'A picture is worth a thousand words\r'

'Youve heard it so many generation that it sounds trite. But a picture really IS expenditure a thousand words. And if a dream is a really special kind of picture, how much is IT outlay?Maybe more? What round very transp atomic number 18nt pictures and very simple dreams? No doubt theyre worth a little min less than complex, expand ones. Or are they?In my psychotherapy someoneal line of credit one day, I presented my undergraduate students with these questions. â€Å"Heres a very simple dream from a psychotherapy invitee I worked with years ago. I wont tell you anything about the client. Ill just tell you his dream, and then lets see what we dope discover about him by exploring it…… O.K? Heres the dream:”â€Å"I was wearing a white shirt and a empurple tie.”The students just stare at me, expecting more to come. â€Å"No,” I explain, â€Å"thats it. Thats the dream. Now lets start to explore it.”I then lead them through a convoca tion process of free associating to the dream (much like I nominate on the Working and Playing with Dreams Page). â€Å" merely let your imagination go. Take every grammatical constituent of the dream and just let your mind chisel on it. Whatever comes to mind. Dont censor anything, thats important.There is no by rights or wrong. It can be a fun, frolicsome exercise †although the results sometimes may be heartbreaking 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 sensation †the very place from which dreams spring.”Here is a slant of some of the associations the students come up with. For the purpose of this phrase Ive organized them somewhat, whereas during the actual exercise the ideas surface in a much more freewheeling menstruation of consciousness:PURPLE …. royalty, bruises, choking, holding ones brea th, grief, a crew of blue and pink, goes well with black, The Color of Purple plug in …. formal attire, handout to work, phallic symbol, buttoned up, being tied to something, chokes the neck, confiningPURPLE TIE …. unconventional, stands out, rebellious, showing offWHITE …. clean, pure, unstained, â€Å"good,” lightSHIRT …. the top part, covered up, tucked in, stuffed shirt, where are the pants?WHITE SHIRT…. conventional, deadening, issue to work, going to church, corporate AmericaWHITE SHIRT AND PURPLE TIE…. grotesque combination, contradictory combination, very unconventional, tie really stands outDEPLETION?…. theres nought else in the dream, its so static, theres nothing happening, where are the feelings? after(prenominal) 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 clotted (the tie).He had almost no friends and felt little conjunctive to his family (the tie again). Other than going to his tedious personal credit line (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 expressage in understanding anything but the most surface, top-level (shirt) characteristics of his personality. Although outwardly conventional in how he dressed and acted at his job (white shirt), secretly he felt rebellious against authority (purple tie on white shirt) and broadly speaking 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 insid e, he was a bit of a contradiction (white shirt on purple tie).\r\n'