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suggestion that our dreams are not worth remembering-
in effect, an instruction to ourselves
to forget our
dreams.
Still another source of our resistance
is fear, a fear
of what we may discover in our
dreams. As amateur
psychoanalysts we often assume that dreams can reveal
only our negative qualities and serve only to destroy
the
convenient illusions we have about ourselves.
But we
should not allow this preconception to prevent us
from
considering the positive possibilities as well.
A more typical source of resistance
arises from the
demands of our daily existence. Our dreams
may seem
to have little relevance to our immediate
concerns and
we may feel that the time it takes in the
morning to pay
proper respect to our dreams interferes with our
desire
to get a quick start on the day. Therefore, it is important
for us to reaffirm the importance of dreams so that they
can effectively compete for our attention.
Nevertheless, in spite of our best intentions,
there will
be periods when we do not remember our
dreams. One
may speculate as to possible causes for cycles in dream
recall. Sometimes a dry spell is the result of a temporary
condition, such as the pressures of an external
situation,
or the need to divert energy from self—preoccupation.
But when we are reunited with our dreams, our previous
experience in recalling them will
make for a speedy
recovery.
The Commemoration
of Dreams
There
are a number of ways to give attention
to our
dreams. First, maintaining a dream
diary is essential.
Having a special book for recording
and preserving
our dreams is a powerfully symbolic gesture of respect
for them. A dream journal has
the double advantage
of sparing our memory the impossible
task of storing
all our dreams and
at the same time providing us
with a space in which to develop,
by writing out, our
realizations of the meanings in the dreams. As the
book
grows, it becomes more and more of a reference
work.
As someone once said, "The best book on dreams
is the
one you write yourself."
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