties (and killing 30 people!). He remained there until 1974, because he truly did not believe that the war had ended.

During his time on the island, he ignored search parties and leaflets sent from Japan to get him to surrender, dismissing them as ploys. He was finally persuaded to emerge after his ageing former commanding officer was flown in to personally relieve him of his duties. Still dressed in a tattered uniform, he handed over his Samurai sword and went home to Japan where he was greeted. He became a rancher and survival training teacher. He died in 2014 at age 91.

This story suggests many things I think are true of the inner critic: that the critic has good intentions and is protective in some way, that it is operating on an outdated set of orders that it will not easily give up, and that in order to shift its energy to something more constructive, it needs to be acknowledged, thanked, relieved of its duties and reassigned. It needs to know the war is over and it can put its sword down.

Because the inner critical voice is thought-based, sometimes cognitive techniques can be helpful. Therapist and author Rick Hanson suggests thought-labelling: “Oh – anxiety. Oh – self-criticism. Oh – alarmist thinking.” This has been shown in research to do two good things in the brain:  it increases activity in prefrontal regions that are involved with executive control, and it lowers the activity in the amygdala, reducing the sense of alarm.

Hanson refers to an idea that originated with Jung: the concept of the self as a committee of various parts. “If the brain is a committee, the chair of the committee, roughly, tends to live right behind the forehead. So when you increase activation of the chair of the committee, who in effect is then able to say to the self-critical member of the committee, “Oh, we hear you already. We got it. Enough already. Hand the microphone to somebody else.”

Recruit your inner cheerleader

To combat our natural tendency toward the negative, I suggest finding the cheerleader or support person to sit on your inner committee.  If you don’t have one, recruit one. Just as the inner critic is often a composite of the authoritative and judgmental aspects of important people in your life, you can find or create a composite of those who supported you most. Or simply evoke a person or character that can be that for you. Then, when you notice the inner critic speaking, you can turn to the inner support person and ask for their opinion. It’s also like asking: what would the person who supports and loves you most say to that nasty statement from the critic? Let this sink in and be a counterweight to the critic. Over time, you will find that the inner world will become a more benign and supportive place.

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Go Play Inside: Cultivating a Compelling Inner Life, Three Ways

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Chasing external sources of happiness may have failed you, as ultimately our deepest satisfaction comes from within. But often when people turn their attention inward, they don’t like what they find. Dr. Leslie Ellis offers three ways to constructively engage with your inner life.

We all know the road to greater life satisfaction has more to do with how we feel on the inside than with any external riches we may gather, whether they be material possessions, good looks or accomplishments. We all know we should meditate, connect with our deeper self and learn to be content with life as it is right now, rather than waiting for some imagined future where everything will be wonderful again. However, many who turn their attention inward don’t like what they find: stress, inner criticism or maybe just a blank space that isn’t all that engaging.

In my 20 years as a psychotherapist, I have developed a number of simple and constructive ways to check inside that my clients tell me have changed their lives for the better. My goal is always to make my suggestions simple, doable and effective regardless of what might be going on in outside life, where so much of what happens is clearly beyond our control. At least with our inner world, we have some ability to temper and modulate our responses.

Managing stress: your inner tachometer

Getting stress levels under control is the first priority for so many of us. My sense, in working with so many clients with anxiety or depression, is that stress levels are chronically high, and we are not always aware of it. If you are in this boat, I suggest imagining an inner tachometer — and for those who don’t drive a car with a standard transmission, this means the device the measures the RPM of the engine. It idles in the green zone, works hard in the orange zone and can do damage in the red zone.

Try it now: where is your inner tachometer? Those who suffer from chronic stress spend too much time in the red zone. If you tend to take on too much and are always too busy, try to assess decisions about whether or not to add something more to your plate by the state of your inner tachometer. If it’s pushing toward red, do something to bring it down. Say no to the extra commitment, or to packing your appointments so close together you are always rushing. An engine that stays in the green zone lasts longer and our bodies are like that engine. We can’t always control the RPM, but this simple exercise in awareness can shift the tendency to rev on the red line too often.

Befriending yourself: taming the inner critic

The next thing many people find when they look inside, once they have taken the RPMs down a notch, is a nasty, critical voice that seems to find just the right thing to say to undermine confidence and stall forward momentum. Everyone has a version of this, an inner authority figure that combines parental, teacher and employer’s voices to tell us all the ways we are not measuring up. DON’T take it seriously! For many, it is a revelation when I tell them this voice doesn’t speak the truth. It is an artefact of childhood, and the more challenging our early years were, the harsher this voice will be.

A good test: how would you feel if a friend spoke to you in this tone of voice? You would rightfully be insulted and push back. Do the same with your inner critic. Since our brains are wired to focus more on the negative, you need to counter this tendency with something positive. Recruit an inner cheerleader to debate with the critic. Imagine what your best friends and biggest fans would say in response. Engage in an inner debate, don’t just agree with your critic, and you will begin to loosen its hold.

Recruit the critic. Ask yourself what the purpose of this inner critic might be. Inner reflection shows they tend to be afraid for us, want us to succeed, and want us to be motivated. You could start an inner dialogue with the critic and request that it find a better way to talk to you. As you would with a child, tell it to ask nicely for what it wants. Find a way to change its tune so it becomes more of an ally. Give it a name, learn its theme song, and listen only when the music sounds pleasing. Otherwise, change the channel, turn your attention elsewhere.

Attend to your dreams: your inner barometer

One of the most accessible ways to develop a rich inner life is to engage with your dreams. We all dream a feature film’s worth of dreams every night, although only a fraction is ever recalled. But if you pay attention to your dreams, write them down and ponder them, they become easier to recall and begin to speak to you directly from your deepest self.

Many people tell me they don’t recall their dreams, or if they do, they can’t make sense of them. One way to understand dreams is as picture-metaphors of whatever feelings are currently most important. Dreams are not meant to be understood as a linear story, but more as an image of your inner life. Spending time with the felt sense of the images in your dreams, drawing pictures of them, telling others about them and carrying them with you like an essential question will often open up the dream and bring you critical information from your authentic inner self. In short, do not ignore your dreams! Instead of trying to figure them out, let them come alive inside you, and ponder them as you would a poem or piece of art.

To sum up, we’ve covered three simple ways to engage more with your inner life. The first two suggestions are aimed at making it more attractive to look inside — since stress and the inner critic are two of the main reasons many of us prefer not to look inward. The third suggestion, to listen to your dreams, has the potential to open up a richly imaginative world that is a huge untapped resource in your journey toward your deeper self. Dreams regulate our emotions, point to what matters most, and can be our best guide on our life’s journey. They can also be funny, creative and compelling, all the more reason to go play inside.

For those interested in helping clients (or yourself) further to tame the inner critic and cultivate constructive and helping mind meandering, sign up for our free seminar online, coming Sept. 6.

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Daydreaming is Our Baseline State, Not Something to Avoid

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We spend half of our waking lives daydreaming. This may or may not be a good thing – it depends what your daydreams are like.

A Harvard study on daydreaming entitled ‘A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind’ may be giving daydreaming a bad rap. In a culture dominated by a drive for productivity, there is a sense that allowing our minds to wander freely hampers focus and the ability to get things done. This is why derogatory terms such as ‘spacing out’, ‘intrusive’ or ‘non-relevant’ thinking and ‘cognitive control failure’ are used to describe this normal human activity.

Naomi Kimmelman presented these ideas at the recent conference for the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD). She suggested that it is the kind of wandering your mind does that determines whether it’s helpful or not. Renowned daydream researcher Jerome Singer differentiated three styles of daydreaming: positive-constructive, guilty-dysphoric and poor attentional control. Cleary, the first category is a helpful state to be in, while the latter two are not.

Much of the research into daydreaming has focused on its negative attributes, but one study (McMillan, Kaufman & Singer, 2013) examined the question, how can something we spend half our time doing be so bad for us? In fact, their review of the research shows that in the brain’s ‘default mode’ we are consolidating memories, planning, problem solving, being creative and making meaning of the events of our lives. The authors highlight a review by Immordino-Yang et al. (2012) that stresses the importance of ‘constructive internal reflection’ for the development of a range of social and emotional skills such as moral reasoning, empathy, compassion and meaning-making.

The main thing to note from the plethora of daydream research in the past decade is that daydreaming is not inherently bad or good, but rather, it depends on how you daydream. For example, one study (Mar, 2012) found that daydreaming about close friends promoted a sense of social support, while daydreaming about strangers emphasized feelings of loneliness. The ‘guilty-dysphoric’ type of rumination identified by Singer is associated with depression.

It is a paradox that how you allow your mind to wander matters, when by definition, it’s a state of mind we don’t control. However, awareness of such states and deliberate active imagination practices may allow our wandering minds to stay in the creative states that are so helpful. Of course, we need to strike a balance between daydream and focused attention so we are able to rein in our meandering thoughts when we truly need to focus on the task at hand.

It helps to know that we can only focus part of the time. In another conference presentation about dreaming in the context of work life, Dr. Rubin Naiman noted that our minds naturally go through an oscillation between basic rest and activity (BRAC), even when we are working. During a work day, we will spend perhaps 70% of the time in a left-brain-dominant task-oriented mode and the rest of the time in a more right-hemispheric dreamy state. There is no point or reason to fight this or to think of ourselves as ‘lazy’ or ‘unfocused’ if our attention drifts off about a third of the time. It is normal, and impossible not to daydream, even while at work.

Both presentations underscore the importance of and ubiquity of daydreaming – it gives us a mental break, fosters creativity and allows us to view the world with a larger perspective. It slips us into a state of being rather than doing, a state that as a culture, we might want to value more.  I will close with a quote by Cheri Huber that Naiman shared: Please don’t do yourself the disservice of thinking there is anything you can do that is more important than just being.

Want to learn more about how to ensure your mind wanders along creative and helpful paths, rather than down the spiral of rumination and worry? We are offering a free (pay-what-you-can) seminar on Sept. 6, 2023 at 10am PACIFIC – and it will available as a recording if you miss it or can’t attend live. 

References

Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science, 330(6006), 932-932.

Mar, R. A., Mason, M. F., & Litvack, A. (2012). How daydreaming relates to life satisfaction, loneliness, and social support: The importance of gender and daydream content. Consciousness and cognition, 21(1), 401-407.

McMillan, R. L., Kaufman, S. B., & Singer, J. L. (2013). Ode to positive constructive daydreaming. Frontiers in psychology, 4, 626.

Singer, J. L. (1975). The inner world of daydreaming. Harper & Row.