Madeline’s Dream

MADELINE’S DREAM

The Source of Living Waters

It will already be clear that I view the awareness of one’s aliveness as both a physiological and a psychological phenomenon (perhaps we shouldn’t even distinguish between the two). It can also become what some might label a “spiritual” experience. One of the ways this can happen is by focusing on the mysterious nature of the source of aliveness within ourselves. This possibility was illustrated for me in a moving way when I  saw a short film entitled “Madeline’s Dream,” which shows therapist Fritz Perls working with one of the participants in a dream workshop. The transcript of the session is published in F. Perls, The Gestalt Approach & Eye Witness to Therapy (Science and Behavior Books, 1973) 187-191.

Madeline reports that this is a repetitive dream which she first had as a small girl of about eight. She is standing on the soft sandy shore of a very round “perfect” lake. The water is very good and very soft. It is very inviting to swim in this lake because the bottom is pure sand with nothing mucky in it. In the middle of the lake, however, there is something surprising and mysterious: a classical looking statue of a little boy pouring out water from a large-bottomed, narrow-necked vessel. The water of the lake itself is very pure but within it there is this additional source of even more precious pure water that would be very good to drink. In the dream, however, Madeline has always been unable to drink the water from the vase and she wakes up at this point.

As Perls works with Madeline he follows what has become a standard Gestalt technique. There is complete rejection of any attempt to interpret symbolism. The assumption is that everything in the dream is a projection of some energy or part of the dreamer. What is important, then, is for the dreamer to gain an existential or felt sense of this projected part of the self and to begin to re-own the projection. In this case Perls uses the technique of having Madeline “become” various parts of the dream and speak to the group from that role. So when she takes the part of the lake she says things like, “I’m a round, round lake. I feel, I sort of feel perfect…my water is very good and soft to the touch…. You would like to come in me…because [I’m] very beautiful….” The goodness, beauty, softness and perfection are qualities of Madeline. Qualities which all of us possess but we don’t usually say so because it would sound conceited or presumptuous and we would be embarrassed. Nonetheless, it is apparently true that these qualities are part of  Madeline and she is encouraged to reclaim them in the process which Perls is facilitating. She gets an opportunity to feel or sense this truth without needing to have an intellectual interpretation of the dream.

It becomes more and more explicit that the source from which the water in the vase comes is inexplicable. But it is extremely pure water and it would be very good for one to drink it. The most dramatic moment in this piece of work arises when Madeline “becomes” the water in the vase. The first thing she says is, “I don’t know much about myself.” Then she begins to weep. The tears are obviously not of sadness but of realization. She continues:

I come. I don’t know how I come but I know I am good, that’s all I know. I would like you to drink me because I know I’m good. I don’t know where I come from….I’m there and I’m white and pure, and if you ask me where I come from I can’t tell you. But it’s a miracle, I always come out….I don’t know where I come from but I’m coming out all the time, and you have to drink me….

Shortly after this point, she tells Perls she has discovered something. She says that she had always thought of the water in the vase as spirituality. The beauty of birth and of life seemed like a great mystery to her and it was linked to the secret in the vase, but she never felt she was worthy to drink from it. That’s why she woke up. As a little girl, that was OK. But as she grew older she was troubled by not being able to drink that water. Here Perls ends the session, leaving Madeline with her realization (“uncovering your true self”) and refusing any kind of interpretation.

Since I don’t have to worry about imposing my views on Madeline, I will risk doing what Perls scrupulously avoided and suggest a little further interpretation. It seems to me that, as Madeline herself understood, the water in the vase represented the spiritual source of life, specifically her life. Part of Madeline’s new realization is that contrary to what she believed before, she is indeed worthy to drink from this source and it is even necessary for her to do so. Much more than this, however, in her deepest being she actually is this wondrous water.

The water from the vase is the aliveness, the life energy which arises within us (in the middle of the lake). We don’t know its origin but it keeps coming and coming. It’s a mystery of exquisite beauty. This wellspring of life is most sacred, most holy. It is therefore appropriate to approach it with humility and reverence. To drink of it is synonymous with being alive. There can therefore be no question of our unworthiness. Because in the final analysis, this fountainhead is not something we have, but it is what we ultimately are.

There is another little touch in Madeline’s session which pleases me. While she is taking the role of the water in the vase, Perls has her go from one person in the group to another, repeating certain words. She says things like, “I’m good to drink…I’d like you to drink me…you have to drink me, even a little bit….” The tears she sheds as she says these words seem to reflect the intensity of the desire to be “taken in” by other persons. To me this corresponds with the fact that while the wellspring of life within each of us functions to nourish our own lives as individuals, there is also a sense in which we are privileged to give one another to drink from the precious vessels each of us has within. This is the “communion” which takes place in the deepest intimacy between human persons—a communion which we urgently need to receive, but which we also urgently need to give.

The meaning of Madeline’s dream reminds one of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel according to John:

…those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. (John 4:14).…As for those who believe in me, rivers of life-giving water will flow out from deep inside them.

In terms of Christian theology, this fountain of water is linked to belief in Jesus. From a humanistic perspective, however, it appears as our natural birthright. We have within us rivers of living water, the source and wellspring of aliveness. Our difficulties arise because we fail to trust this life-giving source and struggle against it, impede its free flow, and look for something outside of ourselves which might give us energy and direction.  But to move towards healing and fullness of life, the direction to take leads inward as we are reminded in these words from the book of Proverbs, which, admittedly, I am quoting completely out of context:

Drink water from your own cistern,

Flowing water from your own well.

Conrad E. L’Heureux

June 1996