Diving down

February 2019
by Dr Elizabeth McCardell

     I’ve ordered a full length, upper and lower body rashy for snorkelling and diving purposes. It had to be bought online because I couldn’t find anyone locally who sells them. I have a wetsuit for scuba, but find it cumbersome and too warm for comfort for shallow dives and hovering around on the surface of water. This purchase comes hard on the heels of my January birthday and the confirmation to self that, beside the work I do as a psychotherapist, snorkelling and diving are my favourite activities, along with music, and I want to do a lot more of those.

     As I muse upon these things, I am reminded again of an account told to me by my diving instructor from ten years ago, which in turn triggers a realization that what occurred in that incident, exposes the nature of dreams in a curiously similar fashion, though without the same conditions.  

     My diving instructor and his girlfriend did a dive in the Truk (Chuuk) Lagoon in Micronesia and the girlfriend suffered nitrogen narcosis (also called the “martini effect”) where she lost her entire memory of the dive. Nitrogen narcosis is a temporary condition caused by the effect of gases breathed in under pressure. She couldn’t recall anything of the dive at all. Then one day, eight months later, she said she’d had a dream and she related everything they’d seen together on the Truk dive. Her memory of the dive had returned.

     To me, this account shows the stratospheres of the mind and the usefulness of dreams in bringing knowledge that is not readily accessible by ordinary means but which can be useful in ordinary and therapeutic life.

     I usually ask my clients about their dreams, not only because they prove useful tools in the therapy itself, but they allow me entrance into the unconscious of the person, and their inner truth. (As I write this, I am entranced by the word “en-trance” and its seductive suggestion that the dream draws us both in to a trance state, which feels just about right.)

     Dream interpretation should arise from the dreamer, and not be imposed by dictionaries of dream interpretation, nor from the therapist. The image of a snake may have nothing to do with sexuality, even though a dictionary might say otherwise. It might suggest, or not, the healing powers of injury and suffering, as the symbol of the entwined snakes on the staff, the caduceus (the staff of Hermes), or anything else more relevant for the dreamer.

“The dream,” as Jung puts it, “shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is.” (1934)

     I reveal myself when I write of diving down as entering the unconscious, but that interpretation would mean nothing to someone who does not dive or who has no associations in this way. My way of thinking is not universal, and likewise for you.

     Because I both dive and interpret dreams and because I’ve made the association myself, diving down is rich and redolent with meaning for me. Because I operate this way, I’m attracted to certain therapeutic ideas over other ones that speak to me. I am attracted to psychodynamic psychotherapy, and always have been. My first training was in Jungian psychology in the 1970s.  C. G. Jung’s ideas resonated with me and so I engage with him, and others similarly inclined, and continue to think and learn and mull and dive.

     I have colleagues who do not work with dreams at all and see no point in them, seeing the dream as silly and absurd. To those I say, why would we dream, if not to have this as a resource for possible discovery? We all dream and there are  inklings of meaning to be had in exploring them. But, whatever each of us seeks, so that should be the point of any counselling. I seek the healing of the whole person, and so diving is what I do.