We might even bring in Klein’s peremptory ideation at this point by suggesting that memories from the first dream might be “hitching a ride” with the actively engaged ideation (and might have arisen in the first place from this ideation). IN catching a ride, memory from the first dream could gather additional saliency and elaboration. This is all speculative. At the very least, this speculation suggests that there is much more to learn about how dreams function.
Multi-Tiered Dreams
We can look at the tiering of dreams in several different ways. First, it is not uncommon for dreams to present multiple segments, with each segment addressing a different (though at some level perhaps related) topic. One of my dreamers recounts a dream in which she is moving through different “floors” of a department store and then she is in a hotel attending a convention. In each location, she is adjusting to a specific environment, engaging in a specific activity, and interacting with a different group of people. This allows her to address a variety of issues in this dream and potentially use her dream to serves multiple functions. In fact, she talks about insights gained about interpersonal relationships (some of the salespeople and customers at the department stores were represented by family members and friends, and those at the convention were close business colleagues. Her own purchases at the department store told her something about (and challenged her regarding) her priorities in life.
I know of many instances when the dreamer is dreaming about falling asleep and having a dream, waking up and recalling the dream. Thus, we have a dream within a dream—and a dream about dreaming. A variant on this remarkable process is the dream I have had regarding the retelling of a dream to another person. The dream was about an important meeting that I thought actually occurred. In the dream I am telling the other person about my own sudden awareness that the meeting had not really happened. It was only a dream! Yet, this was itself a dream—a dream about a dream. A conversation about a dream that is itself part of a dream. We can certainly get quite clever in what we enact in a dream.
Meta-Cognition
When reflecting on and writing about the dreaming process, I personally wonder what it means to be “in control”, to be “rational” and to be “thoughtful” while in the midst of a dreaming process that is usually anything but controlled, rational or thoughtful. During the waking hours, this process of control, reasoning and thoughtfulness would take place by means of a reflective process called “meta-cognition”. This is a fancy word for describing the ability to rise above a specific situation, observe it from afar, and provide an interpretation of what is occurring. Is it possible for such a higher-order process to take place within a dream? This complex process certainly speaks against the assumption that dreams are always regressive in nature.
