Lioness Dreaming: A Somatic Approach to the Animal Ally
Elizabeth Eowyn Nelson
Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies April 11, 2021 DOI: 10.29173/jjs145s (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Key points | Argues that "somatic dreaming"—intentionally dwelling with an exceptional experience by focusing on the body's responses and on the somatic vividness of dream figures as embodied others—can evoke and express soul, and contends that hosting such living images in and with the body can be powerfully transformative, altering the course of one's life. |
Abstract
The essay uses transpersonal and Jungian psychologies to describe a profound encounter with an aging lioness in the South African bush. It explains somatic dreaming as a practice of intentionally dwelling with exceptional experience by focusing on the bodily responses of the dreamer and the vivid somatic aspects of the dream images, or figures, as embodied others. The autonomous figures of what transpersonal psychology calls an exceptional human experience (EHE) and Jungians describe as a numinous waking vision (in contradistinction to a night time dream) are both deeply strange and strangely familiar. What are the possibilities and challenges of somatic dreaming while awake? How might such an approach evoke and express soul? The author contends that hosting living images in and with the body can be powerfully transformative, altering the course of one’s life.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dreaming: a conceptual framework for philosophy of mind and empirical research | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Metaphor and hyperassociativity: the imagination mechanisms behind emotion assimilation in sleep and dreaming | 2015 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Experimental Research on Dreaming: State of the Art and Neuropsychoanalytic Perspectives | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Neurobiology of Consciousness: Lucid Dreaming Wakes Up | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |