Methods of dream-work: Scott Sparrow’s Five Star Method

Step One: Sharing Feelings Aroused by the Dream Sharing

Various dream work methods include an assessment of the dreamer’s feelings, either as a preliminary step (Hill, 1996; Ullman & Zimmerman, 1979), or as a standalone method (Gendlin, 1986). However, CDT posits that the dreamer’s feelings, thoughts, assumptions, and behaviors work together to codetermine the dream’s outcome. With this in mind, the dreamer’s feelings provide an initial entry into the dreamer’s codetermining response set. It is also valuable for the facilitator to reveal his or her feelings as a way to illuminate emotions that may be implied by the dream, but not fully felt by the dreamer.

For instance, a student of mine agreed to share a dream with my group counseling class, so I asked for six volunteers to serve as a dream group while the rest of the class observed the process. The student shared the following dream:

I am sitting at the kitchen table, working on my group paper for Dr. Sparrow. I’m feeling anxious about it, and want to get it done. I hear a knock on the sliding glass door behind me, which opens onto our patio. I turn around and see my deceased father standing there in his best Sunday clothes. Annoyed at the interruption, I turn around and go back to my work. I think, “He can come back later.” He knocks again and again, until finally he goes away.

When describing his feelings, the dreamer said, “annoyance,” “irritation,” and “anxiety.” But when the group and I shared our feelings, we mentioned “excited,” “afraid,” “joy,” and “affection.” Some them also mentioned “sadness” in response to the dreamer’s avoidance of his father. The dreamer, who had imposed an “emotional cutoff” with his father 15 years before his death (Bowen, 1978) because of his father’s rejection of his wife on racial grounds, said that he was surprised by the range of feelings expressed by the dream group, and thus acquired insight into his own repressed feelings toward his father.

Step Two: Formulating the Theme

While other dream analysts have formulated lists of themes that typically occur in dreams (Garfield, 2001; Gongloff, 2006), a phenomenological approach to extracting a theme (Sparrow, 1978; Thurston, 1978) permits the dream’s underlying structure to emerge from the dream itself. As such, I believe that the phrase “process narrative” more accurately describes the objective of this approach.

To formulate the process narrative, all one has to do is to restate, as succinctly as possible, the dream’s essential action while removing the specific names of characters, colors, places, and objects. All interpretive and evaluative statements are forbidden during this step. The following statements are examples of correctly formulated process narratives: “Someone is trying to get away from someone else, but no matter what she does, she is not able to escape,” “Someone is relieved to find that something that he thought was lost is still possible to locate,” and “Someone is trying to decide between two courses of action, one apparently easy and the other more difficult and challenging.”

Systems-oriented family therapists, and group leaders familiar with Lewin’s concept of field theory (1951), will recognize the importance of observing and describing how the dreamer and the dream imagery are relating without reference to what is being communicated. This content-free description highlights the relationship dynamics that perpetuate or alleviate distress, and pave the way for interventions that can restructure problematic interactional patterns without trying to resolve the problem on the level of content alone.

As a generic summary of the dream’s story line, the process narrative illuminates the existing structure of the dream without encumbering it with assumptions and interpretive impositions, thus protecting the dreamer from the facilitator’s projections as well as simplistic, precipitous conclusions. At this point in the process, it is not uncommon for the dreamer to see parallels between process narrative and a waking scenario, and to conclude that the dream is “about” a particular situation in the waking life. Nonetheless, I have found that it is important to encourage the dreamer to continue to the next step, if time permits, in order to consider the dreamer’s role in the interactive process.

Step Three: Analyzing the Dreamer’s Responses to the Dream

This is the heart of FSM, and is a pure outgrowth of CDT. Helping the dreamer see the places where his or her responses may have made a difference represents a significant departure from traditional dream analysis. Because of its novelty, it may pose somewhat of a challenge with clients who are new to this way of thinking. But once the dreamer becomes aware of his or her responses in the dream, dream analysis takes on a new dimension of troubleshooting the dreamer’s responses and imagining new outcomes in future dreams and parallel life situations.

To accomplish this step, the facilitator and the dreamer look for points in the dream where the dreamer responded—emotionally, cognitively, and/or behaviorally—in such ways that could have affected the course of the dream from thereon. As I have stated, some of these responses may be entirely unstated in the dreamer’s initial recollection, so it may take some practice to elicit the more subtle dimensions of the dreamer’s responses. Subtle or otherwise, these response points are like forks in the path where the dreamer effectively determines which way to go by his or her reactions to the visual imagery.

Then, the facilitator and dreamer work together to critique the dreamer’s responses to the dream encounters, and to imagine what else the dreamer might have done differently at the obvious choice points in the dream. Following this freewheeling consideration of alternatives, the facilitator engages the dreamer in determining whether the dreamer’s responses were predictable, or a departure from his or her usual reaction to such situations. As a final measure, the facilitator may ask the dreamer what he or she would have preferred to do in the dream, as well as what he or she would like to do differently in future dreams with similar situations.

This consideration of diverse responses to the dream has a way of challenging old patterns of relating to the world, discerning emerging competencies, and introducing alternatives for future consideration.

Of course, the dreamer sets the standard for the direction of desirable change. What is considered “better” has more to do with what deviates constructively from a person’s chronic patterns of relating. This criterion helps the facilitator and dreamer evaluate the dreamer’s responses against a customary or habitual style of relating, which may become clearer over time as the person shares further dreams and/or waking experiences in which the customary style becomes evident.

It is not unusual for a highly significant response to seem entirely automatic. Take for instance the following dream of a 45-year-old suicidally depressed client.

>I arrive for a family picnic on the shores of a lake, only to find that everyone has already eaten, and that no food remains. I look on the picnic table and see the bones of a large fish on a platter. For some reason, I take the platter down to the lake, and put the platter into the water. Suddenly, the fish comes back to life and swims away.

This dream is a good example of how a dream report may reveal an apparent absence of reflective awareness while also representing an immense achievement on the dreamer’s part. When I heard the dream, I elicited the dreamer’s unspoken feelings of sadness related to the fish, and highlighted the extraordinary impact of her decision to take the fish “back home.” Consequently, she was able to appreciate the significance of her action in the context of her near-total sense of conscious hopelessness. This dream became a centerpiece in this client’s work, providing “proof” of her ability to participate in her own recovery from depression. Helping dreamers re-access reflective awareness and “own” their responses through open-ended inquiry (Kosmova & Wolman, 2006) not only offsets the reporting style that exaggerates dream content at the expense of dreamer awareness, but also helps clients discover emergent competencies that are easily overlooked in the context of the otherwise distressing circumstances depicted by the dream content.

Step Four: Analysis of the Imagery

In this step of FSM, the facilitator assists the dreamer in exploring how imagery and scene transformations are related to dreamer’s responses. This contingent relationship may not be evident to the dreamer, who may experience the changes as unrelated to his or her responses at the time. However, by emphasizing the impact of the dreamer’s freely chosen responses, the facilitator draws a contingent relationship between dreamer response and outer change, thus supporting a sense of personal responsibility and an awareness of emergent competencies.

While standard nonintrusive approaches to imagery analysis––such as amplification and dialoguing with the images––can be introduced in Step Four, a nontraditional approach to the imagery proceeds from the principles of CDT. Just as the dreamer’s responses are no longer considered a given in CDT, the imagery itself is no longer considered static: Both can change in the course of a single dream’s unfolding process. Indeed, changes in the dreamer’s responses and the dream content are viewed as reciprocally related, such that a change in one will usually mirror a change in the other.

Take for instance a dream of a woman who had been sexually abused as a child. A single pivotal response catalyzes a dramatic transformation of the dream imagery:

I awake to find myself on a bed. I look up and see holes in the ceiling, and rats dropping down through the holes. Horrified, I jump and run out of the room. The rats seem to chase me, so I fearfully run up a stairway to get away from them. When I reach the top, I turn around to see if the rats are still following me. A huge rat is climbing the stairs and is within a few steps of where I stand. I look at it closely, and I’m surprised to see that its fur looks soft and lustrous. Intrigued by its beauty, I reach down as it comes closer and touch its fur. As soon as I do, the rat changes into a snow leopard.

The dreamer was immediately able to acknowledge that the entire dream revolved around her courageous response to the rats, and able to see that the appearance of the snow leopard was made possible by her reaching out to the rat. We explored her associations to the rat image, and she felt it represented both the loathesome qualities of her perpetrator, as well as the unwanted, intrusive aspects of her own sexuality. Being able to see the beauty of the rat enabled its tranformation into a symbol of power and spirituality.

Of course, few dreams will reveal such bold and creative responses. But regardless, the facilitator engages the dreamer in examining any changes in dream imagery might relate to, or mirror the dreamer’s changes in response, however subtle these changes might be. Just as systems-oriented therapists will teach family members to see their problem as a function of circular causality (Nichols & Schwartz, 2004, p. 8), a dream worker using FSM will encourage the dreamer to learn to see the impact of his or her reactions on the dream imagery itself, and to extrapolate on possible changes that may have occurred if the responses would have been different. Even if the dreamer and the dream imagery are “locked” into a static relationship, the facilitator can assist the dreamer in imagining what could happen if the dreamer’s stance could be modified. Process questions (Bowen, 1978) such as “What do you think would have happened if . . . ?” or “What do you wish you could have done differently?” encourage clients to become aware of the circular nature of a relationship dynamic, and to accept one’s ability to make a difference in a relationship.

At this stage in the dream work, the facilitator also asks the dreamer to imagine what the culmination of such an encounter would look like––in future dreams or parallel waking scenarios. Such a consideration leads naturally to the idea of identifying contexts in which to apply the fruits of the dream work process.

Step Five: Applying the Dream Work

Since FSM is founded on the dreamer’s capacity to enact a variety of responses to the dream––and correspondingly, to parallel waking scenarios––the final step of the dream work process involves identifying areas of one’s life where new responses might precipitate positive changes. If the dreamer can see a parallel between the dream issue and some waking situation, then the facilitator may encourage the dreamer to practice new, contextually appropriate responses that can be made in that waking life scenario.

Since dreams and waking experiences are considered equivalent arenas for growth and experimentation in FSM, applying the dream work can also take the form of preparing for future dreams, as well. This rehearsal process is similar to Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (Germain, et. al, 2004; Pierce, 2006), except that the focus is on altering the dreamer’s responses to the imagery, instead of directly changing the ending. A simple pre-sleep reverie exercise called Dream Reliving (Sparrow, 1983) can be used as a way to increase the likelihood that one will be able to implement the changes in future dreams. Dream Reliving consists of asking the dreamer 1) to relive the original dream in fantasy while enacting new responses, and then 2) to observe and record how the new responses altered the dream’s outcome. This imaginative process, which has been effective (Sparrow, 1983) as a pre-sleep exercise for increasing lucidity and enhancing other measures of dreamer development as described by Rossi (1972) can serve as a fitting culmination to the dream work process, and lay the groundwork for future discussions. (Source)