A Rude Awakening

I was having a very lucid dream this morning; one of those dreams where you aren't quite sure whether you are actually dreaming, but things are just a bit off, so you must be dreaming... Does anyone else have those types of dreams? Just me?? Oh dear.

Anyway, I dreamt that (sidenote - did you know that dreamt isn't recognized by spell check? Weird!) I had to go get something from my parents' business site and when I got there, things were packed up. It was pretty obvious that they had closed the business and were moving out. Yet, no one had told me about it. I was very sad about them losing the business and somewhat resigned to the fact that no one had told me about it.

Now, my parents did have a business several years ago, but this location was not the same. Also, when my parents decided to close their business, they told me, so none of this dream is based on the reality that I have lived. The business site wasn't even the same, but I have dreamt about this particular place before, and it was always identified as my parents' business. This is a bit strange.

Anyway, in the dream, my mom arrived just as I was locking up the business. I remember being very interested in the fact that there was a store called "The Cookie Connection" across the parking lot. Mom asked if I had found what I was looking for, and I replied that I had but that I was surprised by the packing and moving. She was somewhat confused, but I reminded her that I had only visited the business three times. As we got to our cars, she told me that she wanted to talk to me about something important, and, when we were done, if I wanted to, she would take me to "The Cookie Connection."

At that moment, she was lit up by a flash of light. I woke to a loud clap of thunder, and the dream was over.

I woke feeling a bit disoriented and thinking it was Sunday. I got up, watched the thunderstorm for a bit, fed the cat, and moved into my Summer Sunday mode. When I turned on my computer, I was taken aback to see that it was actually Saturday, not Sunday.

What does this have to do with music therapy? Not a blooming thing, unless you take into account the altered state of consciousness that I found myself in when I actually awoke. I think many of my clients live in a state similar to my temporary view of the world, and they live in that state most of the time. The reality we see and experience is the only reality that we can know. No one would have been able to convince me that my mom doesn't have something that she has been keeping from me or that it was Saturday. I needed something concrete in my environment that I could trust to show me the reality that I'm living in. Something I could trust to show me the world as others see it. Kinda illustrates why some clients have difficulty trusting others in their lives, doesn't it?

I know that my clients look at me in a skeptical manner on a regular basis. They often stay on the periphery of the group, watching me carefully. Often, my first authentic interaction with them (especially the "Too-Cool-for-School" adolescents) involves me doing something that most of the adults in their lives refuse to do - being silly or playing with them rather than just watching them engage in play. I often seem to break through to them by acting in a way contrary to that of the others around them. They often respond by shaking their heads, saying, "You are crazy!" I smile and say, "Thank you," and off we go into the wonderful world of music therapy treatment.

I wonder if my acting "off-script," as it were, is similar to the prompt on my computer screen this morning; the thing that jolts my clients to reality. I wonder if I am acting differently from what is expected by the hallucinations or previous experiences, and that is why my clients seem to engage with me quickly and positively. It is a quandary.

One of the tasks of the music therapist, a long time ago, was reality orientation. It was part of my job to use music to illustrate to my clients that they were living in a world that was outside themselves. Music was a good way to do that as music is an external stimulus that affects internal processes. Reality orientation TMEs included calendar songs, working on Life Skills or Activities of Daily Living, social skill development, and other TMEs as needed for specific clients. We no longer really focus on this as a therapeutic goal, at least in my area of music therapy. Reality orientation is something that has been superseded by impulse control, appropriate interaction with others, communication, and other work, but there are times when it is important to remember that one person's idea of reality is very different from another person's experience of that same environment and situation. 

Sometimes it is difficult to remember that fact. My reality often does not include flashes of light, but some of my clients experience those flashes on a regular basis. I cannot argue that what they are experiencing is not actually happening just because I cannot sense what they sense. Who says that my reality is THE reality? 

So, now that my reality is back in sync with what the computer tells me (that is an ENTIRELY different blog post - my over-reliance on computers...), I am going to go through my Saturday routine rather than my Summer Sunday routine. I am going to interrupt that routine so I can call my mom just to make sure that everything is okay with her...