A picture is worth a thousand words

Youve heard it so many times that it sounds trite. But a picture really IS value a thousand words. And if a dream is a very special kind of picture, how much is IT expensey?Maybe more? What about very simple pictures and very simple dreams? No doubt theyre worth a little bit less than complex, elaborate ones. Or argon they?In my psychotherapy anatomy one day, I presented my undergraduate students with these questions. Heres a very simple dream from a psychotherapy node I worked with geezerhood ago. I wont tell you anything about the client. Ill just tell you his dream, and then lets see what we brush aside discover about him by exploring it O.K? Heres the dreamI was wearing a white shirt and a gallant tie.The students just stare at me, expecting more to come. No, I explain, thats it. Thats the dream. Now lets start to explore it.I then lead them through a group process of free associating to the dream (much like I describe on the Working and Playing with Dreams Page). Just le t your imagination go. Take every cistron of the dream and just let your mind wander on it. Whatever comes to mind. Dont censor anything, thats important.There is no make up or wrong. It can be a fun, playful exercise although the results sometimes may be effective and powerful. Freud thought that free association bypasses the defenses of rational, logical thinking and unlocks deeper links within the unconscious. It opens one up to fantasy, symbolism, and sense the very place from which dreams spring.Here is a list of some of the associations the students come up with. For the purpose of this member Ive organized them somewhat, whereas during the actual exercise the ideas surface in a much more freewheeling drift of consciousnessPURPLE . royalty, bruises, choking, holding ones breath, grief, a combination of blue and pink, goes well with black, The Color of PurpleTIE . formal attire, passage to work, phallic symbol, tied(p) up, being tied to something, chokes the neck, con finingPURPLE TIE . unconventional, stands out, ill-affected, showing offWHITE . clean, pure, unstained, good, lightSHIRT . the top part, covered up, tucked in, stuffed shirt, where are the pants?WHITE SHIRT. conventional, boring, going to work, going to church, corporate AmericaWHITE SHIRT AND PURPLE TIE. erratic combination, contradictory combination, very unconventional, tie really stands outDEPLETION?. theres nobody else in the dream, its so static, theres nothing happening, where are the feelings? subsequently we finish this free associating, I then describe the client to the class.At the time Dan had the dream, he was 23 years old. I would describe him as a quiet, held-back person who was very confined (the tie) in how he talked, behaved, and matt-up towards others. Put bluntly, people found him rather boring to be with (white shirt). His emotional and interpersonal life were clogged (the tie).He had almost no friends and felt little connection to his family (the tie again). Other than going to his tedious subcontract (white shirt) as a low level technician for a computer company, essentially nothing was happening in his static, uneventful life (depletion).Dan was also very limited in understanding anything but the most surface, top-level (shirt) characteristics of his personality. Although externally conventional in how he dressed and acted at his job (white shirt), secretly he felt rebellious against authority (purple tie on white shirt) and generally superior (purple) to most people.He liked to think of himself as a political activist who firmly believed in the rights of abused (purple) people and felt more tied to them than anyone else. Comparing outside to inside, he was a bit of a contradiction (white shirt on purple tie).