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Process - A process is a change in what we observe. It is a change in the flow of signals and the information that they carry. A Process Worker is someone who uses Awareness to track these signals. Process Paradigm - Process Work holds that we all live in a dream field; the field’s goal is to bring us back to mystical union with the infinite source of creation. This field is highly interactive, intelligent and creative, our task is to become aware of and responsive to its ever changing flow. This is what the ancients Taoists called the river, the flow of life. They knew it existed but since it could not be predicted they said "the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao". And so it is the same today, in PW and Dream Integration we can never know all the answers; instead life unfolds as a beautiful flowing mystery, when we become clear enough to reach sentient awareness all we need to do is observe and merge with the flow and accept the value of mystery into our lives. Primary and Secondary Processes - We all have two processes, one that is primary or closest to our awareness, this is our identity, say as a mother, teacher, wife etc. We also have a secondary process that is further from our awareness. This is usually something that we easily surpress, for example it may be the need for silence, to express our creativity, to live alone or go on vacation with a friend. Our secondary process represents what we are growing towards, it is beyond the edge of our current behavioural norms. Due to our fascination with matter and manifest, quantifiable form we have largely lost touch with this less tangible, secondary process and the nebulous, unpredictable dream field from which it arises. As a result of neglect it often re-appears as body symptoms, strange unpredictable events in our outer experience, chaotic behaviour, inexplicable dreams and the like. It is easy to see how we marginalize our secondary processes, since convention says that things that can be measured are real and things that cannot be measure are subjective, of much less significance and are not real! For example if I ask a shop assistant for a pound of nice apples. She cannot serve me! She can supply a pound of apples, but it cannot supply a pound of nice. Nice is a personal appreciation, it is subject to my likes and dislikes, not yours. My appreciation of nice is not recognised so I tend to ask for a pound of red or green apples and in doing so I marginalize the juicy succulent inner experience of an apple that first prompted me to ask for "nice" apples in the first place. In some cases the Primary / Secondary Processes or Identities can swap over. I can illustrate this by use of my own experience. For twenty years my Primary Identity was that of an Engineer, Householder and Husband. During that time I had a strong secondary process of a Shamanic Healer & Teacher, unbounded in time, something that I did in the evenings or on weekends. After two years of intense inner work and therapy and a Pluto transit over my sun I have actualised my secondary process as primary. My new secondary process now has more to do with how form is condensed in to matter by consciousness. Although this is an extreme case it clearly illustrates the power of secondary processes. At 47 I have effectively started a new life; it feels GREAT! Often by diligent work our secondary process can be integrated with the primary without a major life shifting change. This is one of the objectives of Dream Integration. Dreambody - We all have a dreambody. It is that part of us that is largely subconscious. It appears at the level of sentience as undifferentiated sensations and eventually manifests in dream images, body experiences, symptoms, relationships and intense experiences in the world. By combining a generous attitude which allocates value to our dream experiences, along with an ability to amplify body experiences and explore relationship issues the dreambody can be brought more fully into awareness. It contains the sum total of all our experiences to date, our soul path and our impulses for growth and change. The dreambody connects us as individuals to the larger dreaming of our family, social groups, culture, national identity and global awareness and beyond into spirit. The sum total of all dream-bodies constitutes the dream field, some times called the Sentient (unmanifest). Channels and Switching - Using signal theory we can define several channels of activity through which we experience and express our selves. The main ones are:-
Typically we are predominantly occupied in one or two channels, thus we say people are visually orientated, are hearing or kinesthetic (movement) based. Typically a Therapists will occupy only two or three channels. For example as a body therapist I am mainly concerned with touch (movement) and body feelings, I may tend to marginalize visualisations. As a dream therapist I might work with visions and myths but ignore movement. As a family therapist I might concentrate on relationships but ignore dreams, movement and individual processes. The advantage of such specialisation in a few channels is that we feel safe, secure and life becomes stable & predictable. The down side is that after a few years we become bored, tired and burnt out. Fatigue is often caused by constant activity in one channel. An example of this might be when I have spent a whole week in an office; by Friday I am exhausted in the visual and auditory channels. By the time I have spent an hour at the disco with my friends I am wide awake and ready to party all night. The simple reason is that I have switched into the movement channel and my energy comes up again. Channel awareness and the ability to switch information from one channel to another is essential for effective therapy and dream integration. Typically in he west visualisation and hearing are fully occupied, where as movement and body awareness are unoccupied. We can use this to great advantage, since by switching information from an occupied to an un occupied channel we can gain a lot of insights and wisdom on what is trying to happen for us. Let’s try it out! States vs. Processes - In CR paradigms such as medicine, bodywork, dream work and healing we deal mainly with states. These are static conditions that say things like Jane has a bad back, he is psychotic, Peter has an anger issue; this dream means that I am a good mother etc. In reality these are only static states that are trying to unfold as part of a larger process, by focusing on states we limit our growth potential and marginalize our bigger processes. Allowing our states to unfold is a Shamanic tradition which fully embraces the eternal flow of dreamtime. By recognising that Jane’s bad back is a mirror of a deeper inner process that is trying to express we can use interventions like amplification or inhibition to unfold her dreaming process and gain access to the insights that the symptom maker has to teach her. In this way we can quickly move along our evolutionary path, rather than getting stuck at a cross roads! Edges - This term is used to denote a limit to our current behavioural paradigm. For example I like to speak with groups of people but when I was asked to go on a Television show I got hot, a bit dizzy and my heart rate went up. I was at an edge! I had inner resistance around this next step in my career. When I did my inner work the truth was that I was excited, enthusiastic. I really wanted to go on TV, and it was scary at the same time. In order to get to the new sate I had to negotiate with my edge figure that resisted such changes. Once I had acknowledged that it was OK to be both anxious and excited my body symptoms went a way and I really enjoyed being on TV, so much so that I arranged two further shows! Beyond the edge is our growing ground. It acts as filter to what we are perceiving or capable of doing. Typically edges guard us from core issues which would otherwise overwhelm our psyche if they were released into consciousness without due preparation. As we approach an edge we loose perception, act strangely, go unconscious, change the subject etc. Edges are very good indicators of a person’s state and can be used to facilitate growth. As an example you may think of a time you caught some one out in a lie, rather than tell the truth they will edge, they blush, say hmm…., stammer, try to change the subject etc. Anything rather than tell the truth - which is over their edge. Quite often strange, unclear reactions are all edge behaviour. Altered States - Altered sates are any experiences that our out side our normal perceptive window. During the preparation of this talk I went into an altered state. So much so that I did not notice that I had food burning on the stove in the kitchen, even though my door was open I could not smell it. Fortunately my friend noticed what was happening, even though she was further away behind a closed door! In an altered state we become polarised into one channel, possibly to the point of obsession. Here in lies the basis of many of our psychiatric cases, in these cases people have lost the ability to Meta Communicate about what is happening for them - such cases are referred to as Extreme States. When I looked at why I had allowed the dinner to burn, I quickly realised that I was "burning out" in the auditory channel whilst typing. My dreambody had created the outer signal to alert me to my unconscious process. I stopped work for a few hours, channel switched to movement by going for a walk, dancing and playing games with my friend’s son. I came back to work feeling creative and highly refreshed Signals - We are sending out signals all the time, some
are conscious, most are not. In dream integration it is the congruency (or lack
of) that we are particularly interested in. If I say "yes I like you"
and nod my head it is consistent and all goes well. If on the other hand I shake
my head at the same time I am clearly inconsistent at some level, this is called
a "double signal". This signal will dream you up to create an
unexpected reaction. Often these signals are so subtle and powerful that we
react to them unconsciously, usually with very confusing and misleading results.
Secondary signals are another way that our dreambody reaches into he external
world in order to teach us something about our inner states. Here is an example
of using a secondary signal in therapy. A woman came to me who said that
relationships were the most important thing in her life. When I asked her to
describe one she said she would like to fly away to a peaceful stress free
place. Her body become relaxed and dreamy, she lounged over the back of the
couch and closed her eyes and dropped out of relationship with me! At this point
I felt rejected, since she had said relationships were important but had
signaled the opposite. So I had an option, to work on her primary content
(flying away) or on her secondary signals about dropping out of relationship
(since she has just flown away from me). We worked on her relationships; anger
around self-expression quickly came to the surface. It transpired that her
desire to fly away was linked to a difficult relationship problem in which she
has been feeling disempowered. Amplification and Repression - Body signals and symptoms can be dealt with in a number of ways. One very powerful technique is that of amplification. An example would be that of a client who came with a deep pain in her heart area. She described it as a deep pain that occurred before she met new people or talked to groups. I asked her for a moment to stop resisting the pain and put her all awareness into it. As she did so I noticed that her shoulders started to turn inwards and she started to stoop, I asked her to further amplify her experience by allowing it to move her body in any way it chose. She quickly dropped to her knees and assumed a position of some one broken and beaten. Her spirit was gone and she was completely withdrawn. Since she had stopped communicating with me I allowed my self to be dreampt by her process and found my self saying, "come back, we need you, you are our eyes and our spirit". She replied that we had already broken her and she had no more to offer. By amplifying this strange dialogue we were able to access an ancient memory where she had worked as a healer and seer. She had been blamed for allowing a child to die. Since she had also felt guilty about the child’s death she had entirely internalized her tribe’s accusation and had given her power over to guilt and self-criticism. The energetic content of this experience had remained suck within her field and was creating similar feelings (fear of groups and their potential criticism) in order to bring it’s presence to consciousness and thus be released. If this inner state were ignored over time her dreambody may have had to manifest actual abusive situations in order to get the message across! Flirts - Somatic sensations, flickering fantasies, fleeting visions and dimly felt undifferentiated moods belong to an area deep within the dream field; we need to have good awareness in our second attention to spot them. Flirts are some of the most valuable things we can work on as they tell us what is at our growing edge. Irreducible Elements in Dreaming - Within every process there is an element or state that cannot be reduced or explored any further. These are often deep states of relaxation, bliss, surrender, connection to God and the infinite. They may even be inexplicable needs to observe certain processes with out knowing why or what for. Often the awareness of such processes is enough in to bring about change and transformation in it’s self. For example, several of my recent deep sentient processes have resolved in the need to observe the nature of duality in matter and to experience in a somatic way the flowing expanding force of Yin, whilst also being aware of the focused penetrating feelings of Yang. After experiencing this for a week or so I was guided to read a book called Quantum Self. I was astounded to find that I hardly needed to read the book, since I had already experienced the field effect and the wave collapse to a particle at the body level, I had already shape shifted enough to experience the central themes of the book on a body level. I believe this will become the way our future education system will operate, students will be trained to perceive knowledge directly on a body level rather than hold it as "learned for others" in the mental sphere. First Attention - Is used to perceive Consensus Reality; a reality which is supported by Physics (Newtonian) Mathematics, Cultural, Social & Political Norms. All conventional schooling and social behaviour is geared towards this level of awareness, it will only recognise or respond to repeatable, measurable facts and figures. Second Attention - Is used to perceive the dream field or Non Consensus Reality. It is the tool of Shamanism, Clinical Psychology and Quantum Physics. NCR is expressed through dreams, flirts, body symptoms and diffuse awareness; it needs a brave and willing heart to allow the presence of things into awareness that do not make any logical sense and have no apparent connection with each other. This is Don Juan’s realm of the Nagul, the seat of our deep dreaming. |