Entering the Client's Dream: Breath, Joining and Return
For therapists, hypnotists, carers and anyone who accompanies others. Read slowly, aloud, leaving a breath between lines; about twenty minutes. Record it if you wish. The person you accompany here is imagined, not present.
Before you begin. This practice follows the sage's own sequence, and above all his return, made properly. It is safe for most healthy adults. Do not practise it unsupervised if you have, or have had, a psychotic illness, a dissociative disorder, episodes of depersonalisation or derealisation, or trauma that still produces flashbacks; practise it with a clinician who knows your history. Choose to imagine someone you know a little and care for lightly: not someone you are grieving, in conflict with, or worried about in crisis. If you ever pace a real person's breathing, ask first and agree a signal to stop. Never hold the breath in this practice. Never practise while driving, operating anything, standing, or in or near water. Sit; do not lie down. Set a gentle timer for twenty-five minutes: it is your pupil, keeping watch over your seat.
How to return at any moment. Before you begin, press the tip of your thumb to the tip of your forefinger and say quietly, "The way back is open." That is your anchor. If anything becomes uncomfortable, press the fingers together, say the words aloud, breathe out fully, feel your feet on the floor, count up from one to five and open your eyes on five. Nothing in this practice requires you to stay.
Sit down, and let the seat hold you.
Feel where you are held: the chair under you, the floor under your feet, the air on your hands. This is your seat. Remember it. You will come back to it.
Gather your attention to one place, the breath at the nostrils. Cool coming in. Warm going out.
Now let attention go out, wide, as the morning sun sends its rays across the land: to the edges of the room, the sounds beyond it, the sky beyond that.
And draw it back, as the evening sun gathers its rays into its disc. Back to the room, the body, the breath.
Again. Out, wide. And back, home.
Let the breath set its own pace, like a flower letting its scent go and drawing it in again. The out-breath carries your attention forward a little. The in-breath brings it home. Forward. Home.
Press thumb and finger together, lightly. The way back is open.
Now let the person you have chosen be seated in front of you, a few feet away, at rest. You do not need to see them clearly. Notice only their breathing, the slow rise and fall.
Let your breath keep company with theirs. Not copying, not forcing: walking beside. When they breathe out, you breathe out. When they breathe in, you breathe in.
Let your attention ride the out-breath into the space between you, and rest there, as the sage's breath rested in the air before him.
And notice what happens. Your world and theirs, side by side. Two rooms. Two moons in one sky. You may feel what they feel and what you feel, both at once. This doubling is not a mistake. It is the first step. Let it be double.
Now let the two views draw together, slowly, as two rivers meet, as one season runs into the next. One scene. Whatever their world is like, heavy or light, crowded or empty, let it be the only scene for a while.
And as the views become one, notice a thread of your own discernment that stays awake. It does not argue. It does not leave. It grows finer, quieter, and it remains. Feel that thread now. It is the part of you that knows whose seat you are sitting in.
Walk a little in their scene. Let it show you something: a room, a road, a weather, a feeling in the chest. You do not have to fix it or understand it. Only accompany.
If it becomes too much, if a flood rises or a fire, say inwardly, as the sage did: this is a dream in their breast; I am here to see it, not to drown in it. Let the sorrow be there, and let it pass through you without taking you.
Breathe out.
Now, before going any further, check your anchor. Press thumb and finger together. From the thread of discernment, turn and look back at your own seat. See yourself sitting there, breathing. See the room, and whatever keeps watch over you: the timer, the quiet, the people who know where you are. The body is there. The passage is open.
You will not go back in for your own amusement. You have seen what you came to see.
Leave now, gently, on an out-breath. Let your attention ride out of their scene the way it came in, through the space between you, on the breath, home.
Let their breathing go its own way. Let yours go its own. Two people, two breaths, each with its own pace.
Let the person you imagined be at rest where they are. They do not need you to stay.
Now rest a moment in thoughtless awareness: no scene, no person, no task. Only knowing that you are here, sitting quiet in one state, awake.
(Silence: one to two minutes.)
Now begin to come back, fully.
Feel the weight of your body on the seat, the floor under your feet. Press the feet down a little.
Let the breath grow fuller: belly, chest, shoulders.
Move your fingers. Press thumb and forefinger together one last time and say quietly, "The way back is open. I am back."
If any feeling of theirs is still with you, name it and say inwardly: this belongs to them; I return it with respect. Breathe out, and let it go.
I will count from one to five, and on five your eyes open, clear and rested.
One. The breath is your own, and full.
Two. Hands and feet are warm and yours.
Three. The sounds of the room return, near and far.
Four. One deep breath in, and let the shoulders roll once.
Five. Eyes open. Here. Now. Fully alert.
Sit a moment before you stand. Say your name aloud, the place where you are, and today's date. Name three things you can see and one you can hear. Name one way in which you differ from the person you imagined. If you feel slow or still partly elsewhere, repeat the count from one to five, stand, walk a few steps, wash your hands or drink some water. Do not drive or operate anything for ten minutes.
Then go about your day as the sage went about his, unmoved and kind.