Sleep can be a frightening battleground with the dreamer as an obsrver or a participant. While we sleep our minds remain active, seeking solutions and answers to our problems and qustions. The ego searches and explores the unconscious but finds that it is not always welcome. Sometimes it is even challenged. This jousting of the psyche can include intense fears or threats of death. We all dream what we call nightmares, but what is really underneath our fears?
As an observer in our dreams we can witness the violence of our mind. In Dream 40 in the anthology the dreamer begins what he believes is a normal hockey game. Gradually a play of events causes the whole atmosphere to change from sport to war. The dreamer views the fans and coach eager for murder and the game lowered to a barbaric level. He is the only one who finds the whole dream world crazy. He is the sole objector in this foreign world.
In the journey into the unconscious the dreamer can be attacked and threatened, as in Dream 27, where the dreamer is confined in a strange room and then attacked by a huge train bursting from the wall. The dreamer flees and runs until the threat is gone and he is left alone in the room, awaiting a "death of extreme pain." Much of this pattern is seen again in Dream 35. The dreamer again finds himself in a strange world of blackness, but this time he is dressed in armour, as if ready for battle. The dreamer fears death and even imagines his execution. From the strange blackness comes an unknown attacker. In his fear the dramer defensively swings and strikes the unknown one. This action by the dreamer removes the threat, but is the unknown defeated or is it the fear that is conquered?
The dreamer can experience different levels of violence in his dreams as he progresses further in his exploration. In Dream 39 the dreamer is in a normal situation until he witnesses the murder of the swimmers. This action brings him into the unfriendly world of the two murderers. He fears and hates these men and tries to escape when they come after him. The dreamer is cornered and is thus forced to act. He confronts the murderer and tries to kill him. The attack is over and the threat is gone. The conflict has apparently been resolved.
What do these attacks represent? Do they show actual fears or rather symbolically depict a confrontation? It seems that as the ego and psyche wrestle with real problems, the dreamer struggles with the images. It is this separation and conflict between the conscious and unconscious that solves the problem. When the dreamer flees from the conflict, he is running from the problem. When the dreamer has confronted his attacker and prevailed, he feels a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. In Dream 35 the dreamer sees a "twinkling light" after his victory and in Dream 39 he equates his defeat of the attacker with passing a test. Isn't "seeing the light" the beginning of solving the problem, and "passing the test" a step toward self-improvement?
— Douglas Kleppin
© Copyright 2002 by Robert J. R. Rockwood. All rights reserved.