Dreamwork as Storytelling

To tell a dream to ourselves we engage in narrative capture that may extend to narrative construction. There is much discussion among academic observers about how far this process may take us from the primal experience of the dream. Unfortunately they rarely speak of - or, it seems, from - their personal experiences. Recording the dream sets our inner editor and storymaker to work again. Telling the dream to others privately requires further narrative development oriented to performance. Telling the dream publicly in media, from a Substack article to a granite stele on the Giza plateau, requires further narrative selection and shaping

July 13, 2025

Last night in a dream I led a circle in which we explored the process by which dreams become stories that others wish to hear. I started by telling one of my own. It was quite intricate but I had told it before and could deliver it with dramatic effect. I then commented on how my inner editor, playing with characters and plot elements in the drifty state of hypnagogia, may have smoothed out bumpy passages, filled in gaps, and woven together pieces from several dreams - some playing simultaneously rather than sequentially - into a single story

Others took turns to tell and develop their own dream stories. Some did notable narrative development in front of the group, benefiting from questions that avoided analysis and were often along the lines of Who, What, Where, When.

We cane to a filmmaker in the group. She was eager to share but needed time to put together her notes, which resembled story boards.

I took advantage of this delay to make a second offering to the group. I described how I had been developing a dream report over the past few days. The dream was powerful; its power was embodied in the amulet I was wearing at my throat. No one had seen this before. A bronze colored triangle rested on a flat deep blue gemstone with irregular edges. A gold serpent lay on the triangle.

I promised the group a multi-layered story including my serendipitous discovery of the amulet, the contributions of a young priestess of Isis and what I thought was the intercession of transpersonal forces - call them gods - including Isis herself. I had pages of notes in a file, including a checklist in the handwriting of the priestess - some 20 words without context including "Unas".

I realized that some details of my story were already blurry and I should reread the original version I had tapped into my phone and look over subsequent email exchanges about the dream with a friend.

It was my turn to call for a pause. I touched the amulet at my voice box. The power was here. The words would come.

I nodded at the filmmaker. She was ready now. *I am going to take you to Ortygia," she announced. "To Quail Island, the Island of Arethusa." The storytellers in my dream circles aren't shy about details.

Illustration “At the Gate of Story” by Robert Moss