Look for insight at more than one level

Ask what the dream says about your waking life, about the parts of you in conflict, and about the larger questions of meaning in your life.

Why it works

In Hill's insight stage the dreamer and therapist build an understanding of the dream at different levels: as a comment on waking-life events, as a picture of inner dynamics or parts of the self, or in existential or spiritual terms. Having more than one lens available matters because the same dream can read differently at each level, and the dreamer can test which reading actually brings a new understanding.

How to do it

1. After exploring the main images, write one sentence on what the dream might say about something happening in your waking life.
2. Write a second sentence reading the figures as parts of you: which parts are present, and how are they relating?
3. Write a third on any larger question it touches: meaning, mortality, what you are living for.
4. Notice which of the three readings feels most alive and new, and stay with that one.

Evidence

In a randomized study of 105 volunteer clients who each had a single dream session using Hill's model, the insight stage used either a waking-life or a parts-of-self interpretation, assigned at random, and the two did not differ in session outcome. Clients who had positive attitudes toward dreams and brought pleasant dreams had better sessions. A qualitative analysis of transcripts of Hill-model sessions in Taiwan found waking-life association, exploring parts of the self, gaining insight and action ideas among the helpful components. (observational)

The randomized study compared two versions of the insight stage with each other, not dream work against no dream work, and it was a single session with trained therapists and volunteer clients. It found that volunteers bringing unpleasant dreams and negative attitudes toward dreams had poorer sessions, so a single session is not the place to work a disturbing dream alone.

Sources

• Hill, C. E., Kelley, F. A., Davis, T. L., Crook, R. E., Maldonado, L. E., Turkson, M. A., et al. (2001). Predictors of outcome of dream interpretation sessions: Volunteer client characteristics, dream characteristics, and type of interpretation. Dreaming, 11(2), 53-72.
• Hill, C. E. (Ed.). (2004). Dream Work in Therapy: Facilitating Exploration, Insight, and Action. American Psychological Association.
• 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.

Common mistake

Deciding in advance which level is the "real" one. Hill's own randomized comparison found no advantage for one level over another; the useful reading is the one that tells you something new.

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