ABSTRACT
Dreams illuminate developmental tasks and stir up rich, juicy material for deep exploration. The dream of planting the cactus illustrates that each dream image, even the smallest fragment, is significant and meaningful, revealing a cross-section of the unconscious. A simple dream often carries deep emotional meaning. Dreams provide important insights into the therapeutic relationship. Dreams illuminate relational issues that may be re-enacted in the therapeutic transference. Dreams are the psyche's means of self-healing. Dreamwork helped the person to understand some of the complex emotional and interpersonal challenges of his current stage of life, and led to noticeable gains in his capacity to find satisfaction in his work and family relationships. The dreams illuminated a number of opposing elements in the psyche that were becoming unified: mother/lover, young/old, male/female, love/hate, and birth/death. In stating that dreams are intensifiers of emotions, the author also means that the feelings evoked by dreams can be quite intense.
