Mali 1

Ashaka Mali
English 100
Prof. Cheatham
9 September 2015
What is a Healing Dream?
Dreams are magical things. They give a person glimpses, usually unbidden, into their
past, present, and future. They reflect their hopes, desires, and fears. They reveal mysteries, give
lessons, and grant a person messages from their highest guidance. Dreams are a place where the
various parts of our psyche explore ideas, work out issues, and interact with each other. Healing
Dreams are dreams that can transform a person in a way that one may never be the same again.
In his article, What Is a Healing Dream?, Marc Ian Barasch says that They [Healing
Dreams] reveal dimensions of experience beyond the everyday. They may shock us, console us,
arouse us, or repulse us. Anyone who has experienced dreams of surpassing power will know
exactly what Barasch is talking about here. These dreams show us a different side of us that we
werent aware of. Everyone dreams since their childhood, but they only remember a handful of
dreams. These dreams are the dreams that have affected them in some way or the other. These
dreams become a part of an individual and are constantly there to guide them and help them
solve their problems.
Barasch uses several examples to show how healing dreams have changed peoples lives.
First, he talks about Jungian analyst Marion Woodman. Woodman had a dream that helped her
recovery from a serious physical illness. Barasch quotes her saying, I cannot let others into my
holy of holies. when she refuses to share her dream. He asked a Choctaw Indian acquaintance
named Preston about he knows if he has had a special dream. Preston replies saying, Its the

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way you feel. Those dreams feel realer than real and the person wakes up feeling what they
felt in their dream.
Barasch argues that dreams that do not arouse any strong feelings arent true dreams.
True dreams are filled with extreme emotions like terror and heart-bursting joy, not simple
anxiety and mere pleasantness. Healing Dreams usually produce a catharsis and cause a change
of heart. Baraschs main argument is that Healing Dreams alter a person, which is true. Usually,
after having a Healing Dream, a person becomes a better human being.
Healing Dreams often involve a sense of the uncanny or paranormal. In dreams, a
person can do anything he wants or be anyone. A person has the power to do whatever he wants,
like levitate an object, transform into other creature, visit places he has never been to, be with
people he has always wanted to be with. Dreams are an infinite ground where a person can do
whatever he wants and no one is there to judge him as no one else would know about it.
[D]reamers sometimes do not share with even their loved ones.
Dreams arent real but they inspire or give a person an idea that they can use in their real
life. Sometimes, if a person has a problem, his dream might help him find a solution to his
problems in symbolic language. These symbols tend to be extraordinarily multilayered, where
the image seems to be chosen by the unconscious for its multiplicity of association. The dreams
storytelling tends to be artful, often containing a rich array of literature or cinematic devices.
According to Barasch, dreams are very creative and its [l]anguage itself reveals a dense
richness.
Healing Dreams are very powerful as they leave an impact on a persons life. Healing
Dreams linger in the memory while normal dreams fade away. Healing Dreams, if heeded, can
be transformational- creating new attitudes toward ourselves and others, magnifying our spiritual

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understanding, deepening the feeling side of life, producing changes in careers and relationships,
even affecting society itself. People say that one dream can change everything. Well, if it is a
Healing Dream, it will improve a persons life.
Barasch believes that Healing Dreams cannot be completely interpreted or fully
understood. A dream can be interpreted in several different ways by several different people
depending on how they perceive it. A person may think that the dream is significant, but actually
it is just a useless dream that means nothing. When this happens, the dream uses you. The
person will try to find what the dream meant and will obsess over its symbolism when it actually
meant nothing. Such dreams use us only if we are willing to dwell for a time withing their
ambiguities without resolving them.
Barasch gives the example of Robert Johnsons dream. Johnson obsessed over his dream
of a spirit man with burning orange fire coursing through his veins, plunging to the bottom of
an indigo lake, but the fire was unquenched. The spirit man then took Johnson to a great nebula
at the center of the universe. He wondered how this dream would tangibly change his life. He
later realized that he would never know because maybe it wasnt a significant dream.
They [dreams] often require us to live our questions rather than furnish instant answers.
Sometimes dreams dont give the answers to ones problem but lets the person experience his
problem in order to see it clearly and solve it effectively. Healing Dream is a window that
enlarges a persons perspective, freeing them of a certain tunnel vision. They kindle an inner
heat, forcing an individual to include his obstacles and adversaries in his process of growth.
Healing Dreams are like art, they evoke a feeling of meaningfulness that cannot be put
into words. They might be so significant that it is difficult to express what a person felt in his
dream. These dream raise the ordinary to the extraordinary by shedding some light onto them.

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Dreams change a persons perspective and people see things in a different light, altering their
personality for forever. Healing Dreams take the person to a different world, giving a fantasy-like
feeling to the dreamer.
Barasch personifies Healing Dreams as a wise teacher. They know a persons deepest
secrets, fears and forbidden desires, hopes and unexpressed gifts. These dreams tell the person a
story about his life, about his relationships and where he stands in the society. Healing Dreams
are a persons subconscious mind talking, things they werent aware of or things they didnt
consider themselves capable of doing.
According to Barasch, Healing Dreams have certain perspectives that recur. These
perspectives are: Nonself, nonsense, balance, reversal of value, and wholeness. Nonself is the the
part of our personality we werent aware of. Dreams dont make sense most of the times. This is
where nonsense comes into picture. Healing Dreams often come to redress imbalance, something
in the personality is askew and awry. What the conscious mind believes to be of value might be
of no value in reality. This is called reversal of value. Dreams that point to the relatedness of all
things, reveling in the union of opposites comprises of wholeness.
Healing Dreams want something of us, and often will not let go until they receive it.
They usually improve a person and help him get out of a difficult situation. They wont go away
quietly because they believe in utterly changing a person. They open up a gap in the ordinary,
allowing something new and enter a persons lives. Dreams are an invitation to change lives.