Dream analysis appears to deepen and accelerate the psychotherapeutic process, but it is not widely employed in contemporary practice. This may be due, in part, to the age-old belief that dreams represent waking life, and that the value of a dream is in the interpretation of its visual content. This study challenges this traditional belief, and presents a view of the dream as an interactive process between the dreamer and the dream imagery. From this standpoint, dreams are indeterminate from the outset and codetermined through the reciprocal interplay between dreamer and dream content. The theory and research that supports a codetermined view of the dream is reviewed, and a systematic method of therapeutic dream analysis consistent with this model is introduced.


    Dream analysis has been used in psychotherapy since Freud declared that dreams were “the royal road to a knowledge of the activities of the unconscious” (1900/1965). Other theorists have since incorporated dream analysis into Analytical Psychology (Jung, 1974, 1986), Individual Psychology (Adler, 1936) existential-phenomenology (Boss, 1958, 1977; Craig & Walsh, 1993), Gestalt therapy (Perls, 1968, 1973), Focusing (Gendlin, 1986), client-centered counseling (Barrineau, 1992), group therapy (Taylor, 1992; Ullman, 1996), cognitive-behavioral therapy (Freeman & Boyll, 1992), family systems (Beck, 2005;  Bynum, 1980, 1993; Kane, 1997; Kaplan, et. al, 1981), and contemporary psychoanalytic therapy (Weiss, 1993).  Eclectic step-by-step methods––such as the Hill Method (Hill, 1996), the Interview Method (Delaney, 1993b; Flowers, 1993)––have also been introduced.
    As for the effectiveness of dream analysis in psychotherapy, the results are limited by the paucity of studies to date. But studies have shown that dream analysis increases self disclosure and exploration (Provost, 1999), results in deeper work in the early sessions of therapy (Diemer, et. al, 1998), and produces superior client outcome measures when compared when self-esteem and insight work (Falk & Hill, 1995). And yet only a small percentage of practicing psychotherapists actively solicit dream reports from their clients.  In one study, 83 percent of the respondents reported discussing dreams at least occasionally, but only 13 percent of the therapists employed dream analysis on a regular basis (Keller, et. al, 1995).  Another survey (Schredl, et. al, 2000) of German psychotherapists indicated that while respondents used dreams in 28 percent of their sessions, their clients initiated the dream work two-thirds of the time.  And in a more recent study (Crook & Hill, 2004), 92 percent of therapists surveyed reported that they worked with dreams at least occasionally, but only 15 percent had worked with client dreams during the previous year.
    Since the kind of information that therapists solicit from their clients has to do with whether they believe it can be useful in furthering the goals of therapy, the low utilization of dream analysis may be due, in part, to a perceived mismatch between the material that dreams provide and the goals of the therapeutic process. And yet, the problem of incorporating dream analysis into the therapeutic process may have less to do with the kind of information that dreams provide, and more to do with the way that people view dreams in the first place. Specifically, the prevailing Western orientation to dreams is founded on an ancient premise credited to Plato that dreams represent the physical world, and can therefore be regarded as a commentary on our lives. In this paper, I present an alternate view––that the dream is an interactive, reciprocal exchange between the dreamer and the dream content. When viewed from this standpoint, dreams are indeterminate from the outset, and codetermined through the interplay between the dreamer and the emergent dream content. This orientation permits an analysis and troubleshooting of the dreamer’s responses to the dream––and by implication, to waking life, as well. After reviewing the basis for a co-creative view of dreaming (CDT), I will outline an approach to clinical dream analysis based on this model.

The Traditional View of the Dream

    The traditional practice of dream interpretation treats the dream  "as a product drawn from sleeping into waking, to be worked with by the application of various waking techniques" (Moffitt, 2000, p. 162). Whether one believes the dream is a clever disguise for an unacceptable truth (Freud, 1900/1965),  the message itself (Jung, 1984, 1986), a part of ourselves from which we are alienated (Perls, 1968, 1973), or another experience in the life of the individual (Boss, 1958, 1977) there is an assumption embedded in the Western view of dreaming––that the dream is a product whose value lies in the consideration of its visual content.
The Theory of Mimesis
     This assumption can be traced to ancient Greece and the theory of mimesis. Plato believed that the physical world was a mere shadow of the supraordinate realm, and that dreams and art, in turn, mirrored the physical world. From this premise, dreams came to be seem as representative commentaries on our lives. This belief is so deeply embedded in the Western worldview that most of are us are unaware of its influence. Sontag puts it this way:
The fact is, all Western consciousness of and reflection upon art, have remained within the confines staked out by the Greek theory of art as mimesis or representation . . . it is still assumed that a work of art is its content. Or, as it's usually put today, that a work of art by definition says something" (1966, p. 4).
    The Talmudic saying, “A dream unexamined is like a letter unopened” expresses the same idea––that the dream contains information about our waking lives that has to be translated to be of any value. This approach has time-tested usefulness, but it also has its limitations. When one contemplates a completed work of art, or a published text, it may make sense to analyze its content in terms of what it means or says. But when a dream can unfold in a number of possible directions based on the dreamer’s responses to it, treating the experience as a fixed, interpretable communication effectively disregards the dreamer in the quest for the dream’s presumed meaning.
    In contrast, upon receiving an account of a waking experience, we assume that the person was an autonomous agent involved in an exchange with the environment. Thus we treat the account as an interactive process that was indeterminate from the outset. We listen for feelings, thoughts, assumptions, and behaviors that may have influenced the direction or quality of the experience. This sensitivity to the constructed nature of a person’s narrative allows us to communicate an empathic understanding of how these subjective influences interact with the environment to codetermine one’s experience of the world. If the dream is truly an interactive process, then we need a dream work method that reflects this orientation.

 The Dream as an Interactive Process

    Approaching the dream as an interactive process requires that we treat the dreamer and the dream content as independent contributors to the experience. Instead of asking content-oriented questions such as, “What does this image mean,” or “What is this dream saying to you?” we would track the dreamer’s interaction with the imagery through the course of the dream. We would ask process-oriented questions such as, “ What did you feel?” “How did you respond to what was presented?” “How did the imagery change in response to what the you did?” and “What do think would have happened if you had responded differently?”
    While this approach represents a significant departure from the traditional content-oriented approach, I believe that there is adequate theoretical and empirical evidence to support it. Further, I believe that this orientation generates a dynamic approach to dream analysis that focuses on the relationship between the dreamer and the dream imagery; analyzes the dreamer's responses for evidence of chronic patterns and/or emerging competencies; examines dreamer responses and content changes in light “circular causality” or reciprocity (Bertalanffy, 1968; Weiner, 1948); and maps the interactive process onto general waking scenarios in order to formulate a plan of action.
    A systematic approach to clinical dream analysis that treats the dreamer and the dream as separate interacting systems has only recently been introduced (Sparrow, 2006, 2007), even though the theoretical foundation for such an approach has been in development for some time.

Antecedents to the Theory of Dreams as Co-created

    While the theory of mimesis underlies the view of the dream as a representational product, some dream theorists have ventured to say that the dreamer plays a more active role in the dream’s construction, giving rise to a view of the dream as an indeterminate, interactive process. For instance, Jung cited the dreamer’s direct participation in the co-creation of the manifest dream when he said,
    Jung’s statement promotes a view of the dream image as a moment-to-moment vectoring of conscious and unconscious influences—a mutable interface between the observer and the unseen.  In retrospect, Jung’s preoccupation with the archetypal elements in dreams in practice (Delaney, 1993b, p. 206) may have neglected the dreamer’s unique contributions to the dream's creation and the “reciprocal relationship” to which he once alluded.   
    Boss (1977) implicitly affirmed the codetermined nature of at least some dreams, when he asserted that people can exercise volition while dreaming:
    While Boss acknowledged the dreamer's capacity to exercise volition, he did not emphasize this dimension in his approach to dreams, perhaps because a theoretically driven analysis of the dreamer's influence as a general practice is inconsistent with a purely phenomenological orientation of accepting the dream “as it is.”
    Perls viewed the dream as codetermined when he argued that the experience of the dream’s "happening to us" is a fiction born of our unwillingness to take responsibility for the dream. Speaking of the dream’s frustrating qualities, Perls says, "You prevent yourself from achieving what you want to achieve. But you don’t experience this as your doing it. You experience this as some other power that is preventing you" (1973, p. 178). For Perls, the dream depicts our alienation from parts of ourselves, the solution to which is a here-and-now dialoguing with the various dream characters and objects. Thus a codetermined view of the manifest dream, while implied by Perls’ words, is unimportant within the exclusively present-oriented Gestalt method.
    Rossi (1972/1986, 2000) was the first to articulate an encompassing theory around the dreamer's capacity to reflect upon and freely interact with the dream imagery. In his “co-creative” view of dreaming, the synthesis of new identity takes place through the interaction and dialogue between the dreamer and dream imagery. According to Rossi, dreamer self-awareness manifests to some extent––sometimes minimally––in virtually every dream , such that there is "a continuum of all possible balances of control between the autonomous process and the dreamer’s self-awareness and consciously directed effort" (1972, p. 163). Further, he has observed that as dreamer self-awareness increases, the autonomous quality of the dream decreases.  Rossi has continued to develop his theory (2000) without, as yet, translating it into an imminently applicable dream work methodology.
Lucid Dream Research
    In his initial work, Rossi (1972) never mentioned the term lucid dreaming, which is not surprising given the fact that it was not until the late 60s that Van Eeden’s work (1913) was brought into public awareness (Green, 1968; Tart, 1968). Subsequent writers (Gackenbach & LaBerge, 1988; Kelzer, 1987; LaBerge,1980, 1985; Sparrow, 1974, 1976) demonstrated that some dreamers, at least, were capable of becoming fully conscious in the dream and influencing its outcome. LaBerge's Lucid Dreaming (1985) has been hailed as "one of the most influential books on modern dream research since Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams," and "a major turning point in twentieth-century dream study" (Bulkeley, 1994, p. 59). And yet, the phenomenon of lucid dreaming has not influenced the practice of dream analysis to any significant extent. Delaney’s (1993a) review of contemporary approaches to dream interpretation includes only a single passing reference to lucid dreaming as synonymous with dream control (Flowers, 1993, p. 251).  While Delaney's work is dated, it appeared over a decade after lucid dreaming was established as a REM-correlated phenomenon (Hearne, 1978; LaBerge, 1982),and two decades after Rossi (1972) introduced his co-creative dream theory. Hill's more recent work (1996) on the use of dreams in psychotherapy mentions lucid dreaming briefly in the larger context of various strategies for changing unpleasant dream endings (p. 110-120), but stops short of incorporating a codetermined view of the dream's formation.
    Lucid dream researchers may have undermined lucid dreaming's broader impact on the field of dream analysis by minimizing the importance of the dream imagery in favor of emphasizing the lucid dreamer’s virtually unlimited powers. LaBerge and Reingold (1990) capture this pioneering spirit when they say,
Such enthusiasm tilts so far in the direction of solipsism that the dream imagery ceases to have any independent agency or meaning apart from the dreamer. While it may compensate for the traditional neglect of the dreamer's potentials, it overlooks the possibility that the dream is––at its best––an interactive process between functionally independent systems, both of which may deserve equal consideration in the analysis of dreams.
    We have seen that the traditional content-oriented approach to dream analysis fails to acknowledge the functional independence of the dreamer and the interactive potential of the dream. Conversely, the quest for lucidity may overshadow the relational potential of the dream by overlooking the functional autonomy of the imagery.  CDT arguably synthesizes these two orientations. It acknowledges the role of dreamer awareness and responsiveness, while maintaining a view of the dream imagery as a somewhat autonomous creation. By regarding the dream as an interactive process, CDT preserves a relational or dialectical orientation to the dream experience.

Reflective Awareness in Dreams

    The validity and practical usefulness of CDT ultimately depends on whether ordinary dreams evidence a discernible degree of reflective awareness. If the answer is “yes,” then researchers and dream workers can legitimately turn their attention to the analysis of dreamer-dream interactive process. However, if the answer is “no,” then CDT cannot reasonably apply to the vast majority of dreams reported, and an approach to dream analysis based on CDT would have to be reserved for exceptional dreams. Rechtschaffen believes that the answer is “no” when he says:
    Rechtschaffen’s statement contrasts starkly with Rossi’s observation that there is a “continuum of all possible balances of control between the autonomous process and the dreamer’s self-awareness and consciously directed effort"  (1972, p. 163). Commenting on this discrepancy, Moffitt  acknowledges that in a preliminary study of Rossi’s Self Reflectiveness Scale, most dreams scored low on reflectiveness, but that frequent dream recallers scored “slightly but significantly higher” than low recallers.  On the basis of this finding, Moffitt concluded, “In Rossi’s terms, it could be argued that Rechtschaffen painted with too broad a brush, ignoring . . . the potential for the emergence of self-reflective awareness in dreaming” (Rossi, 2000, p. 151).   
    Some researchers agree theoretically with Rechtschaffen that reflective awareness is temporarily withheld in dreaming (Cicogna & Bosinelli, 2001) to allow for the consolidation of new information into long-term memory, and Weinstein, et al. (1988) find support for this hypothesis in the discussion of their research. However, other studies have found evidence of significant measurable reflective awareness in ordinary dreams (Snyder, 1970; Kosmova & Wolman, 2006), or shown that reflectiveness and other qualities of dreamer development described by Rossi (2000) can be significantly enhanced through a variety of pre-sleep strategies (Purcell, 1987; Sparrow, 1983).
    The apparent presence or absence of reflective awareness may be a function of how dreamers report their dreams, and how researchers view the dream reports. Kahan & LaBerge  have noted the way that dreamers tend to report only the concrete attributes of the dream, such as where, when, what, and who (1994, p. 237), and that “this concentration on recounting the story of the dream does not allow researchers to discern how the dreamers recognize their own experiencing and doing” (Kozmova & Wolman, 2006, p. 201). 
    This unintentional suppression of reflectiveness in the dream report by the dreamer may be due to a paradigm-driven emphasis on dream content.  That is, if dreamers are governed by the assumption that the dream is its content––as per the theory of mimesis––then they will record their experiences accordingly with an emphasis on the content and a concomitant disregard for the dreamer’s subjective states. Then, when evaluating such reports, researchers and dream analysts who are influenced by the same paradigm may further disregard whatever traces of reflective awareness may remain in the dreamer’s report. Subtly influenced by the same unexamined premise, dreamers, researchers and dream analysts alike may unwittingly produce an experience that fits their jointly held paradigm. Significantly, Kozmova & Wolman (2006) used a style of inquiry in their study which effectively elicited what the dreamer had originally experienced, but had not recorded. They ". . . investigated experiential features and self-knowledge that are a) not directly observable and retrievable during dreaming, b) probably would not appear in spontaneous dream reports, and c) might nevertheless be retrievable after a certain period of time" (p. 201)
    Such an approach can feasibly counteract the potential suppression of reflective awareness in dream reporting. Until the exclusive preoccupation with dream content is more widely challenged, it is likely that researchers and therapists who accept CDT will have to alter their instructions for recording dreams, or retroactively tease out instances of reflective awareness that were not included in the dreamer’s initial report.

 A Dream Work Methodology Based on CDT

    Some researchers, who have established the capacity of dreamers to increase their reflective awareness according to Rossi (1972/1986, 2000) through presleep efforts (Purcell, 1987; Sparrow, 1983), have gone on to train individuals to use dreaming as an arena for further self development. These efforts parallel the trajectory of some of the main lucid dream researchers (Gackenbach & LaBerge, 1988; LaBerge, 1985, 1990) and popular dream authors (Garfield, 1995), who have focused on ways to help people induce lucidity. However, as a psychotherapist, I believe there is a need to have an approach to dream analysis based on CDT, which permits all of my clients to benefit from its predictive and  explanatory power by retrospectively exploring the dreamer's influence on the dream. Consequently, I began developing a dream work methodology based on CDT over 25 years ago, and have since refined it in the therapeutic setting. I have observed that this approach not only reaps the maximum therapeutic benefit from recollected dreams, but also serves as an effective rehearsal for increasing the dreamer's reflectiveness and interactivity in future dreams.
    As for specific techniques or practices, this method––called the Five Star method––includes or accommodates aspects of well-known dream work approaches (Jung, 1974; 1984; Perls; 1969; 1973; Taylor, 1992; Ullman & Zimmerman,1985; Ullman, 1993). But FSM features original interventions and perspectives based on CDT, and can be used flexibly in individual, conjoint, family, and group therapy.

Establishing the Context for Dream Work

    FSM commences by sharing the dreams in the first person, present tense (Perls, 1969, 1973). This enables the dreamer to relive the original experience and its attendant emotions and thoughts, and for the facilitator to vicariously appropriate the dream––that is, to experience the dream as if it were one’s own––as advocated by Taylor (1992) and Ullman (1993). This shared exchange converts a private experience into a here-and-now, shared experience to which the dreamer and facilitator alike can relate directly. Also, by reliving the dream in the present tense from beginning to end, the dreamer is better able to experience the dream's initial indeterminacy as well as the dreamer's moment-to-moment influence on its unfoldment.

Step One: Sharing Feelings Aroused by the Dream Sharing

    Various dream work methods include an assessment of the dreamer's feelings, either as a preliminary step (Hill, 1996; Ullman & Zimmerman, 1979), or as a standalone method (Gendlin, 1986). However, CDT posits that the dreamer’s feelings, thoughts, assumptions, and behaviors work together to codetermine the dream’s outcome. With this in mind, the dreamer’s feelings provide an initial entry into the dreamer’s codetermining response set. It is also valuable for the facilitator to reveal his or her feelings as a way to illuminate emotions that may be implied by the dream, but not fully felt by the dreamer.
    For instance, a student of mine agreed to share a dream with my group counseling class, so I asked for six volunteers to serve as a dream group while the rest of the class observed the process. The student shared the following dream:
    I am sitting at the kitchen table, working on my group paper for Dr. Sparrow. I'm feeling anxious about it, and want to get it done. I hear a knock on the sliding glass door behind me, which opens onto our patio. I turn around and see my deceased father standing there in his best Sunday clothes. Annoyed at the interruption, I turn around and go back to my work. I think, "He can come back later." He knocks again and again, until finally he goes away.
    When describing his feelings, the dreamer said, "annoyance," "irritation," and "anxiety." But when the group and I shared our feelings, we mentioned "excited," "afraid," "joy," and "affection." Some them also mentioned "sadness" in response to the dreamer's avoidance of his father. The dreamer, who had imposed an "emotional cutoff" with his father 15 years before his death (Bowen, 1978) because of his father's rejection of his wife on racial grounds, said that he was surprised by the range of feelings expressed by the dream group, and thus acquired insight into his own repressed feelings toward his father.

Step Two: Formulating the Theme

    While other dream analysts have formulated lists of themes that typically occur in dreams (Garfield, 2001; Gongloff, 2006), a phenomenological approach to extracting a theme (Sparrow, 1978; Thurston, 1978) permits the dream’s underlying structure to emerge from the dream itself. As such, I believe that the phrase "process narrative" more accurately describes the objective of this approach.
    To formulate the process narrative, all one has to do is to restate, as succinctly as possible, the dream’s essential action while removing the specific names of characters, colors, places, and objects. All interpretive and evaluative statements are forbidden during this step. The following statements are examples of correctly formulated process narratives: "Someone is trying to get away from someone else, but no matter what she does, she is not able to escape," "Someone is relieved to find that something that he thought was lost is still possible to locate," and "Someone is trying to decide between two courses of action, one apparently easy and the other more difficult and challenging."
     Systems-oriented family therapists, and group leaders familiar with Lewin’s concept of field theory (1951), will recognize the importance of observing and describing how the dreamer and the dream imagery are relating without reference to what is being communicated. This content-free description highlights the relationship dynamics that perpetuate or alleviate distress, and pave the way for interventions that can restructure problematic interactional patterns without trying to resolve the problem on the level of content alone.
    As a generic summary of the dream’s story line, the process narrative illuminates the existing structure of the dream without encumbering it with assumptions and interpretive impositions, thus protecting the dreamer from the facilitator’s projections as well as simplistic, precipitous conclusions. At this point in the process, it is not uncommon for the dreamer to see parallels between process narrative and a waking scenario, and to conclude that the dream is “about” a particular situation in the waking life. Nonetheless, I have found that it is important to encourage the dreamer to continue to the next step, if time permits, in order to consider the dreamer’s role in the interactive process.

Step Three: Analyzing the Dreamer's Responses to the Dream

    This is the heart of FSM, and is a pure outgrowth of CDT. Helping the dreamer see the places where his or her responses may have made a difference represents a significant departure from traditional dream analysis. Because of its novelty, it may pose somewhat of a challenge with clients who are new to this way of thinking. But once the dreamer becomes aware of his or her responses in the dream, dream analysis takes on a new dimension of troubleshooting the dreamer's responses and imagining new outcomes in future dreams and parallel life situations.
     To accomplish this step, the facilitator and the dreamer look for points in the dream where the dreamer responded—emotionally, cognitively, and/or behaviorally—in such ways that could have affected the course of the dream from thereon. As I have stated, some of these responses may be entirely unstated in the dreamer’s initial recollection, so it may take some practice to elicit the more subtle dimensions of the dreamer’s responses. Subtle or otherwise, these response points are like forks in the path where the dreamer effectively determines which way to go by his or her reactions to the visual imagery.
    Then, the facilitator and dreamer work together to critique the dreamer's responses to the dream encounters, and to imagine what else the dreamer might have done differently at the obvious choice points in the dream. Following this freewheeling consideration of alternatives, the facilitator engages the dreamer in determining whether the dreamer's responses were predictable, or a departure from his or her usual reaction to such situations. As a final measure, the facilitator may ask the dreamer what he or she would have preferred to do in the dream, as well as what he or she would like to do differently in future dreams with similar situations.
    This consideration of diverse responses to the dream has a way of challenging old patterns of relating to the world, discerning emerging competencies, and introducing alternatives for future consideration.
    Of course, the dreamer sets the standard for the direction of desirable change. What is considered "better" has more to do with what deviates constructively from a person's chronic patterns of relating.  This criterion helps the facilitator and dreamer evaluate the dreamer's responses against a customary or habitual style of relating, which may become clearer over time as the person shares further dreams and/or waking experiences in which the customary style becomes evident. 
    It is not unusual for a highly significant response to seem entirely automatic. Take for instance the following dream of a 45-year-old suicidally depressed client.
I arrive for a family picnic on the shores of a lake, only to find that everyone has already eaten, and that no food remains. I look on the picnic table and see the bones of a large fish on a platter. For some reason, I take the platter down to the lake, and put the platter into the water. Suddenly, the fish comes back to life and swims away.
    This dream is a good example of how a dream report may reveal an apparent absence of reflective awareness while also representing an immense achievement on the dreamer’s part. When I heard the dream, I elicited the dreamer's unspoken feelings of sadness related to the fish, and highlighted the extraordinary impact of her decision to take the fish "back home." Consequently, she was able to appreciate the significance of her action in the context of her near-total sense of conscious hopelessness. This dream became a centerpiece in this client's work, providing "proof" of her ability to participate in her own recovery from depression. Helping dreamers re-access reflective awareness and "own" their responses through open-ended inquiry (Kosmova & Wolman, 2006) not only offsets the reporting style that exaggerates dream content at the expense of dreamer awareness, but also helps clients discover emergent competencies that are easily overlooked in the context of the otherwise distressing circumstances depicted by the dream content.

Step Four: Analysis of the Imagery

    In this step of FSM, the facilitator assists the dreamer in exploring how imagery and scene transformations are related to dreamer's responses.  This contingent relationship may not be evident to the dreamer, who may experience the changes as unrelated to his or her responses at the time. However, by emphasizing the impact of the dreamer's freely chosen responses, the facilitator draws a contingent relationship between dreamer response and outer change, thus supporting a sense of personal responsibility and an awareness of emergent competencies.
    While standard nonintrusive approaches to imagery analysis––such as amplification and dialoguing with the images––can be introduced in Step Four, a nontraditional approach to the imagery proceeds from the principles of CDT. Just as the dreamer's responses are no longer considered a given in CDT, the imagery itself is no longer considered static: Both can change in the course of a single dream's unfolding process. Indeed, changes in the dreamer's responses and the dream content are viewed as reciprocally related, such that a change in one will usually mirror a change in the other.
    Take for instance a dream of a woman who had been sexually abused as a child. A single pivotal response catalyzes a dramatic transformation of the dream imagery:
I awake to find myself on a bed. I look up and see holes in the ceiling, and rats dropping down through the holes. Horrified, I jump and run out of the room. The rats seem to chase me, so I fearfully run up a stairway to get away from them. When I reach the top, I turn around to see if the rats are still following me. A huge rat is climbing the stairs and is within a few steps of where I stand. I look at it closely, and I’m surprised to see that its fur looks soft and lustrous. Intrigued by its beauty, I reach down as it comes closer and touch its fur. As soon as I do, the rat changes into a snow leopard.
    The dreamer was immediately able to acknowledge that the entire dream revolved around her courageous response to the rats, and able to see that the appearance of the snow leopard was made possible by her reaching out to the rat. We explored her associations to the rat image, and she felt it represented both the loathesome qualities of her perpetrator, as well as the unwanted, intrusive aspects of her own sexuality. Being able to see the beauty of the rat enabled its tranformation into a symbol of power and spirituality. 
    Of course, few dreams will reveal such bold and creative responses. But regardless, the facilitator engages the dreamer in examining any changes in dream imagery might relate to, or mirror the dreamer's changes in response, however subtle these changes might be. Just as systems-oriented therapists will teach family members to see their problem as a function of circular causality (Nichols & Schwartz, 2004, p. 8), a dream worker using FSM will encourage the dreamer to learn to see the impact of his or her reactions on the dream imagery itself, and to extrapolate on possible changes that may have occurred if the responses would have been different. Even if the dreamer and the dream imagery are "locked" into a static relationship, the facilitator can assist the dreamer in imagining what could happen if the dreamer's stance could be modified. Process questions (Bowen, 1978) such as "What do you think would have happened if . . . ?" or “What do you wish you could have done differently?” encourage clients to become aware of the circular nature of a relationship dynamic, and to accept one’s ability to make a difference in a relationship.
    At this stage in the dream work, the facilitator also asks the dreamer to imagine what the culmination of such an encounter would look like––in future dreams or parallel waking scenarios. Such a consideration leads naturally to the idea of identifying contexts in which to apply the fruits of the dream work process.

Step Five: Applying the Dream Work

    Since FSM is founded on the dreamer's capacity to enact a variety of responses to the dream––and correspondingly, to parallel waking scenarios––the final step of the dream work process involves identifying areas of one's life where new responses might precipitate positive changes. If the dreamer can see a parallel between the dream issue and some waking situation, then the facilitator may encourage the dreamer to practice new, contextually appropriate responses that can be made in that waking life scenario.
    Since dreams and waking experiences are considered equivalent arenas for growth and experimentation in FSM, applying the dream work can also take the form of preparing for future dreams, as well. This rehearsal process is similar to Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (Germain, et. al, 2004; Pierce, 2006), except that the focus is on altering the dreamer’s responses to the imagery, instead of directly changing the ending.  A simple pre-sleep reverie exercise called Dream Reliving (Sparrow, 1983) can be used as a way to increase the likelihood that one will be able to implement the changes in future dreams. Dream Reliving consists of asking the dreamer 1) to relive the original dream in fantasy while enacting new responses, and then 2) to observe and record how the new responses altered the dream's outcome. This imaginative process, which has been effective (Sparrow, 1983) as a pre-sleep exercise for increasing lucidity and enhancing other measures of dreamer development as described by Rossi (1972) can serve as a fitting culmination to the dream work process, and lay the groundwork for future discussions.
 

    Dream analysis has traditionally involved treating the dream as a fixed narrative and the dreamer as a passive witness, and proceeding to analyze the visual content for its presumed meaning. This approach owes it dominance to a pervasive assumption rooted in our cultural foundations, as well as to the assumption that dreamers are incapable of reflecting upon, and interacting with their dreams.  The model that I have proposed as a basis for a therapeutic approach to dream analysis enjoys significant theoretical support, and some empirical validation, as well. It treats the dream as an interactive process which is indeterminate from the outset and codetermined by the dreamer’s responses to the dream imagery. As such, the dream becomes a way of evaluating the dreamer’s stance toward life challenges, rather than focusing on aspects of life which are outside of the dreamer’s comprehension and control.
    The analysis of the imagery is, at best, an intuitive process that opens the door to all kinds of precipitous conclusions on the part of the dreamer, and intrusive projections on the part of the facilitator. And since it focuses on those aspects of the dream that are external to the dreamer and presumably beyond his or her control, it has a way of underscoring the dreamer’s powerlessness. In contrast, as one adopts a codetermined view of dreams, dream analysis shifts naturally to what the dreamer did, could have done, and might yet do, and thus becomes congruent with competency-based therapeutic models which de-emphasize analysis of the problem in favor of supporting client agency. By focusing on the dreamer, the goals of therapy can be furthered without intruding upon the dreamer’s autonomy or requiring a special knowledge of dream symbology. As such, it allows a respectful exchange between the dreamer and the facilitator that may foster a deeper awareness of one’s capacity to make a difference, and a concomitant commitment to respond to life challenges in more resilient and creative ways.
   

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