The high point of my working week at Berkeley Place
has often been our dream group. It has helped me to take
care of my needs by  allowing me  to share my own deep
interest  in  dreams  and  their creative  elaboration.  Our
dream  group evolved  out  of  our  treatment program in
creative  arts;  and although we now are concentrating on
dreams  and   nightmares,  we  still  use  artwork, journal
writing and fantasy in our dream group.
     Berkeley Place residents are open to their dream  life
and  experience  it  as  a  powerful  and formative, though
not  always  intelligible,  reality.  Like  many  of  us, they
experience    savage    nightmares,   startlingly   beautiful
images   and    haunting,   recurring    dreams.   They  also
experience powerful inner voices, entities  and  split-off
personalities  lording   over  them.  Frequently,   extreme
anxiety  dreams  appear to  relate  to early family history
and   traumas.   Their   dreams   also   seem   to  diagnose
symbolically current life dilemmas.
     One  23-year—old  man  had  a  recurring  dream  that
"an  ax   is  about  to  come  down  on   me   at  exactly  12
midnight.   It  always  seems   about  to  drop   on  me  and
I   never   know   whether  I   will   live  or   die."  Later  in
waking  life,   this  man  overdosed   on   heroin  and  was
pronounced dead. Just as  his death certificate was being
made out, one medic insisted on  one last revival attempt
with  heart  massage   and   a   methedrine   injection.  He
revived and awoke. The first thing  he  saw was the clock.
It was 12 midnight. While discussing this dream with me
afterwards, he said that he felt that he had  been  given  a
reprieve from  the  constant  threat of being  guillotined.
He felt that he  had received a message that  he would be
allowed to live. He now indeed wanted to live.
     Resolution of anxiety and conflicts that are presented
in  dreams  seems  analogous  to dealing with these same
debilitating  conflicts  that   shape  our  waking   lives.  In
dreamwork   with   the  residents,  I   encourage  them  to
confront and overthrow inner tyrants, and to break out of
the smog into clear new  life possibilities. Resolution  is
usually   not   instantaneous   but   requires  faithful  self-
exploration, guidance  and  ripeness  for change. Usually
our  dreamwork  functions  on  the  elementary,  but very

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