The Dream Sourcebook: A Guide to the Theory and Interpretation of Dreams (36 page)

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Authors: Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras

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BOOK: The Dream Sourcebook: A Guide to the Theory and Interpretation of Dreams
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Page 212
this light entered into my eyes. When I woke up, I knew that what had happened to me was not just an ordinary dream and, from that moment on, I could heal.
Many religious and spiritual traditions are full of accounts of dreams and visions that had a profound effect, not only on the dreamer, but also on the community with which the dream was shared. It is not necessary to be a religious mystic, however, to use your dreams to enrich your spiritual experience. Even though modern Western culture does not generally regard dreams in this way, you can still experiment with them as a focus for your own exploration of spiritual symbols, values, and beliefs. As Tenzin Rinpoche says, "the greatest value of dreams is in the context of the spiritual journey. Most importantly, they may be used as a spiritual practice in themselves. They may also provide the experiences that motivate the dreamer to enter the spiritual path."
One structured exercise you might try on your own or in a group involves choosing and sharing three images from your dreams that represent some important aspect of your spirituality. One dreamer, an agnostic, chose three symbols during a dream group meeting, with the following reaction and comments:
The Goddess:
This dream guide is a teaching figure for me, representing my awareness of and connection with the order, beauty, and wisdom of the universe, which some call God.
The White Eagle:
My perfect self in my dreams, a magnificent creature representing what I can become if I can free my spirit from earthly distractions and imperfections.
 
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The Indian Dancers:
I feel a strong affinity for the Indians' search for spiritual awakening through an intuitive and mystical relationship to the forces of nature and the hidden forces within ourselves. Realizing that my spiritual values are reflected in such a personal, daily experience as my dreams brought home to me the value of religious worship in my everyday lifesomething I had rejected as impossible before.
Several other exercises to enhance spirituality through dreams are suggested by Krippner and Dillard in their book,
Dreamworking
. They suggest looking through your dream journal for instances of sacred experiences or ethical principles appearing in your dreams. You can then compare those dream symbols and themes with your waking experiences, looking at the feelings and questions they bring up for you. For example, if the principle of compassion appears in a dream, do you follow it or reject it? Is it still valid or has it lost its utility? According to Krippner and Dillard, "The dreamer's spiritual resources can assist in resolving the issues posed by dream content, and in enhancing the dreamer's personal and social growth and development."
As more and more people take an interest in non-Western dreamwork practices, dream interpretation seems to require more than a nod to the often ancient spiritual traditions that integrate our dream experiences with our waking live. Kingsley writes, "We need a new model for dream analysis, one that applies to the symbolic, psychological approach when needed, and the revelatory, spiritual approach, as needed, and can balance and combine the two for the best results that are [most] meaningful and useful to the reader."
 
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Dream Web: Internet Dreamwork
The World Wide Web unites dreamworkers of all persuasions and levels of experience in an endless exploration of REM life. Of the hundreds of hits our search engines came up with, here are some of our favorite sites for information and interchange:
Lifetrac: Information and Resources on Dreams
www.teleport.com/~dreams/
Here, dream expert Gillian Holloway, Ph.D., who writes a weekly dream interpretation column for
Woman's World
magazine, answers frequently asked questions and offers a selection of books and audiotapes suitable for beginning and advanced dreamworkers alike. It's also possible to e-mail a dream to her for interpretation.
Association for the Study of Dreams
www.asdreams.org
At this site, you can become familiar with experts in the field of dreamwork. The ASD publishes the only professional journal that focuses solely on dreaming. Called
Dreaming
, this journal publishes peer-reviewed articles from a variety of disciplines including biology, psychology (whether Freudian, Jungian, existential, or eclectic), anthropology, sociology, philosophy, or arts and humanities. Sample articles are available at this Web site.
 
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Electric Dreams
www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~mettw/edreams/home.html
This extraordinary electronic magazine welcomes a variety of perspectives on dreaming, frequently publishing reader responses and encouraging dialogue. Article topics have included "Dreams of the Blind," "Bringing Dreams to Children," and ''The Mystical Meaning of Your Dreams," as well as practical discussions of areas such as dream recall, dream incubation, and lucid dreaming.
A Final Word
If you have tried the dreamwork exercises in chapter 6, you realize how many creative possibilities exist in dreams even for dreamers who call themselves noncreative. People who have never before drawn a picture, written a poem, or developed a fictional character find themselves captivated by the images, words, and people in their dreams, all of which are creations of their own dreaming minds. As you become fluent in your own personal dream language, you will get to know your creative side. In time, you will find yourself turning to that part of yourself for ideas and innovations in many aspects of your life. When a creative inspiration enters your consciousness through a dream, welcome it as the long-lost child of your dreaming mind, and take what it has to offer you.
"Creativity and dreaming are inextricably intertwined," writes psychoanalyst Jill Morris, author of
The Dream Workbook
. "They are both functions of the right brain, using the same well of memory, wisdom, and personal symbolism, and
 
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they both spring from the unconscious. In dreams, the raw feelings are thrown up in haphazard, symbolic form. In a creative endeavor, the same material is consciously transformed, through the disciples of the particular medium and the creator's individual sensibilities, into a work of art." You might think of your dreaming mind as yourself unedited. In creating your dreams, you don't stop to think about what is logical, appropriate, moral, ethical, or even desirable. You simply
experience
following dream life wherever it leads. Creativity at its best is an uninhibited effort, a boundless explosion of ideas and insights that only you can ignite. When you want to enhance your creativity, dreams are a fine place to start and an excellent place to come back to. Sometimes, the creativity of dreams has an aura of the supernatural, so accurately do dreams predict the future or communicate with fellow dreamers. In the next chapter, we explore psychic phenomena and dreams.
"The Language Of Storytelling And Poetry Is The Powerful Sister Of The Dream Language. From The Analysis Of Many Dreams (Both Contemporary And Ancient Ones Taken From Written Accounts) Over The Years, As Well As Sacred Texts And The Works Of Mystics Such As Catherine Of Siena, Francis Of Assisi, Rumi, And Eckhart And The Work Of Many Poets Such As Dickinson, Mallay, Whitman, And So On, There Appears To Be Within The Psyche A Poetry Making And Art Making Function That Arises When A Person Spontaneously Or Purposely Ventures Near The Instinctive Core Of The Psyche."
Clarissas Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
, from Women Who Run with the Wolves
 
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Chapter Eight
Coincidence? Maybe Psychic Phenomena and Dreams
It is 1865. Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, is asleep in the White House. Entering a state of REM sleep, he begins to dream. At first, he hears people sobbing. Following the sound, he wanders down the stairs in search of its source. His eyes land upon a coffin, but he is unable to see the face of the deceased. Turning to a nearby soldier, he inquires about the deceased. "It is the President," the soldier responds, "killed by an assassin."
A few days later, Abraham Lincoln was murdered.
It is 1912. The
Titanic
, an immense passenger ship, is making its way from England to New York. On land, a young girl dreams she is walking along a road near her home when she suddenly spies a massive sinking ship. She hears a scream, and awakens; when she falls back to sleep, she has the same nightmare. Elsewhere, a man who has booked passage on the
Titanic
dreams more than once that he sees the ship floating askew, with

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