{"id":3577,"date":"2011-11-23T10:05:50","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T15:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=3577"},"modified":"2011-11-23T10:05:24","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T15:05:24","slug":"dreams-give-us-the-power-to-name-what-ails-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/11\/dreams-give-us-the-power-to-name-what-ails-us.html","title":{"rendered":"Dreams give us the power to name what ails us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I wrote here yesterday about how diagnostic dreams may give us a richer and less daunting vocabulary than the standard jargon of doctors’ offices.<\/p>\n

Dreams give us the power of naming, and this brings further gifts. Dreams help us to express what we may otherwise find it all but impossible to express. Such dreams offer release from a condition called\u00a0alexithymia\u00a0<\/em>(literally \u201cwithout words for feelings\u201d) that is probably at the root of many psychosomatic disorders. Alexithymia is the condition in\u00a0which strong feelings are experienced, but are not expressed or translated into speech. The bottled-up feelings may produce physical disorders such as asthma, migraines, ulcers and rheumatoid arthritis. Sharing dreams gives us a safe way to name the things that need to be named.<\/p>\n

When we can get doctors to listen to our dreams, they stamp us as individuals and assist the physician to recognize that he is dealing with a whole person, not just a set of symptoms. \u00a0The dreams of physicians – if they will listen – can coach them in the importance of recognizing the person before them.<\/p>\n

A physician I know told me dreamed that a patient he had not seen in more than a year called for an emergency appointment. Someone told him in the dream that he had been mispronouncing the man\u2019s name. He was calling his patient \u201cMister Kees\u201d when his surname should actually be pronounced the Dutch way \u2013 \u201cKays\u201d.<\/p>\n

Coached by his dream, the doctor was not altogether surprised when Mr Kees called the next day for an emergency consultation. He remembered to check with his patient on how he wanted to be named \u2013 and discovered that \u201cKays\u201d was indeed the correct and preferred pronunciation. The patient was glad to be treated as an individual, whose name mattered, and this laid the foundation for successful treatment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote here yesterday about how diagnostic dreams may give us a richer and less daunting vocabulary than the standard jargon of doctors’ offices. Dreams give us the power of naming, and this brings further gifts. Dreams help us to express what we may otherwise find it all but impossible to express. Such dreams offer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18,46,19],"tags":[764,761,763,760],"class_list":["post-3577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-dream-diagnosis","category-healing","category-healing-dreams","tag-alexithymia","tag-diagnosis","tag-naming","tag-nosology"],"yoast_head":"\nDreams give us the power to name what ails us - 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\/11\/dreams-give-us-the-power-to-name-what-ails-us.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dreams give us the power to name what ails us - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I wrote here yesterday about how diagnostic dreams may give us a richer and less daunting vocabulary than the standard jargon of doctors’ offices. Dreams give us the power of naming, and this brings further gifts. Dreams help us to express what we may otherwise find it all but impossible to express. Such dreams offer…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/11\/dreams-give-us-the-power-to-name-what-ails-us.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-23T15:05:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-11-23T15:05:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2011\/11\/nametag-300x224.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Moss\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dreams give us the power to name what ails us - Dream Gates","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/11\/dreams-give-us-the-power-to-name-what-ails-us.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dreams give us the power to name what ails us - Dream Gates","og_description":"I wrote here yesterday about how diagnostic dreams may give us a richer and less daunting vocabulary than the standard jargon of doctors’ offices. 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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\/3577","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=3577"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3585,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3577\/revisions\/3585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}