164 the rice diet renewal
“ We all do! ” Never has anyone so lovingly suggested that another
seek therapy! It was as if he was giving me a very special gift when
he explained that “ a good therapist can often help us explore and
learn more about ourselves. ” The very next week I met a wonderful
therapist who proved Morton ’ s words to be true.
Carl Jung believed that dreams communicate with us through
the rich language of symbols. And because most modern men and
women have forgotten how to think in symbols, Jung ’ s gift has
been a signifi cant one. He taught us that by paying attention to our
dreams and the symbols they contain, we can gain access to a new
and deeper realm that can bring balance to our conscious view.
Dr. Ira Progoff also did work with Carl Jung and thus had a won-
derful grasp of the importance of dreams. Then Progoff translated
his understanding into a simple, accessible, and profoundly reveal-
ing method of interpreting our signifi cant dreams.
The Progoff Intensive Journal program is well worth the week-
end investment, and although it is nearly impossible to condense, I
will nonetheless offer the briefest summary of his method for dream
interpretation: Keep a journal by your bed, and write out the full
dream as soon as you awaken from it. Then on the left - hand margin
of a piece of paper, list all of the words in the dream that are not
articles (the words a, an , or the ); next, immediately write to the right
of each of these words the fi rst word that comes to your mind; then
read the original word from the dream again, and write in a second
column, on the same line, the next word that comes to your mind;
and again return to the original word and write a third word that
comes to your mind. Do this for all of the words from your dream,
then go back and read the three words that you have written for
each dream word, one at a time, and circle the one that has the most
resonance or feels best to you. After you have done this for all of the
words, you simply read down the list of circled words, which, after
all, are symbols for the dream ’ s meaning. The fi rst time I did this, it
absolutely blew my mind! Now I admit that when I have done it, it
was not a letter - perfect translation, but very rarely are the insights
revealed not worth the effort. Obviously, this takes a bit of time, so I
do this only with dreams that I think are signifi cant for me.