See what a playful Dreamscaping session looks like from beginning to end in this condensed session transcript: from Lightly Touching Upon the Loss, seeking Felt Sense Memories of Positive Excitation, Novelty-Seeking & Elicitation, Checking in for Purpose, creating the Prescriptive Memory and finally, Processing.
LIGHTLY TOUCHING UPON THE LOSS
C: In grad school, I met my friend, Shauna, and we were friends for a good 6 years. We ended up both moving at the same time to Arizona and started building a foundation there. And then we had a falling out. I had to sever the connection because of the things she was doing. I felt betrayed and dumbfounded.
She had difficulty adjusting, and meeting people so I was putting myself out there, dragging her along with me. I reconnected with a girl we went to grad school with and another guy and introduced both of them to Shauna and we’d all hang out. She ended up hanging out with them, but without me, and talking negatively about me. The guy ended up blocking me on all social media. I was shocked and confused. These were people I met and brought into her life. When I tried to confront her and have a conversation about it, she refused.
T: But you finally prevailed?
C: I ended up telling her, “I guess this friendship isn’t going to work if you’re not even willing to have a conversation about why you’re telling people things about me that are making them block me. Our friendship isn’t what I thought it was. Maybe we should part ways at this point.”
T: One of the things you said that stood out to me was that “the friendship wasn’t what I thought it was.” You knew her for six years and thought you knew what the friendship was.
C: Yeah. I mean, we had so many experiences together, cried together, slept in the same bed, had adventures, moved across the country together.
POSITIVE EXCITATION IN FELT SENSE MEMORIES
T: You had no idea of how she was looking at you. There could have been a growing jealousy. So, at this point we need to learn more about Shauna and what drew you to her. And that could be something she would say, something she would do, something she’d done before.
C: I think we were two of the only people of color in our grad program. When we met, I saw she was crying. I just checked in, and said “Are you okay?” Later, when I was at my lowest, she was there for me. We also had the same musical taste: early 2000’s Emo-Rock music. Typically, it’s for white people. It’s rare you’ll see another person of color also into it.
UNMET NEED
T: And where you diverged?
C: I noticed she was always looking for answers, paying psychics on different apps to tell her her future. I felt she was looking in places that weren’t going to give her the answer she was looking for.
T: Okay, what you just said now about “paying on different apps.” We never talked about socioeconomic class before, but now I’m picking up on disappointment related to her spending habits.
C: We were both struggling grad students. However, I definitely came from an extreme poverty situation, and I’ve been on my own since 16. But Shauna was still living with her mom and being taken care of. Every day she was asking for money for scammy stuff. She was vulnerable. Or she’d push it on me as well. A friend of hers started giving me an automatic psychic reading once and I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn’t ask for that. I don’t need that. No, thank you.”
T: So, her never taking your advice about predatory individuals ….
C: Yeah. I’d call them energy vampires. My youngest brother, he’s very intuitive as well and an energy worker, and when he met her the first time, he was extremely turned off and I was like, “Okay, that’s weird.” I always respect what he feels, but I was just like, “Okay, that’s fine that you don’t want to interact with her, but I’m not feeling that yet.”
T: How soon into the relationship did you start to feel it?
C: Maybe a year or two after I knew her.
T: So, there feels like a teachable moment here. Lots of mixed emotions. Loss of a friendship is not easily filled by another. Did you ever have a friend who was almost like a sister to you, like Shauna was?
C: I think hers was the longest and most intimate friendship I ever had, and I’ve had a lot of close friendships.
T: So, as far as the prescriptive memory goes, maybe it’s not so much about getting over Shauna, but how not to create armor that keeps you from ever getting close to a girlfriend again.
C: I think what you said about the armor; I’m realizing that since Shauna, I haven’t made strong efforts in the friendships I’ve made. I’ll not answer someone’s text for 4 days and say, it’s my “attention deficit” or something, but unconsciously I just don’t want to get that close to anyone again.
T: So, that’s the thing we want to change! Opening yourself up to a new friendship….
C: Yeah, I think so. I guess it’s like I was so open with her and then it completely turned against me. I was just confused because I never did anything to them, and they refused to speak with me and I never found out why. So, getting to that place of openness with another person, I’m wondering, is it worth it?
T: The word that just keeps repeating itself in my mind is reputation. Who likes when somebody is ruining your reputation? I mean they were literally behaving like the enemy.
C: Yeah. Yeah! It was disturbing. Even when you said that just now, I felt rage in my body.
T: We all know of people who lash out like that to protect themselves. It’s probably not the first time she did that either.
NOVELTY-SEEKING/ FIRST NEW LEARNING
C: It’s not the first time that I’ve had a girlfriend where the energy suddenly shifts …
T: Thank you for telling me that. That’s scary.
C: Yeah. Yeah! So, another friend, we used to live together during grad school and we were talking a lot, and then I noticed one day I was the only one texting. Her responses were getting shorter and shorter. A slow ghosting, but also the energy jumped.
T: And you’re asking yourself, Did I do something to them?
C: Yeah. In the other cases, I didn’t ask them what happened. I would say my friend Brittany before that…
T: How many other times did this happen to you? Shauna. This girl. Brittany….
C: My friend Maureen, another girl Josie. She actually did explain what happened.
T: Josie, Maureen, Brittany —then Shauna, right?
C: There was Leslie before that in middle school.
T: Isn’t this kind of great, getting it all out there? And by the way, I want to say something that as we’re going through this list, it’s less about what you did to them and more that there’s a vulnerability in you. Maybe not to psychics and to scammers but to something else. And maybe that’s what we need to get to.
C: I’m making a connection. Something just came up for me.
T: Tell me.
C: Remember, I told you I have complex trauma? So, telling you the family structure will tell you a lot. My parents were polygamous. Mom had 12 children and my father had over 30 with four other wives.
C: And two of my half-sisters used to bully me when I was very young. They would talk about my appearance and kind of manipulate me and be very, very friendly at first, and then backstab me. Or make up a lie and go tell their mom I did something. And I would just be like, “I thought we loved each other. I never did anything to you.” So, now I’m making that connection. I have been drawing myself to those kinds of relationships. Interesting.
T: Reenactments. Crazy.
C: I didn’t make that connection before. And it’s so obvious. Mhm.
T: What do you think it was about?
C: They were darker-skinned. Their mom was Black, my mom was white. They’d say things like, “I can make my hair straighter than yours.” I think there was definitely jealousy just based on that. And I was a very bright child. I was always very optimistic and energetic and excelling in school. But they would pick on my appearance: “Your nose is too big, your ears are huge,” anything to bring me down. And I was a kid, so I believed it all.
NOVELTY-SEEKING/SECOND NEW LEARNING
T: So where are we with this learning? We need to take it and shape it into something beautiful to replace the armor. What do you think that might be? Tell me the things that you’re seeing in your mind’s eye right now.
C: I want to take the armor off. I want to connect on a genuine level. However, I don’t want to be completely without the tools I need, just in case. So, if I’m not wearing armor, I’m completely vulnerable to those attacks. But I feel like I want something on my hip or maybe it’s a pair of glasses that can allow me to see behind a person’s intentions or something.
T: Are you a person that likes technology?
C: We’re becoming friends. (laughs) Technology and me.
T: Let’s invent our own technology. (Therapist suddenly aware of client’s eyeglasses.) Do you like to wear sunglasses?
C: Yeah. Every time I’m outside I wear sunglasses. I get light sensitive sometimes. Also, sometimes it’s so that I don’t have to make eye contact with strangers. Yeah.
T: And why don’t you want to make eye contact with strangers?
C: I feel like I have somewhat of a penetrating aura when it comes to my eyes.
T: Has someone told you that before?
C: Kind of. In different ways. But also, I don’t know if you know about human design. It’s kind of like astrology. It’s one of those systems where it tells you about yourself, based on your birth chart. And what I’ve noticed is eye contact for me feels intense and I think it feels intense for others. A little glass between us helps me feel like I’m a little bit less.
T: You say, I don’t make eye contact with strangers because you’re concerned about your penetrating aura’s effect on others. I think we have to flip it and think about others’ penetrating aura on you. So, what if the prescriptive memory is not even that dramatic but just a reframe? You’re not putting out harmful rays. You’re protecting yourself.
C: The question I’ve kept asking all along is, “What did I do wrong?” Yeah.
T: Yes. You’re blaming yourself.
C: I’m bad or wrong in some way and that’s why these things happened.
T: Exactly. We need a new way for you to see yourself.
CONSOLIDATING THE PRESCRIPTIVE MEMORY
T: What is your art medium?
C: I like to draw and paint.
T: What if you were to draw yourself? You’d see there’s no aura pouring out of your eyes.
C: Yeah. Yeah.
T: How do you feel about this idea of creating a fresh portrait of yourself?
C: I love it. I think it feels necessary.
T: We’re just fleshing out something. Is it a portrait as you are now? Are these glasses filtering out love bombing and other things? You are just gorgeous in your power, very polished on the outside, but now also polished on the inside.
C: Thank you. That’s what I’m looking for.
PROCESSING
C: When we began, I would say I was feeling 9-ish in activation, and now I’m definitely at a one. I think that one comes from thinking about how I’d be drawing this portrait out for myself. Sitting with that image and just even the kinesthetic quality of that experience is going to help me do some more processing.
T: Can you tell me what you noticed about the process in general?
C: Bringing up and questioning me about the loss of this friendship. It definitely made me more curious about my past connections, and what else is there. I felt the rage come up when you gave me that reflection of, that person was acting like an enemy. And it just felt like it brought me back to, wow, those feelings are still very much in my body! And to be able to express it and verbalize it to you was helpful, I think.
What I experienced with my sisters and what I’ve experienced with my friends —I didn’t even realize they were connected. Maybe I glanced on that idea at one point, but I never actually connected the two. It was a great process of being able to do that with you guiding, and things coming to me. It’s interesting how it made things just kind of come together through what felt like natural conversation. There wasn’t too much lingering. It was just like a flow, if that makes sense.
T: That is why this is not a DIY modality.
C: Yeah, inquisitiveness from the therapist. And also, the inferences that you made that this sounds like this and just things you said that led to a metaphor for me. That was helpful.
Dreamscaping is also similar to EMDR in that a memory is brought up and you feel it, study it and reframe it. But, even just doing that without the bilateral stimulation, talking my way through that journey with you, my body was able to shift through different nervous system states. Yeah, because I definitely felt the activation but also the co-regulation. I feel settled at this point.
T: I think most of the time we’re not even aware of the language we use and how there can be metaphorical things that might get lost otherwise. I really do feel that the client has all the wisdom they need already inside of them.
C: Yeah, I agree with that.
T: It’s just connecting the dots.
