Gaining Closure Through Dreamwork
YOUR DREAMS ARE TRYING TO HEAL YOU
Closure is something we all seek at different points in life, whether it be from a relationship breakup, family conflicts, career loss, personal regrets or unfair treatment. Any unresolved situation can leave us feeling lost, stuck or unable to move forward.
What is dreamwork?
There are different approaches to dreamwork, I offer Embodied Experiential Dreamwork (EED) developed by Dr. Leslie Ellis, a therapeutic method that explores dreams as lived somatic experiences and not just symbols to be interpreted. In this way, dreams can become tools for healing by accessing trauma or behavioural imprints of unresolved wounds. They guide us to uncover hidden feelings and patterns which lead to change through memory reconsolidation and emotional and somatic processing.
How does this help with closure?
Closure can feel impossible when we are stuck in rumination or blame, unable to shift emotional pain. Dreams act as a valuable bridge between our conscious awareness (explicit memory) and subconscious programming (implicit memory). By working with your dreams, we can often trace recurring patterns, hidden insights and identify unresolved emotional wounds by pinpointing the origin of your core trauma imprint. This gives us the opportunity to integrate the new and old experiences, ultimately leading to closure.
Case Study Example: Friendship breakup / Mother wound
The following is a condensed example of a dream sequence over the period of several months, to give an idea of the dreamwork process and how dreams can be used therapeutically for emotional healing.Dream 1: A vivid and terrifying nightmare where the dreamer was at first feeling safe and vulnerable in her mother’s arms but swiftly changed into being violently strangled by the mother figure, who wasn’t actually her mother and had been disguising herself, causing intense shock and betrayal. The location of the dream was the place where the dreamer and her friend first met.
Real Life Connection: The dreamer viewed the friend as part of her family, a safe, trusted person. The mother in the dream represented this perceived safety but in reality, the friend’s behaviours towards the dreamer were causing emotional harm. This also turned out to be a pre-cognitive dream, metaphorically warning the dreamer that she was being deceived. Her friend was displaying a false facade of safety and connection, whilst concealing deep negative feelings towards her.
Dream 2: Many recurring dreams over several months where the friend would appear in the dream but always have her back turned away from the dreamer and would never speak.
Real Life Connection: The friendship ended very suddenly and coldly, with no chance for closure or resolution, just like the original dream it felt shocking, betraying the perceived safety she thought they had built together. The dreams represented the ongoing disconnect and complete silence in communication. The recurring nature of the dreams mirrored the unresolved emotions of the dreamer who was still attempting to heal and understand what had happened.
Dream 3: The friend was with the dreamer walking around a city, she was talking and being friendly but when the dreamer said she was going home, the friend got agitated and said no, I want to go to a restaurant. The dreamer started planning where to eat, the friend did not help, expecting the dreamer to organise everything, but no restaurant was acceptable to the friend. Eventually, the friend started leading the dreamer to another part of the city, it started to feel unsettling, the friend’s energy was changing into something darker, the dreamer started to notice but she still trusted her so kept going. They arrived at an apartment door with the number 13, just before she opened the door, the dreamer suddenly realised she was being deceived and that something bad would happen if she went through the door.
Real Life Connection: The dream was mirroring some of the unbalanced dynamics in the friendship but ultimately highlighting to the dreamer the importance of prioritising intuition and how relationships feel, rather than just believing words. It also showed the dreamer not to blindly offer trust or over-function in relationships when the other person isn’t matching the same effort, and to recognise the signs of emotional harm. The number 13 on the door was significantly related to the dreamer’s mother.
Dream 4: The dreamer was in a very old house from another time; it was a vivid and highly symbolic dream with frogs covered in black tar and a dragon. She washed the frogs in a sparkling fountain to reveal their beautiful colours, and she released the dragon which was stuck to the side of the house. The friend was not central to this dream but was watching from afar, just like the previous recurring dreams, the friend had her back turned and was silent.
Real Life Connection: The old house represents the dreamer’s ancestral heritage. The frogs and dragon were legacy wounds of being chronically misunderstood and unseen for who they truly are, ‘tarred with the same brush’. When the frogs were washed in the fountain their unique and beautiful ‘true colours’ were revealed, they were finally able to be seen for themselves, free of misjudgement. The dreamer had felt extremely misjudged and projected upon during the friendship, this dream felt cleansing, like she could finally wash away the pain of not being seen for who she really was.
The deeper trauma origin
Through embodied dreamwork, the dreamer was guided to visually re-enter the previous dream whilst awake and try to blend with the friend to see if there was any additional information. Upon doing so the dreamer revealed her 13-year-old self who was merged with the friend, upon recognition she immediately separated herself and detached.
The dreamer had abandonment trauma from her mother at age 13, once this was explored further it was apparent that the friendship had triggered feelings from the original abandonment event, whilst the general friendship dynamics had mirrored similar relational patterns. Once identified, the two experiences could be integrated separately, reducing the emotional charge. The dreams about her ex-friend also stopped.
Revisiting the original dream
In embodied experiential dreamwork, the dream does not have to be fresh to be worked with. If you remember a dream, you can explore it at any time, even if it’s years later. In this example, we revisit the original dream 18 months later to see if there is any further insight and to dream it forward which is a technique used in dream therapy to complete the process.The dream had originally ended when the fake mother figure was violently strangling the dreamer. We enter the dream at that exact moment, and the dreamer is asked to blend with the fake mother character to see if they can access a felt sense of its intentions or origin. Immediately, the character deflates dramatically like a balloon, landing at the dreamers’ feet, where two small metal toy cars pop out and roll a short distance away in opposite directions.
The dreamer felt a little shocked that the fake mother figure who seemed so strong and overwhelming in the original dream, had so easily deflated when challenged. The dreamer’s felt sense was “wow it was all just a big, inflated show, there was no substance behind it, just air”
The toy cars were also personally symbolic to the dreamer. When she was a small child, there was an incident at a playdate when a boy pushed a toy car down her throat, she almost choked to death, turning blue. To the dreamer, the toy car represented generalised childhood trauma, and the second car represented her friend’s childhood trauma. The fact they fell in opposite directions was also symbolic that they had gone their separate ways since the friendship had ended.
Dream forwarding
The dreamer was asked what she wanted to do next to complete the dream. She visualised herself picking up one of the toy cars and putting it gently in her pocket, this was her own ‘childhood trauma’ which she would take ownership of and keep safe.
The other toy car, representing her friend’s childhood trauma, and the mother costume, representing the friend’s fake mask, were still on the grass. The dreamer took the now deflated character costume, folded it neatly and placed it in a box with the toy car on top and left it under a tree. This now felt complete to the dreamer, final closure had been attained.
Steps to use dreamwork for closure:
Record your dreams: Keep a dream journal and note recurring or important themes, emotions, characters or symbols.
Embodiment: Observe how your body reacts when recalling the dream, tension, heaviness, hope, excitement etc.
Explore emotions: Allow yourself to fully feel the emotions without judgement.
Find familiar patterns: Identify if any of the dream elements connect to the past, whether it be familiar people, patterns, situations, places, feelings or behaviours.
Are you interested in exploring your own dreams? Dream therapy sessions available below.