Inner parts and dreams both open up and unfold into experiences of deep meaning when we bring curiosity, compassion and courage to the way we relate to them.
What is IFS Parts Work?
Parts are aspects of our personality, or the different "parts" of ourselves. We often use this way of speaking naturally whenever we are describing the experience of having an inner conflict or difficulty making a decision. We've all likely heard someone say, "Part of me wants to leave my job, but another part really likes the stable income and wants to stay". In internal family systems (IFS) therapy, we get to know our parts even more deeply, coming to know their goals, desires, motivations and the experiences or memories they hold.
As part of the process of getting to know parts, we get curious about the ways they show up in thought patterns, body sensations, and often inner imagery or metaphor. A thinking part may live in the head, show up as racing thoughts, feel like a band of tightness all around the head, and come with an image of a heavy metal helmet. While not everyone has access to inner imagery or internal language, the more layers of description we can use to flesh out our parts, the easier it is to notice when they show up and to relate to them when they are there.
What are Dream Elements?
Parts share many similarities with dream elements. Dream elements are any part of a dream - the characters, objects, setting, or emotional tone. In experiential dreamwork, we engage in the same process of getting to know dream elements that we engage in while doing IFS. We feel into the details, notice if there are any body sensations that accompany that dream element, and can even engage the dream element in conversation or try embodying it.
In the same way that we can learn surprising things about our parts when we ask them about themselves with openness and curiosity, we can learn surprising things by engaging dream elements in conversation. Even simple open-ended questions like, "is there anything you want me to know?" can lead to valuable insights.
Can Dream Elements be Parts Appearing in our Dreams?
Historically, Gestalt dream analysis believed that every single thing in a dream represented a different aspect of the dreamer. There were specific questions and protocols for working with dream elements and learning what they were bringing to the dreamer's awareness in the dream.
Modern dreamwork from an embodied experiential perspective gives us the opportunity to approach dream elements in the same way that we would approach the body sensations, internal imagery or thought patterns that accompany parts as they show up in waking life. This also opens up an opportunity to include dreams in IFS therapy as an additional way of getting to know our parts and offering them help.
While each person's internal system is unique, it does appear that dream elements can be representations of parts, and that working with them in the same way we would work with parts in IFS therapy can lead to healing, transformation and growth. If you're working with your parts in therapy, writing down your dreams and including some dreamwork in your sessions can bring extra richness to the work, especially with any dreams that are particularly vivid, memorable, or recurring.
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