Traditional analytic methods are commonly interpreting dreams, in view of not doing "savage" analysis. Could we not find there a fear of being confronted multiple interpretations?
In certain therapies, symptomatic approaches may sometimes become more caricaturistic ones, which do not all for a true and deep research of the plurality of causes which led to suffering, to illness. This is primarily a question of efficacy, of quickly obtaining visible results. The disappearance of symptoms is presented as definitive and, quite often, the problems will, sooner or later, come back under a similar or different form.
In onirotherapy, the processing is different. Research of the multiplicity of causes remains essential. From dream to dream, the subject is led towards his own inner truth. Apart from socio-cultural groups and schools of thought, the dreamer does discover his inner master.
Why has the multiple interpretation of dreams always been extremely neglected?
Perhaps because it is often difficult, or even painful, to examine the various meanings of oniric tales.
The fear of changing can result in the anguish of a fatal destabilization. This occurs only with the Ideal of Self where a redemptive way out may be found. I add here: the notion of Ideal Ego and Ideal of Ego which includes the research of perfection and the desire for a spiritual realization, through the ceaseless confrontation of contradictory ideas.
Psychoanalysis is founded upon the denial of castration. All activities of the person are based only on hiding the fear of death. Lacan separates two brakes: the censoring system and the defense mechanism.
Fears, resisting powers are directly related to the philosophy of Karma. When the concepts of Karma and reincarnation enter into psychoanalysis, the subject is considered to be responsible for his acts and for all the events of his existence.
The suppression or mellowing of negative Karma shows up in dreams analysis, through the will, or by metamorphosis, and dream messages can be used to repair traumas (bad experiences). The subject thus has a preventive action, through the mediation of the analyst who will balance the visible progress through oniric interpretations.
In those tales, various anguishes (sorrows) manifest themselves :
The discovery of Karma and of former lives can read in dreams. By descending into childhood, infancy and finally intra-uterine existence, it becomes possible to resolve traumas and conditionings undergone during those periods. Thus the access to former lives is opened. In that stage, characteristics proper to former periods (architecture, clothes, historical events, language, etc...) appear in dreams, describing situations which mirror the dreamer's present preoccupations.
If the investigator advances more into oniric experience, he will realize that suppression of fear is acquired through the channel of a discovery of initiatory dreams.
The metamorphosis of parental images gradually leads to the images of the inner master.
The road of dreams traces and codifies the treading of the earthly quest, of which we may, at each moment, change the sequence and issue. That is sufficient reason to search for the significance of oniric messages.
To experience metaphysical dreams, it is necessary - as stipulated by François Brousse ("Les Visiteurs des Millénaires", 2nd edition - La Licorne Ailée, 1990):
Physical suffering may be suppressed by the yogic breathings and concentrations.
Moral, suffering supposes frustration. Spiritual detachment, allied to love directed towards humans and animals, lessens the so vivid colors of passionate suffering.
Mental suffering bears that redoubtable name: doubt. Daily meditation on metaphysical themes will finally entirely expel it. Suffering is an illusion."
I shall focus on the nature of pathological anxiety and its relation to a transformation in consciousness in psychosis, and the relation of this to deep transformative processes aimed at in the psychosis, and shall ultimately view the process from a spiritual perspective. The justification for this perspective includes the fact that persons undergoing psychotic experience with positive symptomology frequently have religious experience and ideation, reflected in their imaginative products (view psychiatrically as hallucinations and delusions) viewed religiously and sympathetically as visions, revelations, and apocalyptic insights--albeit in a psychotic context. Such ideations is often experience with tremendous anxiety (pre-psychotic and psychotic panic). Because the religious experience arises in psychotic experiential context does not mean that it should be ignored or thought to be merely a psychotic symptom or manifestation of brain disorder (although that may also be present). On the contrary, it may be that the religious ideations and spiritual content is just the point of the psychotic process. The psychotic process is a spiritually transformative process, and this will be illustrated in a case study (from my book Psychotherapy and the Sacred: Religious Experience and Religious Resources in Psychotherapy.)This case study will illustrated the religious and spiritual themes of the psychosis with a color slide presentation of the suffer's artistic representations of his Visions (or if you prefer, spiritual Hallucinations), and an examination of the sympathetic treatment process.
Two major foci will be explored. The nature of psychotic panic at the onset of the psychotic process will be explored as a form of ontological anxiety over possible non-being under special pathological conditions. The non-being experienced as a threat to the sufferer is not fear of death, but of annihilation of the soul, of annihilation of meaning, and the annihilation of his/her being in the deepest sense. In short, it is anxiety over the annihilation of having any possible authentic self. (Questions of biochemical causes and need for medications are bracketed so that the psychological and spiritual dimensions of the psychotic experience may be elucidated).
The psychodynamic and developmental context for this pathological condition will clarify the deep injury to the self in the experience of the early parental environment. Damage to self-image and self-esteem leads to compensatory construction of a "false self", consisting largely of ego-persona identifications designed to promote survival and access to whatever nurturing accepting supplies are available. This defensive program is viewed as intelligent, but as limited in effectiveness. Eventually the wounded false self constructions come under psychotic assault. The sufferer may experience fantasies and even delusions of grandeur and cosmic importance, even of Divinity--exhaltations which compensate for actual feelings of smallness, worthlessness, and insignificance. Neither polarity is realistic, and the collisions between these twin streams of experiences is libidinal explosions into active symptoms. Often there are themes of apocalytpic world-destruction and world- transformation. It is the premorbid "world" (welt) of the wounded suffer which much be transformed, not the outer world (as he or she may at first believe).At this point their is a deep regression to the psyche's deep center, its archetypal core or source. Here archetypal experiences are activated, libidio is withdrawn from the outer world (hence loss of "reality testing") as the soul seeks to break up its false identifications (false self) and to reconstitute itself on an authentic basis. In summary, the psychotic process is a healing attempt a transformation of the self by returning the wounded self to its ontological origins.
A purely biochemical or behavioral approach to this type of psychosis is injurious to the patient because it disqualifies his/her experience, and may even deepen the wound to the self. The role of the spiritually concerned psychotherapist is to be familiar with the psycho-spiritual domains the suffer is passing through, to act as support and guide to a process the has a deep psychic autonomy and teleology. For the therapist to have some sort of theological perspective whereby he or she can understand and affirm the Divine or Sacred as working within the psyche to bring about transformation strengthens the sufferer's belief that there is hope, and that the voyage into the depths is worth the often terrifying struggle. The psychotherapist's faith in the teleological purposes of the psyche, and in the transcendent as somehow immanent in that deep transformative process can attenuate both the patient's pathological anxiety, and help him creatively face his/her ontological anxiety. Finally, implications for medication in the context of this spiritual model of treatment are discussed.