Engaging the Soul of the World Through Dream

Abstract

This depth psychological study explored the effects of embodied imagination dream work (Bosnak, et. al.) on participant dreamers’ felt connections with nature. The intuitive inquiry hermeneutic research applied theoretical lenses of archetypal psychology (Hillman) and Indigenous knowledge (Deloria, Cajete, Kimmerer) to examine themes that emerged out of eight individual dream work sessions, guided by the researcher, with three participants,. Each participant incubated a dream series with an urgent question they wished to explore; the dreams responded in elegant and surprising ways to the incubations. The embodied imagination process led to important insights including the relationship of nature to death; human relationships as part of nature; and the importance of humility while facing nature. The dream work demonstrated ways in which both dreams and nature have an educative function if we develop an open and proper attitude toward images as living teachers. Most importantly, this dream work showed the importance of developing reciprocity psyche (Bernstein) with nature. Overall, the dream work deepened sensitivity toward anima mundi in the dreamers; it demonstrated how imagining into and relating to presences in nature restores a sense of soul to one’s self and surroundings and provides psychological sustenance through contact with the earth. Work in ecopsychology (Fisher, Perluss, Roszak, Snyder) was also important in providing theoretical backdrops to understanding the dream material in light of the research question. Jung’s experience with the mountain in Taos was key to this work.