You know, for the longest time, I just thought dreams were… well, dreams. Random brain-stuff from the day, a bit of weirdness thrown in for good measure. Never really gave ’em much thought beyond, “Huh, that was a strange one,” when I woke up. But then things started hitting me hard, life got a bit tangled, and I found myself staring at the ceiling a lot, feeling pretty lost.
I wasn’t sleeping great either, and the dreams I did have started feeling heavy, like there was something pushing at me, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I’d wake up feeling drained, not refreshed. My head was a mess, going ’round and ’round with worries. It got to a point where I just needed something to try, anything to get a handle on what was happening inside my head.
I started digging around, mostly online, stumbling through forums and some of those self-help blogs. Most of it felt like fluff, you know? All about positive thinking and manifesting, which is fine, but it wasn’t scratching the itch I had. I needed something… more direct, more like getting my hands dirty with the actual problem.
Then I bumped into this name: Fritz Perls. And his whole thing about dreams. It wasn’t about interpreting symbols, not like those old dream dictionaries that tell you a snake means betrayal or whatever. No, this guy, Perls, he said the dream is you. Every bit of it. The scary monster, the lost shoe, the grumpy old man – it’s all parts of you that you’ve sort of disowned or aren’t listening to.
At first, I thought, “Seriously? That sounds a bit out there, even for me.” The idea of actually talking to a dream element, or being the dream element? It felt kinda silly, like something you’d do in a drama class, not something you’d do alone in your living room.
But I was desperate, remember? So, one afternoon, after a particularly nagging dream where I was just running, running, running from something I couldn’t see, I decided to give it a shot. I remember the setup clearly.
I grabbed two chairs.
- I pulled one chair over and sat in it, being “me.”
- Then I pulled the other chair opposite me, leaving it empty. That was going to be the “something I was running from.”
It felt so weird, so incredibly awkward at first. I sat there, staring at an empty chair, trying not to laugh at myself. I started talking, mostly mumbling at first, to this invisible thing. I said, “Okay, you. What are you? Why are you chasing me?”
Then, the technique said, I had to switch chairs. I literally got up, walked over, and sat in the other chair, the “empty” one. And now, I had to be the thing I was running from. This was the truly bizarre part. What was I? I closed my eyes, tried to recall the feeling of being pursued, the sheer panic, and then tried to imagine what that feeling would say.
As the ‘thing’, I started saying, “I’m not chasing you. I’m just… there. I’m a feeling. You’re running from me, but I’m not doing anything. I’m just part of you.”
I switched back and forth like that for a good twenty minutes, maybe more. It was clunky, it was hesitant, and sometimes I just sat there feeling like an idiot. But something started to shift. The “thing” wasn’t malicious. It was just… present. And I was the one giving it all the power by running from it.
After that first awkward attempt, I found myself doing it more. Another dream, I remember, I was trying to climb a really slippery, muddy hill. I was frustrated, falling back down repeatedly. So I set up the chairs again.
My Next Try: The Slippery Hill
- First, I was “me,” the one struggling to climb. I vented. “Why is this so hard? Why can’t I get a grip?”
- Then, I became the “slippery hill.” I sat in the other chair and tried to feel like a hill. What would a hill say? I pictured the mud, the slickness. And as the hill, I said, “I’m just a hill. I’m made of mud. This is who I am. You can try to climb me, but I’m not going to change for you. You need to find a different way, or accept me as I am.”
That one hit me differently. It wasn’t about the hill being bad, or me being weak. It was about acceptance, and finding a strategy that fit the reality, rather than fighting against it. It wasn’t some grand psychological breakthrough, not with a capital ‘P’, but it was a little crack opening in my perception.
I keep a notebook now, next to my bed. When a dream feels particularly sticky or has an emotional punch, I jot it down. And sometimes, I still bring out those two chairs. It’s not a magic cure, it doesn’t fix everything. Not by a long shot. But it’s a way to actually engage with the mess inside, instead of just letting it swirl around until I’m utterly confused. It helps me acknowledge those parts of me I’m usually running from or trying to smooth over. It’s raw, it’s a bit silly, but it’s mine, and it gives me something to do when everything else feels out of my hands.
