Jai: I am excited to have you all here this evening. This is a revival from previous Lava Rock clinics. Our team got to know each other in these clinics in the 90’s. The Lava Rock clinics were two week body symptom forums led by Arnold Mindell and Max Schupbach in the spring and fall. In these clinics the focus was on working with people with serious or chronic health issues and body symptoms. Today’s evening is a way to revive the spirit of the Lava Rock clinics. Tonight we are going to work with someone on a body symptoms and in this particular forum we would like to connect the individual experience to larger social issues.
The agenda for tonight is to introduce the dreambody concept and how it is linked to social issues, then we will work with Venetia on her body symptom, after that we will have a break. After the break we will have small group discussion and a large group process and open forum and have time for questions, that is the plan.
Jai: I want to also welcome the fear and anxiety that come with having a body symptom. It is terrifying to have a body symptom; I want to acknowledge that of course it’s really, really scary to have a symptom. On the other hand one of the things that we would like to experiment with and that we have seen over and over again, is that that symptom, even so it may look like the worse thing that you hate, may have something in it that is meaningful to you. It may have a certain power in it. So we are experimenting with that this evening and that is something we are going to to show, namely how, if you befriend that symptom and make it known to you rather than just trying to push it away, it can then become a power that you can use in your life. One of our goals for this evening is to be able to do that. It is behind what we do and what we call dreambody medicine. Is there anybody here for whom the term dreambody is new?
I think what I will do is actually just read you one of Arnold Mindell’s quote. Arnold Mindell came up with the concept of the dreambody in the 1970’s and in 1972 he wrote his first book with the same name. In it he says: “The dreambody appears as sentient generally unrecognized sensations that eventually manifest in dream images, body experiences and symptoms. The dreaming bridges the gap between our measurable physical bodies and the immeasurable experiences of the so called mind. What we see in our dreams we feel in our bodies, likewise what we experience in our bodies we can find in our dreams.”
Arnold Mindell introduced us to this revolutionary idea that our symptoms have meaning and that our bodies are dreaming. Now lots of people have said yes symptoms have meaning. I would like to differentiate the idea of symptoms having meaning. The Process Work approach to the “dreaming body” is not a cookbook method. We don’t say oh you have this symptom, so that means this. Low back pain means you have lack of support. You have x this means z. That is not the case here because each person’s process is so uniquely individual. It is really impossible to assign a meaning to a symptom just based on what the symptom is.
As an example I would like to describe something that happens daily in my private practice. People describe their pain in many ways. One person might say my pain is sharp or shooting; another person could say dull, achy, throbbing, or pressure; there is so many various ways that people describe and experience their emotional and physical pain.
Each person’s process is uniquely individual. Process Work and dreambody work is a therapeutic modality that follows the clients’ process rather than trying to fix them or heal them. Now that being said, of course we are all in favor of people being helped and relieved of their pain and suffering. As a doctor and body worker for more than 20 years I am all in favor of that, I am all about that but to stop there is leaving behind whole worlds of beauty, purpose and meaning.
If you start by just getting rid of the symptom you leave behind something and that’s the something we are experimenting with here.
Q: So the dreambody is non pathological, it doesn’t say: “You are bad for having carpal tunnel or back pain.”
Jai: It is just your process and there is something in it. The Process Work paradigm is similar to what we find in native cultures. Arnold Mindell talks in his book The Shaman’s Body about the symptom as an ally. That is a radical concept in Western medicine, it really is. However, in native and indigenous cultures that is not so unknown. It is common in indigenous cultures to see your symptom or worst problem as a worthy opponent or ally. Once you wrestle with them you may find a certain type of power that is healing to your soul. We are looking at what is behind a symptom that could be meaningful or useful. In some cases this approach can be curative but that is not the point. In Process Work we are trying to empower people to get to know themselves and gain strength from that. Often times when you find the power behind your symptom you no longer feel victim to it and that is a really the helpful part.
I wanted to give you a little example of that. I used to have symptoms where I would pass out. That was a big drag let me tell you. I would pass out often. It is really scary to wake up on the ground with people around you asking: “Are you okay?” I found out that I have low blood pressure and anemia. Okay, medically that was really helpful to know. And from a medical point of view it was helpful to take iron and electrolytes. But had I stopped there, I would have left a whole world behind of purpose and meaning. With Process Work I started to work on the dizzy state and found that it was an ally, something like a spiral galaxy. Through that experience I was able to get in touch with something that is deep in my soul. A part of me thats very non consensual, very feeling and very intuitive. My symptom became medicine for my soul that allows me to drop the ordinary and really go into those feeling realms where I feel at home.
Q: Can you talk about non consensual because I think that word has many meanings.
Jai: Of course. The consensual part of that particular symptom was the medical aspect. I went to a doctor, had blood tests and found out I had low blood pressure and anemia. That was the regular consensus reality stuff. Ok. I have that, so I need to take iron and need to watch these things. But the part that wasn’t consensual at all is the part that really spoke to my soul and made me more in touch with my dreamy, feeling and intuitive side. This was deeply meaningful, powerful and healing for me. This way my symptom became a medicine for me.
Finally I’d like to say that we also call the dreambody approach rainbow medicine. Rainbow medicine emphasizes the integrative medicine aspects of dreambody work. It is an integration and evolution of various healing modalities, conventional and complementary ones and it also honors shamanistic types of healing. It brings it all together. Our hope this evening is to explore an individual process and to see how it fits in to our community and where we are socially.
Finally I really believe that this type of medicine is preventative. I believe that if we are able to be lucid and to track that mysterious place where symptoms are created, that we may be able to prevent certain problems.
Pierre: I would like to talk about the social dimensions of health and dreambody work. I want to start with a story. It is a Greek myth that tells the story of Procrustes. Procrustes, he was and is, I think he still exists, an ogre. An ogre is a big mean person. Procrustes had an inn on the way to Athens. Everybody who wanted to go to Athens and was on their way towards Athens, had to stop at Procrustes’ inn. Procrustes would feed people, give them dinner and keep them overnight. The problem with his inn was that it only had one size beds. All the beds were the same size. Once you would go lie down and sleep at night Procrustes would come into your room and if you were too short he would stretch you, and if you were too tall he would cut your limbs, your legs to fit the size of the bed. And only then he would allow you to continue to go to Athens. You had to fit that one size bed.
We are all actually like Procrustes. We do that on an everyday basis. We cut our legs to a certain size or we stretch ourselves to fit a certain mainstream idea of who we should be and who we are expected to be and how we are expected to behave. Especially if we want to fit into the mainstream of society. In the myth social mainstream is represented by Athens which was the metropolis and which is the symbol of mainstream. We do that, and we do it on an everyday basis. One aspect of the social dimension of health is that we want to fit. We want to be part of the community. We want to behave like everybody else. We don’t want to stand out. It could be dangerous. So we limit or stretch ourselves to conform. That might be a reason why sometimes we develop symptoms. We conform because of the values and morals that are part of the common experience of community.
There is another aspect of the ogre which is also an important piece to the social dimensions of health: the social determinants. By that I mean the way we are as a community, the way we relate as a community which has huge impacts on our bodies. Meaning, all the social dynamics of let’s say, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or social dynamics that are based on economics and access to resources. These dynamics create what is called micro aggressions. Minor daily hassles that we experience sometimes consciously sometimes subconsciously, subliminally. We feel them in the atmosphere of the social environment. These micro aggressions have an impact on us and our bodies. They stress us. They put a stress load on us which really creates symptoms. These social dynamics determine why some people are more privileged and because of that privilege have more chance to stay healthy and why some people with less privileges in these different dimensions are more at risk.
Q: I read that people of color have more hospitalizations than caucasian people.
Pierre: That is one of the outcomes of this social process. It is important to me that when we look at body symptoms we not only look at them from an individual perspective but also as a community process. This what we will try to do explore here tonight. How is someone’s individual experience part of a larger community experience. It is an experiment and we will see how we can do that. Obviously by just stating these social dynamics I am in danger of starting a group process from the beginning but lets postpone it. We will have time for a group process later tonight.
