{"id":2775,"date":"2011-06-28T05:00:01","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T09:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=2775"},"modified":"2011-06-28T05:04:10","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T09:04:10","slug":"mark-twain-contemplates-dream-theater-for-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/06\/mark-twain-contemplates-dream-theater-for-healing.html","title":{"rendered":"Mark Twain contemplates dream theater for healing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In \u201cWhich Was the Dream?\u201d, a story begun the year after his beloved Susy\u2019s sudden death from meningitis, Mark Twain attributes a series of terrifying dreams to a child character called \u201cBessie\u201d. There is good reason to think that Bessie (\u201call soap-bubbles and rainbows and fireworks\u201d) was modeled closely on Susy\u2019s childhood self. It is likely that Bessie\u2019s scary dreams \u2013 with the recurring theme of being pursued and eaten by bears \u2013 were also modeled on Susy\u2019s dreams. Dreams of being attacked by bears often herald illness. Since the bear, in North America, is a medicine animal, being at odds with a bear in dreams is something to investigate very carefully as a possible health advisory.<\/p>\n

In describing Bessie\u2019s dreams, Mark Twain begins in a breezy, nonchalant fashion: \u201cLike most people, Bessie is pestered by recurring dreams.\u201d Then he stuns us by revealing the content: \u201cHer stock item is that she is being eaten by bears. It is the main horror of her life. Last night she had that dream again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he describes Bessie thinking hard about these horrible dreams, and looking up like one who feels she has not been dealt a fair hand in life, and saying. \u201cBut mamma, the trouble is, I am never the bear<\/em> but always the person eaten<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now the author introduces a thrilling and utterly unexpected plot development. The parents are hatching a plan to turn Bessie\u2019s \u201cpersecuting dream\u201d into something quite different. In a surprise performance to be mounted that same evening during Bessie\u2019s birthday party, her father\u2019s \u201chigh capacities in the way of invention\u201d will be used to turn her dream into \u201csomething quite romantically and picturesquely delightful.\u201d<\/p>\n

How would this be contrived? By putting Bessie in a bear suit and having her pursue and pretend to eat party goers? By having a crowd of people in bear suits flee before her? Or by having her make friends with the bear, and feed him birthday cake, and dance with him?<\/p>\n

We do not know, because the party is never held. A terrible fire that night destroys the house, and the father and his family are thrown into such turmoil and tragedy that their previous good fortune seems like a fading dream. Mark Twain proceeds to explore one of the favorite themes of his later years: the difficulty of distinguishing the dream of physical existence from any other dream.<\/p>\n

But in the passage relating to Bessie\u2019s dreams \u2013 perhaps looking back over Susy\u2019s tragedy with hindsight \u2013 he has taken a long step towards understanding and portraying two vital aspects of dream healing. The first is that dreams alert us to possible problems before the crisis develops. The second is that by reworking dream imagery \u2013 if we can do this with sufficient \u201cinvention\u201d and authenticity and drama \u2013 we can move towards resolution and healing. We can stop being the \u201cperson eaten\u201d and claim the healing gifts of the bear.<\/p>\n

It seems that, like the characters of his story, Mark Twain was unable to apply this insight fully in the circumstances of his family life. But the fact that he grasped it tells us that he was, in truth, a deep dreamer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Which Was the Dream? And Other Symbolic Writings of the Later Years. <\/em>Edited by John S. Tuckey. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968, 46-7. For a full account of Mark Twain’s life as a dreamer and student of coincidence, see my Secret History of Dreaming.<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In \u201cWhich Was the Dream?\u201d, a story begun the year after his beloved Susy\u2019s sudden death from meningitis, Mark Twain attributes a series of terrifying dreams to a child character called \u201cBessie\u201d. There is good reason to think that Bessie (\u201call soap-bubbles and rainbows and fireworks\u201d) was modeled closely on Susy\u2019s childhood self. It is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,13,5,19,20,12,8],"tags":[353,1813,112,354,350,351,352],"class_list":["post-2775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-dreams","category-dream-symbols","category-dreams","category-healing-dreams","category-history-of-dreaming","category-meaning-of-dreams","category-synchronicity","tag-bears","tag-dream-diagnosis","tag-dream-theater","tag-healing-imagery","tag-mark-twain","tag-susy","tag-which-was-the-dream"],"yoast_head":"\nMark Twain contemplates dream theater for healing - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/06\/mark-twain-contemplates-dream-theater-for-healing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mark Twain contemplates dream theater for healing - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In \u201cWhich Was the Dream?\u201d, a story begun the year after his beloved Susy\u2019s sudden death from meningitis, Mark Twain attributes a series of terrifying dreams to a child character called \u201cBessie\u201d. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2775"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2779,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2775\/revisions\/2779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}