Machiel Klerk, founder and president of the Jung Society of Utah, thinks dreaming is important—not just for him but for everybody. On the 13^th of June, 2015, he will be conducting a full day Dream Dialogue workshop at Salt Lake City’s StudioElevn in order to help attendees learn to communicate with their dreams.

The son of Dutch parents, Machiel was born in South Africa but spent most of his formative years in The Netherlands. Even as a young boy Machiel was influenced by the power of the dream world. He feels dreams have guided him through the most pivotal developments in his life, pointing out which vocations to choose and helping him make peace with the unexpected death of his father when he was ten-years old. The Jung Society of Utah was also the outgrowth of one his night visions.

What does it mean to dialogue with our dreams and how can we harness their power in order to make our lives more meaningful? Machiel agreed to sit down with me on to answer some of my questions about his unique approach to dreamwork. In this first part, he talks about his first encounters with the teachings of Carl Jung, dreams and how he developed his unique dream work approach.

Path of Dreams

How long have you been developing Dream Dialogue?

I started working with my dreams in my early 20’s. Then I stumbled onto Jung’s teachings and that set me on a path of taking dreams seriously. At first, I studied Jung and learned Jung and everything about Jung. In my 30’s I traveled to Asia and learned about Eastern traditions and the Eastern way of being with dreams. Slowly, I digested all of my studies and began getting a more personal style and understanding in the last five years. It takes a lot of time to work out something like this and I’m still working it out.

How does your work with Dream Dialogue dovetail with Carl Jung and your interest in Jungian Psychology?

Jung was the first who gave me clues about how to look at dreams. It was at a time in my life that I was facing an impasse. I had problems with meaning and vocation, and I was angry with the world that my Dad wasn’t there.

Somehow I stumbled on the work of Carl Jung and he gave my dreaming life a burst forward. I experienced a sense of end times, my previous world collapsed around me, and I went through all kinds of experiences with dreams. I also reconnected with the ancestors and learned more about death and experienced many synchronicities. I had a series of visions and out of body experiences that gave me different ideas about the structure of reality and also how to make contact with the Other World: Through being experiential and relational with the dream figures, by asking questions. And that was a very effective way of engaging with the Other World.

I learned that the interpretative mode must be postponed because I could be in a meditative state in the Other World, and I would begin interpreting it right away, but then the dream would break down. Yet, if I would ask questions (like how something was in my life or what to do with that) then there would be a dialogue. Therefore, I stress the notion of a Jungian experiential and relational approach.

Freud began dream interpretation; isn’t that right?

Yes, Freud was the founder of Western dream interpretation. Jung also engaged in dream interpretation. However, Jung starts in The Red Book a more experiential and relational approach towards the world of dream and its inhabitants. There is value to interpretation, and I’m not against it. But it is often more helpful to start experiential and relational before you move toward interpretation.

 

I really enjoyed your Rumi and the World of Dream CD and the more experiential/relational Jungian approach—how it is more about allowing these ideas and images to work in you rather than throwing a dart at the dream figures and saying “this is what you mean!”?

But interpretation can be helpful. Say you have a dream in which your boss is yelling at you, very dictatorial. It is possible you interpret the boss in the dream as an aggressive figure, possessing some aggression that you don’t have. It’s a dynamic where the dreamer has problems standing up to his boss, especially when the boss yells. Yet, what he actually needs is a bit more aggression. He needs what the boss already has—that is what this dream boss embodies. Let’s assume this is a correct interpretation.

The big question then becomes: How do I develop this lacking assertiveness?

You do so by actually getting in touch with the dream boss, this dream figure. And in my work, which draws upon many traditions (and in this case the work of Post-Jungian Robert Bosnak), we carefully observe the dream figure. Through empathy and observation you get a sense of this aggression. Then you start feeling it in your own body and can begin embodying it—you feel what it is like to be aggressive and assertive. Suddenly, you are doing what you interpretively know you should be doing.

This is a way to tap into the medicine of the figure and know some of its consciousness so that you can become more assertive. So the next time when a situation asks for it you can say, “this is not acceptable” or “these are my needs” or “I need it done like this.” That is how dreamwork is used to help people.

 

Read more about dreamwork and what to expect in the Dream Dialogue workshop in part two of my interview with Machiel.

~Krista Clement

Co-Director of Events and Promotions

The Jung Society of Utah