On Dreams and Psychic Injury

Dreamwork course coming up + Tracking healing in the unconscious

My Community Dreamwork series kicks off next Friday, September 6th. These are truly the most enriching gatherings. More below! 15% off for paid subscribers. | And our upcoming paid subscriber workshop is next Sunday, September 8th at 10am PT, with journaling time and a round of “Ask Me Anything.” Don’t forget to register. We’re gonna get into it.

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In my early 20s, following a series of traumatic events, I began dreaming prolifically. I’ve always been a dreamer and curious about the meaning of what takes place while I sleep, but this was different. An abrupt flood of images and stories went unabated for years. Everything felt important. I was desperate to understand what I saw night after night.

Even in the haze of my dissociation, I could see that my psyche was expressing its own wounds. There were mammals with blank, empty looks in their eyes; fish, bound up and trapped. Young terrified boys seeking help, and abused, discarded women. They were all parts of me, I knew. But they were also their own, autonomous entities that I could feel and see. My defenses had protected me from feeling anything with much clarity. But my empathy for those beings, whose pain I could easily feel, stirred sympathy for myself and an ability to experience the terror and grief I’d carefully, unconsciously, buried.

I began to think of the dreams I’d record in my black Moleskine journal as X-rays of my injury. Over time, as I tended to my well-being, attended therapy and dream groups, and learned the subtle movements of a committed yoga practice, I found I could also see progress in the new X-rays that arrived. The breaks began to fuse back together, the wounds began to heal.

It didn’t happen quickly, but the changes I saw gave me reason for relief and hope.

One recurring theme that I watched shift over many months began as images of dismemberment. The figures were sometimes gruesome but more frequently abstract, like stone statues with missing heads and limbs. I felt drawn to them with an inexplicable feeling of being mirrored. My body was intact, but my self had been taken apart. Fragmented. I appeared whole, but my inner world was in pieces.

Alchemical series Splendor Solis, Image 10, dated 1532-35; Prussian State Museum in Berlin

I soon discovered Edward Edinger’s brilliant work, Anatomy of the Psyche, on the alchemical symbolism of dreams during times of psychological transformation. I learned that dismemberment is an alchemical symbol common to life phases similar to mine—a known pattern in the unconscious that I could lean into for a sense of safety and comfort.

This is Edinger on the alchemical stage of mortificatio:

Mortificatio is the most negative operation in alchemy. It has to do with darkness, defeat, torture, mutilation, death, and rotting. However, these dark images often lead over to highly positive ones—growth, resurrection, rebirth. (p. 148)

And they did.

As I observed this symbolic theme over many months, I saw it change dramatically. Rather than dismembered, inert bodies, I now saw soldiers with recent amputations in a crowded military hospital. Wrapped in white bandages with wooden crutches at their bedsides, they were in a place of healing and receiving care.

Much later, this theme progressed further.

I had a dream in which I was showering at home and noticed that my right arm was missing. There was no blood or pain and I didn’t feel alarmed, merely curious. Then I saw that my detached arm was beside me on a surgical table and could easily be reattached, popped back into place like a doll’s arm with a satisfying click. I did this and felt at ease.

When I woke from this dream, I was in awe. I seemed to be putting myself back together again. I was fully present in this dream too, in contrast to my distinct absence from dreams before. And the shower scene, evocative of the alchemical stage of solutio, suggested that the waters of my emotional life were returning. It was, in all, another X-ray of my inner life that suggested transformation was underway. Placing the dreams side by side over time, I could see what was unfolding. Fragmentation and healing. A loss and a re-membering. I was, slowly, coming back to life.

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Join me to learn about dream symbols & dreamwork

Starting next Friday, September 6th | 9-11am PT | 12-2pm ET | 5-7pm UK | six sessions

These sessions are remarkably rich. Via live dreamwork (maybe your dream!) we each learn how to work our dreams and the meaning of their symbols. If you’re seeking depth and community, or are curious about the workings of the unconscious, this is it.

As always, 15% off for paid subscribers of Self & Society.

This practice of community dreamwork at The Salome Institute has been an enlivening opportunity to join with others interested in expanding their relationship with the unconscious, symbols, and dreams.

In this series, I’ll briefly introduce foundational elements of recording and observing dreams for those new to the practice. Then, we learn by doing and learn by observing others.

In each of our six sessions, I’ll host live dreamwork for two participants who have expressed interest in “working a dream” in a live, interactive format. (Participation is never required.)

We establish a compassionate, permissive container within the group to support the witnessing of the symbol-making function of the Psyche. Through a simple, guided process, I invite those present to help the day’s dreamers gain an understanding of their dreams through back-and-forth dialogue.

Everyone present learns about their own dreams, symbols, and the process of dreamwork whether they are working a dream live with the group or not.

In between live sessions, all registered participants are welcome to continue exploring the dream, sharing symbolic references and other thoughts on our private online discussion space. This is a vibrant place for those who join live every week and for those only able to join via recording.

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I’m Satya Doyle Byock, psychotherapist, author of Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood, director of The Salome Institute of Jungian Studies, and co-host of a podcast on Jung’s Red Book. My work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Oprah Daily, NPR, The BBC, Literary Hub, The Tamron Hall Show, and on podcasts such as Apple News in Conversation and The Joseph Campbell Foundation Podcast. All links can be found here.