The Secret Language of Symbols: Stars and Space

The Secret Language of Symbols: Stars, Space and Earth

Dreaming Amongst the Stars

I recently dreamt that I was in space.

I was surrounded by stars of every size and shape. There were shooting stars too, and the whole experience was surreal and breathtaking. At one point, I was explaining to someone what a supernova was.

Then I was back on Earth, trying to describe how extraordinary it had been. I had been able to see the Earth from space and was pointing out the places I had seen on a map. As I did so, I accidentally tore off a piece of the planet. I think it was part of Italy.

The dream came after I had attended a gathering where several people asked me about my work as a psychotherapist.

I don't mind being asked. It's a source of fascination for many people - what goes on behind that closed door? But I always find these conversations difficult. Not because I do not know what I do, but because I rarely feel able to explain it in a way that does it justice.

Trying to Explain the Inexplicable

How do you describe psychotherapy at a social gathering?

I can say that I listen. I can talk about helping people to understand themselves, work through difficult experiences, recognise old patterns and find different ways of living. All of that is true, but it still feels rather flat. It does not convey the experience of entering another person’s inner world.

It says little about the dreams, images, wounds, defences and possibilities that emerge in the consulting room. Nor does it capture those moments when something that has remained hidden for years suddenly comes into view, or when a person begins to see that something which once seemed senseless may have had meaning after all.

There can be long periods in therapy when very little seems to be happening. Then something shifts. An old identity begins to loosen. A forgotten feeling returns. A dream opens a door. Someone who has lived for years with shame begins, perhaps for the first time, to look upon herself with compassion.

How can that be reduced to an answer shouted over laughter and music?

The Symbolism of Stars

In the dream, I had not merely read about space or studied a map of it. I had been there.

I had stood among the stars and witnessed something vast, strange and beautiful. This felt rather like the experience of working closely with the psyche. Each person has an inner world of their own, with its particular atmosphere, history, mysteries and hidden life.

Stars have long been associated with hope, guidance and destiny. As points of light in the darkness, they may suggest finding one’s way when the path ahead is unclear. They can also represent aspiration, the numinous, or the guiding light of the Self. Each star appears separate and yet belongs to something immeasurably larger. In dreams, they may be glimpses of consciousness shining out from the darkness of the unconscious.

The stars in my dream were all different sizes and shapes. Perhaps they reflected the extraordinary variety of human beings, or the many forms that consciousness can take.

There were shooting stars, and I was explaining to someone what a supernova is.

A supernova is the explosion of a star. It is an ending, but not simply an ending. The star breaks apart and releases its material into space, where it may eventually contribute to the formation of something new.

There is something in this that resembles the therapeutic process.

At times, an old way of being has to break down before another can emerge. While it is happening, the experience may feel catastrophic. We lose our bearings and may no longer know who we are. Yet what feels like destruction may also be the beginning of transformation.

In the dream, I understood this and could explain it.

But explaining a supernova is not the same as witnessing one.

The Map Is Not the World

When I returned to Earth, I tried to communicate the wonder of what I had seen.

I used a map.

A map can point us in the right direction. It can name places, mark boundaries and help us to find our way. But it is not the living Earth. It cannot convey the smell of rain, the warmth of the sun or the feeling of standing on a hillside and looking out across the landscape.

Psychological theories may be rather like maps. They can be enormously helpful. They give us a language and help us recognise familiar patterns. Jung, Freud, Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, attachment theory and the many other schools of psychotherapy offer different ways of understanding the terrain.

But the theory is not the person.

No description of therapy can fully communicate what happens between two people in a room, over time, when one is prepared to bring what is most painful, shameful or precious and the other is willing to stay with them.

A map may help us to speak about the journey, but it cannot give us the experience of making it.

Tearing Off Italy

As I pointed out the places I had seen from space, I accidentally tore off a piece of the planet.

This was the part of the dream that stayed with me most.

It seemed to say something about the danger of trying too hard to explain. In trying to make the experience manageable, I damaged the very thing I was describing.

Perhaps that is what I sometimes fear when talking about my work. The more I try to define it, the more I risk diminishing it. Something living becomes a neat explanation. Something mysterious becomes a method. The vastness of a person’s inner world is reduced to a few sentences.

The fact that the piece torn away may have been Italy adds another layer.

For me, Italy brings to mind art, beauty, passion, history, food, sensuality and the pleasures of being alive. It also suggests soulfulness and a way of living that is not entirely governed by efficiency or reason.

Perhaps I was being reminded not to tear the beauty, imagination and soul out of psychotherapy in my efforts to make it sound sensible.

Bringing Something Back

I do not think the dream was telling me to stop talking about my work.

It may simply have been reminding me that some experiences cannot be adequately explained.

Those of us who work as psychotherapists spend much of our lives in territories that are difficult to describe. We sit with our clients’ grief, longing, rage, shame, love, terror and hope. We witness the collapse of old worlds and, sometimes, the slow beginnings of new ones.

We try to speak about what we have seen, but words will always fall short.

Perhaps the best we can do is offer a glimpse: point towards the stars, show someone the map and describe the light of the supernova.

We cannot give them the experience of having been there.