I am in the house of a very well known psychotherapist and his wife. Both have a good reputation because they have helped people and they want to help me to solve my trauma.
I am in the bed with the psychotherapist. His wife is not always there, only now and then. He tries to touch me but I get very frightened of this.
Therefore we talk and try to find out why I get so frightened and why I am where I am. I get more and more desperate and ask him to tell me finally the solution as to how I can find out what hurt me and overcome this.
Then he told me that a letter exists which explains everything. And this letter is in a hotel. If I read it then it could be that I am totally shocked and confused and may become insane because my whole world will look different. It would be extremely dangerous and could confront me with all my fears and hurts and my past in a way that maybe I could not deal with.
But I insist on reading the letter and he said that I should put on a bathrobe. I don’t know if I was naked before or not. I just remember the bathrobe very clearly.
Then I am waiting in the garage with his wife (or another woman?) who is in a bathrobe too until he comes with the car to take us to the hotel.
Then the dream finished before I found out what the letter said.
Dream edited for easier reading - JT, 2005
Lena
19:20 05/06/2003
HI Monika,
I'm wondering if you could try a Dream Alchemy exercise to work out what the letter said.
Choose two of the symbols/people in your dream and write out a conversation between them. Don't think about what to write, just pick up a pen and do it.
If it was my dream I'd have a conversation between the psychotherapist and the hotel.
Worth a try?
Lena
Jane Teresa Anderson
08:57 06/06/2003
Hi Monika,
Lena's suggestion is perfect as your dream even suggests, through the written letter, perhaps, a written therapy to get 'in touch' with what you need to know.
When you do the dialogue, do it very fast - leave no time to stop and think. (More details in "Dream Alchemy").
As you perceive the psychotherapist as trustworthy in waking life, he probably represents the part of yourself that does know what you need to get in touch with - the trusting 'inner psychotherapist'.
I keep saying 'in touch', because this is what your dream was showing you through the touching and your related fear of getting in touch (with your inner psychotherapist over this matter).
What does a hotel mean to you? A transitonary place? A place where you are not subject to the routines of home? Perhaps a place to get a different view?
Why would what you need to know (the letter, the different perspective on your life) be in a hotel (referring to your feelings about hotels)?
Jane Teresa
Monika
16:34 08/06/2003
Hi Lena and Jane Teresa!
Thank you for your replies. I tried the exercise and my conversation was between the psychotherapist, the hotel and the letter. This was quite confusing for me as the dialogue got very strange. I also thought about what a hotel means to me. It means "no home", "loneliness" and "lack of security and cosiness" to me. I don´t really know what the letter has to do with this and why would what I need to know be in a hotel?!
Monika
Jane Teresa Anderson
15:20 10/06/2003
Hi Monika,
In which other areas of your life do you feel a little homeless, lonely or lack security and cosiness?
If none - then consider the exact opposites:
In what area of your life do you embrace a sense of home, social life (lots of people), security and cosiness?
Often our dreams look at issues which have prompted us to go the other extreme.
For example, if lack of security was an issue for you as a child you may have grown up to create a life of ultra security. (Just an example.) Or if loneliness was an issue in earlier years, you may surround yourself with people now .... without leaving room to explore either the issue of loneliness or simply to have time out from other people.
Contemplating these thoughts may bring you to understand the points the dream letter wanted to communicate.
Hope this helps point you in the right direction,
Jane Teresa
Monika
04:11 11/06/2003
Dear Jane Teresa!
You hit exactly the point with the question: "In which other areas of your life do you feel a little homeless, lonely or lack security and cosiness?"
I need to say that I feel this for my whole life - a lack of trust and security. I feel homeless in theworld and am searching for something I cannot find - neither in jobs nor in relationships. In both there is not the home, the security, the cosiness and the all-embracing love. I am surrounding myself with people and am very extrovert - but I am also trying to explore more myself now and to stay alone. I started with meditation which I can feel will help me - because this all-embracing love is maybe the spiritual love that I miss, not the based-on-need love that I was looking for in my relationships to cover these feelings of complete loneliness that are so strong in my heart.
Now, in my homeless life a letter is entering which will fulfill me with more fear and pain and will deal with my past. Maybe this letter means the hidden knowledge why it came to this feeling of homelessness and by revealing this it will change my life completely? But how can I get to this hidden knowledge? I feel that the key to open it is still missing and that I am close but not there yet.
Monika
Lena
10:53 11/06/2003
Hi Monika,
The writing we do as a dream alchemy exercise usually IS very strange. If the result didn't help you try doing it again but this time have a coversation between only two of them. You could first do the psychotherapist and the hotel, then the psych and the letter. Or the letter and the hotel. Maybe all three conversations.
As you mentioned "key" I wonder if another thing you could try is a hotel room and the key to the room.
Lena
Monika
06:40 16/06/2003
Hi Lena,
I tried it again between the key and the hotel and the hotel told me that the door is already open and not locked, but to enter would change a lot and so it´s easier to think that the door is locked. Funny, this exercise - I think there is something in that... Monika
Lena
08:52 16/06/2003
Hi Monika,
Yes, that reply says a lot.
How I read it is that in your waking life you maybe feel alone and without resources to change anything, but your unconscious knows exactly what to do in order to take charge.
It's easier to say "I can't do this because I don't have the key" than to recognise that you actually don't need the key at all.
I believe that by looking at your dreams and really thinking about them you're already somewhere along the path of exploring yourself and getting to know yourself better.
You're doing really well. Stay with it.
Lena
Monika
06:15 21/06/2003
Thank you Lena! I had some insights (I wrote about it in my "A man dies from illness" dream). At the same time I had another insight concerning the "letter"! A friend of mine told me for a while now that I should write down all my memories about my life - beginning from early childhood. And yesterday I did it - I wrote 9 pages in two hours and I wrote like crazy, about experiences of guilt, shame, anger, adapting to others, meeting expectations. And then I sent her this "letter" - and suddenly it came to my mind! That´s it, that´s the letter of my dream which contains all about the developing of my "wrong self" and which I can understand now. And it really made me feel lonely and hurted me a lot to see all this (like the dream said!) but it also showed me the path how to change. I am almost sure that this letter in my dream is the same than the letter in my waking life that I wrote.
