Linda Yael Schiller, MSW, LICSW

98 Channing Rd.

Watertown, MA. 02472

617-926-9529

98 Channing Rd.

Watertown, MA 02472

617/926-9529

The Purpose of Dreams:

• To wake us up in our sleep to something that we need to know

• To tell us a story

• As a source of healing and nourishing; dreams come bearing gifts – including gifts from nightmares

• As a source of creativity

• For practical daily problem solving

• To point out unfinished business in our lives that we need to resolve (particularly with reoccurring dreams or themes)

•A conduit to connect us with the Divine: the night language of the soul

•A portal for time travel to other worlds and other being such as angels, demons, departed loved ones, ancestors

•Warning signs (health or safety issues)

•A window into the future (Talmud says dream are 1/60th prophesy)

•Vehicles for journeying: through our own lives, to our life purpose or mission

The Orchard of Dreams: The PaRDeS

(Understanding Dream Depth Through the Lens of Kabbalah)

These four levels of dreamwork correspond with the four layers of Kabbalistic mystic thought, and represent the four levels of deepening exegesis at which the Torah may be read. The word Pardes is both an acronym and a word meaning “orchard”. The letters (P, R, D, S) spell out the word "PaRDeS", which means orchard; and is an allegory for the Garden of Eden. Additionally, in the acronym each letter stands for a word: P’shat, Remez, Drash, and Sod. While each level of exegesis may be understood and appreciated on it’s own, and bring a specific insight or understanding of the dream to the dreamer, when taken together simultaneously, the dreamer has the potential of receiving insight or advice about daily life, an understanding of how the recent and/or distant past may still be affecting them, as well spiritual connection and direction to self, to others, to their community, to spirit, and to a larger life purpose or direction.

1. P'SHAT (Simple)

This is the baseline or literal level, the story that is spelled out by the dream narrative itself. It contains the dream landscape and characters, as they appear in the dream. “What you see is what you get” here. The dream story can be explored completely on the level of the dream narrative itself, without interpretive or associative elements. The content at this level can be looked at from outside or inside the dream, but it is not added to or changed, simply journeyed through and appreciated for what it is.

2.REMEZ (Hinted at)

This level contains our first mind and body associations to the dream material. This material is not contained directly in the dream itself, but as we ponder the meaning of the dream, these associations begin to jump out at us; they have been "hinted at" by the dream material. This is the "Oh, I know what that means/symbolizes" layer. It may contain influences from things that happened in our lives yesterday or recently, and the events in our lives that show up only slightly disguised or encoded in symbology. We see beneath this veil rather quickly, the meaning for us is embedded just below the surface of the words and dreamscape itself. Our response may be cognitive or may be an emotional or physical reaction (we get cold, angry, a stomach ache, giddy, tingling in our fingers, etc.) but may not yet know why.

3. DRASH (Revealed)

This layer is from the word Lidrosh, which means to chase after or pursue. This is the layer that is “revealed” to us when we work on the dream material through a variety of techniques that allow us to go beyond what we know consciously, or even beyond what we think we know when we begin to work with the material. We often must "pursue" this deeper meaning to get to the gifts of the dream. This is the symbolized layer, the layer of insight, of correlation, of deeper associations. It is the “unraveling” of the dream, and we pursue here associations that may take us past the material actually contained in the dream itself, but that the dream material pointed us towards. Here we may use a variety of techniques including active imagination, re-entry into the dream landscape, using energy techniques with the dream content, use of the Gestalt, and use of a variety of expressive modalities to reach the deeper layer.

4. SOD (Secret)

This is the deepest layer; it may contain mystical or spiritual guidance. It may be analogous to what Jung called "Big" dreams, the understanding of which may have profound significance for our lives, and possibly the lives of others around us. It can often be accessed through dream re-entry, and may provide us with passageway to other realms and alternate ways of knowing. This is the transpersonal, the mystical, the “secret”, our connection with other worlds, other time, other space, and our connection with the divine. It can be a remembering of ancient wisdom from our spiritual ancestors, that can show us a path, a vision, a hope. Sometimes this layer is in the manifest content of the dream; and of those dreams, we may just want to “sit” with them, rather than work with them further, and bask in the glow that is already manifest.