“I was with my grandmother very often as a child. A very strong woman; sge was like an anchor. I spent all my holidays there. She lived in a small house of two stories. I was 5-7 and had to go to bed and was scared of the dark. I was in this old house with woodenn ofloors that creaked. I was in the dark. My grandmother was downstairs. (She was a powerful person who would say this is how we do things and we would do it.) I was convinced with the next squeak that there was someone there who would kill me and I sreamed.My aunt and grandmother came running and looked with me that there was no one there. I insisted on it, but they still said “No, no one is here!” I said, “Can we please leave the light on?” “No. There is no one there.” I panicked! I felt totally left alone, abandoned! I died a couple of deaths that night with fear! This grandmother left me in the lurch. I took it for granted she would take action and protect me…She didn’t…I still continued to visit her but I didn’t feel heard by her…
Associations…I think it was one of the pieces of the puzzle that made me who I am. It connected with other bad stuff happening in my life and contributed to a feeling of deep loneliness, being cut off, abandoned in my life. It’s still there.”
The characters: persecutor/death, creaking boards, darkness, the lights that came on, aunt, grandmother, bed…
To be interviewed: “My fear…the person I was sure was in the room….”
“Somebody…”
We have five “Somebodies,” people to be their own fear of attack, vulnerability, death!
The Somebody is your own fear of the unknown and your misperception of it…
Each “Somebody” thinks about three life issues of their own…
The subject was instructed to follow the IDL interviewing protocol and interview these five “Somebodies,”
Somebody, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?
R: “I am keeping the door shut in front of R so she cannot enter her home!”
Ro: “I can ooze through under the door. I can make noises! I can scare you!”
HP: “I brought my face into the room and disappeared!”
“I am invible, hidden by a big fog…”
“I am like a gnome in the woods!”
Somebody, what do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?
“I don’t like myself.”
“Everyone is scared of me but no one can get hold of me! I can upset a whole household!”
“I can vanish without anyone noticing.”
“I like that I am unpredictable, that I have power! I decide if you are scared or not!”
“I like to SCARE!!!”
“They all get together and search to find me! Ha ha! They can’t!!!”
Somebody, what do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What are they?
“No one can see me.”
“Nobody likes me.”
“I have no weaknesses!”
Did your human create you?
“What do you mean, “create?”
Somebody, what aspect of Roslyn do you represent or most closely personify?
“FEAR! Control!”
“Not understanding.”
“I am not so sure my human created me…”
Somebody, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change? If so, how?
“I don’t want to change! I love watching!”
“I would love to be there all the time!”
“I would do what I have done again and again!”
“I would like to become “official!” – I don’t want to have to hide.”
If you could change in any way that you want, what form would you take??
“No! I don’t want to change!”
“I can take any form I want to take anyway!”
Somebody, how do you score yourself 0-10 in confidence?
“100% – there are no limits to my possibility!”
Compassion – 0
Wisdom – “A lot!! Much!”
“It’s difficult to scare wise people!”
Acceptance!
“To hell with acceptance!”
“I accept myself the way I am!”
“Why should I accept myself if you don’t accept me?”
Inner peace…
“A lot!”
“I have inner peace but the others don’t!!!”
Witnessing…
“A lot!”
If your human scored like you do…
“She would have as much confidence, wisdom and witnessing as I do!”
If I scored all tens…
That would be boring! No drama!”
“I don’t want compassion!”
“She would enjoy her life much more and produce much more.”
“My human…without compassion??”
If you could live her life…
“I AM responsible for her life! But I am living my life, not hers!”
“I think this question is absurd! Why should I be responsible for her life?”
“I am not interested in taking over her life.”
How would you deal with her three life issues?
“I would make sure that those issues are answered with even MORE fear!”
“I would make it all a catastrophe!”
“She would have ZERO control over her life!”
“My human wouldn’t have to be scared any longer because she would spread fear everywhere!”
Any life situtations where it would be useful for your human to be as you are, Somebody?
“I think I’m a good negative example!”
Do you want drama?
“YES!!!”
“I can cause people to have all sorts of emotions but I am never in victim role!”
Why have you come up now?
“I have been woken up just now.”
“I have been ignored long enough!”
“All this official stuff is dead boring!”
“I will keep the door closed so R feels some resistance so it wakes her up.”
“I showed up because it was time someone listened to me!”
“I woke up because I was invited…”
Why should your human pay any attention to you?
“She looks at the really important stuff in her life!”
“For life to become more active!”
“I want to be seen!”
“Where I am that’s where the path is.”
What will your human do to ignore what you have said?
“She won’t ignore me! She’s getting to know me and she’ll get to know herself!”
“She will be scared, but that’s me!”
“She might prefer to be a soft thing and only deal with stuff that’s nice.”
Would it be good to have another interview?
“NEIN!”
“No – it might limit my power..”
“If she really wants to get scared, just go and have another interview!”
What have you heard yourself say?
“I was not really connected to what they said. I thought this was not about my own topic; this was about the others…”
“They said how much power this Somebody/fear has – it feels almost like a virus that wants to grow, become bigger…”
“It IS a threat! Fear doesn’t want to be looked at because it might become weaker or dissolve.”
“It likes to create confusion…”
“Everything can stay the way it is and there can even be more fear.”
It also said, “I really want to be seen!”
“I have a lot of FUN!!! Scaring people! And I LOVE drama!”
“I want to be seen and accepted!”
This is a good example of how an unresolved fear can create a general distance, mistrust and sense of loneliness and abandonment standing between us and life for years without us even recognizing it.
Notice that fear itself is not scared; it is at peace!
By listening to, hearing and becoming this fear, Roslyn was doing two very important things. First, she was reincorporating its many strengths, which she dissociated from when she was a young child. These include her confidence, wisdom, inner peace and ability to witness. Secondly, she is waking up, becoming lucid or clear in relation to her fear, understanding it and thereby moving out of her fear of it. This is a movement out of drama and toward wisdom and objectivity, which in turn will generate confidence and inner peace. These are qualities that she divorced while over-developing the two qualities fear is weak in – compassion and acceptance. She does not have to give them up, but she does need to balance them through the addition of the other four in order to become balanced and integrated in her growth. This Dream Sociodrama is a vehicle to help Roslyn to wake up to how she has scared herself, divorced herself from qualities she needs for happiness, and alienated herself from others.
