Read Acting Your Dreams: Using Acting Techniques to Interpret Your Dreams for Free Online

story—even the ring itself. This is what characterization is
all about and it takes a lot of work on the part of the actor to make this
happen.
     
    Occasionally we
will hear about a character before they actually make their appearance, and we may
know them once they step into the action. In the movie, The Princess Bride, we
hear about the Dread Pirate Roberts, though we don’t discover until quite near
the end of the movie who he is. Through the dialog of other characters, we
learn “he is nothing to be trifled with.” In the Wizard of Oz we learn that the
Wizard is a great magician who can help Dorothy get back to her home. In fact,
in this movie it is the character, The Wizard, that creates the Through Line of
Action. Dorothy and her friends are on a mission to find this Wizard and each
character has something that they hope to garner from him. It’s a bit of a
disappointment when they learn that he is only hiding behind a curtain to make
himself appear bigger and more powerful than he is.
     
    These character
appearances can happen in our Dreamplay. When a character enters our dream
stage we don’t always know who they are, but they do a marvelous job of
convincing us. For instance, we may dream of a wolf wearing pink pedal pushers
growling at us and trying to eat us. In the Dreamplay we don’t even question
why this creature is so bent on our destruction. If a dream character claims to
be a long lost relative we don’t question them. If they claim to be us, even
though they have webbed feet, three fingers, and a tail, we don’t question
them. If they tell us they want to help us, then we accept that. Our dream
characters are astonishingly good with characterization.
     
    When looking
over a dream, it’s a good idea to look closely at these characters. For
instance, do they remind you of someone you know in waking life? One lady
dreamt of a hippopotamus that reminded her of her husband. The “hungry hippo”
ran through the house demanding food and threatening her. When she examined the
image more closely, she became aware that her husband’s constant appetite and
his attitude toward food had started to frighten her.
     
    It is also
important that we view our dream characters in terms of actions. Every
character in the dream is doing something. It’s chasing us, teaching us,
frustrating us, or any number of other actions. Maybe it undergoes a
metamorphosis from one creature to another. When working with characterization
you will learn a lot about the character by watching its actions.
     
    Just as in real
life, the characters in dreams will adjust to the other characters. If one
character is talking to a stupid person, they adjust so that they can
communicate. If they are taking to a child, they adjust to that child's level
of understanding. If they are dealing with a shrewd person, they adjust
themselves so that they are more cautious. If the “someone” is speaking in
code, then the character will adjust and speak in code too, if he knows what
that code is.
     
    The great Carl
Jung would ask the dreamer, “What does an angel mean to you?” And by the
dreamer’s explanation he could extract the possible meaning of a dream symbol.
This would also be true of dream people. He would ask “Who is this person in
real life?” and that would help him understand why that person showed up in the
dream, and what they might be trying to communicate. Gayle Delaney says to her
clients “pretend I come from another planet. Who is James Bond? Tell me
everything you can about him.”
     
    When we look at
characterization, we must look for subtleties in the characters as well as their
overt character traits. In life a true hero is no more perfect than anyone
else. Neither is he always tall, dark and handsome. Conversely, villains in
life are rarely obvious in their villainy. Indeed, it is often their
attractiveness that hides their true nature and then highlights their evilness
when discovered. Another interesting