A Resource Center for Dreamers

by Richard Wilkerson

“The Dreambody itself hovers between body sensation and mythic visualization.”

Working in a parallel realm with Gendlin’s process psychology is the work of Arnold Mindell. In Mindell’s work the body is again seen as a centering focus and the “felt sense” is recognized as a process that continues all the time, waking or sleeping anand is called the dreambody. This dreambody process takes cues from the whole organism, from many channels, and moves and flows like a river in a circle. When this flow is blocked, the dreambody shifts into another channel and continues to move. This unending movement continues into sleep and the literal dream unfolds this multichannelled process.

Mindell feels that sickness comes from the blocked flow of the dreambody and that our symptoms are an attempt on the part of the dreambody to carry the message of the block forward into consciousness (Mindell, 1982). If we can consciously act the message out, then we may not have to carry the sick message any longer. How to carry this message out and get the flow going Z again becomes a creative and intuitive act in Mindell’s work that may be seen as a larger stage of Eugene Gendlin’s system.

While Gendlin begins directly with the body and feelings, Mindell is willing to start wherever the symptom manifests. With some it may be a dream image, for others an unconscious twitch, for another a stomach ache or disease. Mindell watches the way th person tells the story and focuses particular attention on the half conscious gestures and bodily movements (What Mindell terms “Secondary Processes”). Thus Mindell picks up up on what seems to be trying to happen. Is the person gesturing wildly while telling the story? Are they sitting with arms crossed in a restricted position? Do they lick their lips all the time? Rather than just interpret this back to the patient, Mindell has them amplify and carry forward the pattern. With Gestalt work like this, the focus is in bringing about a cathartic shift out of animplosive emotional layer, but with Mindell, the point cannot be pre-determined, and following the process leads to unexpected shifts. At one moment the channel may be a sore arm, while the next may be a dream memory of a lost child.

However, like Gendlin,Mindell is sensitive to these shifts and, like Gendlin, recognizes them as valuable. (Mindell, 1985a) Generally these shifts just feel like a release and we sink into a state of relaxation and just experiencing the newness and shift-release passively. Mindell sees that the felt-sense at this point can be vital and powerful, like a genie just released from a bottle. We get in the habit of identifying with the main process and let much of the vitality and energy in life slip away by being so stuck in what Mindell calls our Primary Process. (Not the same as Freud’s primary and secondaryprocess, where primary process thinking is magical, like the dreamwork and secondary process thinking is logical,reasonable). One of the most creative aspects of Mindell’s work and writing is taking this process psychology and overlaying it in other systems of thought, like Taoism, Buddhism, Alchemy, Jungianism, Mythological studies, World and Social relations.

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