Directed waking dream (Desoille)

1. Introduction

Version followed: Robert Desoille's classic rêve éveillé dirigé (RED, "directed waking dream"), as he described it in his 1953 reply to Mauco and as it is reported from his books (1938, 1945, 1961; Italian edition 2010, edited by N. Fabre and A. Passerini). The later psychoanalytic version of his French students, the rêve-éveillé en psychanalyse of the Groupe International du Rêve-Éveillé en Psychanalyse (GIREP), is given as a separate variant (4.14). Where the two differ, this guide says so.

What it is. An imagery-based psychotherapy. The client lies down, relaxes with eyes closed in a quiet, dim room and, in a drowsy but lucid state (not sleep and not full hypnosis), lives through an imagined scene as its hero, describing it aloud. The therapist sits out of sight, offers a starting image and, during the dream, suggests movements: up or down a vertical axis, or sideways. Afterwards the client writes an account, and this is worked through face to face. [source: Wikipedia, Robert Desoille; Chiore review of Desoille 2010, pp. 268–269; Passerini & De Palma, pp. 189, 196]
Origin. Desoille, a French engineer, developed it after meeting Colonel Eugène Caslant in 1923, who showed him an experimental mental-imagery technique. Desoille's dates are 1890–1966 according to Wikipedia but 1896–1966 according to Universalis [uncertain]. His main books are Exploration de l'affectivité subconsciente par la méthode du rêve éveillé (1938), Le rêve éveillé en psychothérapie (1945) and Théorie et pratique du rêve éveillé dirigé (1961). [source: Wikipedia; Universalis (R. Dufour)]
How change happens (the theory shifted over his career).
- 1930s: imagery gives access to unconscious affect, and moving up through images serves the sublimation of instincts.
- 1940s: Jung's collective unconscious and Freud's three agencies; transference can be expressed and resolved inside the imagery.
- 1950s–60s: a Pavlovian model of "rational psychotherapy". Neurotic, poorly adapted reflexes are dissolved, and new "dynamic stereotypes" are formed in imagination. Living out an action in imagery prepares it in reality and lifts inhibition.
- Desoille judged new conduct, not recollection alone, to be the decisive curative factor. [source: Wikipedia; Desoille 1953, pp. 146–147; Passerini & De Palma, pp. 187, 192]
Status today. Desoille's students split into schools: a GIRED(D) group, the C.I.P.A.R.E. (R. Dufour) and GIREP (co-founded and presided by Nicole Fabre). These schools reframed the method psychoanalytically and largely dropped strong directivity. There is also an Italian line (A. Passerini). In a third current, derived techniques passed into Anglo-American "guided daydream" and psychosynthesis work. [source: Universalis; In Press 2019 extract; Passerini & De Palma] Desoille's method is an imagery therapy, not hypnosis in the strict sense. However, French hypnosis journals still present it as a related technique (Poliakow 2024; abstract only). [source: Armand Colin page]

2. Framework

Course structure (classic RED). [source: Artiles 1993, pp. 153–154, describing the method in Desoille's line; Desoille 1953; Wikipedia]

Phase	Goal	Format	Move on when
A. Assessment interview	Understand the difficulties and history; screen (see below)	Face to face	Indication is clear and the client consents
B. Information and agreement	Explain the method and the client's active part: narrating aloud and writing the account	Face to face	Client understands that they stay in control and can open their eyes at any time [synthesis on the last point]
C. Waking-dream sessions	Imagery work: relaxation, starting image, descent and ascent	Lying down, eyes closed, therapist out of sight	Repeated weekly
D. Elaboration interview	Link the images to the client's real situation	Face to face, using the client's written account, the following week	Feeds the next starting image

Session length and frequency. Artiles reports sessions of 1.5–2 hours, weekly. The client brings the written account of the previous waking dream and any night dreams. [source: Artiles, p. 154] Desoille does not give a fixed length in the sources cited [uncertain].
Number of sessions. No fixed number in the sources cited.
- Desoille argued that about ten waking-dream sessions would have sufficed for the adolescent case he discussed. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 147]
- Artiles's case had eight waking dreams within a 2.5-year therapy. [source: Artiles, p. 154]
- GIREP practice runs inside a full analysis that can last years. [source: Aumage 2001, pp. 49–50]
Desoille's four phases of a course (codified by Desoille as reported by Passerini & De Palma, pp. 192–193):
1. Alternating ascents and descents, to open a dialogue between conscious and unconscious.
2. Reintegration of conflictual images into the archetypal chain, so the ego takes up their energy.
3. Working through contradictions and "false problems".
4. Sublimation, with light-filled images and a sense of contact with something transcendent.
Moving between phases. The sources give no operational criteria [uncertain]. Practical markers [synthesis]: in phase 1, the client can descend and come back to calm within a session. In phase 2, threatening figures transform or are mastered. In phases 3–4, gains are reported in daily conduct. Desoille treats the release of a creative spontaneity as the sign of cure. [source: Artiles, p. 154, quoting Desoille]
Within-session structure (classic). Relaxation → starting image → usually a descent first, to meet the anxiety → ascent until calm is reached → the session ends with the anxiety gone. [source: Desoille 1953, pp. 146, 148]
Children. Eyes open, seated at a table, drawing the imagined scenario as a comic strip. [source: Wikipedia]

Screening and contraindications.

From the sources:
- Avoid sleep or full hypnosis, because the dream must be remembered. [source: Chiore, citing Desoille p. 132]
- The power of images to transform must be handled cautiously so that dream and reality do not slide into each other traumatically. [source: Chiore]
- Mauco warned that a fully directed waking dream suits poorly patients with intense anxiety and guilt, and that frequent directive suggestions raised that patient's anguish and guilt. [source: Mauco reply in Desoille 1953, p. 149]
- Jungian authors thought it might help where imagination cannot be mobilised spontaneously, including borderline patients (Plateo-Zoja 1978, as cited by Cassar). This is not a tested indication. [uncertain]
No formal contraindication list is given in the sources cited [uncertain]. Apply the standard ones for deep imagery and trance work [synthesis]:
- active psychosis or a history of psychotic decompensation
- severe dissociative disorder
- unprocessed PTSD with flashbacks, unless stabilisation comes first
- acute suicidality or crisis
- intoxication
- poorly controlled epilepsy, if relaxation or dim light provokes seizures
- fragile reality testing
- inability to give informed consent
Indications in the sources: neuroses (Universalis); a case of adolescent inhibition and anxiety (Desoille 1953); psychosomatic presentations within GIREP practice, where the rêve-éveillé works alongside the analysis, not in place of medical care (Aumage 2001).
Memories. Material from the imagery is treated as the client's present experience and fantasy, never as a recovered historical fact. [synthesis, consistent with Natanson's GIREP abstract: the analyst does not rebuild the past]

3. Guiding principles

The client is the hero of the scene. Keep the client in first person, inside the scene, describing and acting. [source: Wikipedia]
A drowsy but lucid state, not hypnosis. Deepen relaxation only to the point where the client can still talk and remember. [source: Chiore, p. 132; Passerini & De Palma, p. 189]
The vertical axis carries the affect. Descent brings dark, anxious, regressive images; ascent brings light, calm and hope. Use movement on this axis as the main lever. [source: Passerini & De Palma, p. 190; Cassar thesis, citing Desoille 1938]
Meet the anxiety, then resolve it in the same session. Start low, climb until calm, and never close a session in anguish. [source: Desoille 1953, pp. 146, 148]
The therapist is active, not neutral. When the client is at an impasse, offer a means: a way up, a way out, a tool. Desoille criticised the passive "neutral" analyst. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 146] (GIREP disagrees; see 4.14.)
Suggest only from the client's world. Draw suggestions from the client's own images or from typical human situations, never from the therapist's moral code. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 148]
Follow the client's spontaneous images. Do not impose images; build on a positive image the client produces. [source: Chiore, citing Desoille pp. 175–176]
Live the dream alongside the client. Desoille asked the therapist to experience the client's images in the first person, as a mirror with discretion and sympathy, while keeping a reassuring, positive relationship. [source: Chiore, p. 49; Passerini & De Palma, pp. 193–194]
The image is an analogy of the real situation. In elaboration, show how the scene mirrors the client's actual position. For example, being unable to climb a wall can mirror feeling unable to become an adult. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 146]
Change shows in conduct. Value new behaviour and rehearsal over recollection; imagining an action prepares it. [source: Desoille 1953, pp. 146–147]
No word-by-word free association. Desoille found it time-wasting. Work with the felt meaning and the analogy instead. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 147] (GIREP does use free association on the reread text.)
The client writes. A written account after each session keeps the material alive and feeds the next session. [source: Wikipedia; Artiles, p. 154]
Consent and control. The client may stop, open their eyes or refuse a suggestion at any moment, and the method is never used covertly. [synthesis]

4. Intervention inventory

All example language is illustrative wording in English, not Desoille's. The only verbatim items are the two short French suggestions he gave as examples (cited at 4.7). Sources rarely give step detail. Steps not found in a source are marked [synthesis].

4.1 Assessment and preparatory interview

Purpose: Understand the presenting difficulties and history, and decide whether imagery work suits this client. [source: Artiles, p. 153, phases 1–2]
Steps:
1. Take a clinical history, including current life situation and symptoms.
2. Screen for the contraindications listed in section 2 [synthesis on the list].
3. Explain the method: lying down, eyes closed, relaxing, describing aloud what is seen and felt, the therapist sometimes proposing moves, and writing the account at home.
4. Agree on the client's control: a stop signal, the freedom to open the eyes, the right to decline a suggestion [synthesis].
5. Obtain consent and agree the frequency (weekly in Artiles).
Example language (illustrative): "You'll stay awake and in charge the whole time. I'll ask you to describe whatever images come, as if you were inside them. Sometimes I'll suggest you go up or down, or try something; you can always say no or open your eyes."
Watch for: Fear of losing control, or an expectation of hypnosis or of "finding out what really happened". Correct both before starting [synthesis].

4.2 Setting and relaxation

Purpose: Reach a drowsy but lucid state in which images are vivid and can still be narrated and remembered. [source: Chiore, citing Desoille p. 132; Passerini & De Palma, p. 189]
Steps:
1. Use a quiet room, in semi-darkness if possible. The client lies on their back with eyes closed. [source: Chiore, p. 132; Wikipedia]
2. Sit behind the client, out of their visual field. [source: Wikipedia; Passerini & De Palma, p. 196]
3. Induce muscular relaxation. Desoille drew on Schultz's autogenic training, supplemented with visual and auditory cues. [source: Chiore, p. 132] The exact wording is not in the sources cited, so paraphrase a standard progressive-heaviness sequence [synthesis].
4. Stop deepening while the client can still speak easily. Avoid sleep and full hypnosis. [source: Chiore, p. 132]
Example language (illustrative): "Let your arms grow heavy… your breathing slow by itself… you remain awake, just quieter. When you're ready, tell me what you notice."
Watch for:
- Drifting toward sleep: the voice fades and the replies are long delayed. Ask a question to bring the client back up [synthesis].
- The physiological shifts Desoille noted in breathing and heart rate, which are signs of affective engagement. [source: Cassar thesis, citing Desoille 1938]

4.3 Choosing the starting image (image inductrice)

Purpose: Give the waking dream a point of departure that carries collective symbolic value (archetypal) or personal meaning. [source: Chiore, p. XXIII; Passerini & De Palma, p. 189]
Sources of the image, in roughly the order Artiles lists them [source: Artiles, p. 154]:
- a classic theme from the standard series (4.4)
- a theme tied to the client's personal fantasy
- an image the client chooses
- an image from a night dream
- an image from a previous waking dream
- Desoille preferred building on a positive image that arises spontaneously in the client. [source: Chiore, pp. 175–176]
Steps:
1. Once the client is relaxed, name the image briefly.
2. Ask the client to describe it: shape, colour, material, surroundings, feeling.
3. Then ask what they want to do or where they are.
Example language (illustrative): "Picture an object in front of you… describe it… what is it made of? Where are you standing? What would you like to do with it?"
Watch for: No image comes, or only a flat description. See 5.1. Also watch for an image that is immediately overwhelming; if so, use a calmer one [synthesis].

4.4 The classic theme series

Purpose: Desoille's standard set of induction themes. Each probes a typical affective situation. [source: Passerini & De Palma, p. 192; Artiles, p. 154]
The sources do not agree on the list. [uncertain]
- Passerini & De Palma list six: sword, vase, witch, dragon, sea, wise man.
- Artiles lists eight, used in order: sword (for men) or cup (for women); the staircase; a journey to the sea floor; looking for the cave of the wizard and the witch; looking for the dragon's grotto; Sleeping Beauty; a castle in the forest; the key.
- The sources cited do not give the purpose Desoille assigned to each theme. Do not take a purpose from secondary lore. [uncertain]
- One purpose is documented: the descent to the witch's grotto stirs infantile fantasies about the mother. On the ascent the witch can turn into an ideal partner, which Desoille presented as a way to loosen maternal fixation. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 148]
Steps: Introduce one theme per session, taking the client's tolerance and the material already worked into account [synthesis]. Assigning themes by sex is a feature of the original series; a modern clinician can let the client choose [synthesis].
Example language (illustrative): "Imagine you are at the edge of the sea… now let yourself go down under the water, slowly, and tell me what you find."
Watch for: Themes that touch on known trauma, such as water for a near-drowning survivor. Choose another theme [synthesis].

4.5 Directed descent (descente)

Purpose: Bring the client into contact with anxious, regressive and instinctual material: "instincts and primitive drives" (Desoille 1938, as cited by Cassar). Desoille usually began here, to confront the anguish. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 148; Passerini & De Palma, p. 190]
Steps:
1. From the starting image, invite the client to go down: stairs, a well, a cave, a trapdoor, the sea floor.
2. Ask for sensory detail and feeling at each level.
3. When a threatening figure or place appears, keep the client describing it and their reaction.
4. Offer a means (4.7) if they freeze.
5. Do not let the descent run on beyond what the client can hold. Prepare the ascent (4.6) while time remains [synthesis on the timing].
Example language (illustrative): "There is a way down here. Would you go a little lower and tell me what it's like?" / "You're at the bottom now. What's around you? What do you feel?"
Watch for:
- Rising anxiety is expected. Anguish appears mainly during the descent and sometimes early in the ascent. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 148]
- Watch for signs of overwhelm or dissociation: flat voice, losing the scene, the image fusing with reality. Stop and ground (5.3) [synthesis].

4.6 Directed ascent (montée) toward light and calm

Purpose: Transform the material met in the descent and end the session in calm. Ascent images grow brighter and bring euphoric, serene or hopeful feelings, sometimes mystical ones. The ascent is the main vehicle of sublimation. [source: Passerini & De Palma, pp. 190–192; Desoille 1953, p. 148]
Steps:
1. Invite movement upward: climbing, flying, a staircase, a mountain, toward the sun.
2. Ask what changes in light, colour, body sensation and mood.
3. If a figure met below can come along, see whether it changes.
4. Continue until the client reports calm. The anguish should have disappeared by the end of the session. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 146]
5. Bring the client back from relaxation and open the eyes [synthesis on the return procedure].
Example language (illustrative): "Let's look for a way up… What do you notice as you rise? Is the light changing?" / "Stay here a moment and notice the calm. In a moment you'll come back to the room, feel the couch, and open your eyes."
Watch for:
- Anxiety can return early in the ascent; slow down. [source: Desoille 1953]
- A forced, "too perfect" brightness may be a defensive flight rather than integration [synthesis].
- Desoille describes vertical levels from an "infernal" low to a "celestial" high. The ascent is guided in steps, not leaps. [source: Passerini & De Palma, p. 192]

4.7 Directive suggestions within the dream ("means" and displacements)

Purpose: Help the client out of an impasse, or toward mastering a threat, by suggesting an action inside the imagery. [source: Desoille 1953, pp. 146, 148]
What Desoille describes:
- Suggestions that offer a means to climb or escape.
- Suggestions to act on a figure, for example "Ouvrez ce coffret" (open this casket) and "Rendez vous maître de ce monstre" (make yourself master of this monster). [source: Desoille 1953, p. 148]
- Displacements along the vertical or the horizontal axis. [source: Chiore, p. XXIII]
- Later authors describe structured protective or expanding moves (spostamenti). [source: Passerini & De Palma, p. 198]
Steps:
1. Wait until the client is clearly stuck or the anxiety is mounting without movement.
2. Offer one concrete option in their own imagery, such as a rope, a door, a light or a companion. Phrase it as an offer.
3. Check what happens.
4. If the client refuses, respect it and offer an alternative or an ascent.
- Keep suggestions within the client's experience or typical human situations, never the therapist's morality. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 148]
Example language (illustrative): "Is there anything nearby that could help you get over that wall?" / "What if you stood your ground and looked straight at it—what happens?"
Watch for: Over-direction. Mauco argued that frequent directive suggestions increased his patient's anxiety and guilt. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 149] The suggestion works if the scene moves on and the affect shifts. It fails if the client complies flatly or the anxiety rises.

4.8 Contrast images (immagini di contrasto)

Purpose: Counter an anguished or blocking image by introducing its opposite, so that a new scene opens. [source: Passerini & De Palma, p. 190, fn. 1]
Steps:
1. Identify the dominant quality of the blocking image: dark, cold, closed, heavy.
2. Propose an element with the contrasting quality: light, warmth, an opening, lightness.
3. Ask the client to notice what changes.
- GIREP authors also use rhythmic or contrasting sensations (hot–cold, round–pointed, black–white). [source: Aumage 2001, p. 47]
Example language (illustrative): "It's very dark in there. Is there any light anywhere, even a little?"
Watch for: Use contrast to open movement, not to erase the threatening image before it has been met [synthesis].

4.9 Accompanying the dream: narration, transcription, therapist co-living

Purpose: Keep the client in contact and speaking while the therapist follows closely enough to intervene well. [source: Passerini & De Palma, pp. 194, 196; Chiore, p. 49]
Steps:
1. The client narrates aloud in the present tense, in the first person.
2. The therapist writes down the narration. [source: Passerini & De Palma, p. 196]
3. The therapist imaginatively lives the scene alongside the client, so that suggestions fit the scene's own logic. [source: Chiore, citing Desoille p. 49]
4. Use short prompts for detail and feeling.
5. Remind the client that "anything can happen" in a waking dream, and encourage exploring heights and depths. [source: Cassar thesis, describing RED]
6. Intervene when the imagery becomes too threatening. [source: Cassar thesis]
7. Do not interpret transference intellectually during the dream. [source: Passerini & De Palma, p. 194]
Example language (illustrative): "What do you see now?… And how does that feel in your body?… Go on."
Watch for:
- At the start, images change rapidly. [source: Chiore, citing Desoille p. 67] Let them settle before directing.
- Long silences can mean deepening, drifting off or being overwhelmed. Check in [synthesis].

4.10 Ending the session and re-alerting

Purpose: Close the session in calm and with full orientation. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 146 (end without anguish)]
Steps:
1. Make sure the scene has reached calm (4.6).
2. Announce the return.
3. Ask the client to feel their body on the couch and the sounds of the room.
4. Have them move their hands and feet, then open their eyes.
5. Sit up and allow a brief pause.
6. Check orientation and mood before the client leaves. The steps above are standard re-alerting practice and are not described in the sources cited. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "In a moment I'll count to three; at three you'll open your eyes, fully awake and here in the room."
Watch for:
- Residual drowsiness or anxiety. Do not let the client drive until they are alert [synthesis].
- If anguish remains, do a brief ascent or grounding before ending (5.3).

4.11 The written account

Purpose: Fix the memory of the dream, continue the work between sessions and provide material for elaboration. [source: Wikipedia; Artiles, p. 154; Passerini & De Palma, p. 189]
Steps:
1. Ask the client to write, before the next session, a precise account of the waking dream with its feelings and associations.
2. Ask them to note any night dreams in the interval.
3. They bring both to the elaboration interview. [source: Artiles, p. 154]
Example language (illustrative): "This week, write down the dream as fully as you can, including what you felt, and anything it brought to mind. Bring any night dreams too."
Watch for: Accounts that are missing or very thin (5.4). Also watch for distress while writing; agree a coping plan for it [synthesis].

4.12 Elaboration interview: analogy and anamnesis

Purpose: Make the link between the imagery and the client's real situation, so that insight and new behaviour follow. [source: Desoille 1953, pp. 146–147; Artiles, pp. 153–154]
Steps (classic RED):
1. Meet face to face, usually in the following session. [source: Wikipedia; Artiles]
2. Read or discuss the written account.
3. Point out the image as an analogy of the client's real position. Desoille's example: clinging to a wall one cannot climb mirrors the felt inability to become an adult. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 146]
4. Invite the client to recall real circumstances that carried the same feeling. Desoille calls this anamnesis and held that the analogy then becomes evident. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 147]
5. Do not take each word through free association. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 147]
6. Use what emerges to choose the next starting image [synthesis].
Later Italian variant: First the client says what meaning struck them most ("semantic" step). The therapist then prompts a fuller propositional development, explicitly without interpretation. [source: Passerini & De Palma, pp. 199–200]
Example language (illustrative): "In the dream you couldn't get over the wall. Where in your life do you feel stuck like that?"
Watch for:
- The analogy should be recognised by the client, not imposed.
- The method is working when the client reports matching situations spontaneously and begins to act differently. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 147]

4.13 Transfer to conduct (rehearsal of new behaviour)

Purpose: Desoille's Pavlovian rationale: imagining an action prepares it and lifts inhibition, and the client's new conduct and "training" is the decisive curative factor. [source: Desoille 1953, pp. 146–147; Wikipedia]
Steps:
1. Note actions the client achieved in the dream, such as facing the monster or opening the box.
2. In elaboration, identify the matching real-life step.
3. Encourage the client to try it.
4. Review the attempt next session, and use the imagery to rehearse it again if needed. Steps 1–4 are an operationalisation of the principle; the sources state the principle, not these steps [synthesis].
Example language (illustrative): "In the dream you stood your ground. What would standing your ground look like this week, in one small step?"
Watch for: Insight with no behavioural change. Keep the focus on small, concrete steps [synthesis].

4.14 GIREP variant: rêve-éveillé within psychoanalysis

Purpose: In GIREP's line, introduce a rêve-éveillé time into a psychoanalytic cure ("analyse rêve-éveillé"), with the transference as its other pole. [source: In Press 2019 extract; Aumage 2001, pp. 43–44]
Steps:
1. Rêve-éveillé sessions are usually held lying down. Other sessions are face to face. [source: Aumage, pp. 44, 46]
2. The theme is mostly free. Where the analyst proposes one, it is an interpretive hypothesis, a "hook" held out to the client and not a gadget. [source: Aumage, p. 49]
3. The analyst acts as a mirror and figure of identification. The rêve-éveillé is the time of "treatment", not of interpretation. [source: Aumage, pp. 44, 47]
4. The analyst keeps written notes of the dream in a "dossier-mémoire". [source: Aumage, p. 45]
5. In later sessions the text is reread on request or by choice and becomes a starting point for free association. [source: Aumage, p. 45]
6. Supporting materials such as drawings, modelling clay, photos, a genogram or a sociogram can be brought in. [source: Aumage, pp. 46–47]
7. With the support of the transference, the image takes on symbolic value. The analyst does not reconstruct the past or correct the imaginary with a supposed reality. [source: Natanson abstract]
Example language (illustrative): "If you like, we can take some time with your eyes closed and let an image come… whatever comes."
Watch for:
- Protect the frame. Violent affects are worked through without endangering the analytic setting, and the client's need for a protective barrier is respected. [source: Aumage, pp. 44–46]
- Through the dream, transferences that are hard or impossible to voice become livable. Track them. [source: Aumage, p. 44]

4.15 Children's variant (drawing)

Purpose: Adapt the method for children. [source: Wikipedia]
Steps:
1. The child sits at a table, eyes open.
2. The child imagines a scenario and draws it as a comic strip, frame by frame.
3. The therapist follows and occasionally proposes the next step. The source gives the format only; the step detail is [synthesis].
Example language (illustrative): "Draw what happens next… and then what does your hero do?"
Watch for: Distress showing in the drawings. Involve the parents and keep within child-therapy competence [synthesis].

Not included: Later Italian practice uses a perceptual stimulus, such as a meadow or a TAT card, as the starting point. [source: Passerini & De Palma, pp. 197–199] This is a derived development and is not covered here in detail.

5. Handling problems

The sources cited address only a few of these problems directly (5.1, 5.2, 5.5, 5.6). Everything else is marked [synthesis].

5.1 No images, or flat images

Desoille's line: The method suits clients who cannot summon imagination alone. The therapist supplies the starting image and active prompts. [source: Cassar, citing Plateo-Zoja 1978; Desoille 1953, p. 146]
Responses [synthesis]:
- Lengthen the relaxation a little.
- Start from a concrete, everyday or positive image, or one the client brings from a night dream (4.3).
- Ask for single sensory details: a colour, a texture.
- Accept "felt sense" without visuals.
- Do not pressure; scarcity of images is material for the elaboration interview.

5.2 Stuck in the scene (impasse, a wall, a monster, a closed door)

Desoille's line: Do not stay neutral. Offer a means to climb, escape, open or master. [source: Desoille 1953, pp. 146, 148]
Other responses:
- Use a contrast image. [source: Passerini & De Palma, p. 190]
- Move along the horizontal axis. [source: Chiore, p. XXIII]
- Ask what the client would need. [synthesis]
- If the client refuses the suggestion, treat the refusal as meaningful and take it to elaboration rather than insisting. Artiles reports that insisting worked in his case, but Mauco warns that it can raise guilt and anxiety. [source: Artiles, pp. 157–160; Desoille 1953, p. 149] [uncertain: the sources conflict]

5.3 Overwhelm, panic or dissociation during the dream [synthesis, except where cited]

Signs:
- rapid breathing, crying that escalates
- the voice flattening or the client going silent and unresponsive
- "I can't tell if this is real"
- imagery reproducing a trauma memory
- Desoille's caution about traumatic slippage between dream and reality applies here. [source: Chiore]
Steps:
1. Stop directing the descent.
2. Offer a safe exit or an immediate ascent toward light.
3. If the client does not settle within a few exchanges, end the imagery. Have them open their eyes, sit up, name five things in the room, feel their feet on the floor and breathe slowly.
4. Speak in a calm, orienting voice.
5. Do not leave until they are oriented and calm.
6. Next session, review what happened and lower the intensity: shorter descents, gentler themes, more relaxation.
7. For trauma, move to stabilisation and a trauma-focused, evidence-based protocol. Do not use the waking dream to search for or "recover" memories.

5.4 Missing written accounts (non-adherence) [synthesis]

Explore the obstacle: shame, fear of re-experiencing, time, literacy.
Offer alternatives: brief notes, a voice memo, a drawing, or a short account written in session.
In the GIREP variant the analyst's own notes can carry the record. [source: Aumage, p. 45]

5.5 Over-direction and ruptures

Mauco's critique: a fully directed dream leaves the client little autonomy and can deepen anxiety and guilt. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 149]
Desoille required that suggestions never impose the therapist's ethics. [source: Desoille 1953, p. 148]
Responses [synthesis]:
- If the client feels pushed, says the dream is "yours, not mine" or complies mechanically, name it.
- Ask what felt imposed, and reduce directivity, moving toward the GIREP stance (4.14).
- Return control explicitly.

5.6 Transference in the imagery

Transference shows mainly in the images, for example as the therapist appearing as a guide or a threat. Desoille kept the relationship reassuring and positive. [source: Passerini & De Palma, p. 193]
GIREP analysts use the transference actively. [source: Aumage, p. 44]
Response [synthesis]: Note such figures, and explore them in elaboration if your orientation allows. Do not interpret them during the dream.

5.7 Defensive brightness or flight into the "heights" [synthesis]

If every session leaps into light and euphoria without meeting anything difficult, slow the ascent, return gently to an unresolved figure, and explore in elaboration what the flight protects.

5.8 Requests to "find out what happened" or to be hypnotised [synthesis]

Explain that the method works with present feeling and fantasy, not with retrieving facts. Imagery does not verify memories.
Do not deepen toward hypnosis. Desoille wanted lucidity and recall preserved. [source: Chiore, p. 132]

5.9 Risk emerging (suicidal content, psychotic-like experiences) [synthesis]

Pause imagery work and carry out a standard risk assessment and safety plan.
Unusual perceptions that continue after eyes open, or that the client takes as real outside sessions, call for psychiatric assessment and an end to the method.

5.10 Physical symptoms

In GIREP practice, psychosomatic presentations are worked with inside an analysis. [source: Aumage 2001]
Always ensure the medical condition is assessed and treated medically. The rêve-éveillé is an adjunct, never a treatment for physical disease. [synthesis]

Sources

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