Interpersonal Relationships
In one of my previous essays, I rely on Erich Fromm’s (1951) analysis of dream functions to suggest that dreams Influence how we view and relate to other people (Bergquist, 2023). In this essay, I want to expand on this analysis by bringing in the concept of attribution and attribution errors (Jones, 1972). Substantial research on human perceptions of oneself and of other people suggest that we hold strong assumptions about the “cause” of our own behavior and the behavior of other people. In some instances, we attribute the cause of behavior to internal motivations (or more generally one’s “personality” or “character”), while in other instances we attribute behavior to externally induced motivations (such as reward systems, societal norms and values, and perceived opportunities and threats).
I would suggest that dreams might play a role in determining attribution and that the influence of dreams is often unconscious but powerful. While there is an inclination on most of our parts to attribute our behavior to external forces, we might find that “empowering” dreams in which we find ourselves being able to “leap tall buildings with a single bound” or at least defeat our threatening enemies, leads to us feeling powerful during the day. Martin Seligman writes about “learned optimism (Seligman, 1991/2006) and a sense of hopefulness (and I would suggest “powerfulness”); these attitudes might be created or at least reinforced in our dreams.
Conversely, we might dream of being overwhelmed by someone in our life or somehow being vulnerable to the negative inclinations of another person. I remember dreaming of a colleague coming at my face with a sharp-edged knife. He was cutting my face, but in such a skillful manner that I didn’t even know I was being cut. I soon found that I was bleeding and was racing around looking for something to block the bleeding. I woke up. Soon I found myself being quite careful in relating to my colleague. I found that he was skillfully “cutting” me by offering faint praise and faint criticism. I would leave my meetings with him feeling terrible about myself but not knowing why. My dream taught me to be more aware of what was happening. I needed to “empower” my own sense of self and become more attuned to the destructive effect of my colleague’s behavior.
It is also important to note that our dreams can lead us astray regarding another person in our life. During our dream, we can readily regress and characterize one of our current friends in a manner that reminds us of a threatening or nurturing relationship that existed when we felt powerless as a child. There might be nothing more than a physical similarity between our current friend and our childhood acquaintance. Or they share similar speech mannerism or frequently offer a phrase that triggers strong responses in us (e.g. “I know you can do better.” or “I certainly don’t want you to take this in the wrong way.”).
Psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist speak about the “transference” process, suggesting that their patients might transfer feelings onto them from a significant person in their life (often a parent). This “transference” might be much more commonly occurring in our life. Michael Polanyi (2009) writes about the tacit dimension that is to be found in all aspects of our life. We hold unconscious (tacit) perceptions of other people that come from a variety of sources that might relate only tangentially to that person. Some of these perceptions could be created in our dreams or reinforced in the way we play out and often distort their daytime behavior in our dreams. They become heroes or villains in the regressive way we portray them during our dreams, and in the way our committee of sleep and dreams judges their behavior.
Creative Tasks
In one of my previous essays on dreams, I referred to the writing of Dierdre Barrett (2001), who wrote about the way dreams can assist us in addressing everyday challenges and opportunities. Assembling what she describes as a “committee of sleep”, Barrett suggests that we can learn from a variety of dream characters and find that these characters provide both insights and guidance for us to employ when awake. I wish to re-introduce several concepts from earlier in this essay that help to exemplify or expand on the functions operating in Barrett’s committees.
