Dreams and Inner Identity

Each of us has a concept of ourselves and that towards which we are striving. In this process of forming an inner identity, it is natural to imitate those whom we think of highly. At first it is our parents, but after we grow up, we start looking out towards our peers and those who are in the limelight, in whatever profession or vocation we gravitate towards. If we desire to be a black belt in karate, maybe we would develop a sense of who Bruce Lee was and is for us, and in that process, take on some of the qualities we have seen in him and attempt to add them to the image we carry of who we are in life. That very process of identifying with someone or something greater and in this case more skilled than ourselves, is a part of the process of forming an inner identity.

I believe that dreams hold a key role in helping each of us form our inner identity, which is crucial to our mental health and well being. Dreams can do this because they can provide images and feelings about things in highly creative and new ways, and they are also expressive of the true emotions that we carry about things. They can thus help us to see our own potential in the dream context, so in a way we can reflect on things and create scenarios in order to predict beforehand how our choices might turn out. When we find something of particular interest where we might succeed, our dreams can then help propel us towards that goal in waking life. It has often been said that if we cannot dream something, we can never make it happen because the dream always comes first. Now a dream we have while awake and fantasizing is quite different to a dream we have when asleep, for we can delude ourselves with fantasies. A dream we have while asleep may also delude us to some degree, depending on how honest we are with ourselves. If we tell ourselves things we know are not true, our dreams can also reflect this instead of showing us a better way. This is tricky stuff to be sure, but the only way to really be effective in life is to be honest with ourselves, and when we are, our dreams will do the same.

The role of dreams in helping us form our inner image should not be underestimated. Our dreams reflect our inner life, our inner thoughts and emotions, and they are our inner feedback about what we are doing with our lives. If we experience a series of difficult and troublesome dreams, we might well suppose that we are encountering some troublesome times in life where we need to get things well understood before we can really proceed. This is not the only reason we might have difficult dreams, but a great many difficult dreams do come about as a result of choices we are about to make or have made. The length of the dream or the time it seems to take is not always a good indicator of the power to influence, for some very short dreams have the biggest effects. The power of a dream is in it's emotional effects on us.

The inner identity creative process has many stages to it which reflect it's expansive nature. Our inner identity is changing all the time, and must keep changing to meet the growth of the personality. Our inner identity usually changes many times in our lives, from that of a child, to a teenager, then a young adult, perhaps a Father or Mother, a worker or boss, and etc. In each phase of our lives we are called upon within ourselves to reform our personalities to meet our lives' changing circumstances. Each remaking of our inner identity has the same basic stages it follows.

The first part is the formative stage. In this stage we "discover" in ourselves, usually through dreaming about being in a certain role or circumstance, an interest or capacity to do or be involved in some particular thing or occupation. If we are an aspiring athlete, we might dream we have met Michael Jordan and had a personal basketball lesson from him, which serves as the first step. After this dream, we might feel just a bit moreso that within us is the capacity to become the "next" Michael Jordan, and make our own name in the world. If we want to enjoy a family, we would have dreams of being a parent and everything that might entail from our understanding of it.

The second stage of forming a new inner identity is the imitation process. Since we don't really know what it will be like when we get to be where we aspire to be, we have to try and imagine what it's like for someone who has made it. We might read about them or see them on TV, so that we see how they talk and act, and then incorporate that into who we are too, as best we can. Sometimes this is obvious to others, especially when we see kids talking or acting like their parents, or teenages who dress and talk like the musicians who make the music they listen to. This is clearly a phase we grow through, but it's a very important stage not to be overlooked.

The last stage happens as we integrate those things we pick up from others and create another new thing with it using both their inspiration and our own creativity. When this happens, sparks fly, and we begin to fill out the role we have chosen with joy and satisfaction.

At this point I would like to discuss another part of the inner identity creation process related to dreaming. This part has to do with how dreams affecting inner identity development can "evolve" over time. This is something which I have noticed over the years concerning my own dreams of this type, and about the evolution of my own inner identity. What I have seen happen is that I have woven many details into these types of dreams that were not originally recorded in my journal at the time of the dream, but they seem to fit so well that I could have sworn that the original dream contained them. Perhaps my memory improved over time, or more probably, and this is the fascinating part, new dream elements were added to the memory of the dream as I reconstructed the dream each time I recalled it. This may seem to many to be a mistake because the memory of the dream has been replaced by something that was not originally there, but I think instead that there is a constructive purpose for this.

This does lead us briefly to the subject of recalling dreams and what the recollection process actually is. I believe that each time we recall a dream, we must reconstruct in our minds the dream from what we remember about it. Each time we recall a particular dream, we do not reconstruct it quite the way we first remembered it. This is due to the fact that we may add new elements or delete some others to it each time we recall it. After many times of this process, the dream became something other than it originally was.

Many people might ask me to stop right here, saying this makes the dream interpretation process meaningless, if we can just change it willy nilly to suit ourselves. Yet I am saying that there is nothing at all willy nilly about this process. It is a developmental process and one which I believe is necessary even, for the continued health and development of our personality. This process is a natural growth and developmental process which I believe is used by most everyone as a basis for expanding personality to include more of a complete understanding of the overall personal life situation. I also realize however, that this process goes on largely unconscious in the majority of individuals.

These "new" elements we evolve into the original dream serve as focal points to the personality and as points of reference. They give a footing, so to speak, for the personality to deal with life situations that have proven difficult in the past. This powerful process is like a filling out of the dream, and helps us to get practice in filling out our waking lives with ideas that can help us towards our goals. This I believe is crucial to the successful development of the personality during particularly stressful circumstances, giving orientation and a sense of flexibility. I believe that this process is a very complex one and the quest for a more meaningful life depends on it.

On the contrary, identifying with something or someone greater than ourselves lets us feel that we too have a chance at success, which gives us the courage to go out into the world. The charge they add to life helps us along in the development of an inner identity, which helps propel us to greater accomplishments. The identity is not just composed of an identification with someone or something greater than ourselves, but involves our own participation in that larger vision of ourselves. Part of the challenge is that our own motivational energy must be used to "fill out" the vision and make it a physical reality. And yes, this also means that we grow in many ways and mature into the fulfilled being that we were born with the possibility of being.

Re-writing dreams or physical experiences to help us create our inner identity is one indication of how the dream world interfaces with our own physical world. I think of the dream world as being naturally supportive of our waking reality, and this seems obvious to me. It should be realized fully that the dream world is supportive of whatever conscious thoughts are held by the personality be they for better or worse. For good or ill, the process of forming an inner identity can lead us to harm or good, depending on what we gravitate towards and what we aspire towards in our lives. I could say so much more about how various movies, television shows and other media affects our lives, but I think each person has reasons for who they choose to imitate and that those reasons will lead them to what they need in their lives.