“As we were talking about the dreaming mind’s curiosity about what happens ‘on the other side’ (of waking) and its fear of the forces that catalyze the collapse of the dreaming world… I suddenly realized that the questions and situations involved are not so general as my previously preferred frameworks implied.

This happened due to a conversation involving a woman whose ex-husband was abusive, but couldn’t reasonably be dismissed from her life. During this conversation, I suddenly became aware that the dreaming mind is concerned about »the personalities and relationships that inhabit the waking world — the critics, the parental figures, the authorities… those who our survival or well-being may depend upon pleasing.

It’s concerned about the »character of the people whose attitudes toward us transform our waking experience… lovers, bosses, critics, judges… and so on. Some of these relationships can easily represent double-binds where, for example, there is someone in our life that is at once toxic and necessary. Someone who we need to remove, yet cannot.

Sometimes, then, for the dreaming mind, its concerns about the ‘waking world’ take on qualities introduced by the relationships that ensue upon awakening — and is not merely the result of the sudden loss of the dreaming context. This crucial insight is probably well-known to some people who study dreaming, but represents a key moment of understanding in my own exploration of the nature of dreaming and its relationships with waking consciousness.”

— an anonymous informant