One young lady had a nightmare of orcs, like those in Lord of the Rings. They came up an elevator and were coming into her bedroom! Very scary! In fact, even after she was awake and knew they were “just dream orcs,” they were still too scary to interview.
When she did the orcs said that they had come to visit and have a cup of tea with her. They didn’t want to harm her. She woke up before they could let her know her intentions.
Why did they have to be so frightening? The interviewed orcs said, “Well, you wouldn’t have remembered the dream if you hadn’t gotten so scared that it woke you up!”
The orcs said that they represented parts of herself that she was afraid to listen to, that she was shutting out. By interviewing the orcs she integrated them into herself. She realized that she had been scaring herself!
This led to a conversation about how, by avoiding looking at and listening to the parts of ourselves that either scare us or that we are ashamed of, or that we dismiss as stupid or unimportant, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to learn from exactly those emerging potentials that have the most to teach us.
IDL interviewing speeds up your growth process by identifying and neutralizing your resistances, whatever they are.
Moral: When a monster shows up in your dream, why not invite it in for a spot of tea?
