Hi all,
Sitting with practice – what it is and what it does – has brought me around to what working in new ways with what our dreams offer can do even in our physical bodies.
Especially makes me think about the way the brain works.
I know, I know. But stay with me for a sec. Because the ways our dreams work with us are not just on the emotional, spiritual layers – but they work with us on the ways our body works, too.
The brain is made up of a gazillion neurons that connect with each other through synapses – a place that is created between two neurons where information is transmitted. We also have a gazillion synaptic connections in our brains because neurons can have anywhere from a few synaptic connections to 100,000.
[Fun Science Fact: A synapse is literally a space – it is not a part of a neuron. When two neurons create a synapse, they almost touch but do not. Instead, there is a small space between where the information is transferred. So cool.]
These connections are created in many ways, but most often when we learn something. So, if I learn a poem by heart, some of the neurons in my brain will create new pathways between neurons that have not been connected to help me learn that poem. It is the same when we learn anything – from a new way to get from A to B, to learning a new language, to learning even about neurons.
Neuroplasticity is when our brain is able to make these new pathways with relative ease – and also our process of engaging in learning new things or new ways to keep the brain fluid in this way.
The difficult side of this is that when we learn a behavior or reality through trauma experiences. When this kind of learning has to be repeated in order for survival, then neural pathways made by survival can become, well, pretty grooved. Pretty hard to break.
For example, for those who are living in a culture where they experience racism or ablism or sexism on a daily basis, both in macro ways and micro ways, then the way we learn to survive the culture can become deeply grooved in our brains. Leading to less neuroplasticity and also leading us to not be able to see there may be other options and possibilities for us in our worlds.
The way neurons can connect, unconnect, connect in new ways is lessened.
So, how do dreams help us even at this level? How do they not!
The way neuroplasticity can be experienced at first is that we may be uncomfortable with something new. Sometimes I think about this around music. I have a tendency to go to music that I know and love because it is familiar and I may even know all the words to some songs so I can sing along! But when I hear music new to me, it can sound strange and even uncomfortable. Especially music that is entirely new.
This was true for me when I first started listening to classical music. I felt impatient and a little annoyed because my neural pathways around music were formed around the loud, punk, rock, alternative music that I grew up with and love. I had to be a little patient and mindful to really give myself space to see if I liked any of the classical music I tried.
Okay – so how does this relate to my trauma survival? Oh, very directly. When I was a kid and a teenager, when I was experiencing the difficulties in my family and feeling unlovable, what sparked me was really loud, sometimes angry music. When I was old enough for concerts and the clubs, I looooved going to shows because the music and the energy released my anger and grief and even joy. It was great – makes me smile just thinking about how I saw The Ramones in a tiny club in northern Kentucky before they were big. How I left the show after dancing all night drenched in sweat and completely happy.
But to slow down and listen to a completely different language of music was strange and I did not like it at first.
One reason learning is uncomfortable like this is because of the physicality of what happens in the brain. Not only are new neural pathways created, old ones are also broken. It is a physical process.
Let me say it again in terms of how we are exploring narratives – it is a physical process in the actual structure of the brain to break old narratives and stories then create new ones.
Which is where practice comes in. When we learn something new and new neural pathways are created, these pathways are not necessarily strong – they may even be tenuous. The old pathways are not tenuous – they are strong and grooved. Too much so. Inhibiting neuroplasticity.
Practice helps to forge new pathways AND helps to work with the energy of the brain to keep it fluid and able to change and grow and make new connections.
Dreams help us with this practice. When we learn new narratives and open to new possiblities outside what we know or believe we know, when we have new insights – big or small – the dreams bring us around to the learning again and again so that we work with the neuroplacisticity in our brain. Practice strengthens new pathways and strengthens our brain’s ability to keep making new pathways, breaking old ones and doing it all over again.
Not to make grooved new neural pathways for us to get stuck in, of course. But to create a fluidity in the brain to help us be less grooved in all ways.
I think of it in this way – neuroplasticity helps us in our work by having it all be fluid and never really absolute both physically in the body and in our hearts. So, that we are growing.
Next article we will explore what happens when we are not fluid, when we do not take up the offers dreams present to come out of old narratives and into new ones.