Waking Dreams

Although they have been infrequently reported in the literature, spontaneous visual images in therapy sessions have a long history in psychoanalysis. In this paper, I present three clinical examples in which patients experienced such visual images. These images were spontaneous in that they felt like they emerged "out of the blue," from another self-state. The person experienced the images while knowing they were images; for this reason, they might be called "waking lucid-dreams." These waking dreams provided a channel for the expression and communication of emotional states otherwise excluded from our relationship, from the "me-you" patterns that had prevailed at the time of the images. These images, and their potential role in personal growth, have something to "say" not only about relatedness, meaning-making, and referential activity, but also about affect regulation and mentalization.