Make your own associations to each dream image

For every image in the dream, write down the words, memories and feelings it brings up for you, before deciding what anything means.

Pourquoi ça marche

Johnson's first step rests on the view that dream images are personal: a bird, a house or an old teacher carries the meaning your own life has given it, which a symbol dictionary cannot know. Gathering associations image by image slows down the rush to a meaning and collects the raw material the later steps work with. The associations that carry the most feeling tend to be the ones worth following.

Comment faire

1. As soon as you wake, write the dream down as fully as you can, without tidying or explaining it.
2. List every distinct image: people, places, objects, animals, colours, words spoken, the mood of the scene.
3. Take one image at a time and write whatever comes: words, memories, feelings, people it reminds you of.
4. Read back over the lists and mark the one or two associations that carry the most feeling. Those are where the dream is likely pointing.

Données probantes

Making associations is the first of the four steps in Johnson's Inner Work, a book of Jungian practice drawn from his work as an analyst. Hill's therapist-led model also includes associations to each image within its exploration stage. Johnson's steps themselves have not been tested in controlled research. (anecdotal)

The value of this step rests on Johnson's clinical tradition and practitioner experience; the research on Hill's model tests a related, therapist-led procedure, so it supports the step only by analogy.

Sources

• Johnson, R. A. (1986). Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth. Harper & Row.
• Tien, H.-L. S., Chen, S.-C., & Lin, C.-H. (2009). Helpful components involved in the cognitive-experiential model of dream work. Asia Pacific Education Review, 10(4), 547-559.

Erreur fréquente

Jumping to a meaning after the first image, or swapping in what a dream dictionary says. Once you have decided, every later association bends to fit, and the personal meaning gets lost.