ABSTRACT
The dreams illustrate the intelligence of the unconscious in addressing issues of prolonged bereavement, depression, sexuality, love, creativity, and vocational goals. The catalytic role that dreams can play in psychotherapy, especially when a series of dreams are viewed as a cohesive set of images fostering emotional healing. The series of dreams feature the father archetype, the anima, several animal figures, Duke Ellington, and the symbolism of archaic male initiation rites. The dreams were like an underground stream that irrigated the therapeutic process—nourishing, providing focus, and adding emotional depth. Through these dreams we encounter the intelligence of psyche—the unconscious, that living, breathing, self-organizing medium that is the focus of the work, and the object of fascination, of depth psychologists. Disturbing dream imagery usually carries great emotional intensity. The dream's motif of sacrifice jarred loose memories and emotions that had been long buried.
