Trigger Decoding

by Robert Langs, M.D.

Our most important emotional experiences and influences are perceived, processed, and communicated unknowingly -- unconsciously. Trigger decoding the stories we tell ourselves and others (dreams and other narratives) is the only known means of getting in touch with these critical experiences. As a bonus, these decoding efforts enable us to make use of the insights generated by our highly adaptive and effective deep unconscious intelligence-a great but unconscious resource.

The basic steps in trigger decoding are:

1. Build your themes before turning to you triggers.
2. Turn to a dream from last night. If no dream is available, make up a story with a beginning, middle and end (shape it like a dream). This is your origination narrative. It is a story that encodes your deep unconscious responses to your most critical emotionally-charged triggers. The "game of decoding" involves connecting themes to triggers and thinking of the themes as reflecting valid encoded perceptions (i.e., the true picture) of the implications of a given triggering event.
3. A dream or made-up story is a marker for a multitude of additional stories. Each element of a dream (I will use the dream as my model) exists as a representative or source of one or more additional encoded stories. These associated stories always are more powerful and revealing than the dream itself. This leads to the next step in trigger decoding: Associate fresh stories to each element of the dream. Take an image or element in your dream and allow it to bring to mind afresh story-e.g., an incident in your life, a film or play, a news story, or any other type of story line. Play out the story to its end, noting the themes once you're done. Once you have done this with a series of dream elements, you have built a pool of encoded themes ready to be connected with your triggers.
4. Identify your strongest, currently active, emotionally-charged triggers. This requires going over recent happenings to get a sense of recent emotional traumas. In doing this, it is crucial to appreciate that the deep unconscious processing system is most sensitive to ground rule issues. It is a system with values and capabilities that are very different from those we have consciously-it takes some getting used to these differences, but it is essential to do so. Carrying out sound efforts at trigger decoding requires an understanding of the many unique features of the unconscious mind-the deep unconscious system. Most notable among these features are its use of unconscious perception, its extremely wise unconscious intelligence, its concentration on rules, frames, and boundaries (the basic contexts for human activities), and its use of narratives to convey its experiences in encoded form.
5. Link the themes to the trigger that has evoked them. This linking process needs to be carried out with the idea that encoded themes do not falsify or distort-they reflect highly accurate unconscious perceptions of the meanings of triggering events. It is this linking process that reveals your deep unconscious experience of a trigger-impressions that powerfully affect how you feel, react to others, make decisions, and the like. Triggers evoke themes; themes reflect triggers.
   
   

An Illustration

Let's take an example from psychotherapy where ground rules are clear on the unconscious level of experience (they are a muddle consciously) and themes are readily generated and understood.

Ms X tells Dr Y that she dreamt of her brother locking her in the basement of their childhood home.

(Here is a first encoded theme, one of entrapment-what could possibly be the evocative trigger; what could the therapist have done to evoke this theme?)

The dream brings to mind an incident from her adolescence in which her brother had locked the door to their basement room and tried to fondle the patient. She fought him off.

(The trigger is both entrapping and seductive-again, what could the therapist have done? Remember--triggers evoke themes and themes reflect the nature of triggers.)

The patient associates further: Her boss has been keeping her late at work. He's married, but he's been making seductive overtures to her. He has affairs with his employees like her father did in his early years-she wants none of that

(The themes are being kept late and again, someone being seductive - like her father had been years earlier. More clues to what the therapist did - what could it be?)

The patient next says that she'd had the odd experience of returning to work from her last session on the late side. She'd somehow lost track of time. At this point Dr Y intervenes. He plays back the themes in the Ms X's material and suggests that they indicate an unconscious perception that he'd extended the time of her last session beyond its proper end-point. The patient now says that she had thought that an extension of her hour might have been the reason for her lateness in getting back to work, but she had rejected the idea. The therapist now adds that Ms X had experienced the extra time as seductive in ways similar to her brother, boss and father - and that he'd be on the alert in the future to not repeat his error.

Miss X then says that she'd had the thought that morning of stopping her therapy and breaking up with her boyfriend because he seemed too intent on sex - the extended time must have been what set those thoughts in motion. The odd thing about her boss is that he's so smart and helpful in areas other than sex - he should get his act together.

The trigger for these themes was the extra six minutes that the therapist inadvertently had added to the patient's session. It had been perceived unconsciously, considered consciously but rejected, and then had evoked not only the patient's dream and associations, but also her thoughts of quitting therapy and breaking up with her boyfriend. Emotional decisions always have significant deep unconscious motives-they are driven by unconscious perceptions.

Three other points: First, notice that the therapist had violated a ground rule that calls for ending the patient's session at a specific time. While consciously, patients and therapists generally have casual conscious attitudes toward ground rules and would think of the extension of the time as trivial, this is not the case with deep unconscious experience-in our unconscious minds, all frame violations have powerful meanings and consequences.

Second, we have here an example of the encoded validation of an interpretation by a therapist-the story of how smart the boss is in areas other than sex. This positive story encodes an unconscious perception of the wisdom of the therapist's intervention.

Third, notice too that the therapist tries to assure the patient that he will rectify his error and not make it in the future. With ground rule violations interpretation is not enough-rectification to the greatest extent feasible is essential.

To perfect your skills at trigger decoding, set aside time for this kind of processing each day-a good time for this is while lying in bed before falling asleep. Additional reading also will help, as will working directly with Dr. Langs.

Suggested Readings

1. Unconscious Communication in Everyday Life. New York: Jason Aronson, 1983.
2. Decoding Your Dreams. New York: Henry Holt, 1988. (Also a Ballantine paperback)
3. Take Charge of Your Emotional Life. New York: Henry Holt, 1991.
4. The Dream Workbook. Brooklyn, NY: Alliance Publishing, 1994.
5. The Daydream Workbook. Brooklyn, NY: Alliance Publishing, 1995.
6. Rules, Frames and Boundaries in Psychotherapy and Counselling. London: Karnac Books, 1998.
7. Dreams and Emotional Adaptation. Zeig, Tucker, 1999.

Go to Top of Page