Dream Analyst, Author And Therapist Talks to Cancer Support Group

When you’re going through something intense, it’s reflected in your dream life,  Greg Pacini, a licensed professional counselor and certified group psychotherapist, said.

Pacini will lead a discussion on Dreaming During Cancer, during the Cancer Survivor Support Group’s monthly meeting from 6 to 7:30 p.m., Monday, April 4, in the Community Education Room in the H.W. Koenig Medical Building at . The group is targeted toward cancer survivors and their care givers.

Most everyone is curious about their dreams, which are sometimes bizarre and often confusing. But for those traversing the journey of a cancer diagnosis, dreams can be even more confounding and many times more memorable, Pacini said.  “We’re more likely to remember them when we’re going through something intense,” he said. “Medication for cancer patients tends to make dreams more pronounced and more remembered.”

“I hear a lot, ‘I’ve been dreaming a lot,’” Pacini said. “Science shows us that we dream every night, we just don’t remember the experience. My intention with the workshop is for people to take more advantage of their dream life. It can be like a built-in therapist. So the idea is that, during an already powerful and scary time, one can develop a relationship and ally with their dream life.”

An interactive program, Pacini’s discussion will teach a Gestalt exercise for interpreting dreams, while also educating on the history of dreaming in cultures and in the field of counseling.

Gestalt Therapy holds that each person has an instinct for wholeness. “The word Gestalt means total, whole, or complete picture,” he said. Pacini said he assists his clients in bringing together pieces of their past and present as well as their ideas for the future, like pieces of a puzzle. “Parts of our lives that are uncomfortable are simply puzzles of the self yet to be put together,” Pacini said. “The pieces of this puzzle lie all around. The process of therapy is about putting that puzzle together to see the whole picture.”

Every part of a dream is significant, no matter how obscure or crazy it may seem, Pacini said. “Every part actually means something, from male, to female, to beast, to fowl, to a potato, or a microwave or a tree,” he said.

Pacini maintains he does not interpret dreams, but leads clients in exercises to give voice to different aspects of their dreams and therefore of themselves. “Through this process, parts of the self that are polarized or at odds come to know one another, and integration begins. The result is a more comfortable life,” he said.

Pacini said dream references are all over the Bible in both the old and new testaments—from Joseph’s coat of many colors to Elizabeth being told of Jesus’ birth. “Dreams were considered important until the age of reason in the Middle Ages when the culture decided if you can’t measure something with an instrument, not only is it not real, but it’s evil. Martin Luther said that dreams are the source of self knowledge.”

Pacini is the author of Journey Beyond Diagnosis. He wrote his master’s thesis on dreams, and has been counseling for more than 25 years. His work with dreams began in 1978 when he was a member of the Benedictine monastery studying to become a monk. Pacini served as vice president and program director of The Wellness Community of Greater St. Louis—a not-for-profit organization serving cancer survivors and their caregivers for nine years. He is the founding president of the Cancer Agencies Network—a not-for-profit organization designed to create collaboration and improved services between more than 15 independent hospitals, health care systems and organizations. He is currently in private practice, offering individual, couples and group counseling. He provides consultation, primarily to health service providers like hospitals and hospice organizations, for Compassion Fatigue. Pacini has traveled the country as a trainer and lecturer for the last 20 years.