The Three "Only" Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence, and Imagination (10 page)

Then there are the dreams that show us it's time to move out. A Texan named Ingrid decided to ask for dream guidance on her marriage, which had seemed flat and unfulfilling for quite a while. In her dream, she was at a take-out place with succulent Tex-Mex cuisine, which she loved. She put in her order and paid the cashier, but was kept waiting and waiting while droves of other people came and went, getting their food without delay. A musician she found cute said to her, as he picked up his own dinner, “This place sucks.”

She woke from the dream feeling sad and drab. Following a five-minute dream process with me (see chapter 3), she came up with this one-liner: “I'm in a place where I will never be nourished or fed, however long I wait.” She asked her husband for a divorce right after this dream. She has since remarried — to a musician who strongly resembles the cute guy in the dream.

Dreams Coach Us on Family Transitions

Dreams coach us in how to handle family transitions. I'll confine myself here to an example that will speak to any parent.

Susan's dream led her to confront the issue of how to provide for her teenage son's safety while allowing him his own room to grow. While the family was preparing for a vacation in Hawaii, Susan dreamed her son went far out in the water with a slightly older boy — then vanished. She was terrified, but knew her son was beyond her reach. She woke desperately troubled. When her son spontaneously decided, not long after, that he did not want to go to Hawaii but would stay with friends, Susan let go of her fear that the dream would be literally fulfilled, and she applied herself to using its guidance in improvisational ways. She carefully explored who would be supervising her son while the family was away, and she made him agree not to ride with a slightly older boy who was a notoriously reckless driver. Susan worked with the more general message of the dream: how can I prepare my son to handle life challenges on his own?

In Dreaming, We Can Heal
Our Relations with the Departed

Dreams help us to heal our relationship with the departed as well as those who share our physical lives. Countless dreamers, every night, experience the fact that in dreams, contact with the “dead” is entirely natural. This can be the source of much-needed forgiveness and closure and of important mutual guidance. In the year after his death, my father appeared to me and another family member repeatedly in dreams — blessedly released from the symptoms of a crippling stroke — sharing love and encouragement and very specific advisories for the well-being of the family.

I am reminded of the following scene: I was giving an informal talk in a bookstore in Simsbury, Connecticut. A lovely elderly man named Bob recounted a dream in which he was visiting a beautiful place on a river. He was received with great affection, but eventually decided it was time to leave. He was told firmly, “No, you can't leave yet.” He realized this was because his (departed) wife was there, and he needed to see her. He wanted to bring her food. When he got to her, he saw that she was surrounded by an abundance of everything she could want — the finest foods, books, beautiful flowering gardens. They had a loving reunion. He woke very happy. Now he wanted to know what he should
do
with the dream.

I suggested that if he just relaxed — in light meditation in an easy chair, or in bed before sleeping, he could reenter his dream — and that if it were my dream, I would want to do this as often as possible. Bob came up to me at the end of the talk with shining eyes, very grateful for validation and guidance along his path. He now had an address on the other side, and knew his way.

At the same talk, a woman shared a troubling dream in which her deceased father visited her and — challenged by her — admitted that he had abused her when she was very young. I talked about what Yeats called the “dreaming back” phase of the afterlife transition, in which the departed visit the living in the dream space in search of understanding of what they did (or failed to do) in the life experience that has just ceased. While they may come later for forgiveness, a first step in their progression toward purgation and release may be simply to recognize and admit what their actions and their consequences were, from a clearer perspective. The woman found this very helpful and said she was willing to explore whether she could reach a point where she could forgive her father and extend love and blessing to him.

In a society where we are rarely taught that contact with the departed is natural and that healing and forgiveness are possible beyond the apparent barrier of death — and where few of us are given effective preparation for the journey beyond death — our dreams are our vital mentors.

9. DREAMS RECALL US
TO OUR LARGER PURPOSE

Dreams recall us to our personal truth. In life 's storms of conflicting agendas, they restore our inner compass. Our conscience speaks to us in dreams to remind us that without truth we are lost.

There is a Persian story about this that I love. The story is about a king who falls into habits of deceit. He lies to himself and to others, and this so disgusts his soul that it takes flight, as a falcon, from his heart, and flies far away. When the king cleans up his act, his soul-bird comes back. When he again succumbs to the way of lies and deceit, the falcon of soul leaves him forever. The king sickens, and the kingdom falls to ruin.

This dreamlike story comes alive — in ways that speak to each of us — in our dreams.

We also learn, in dreams, that the part of ourselves that thinks and chooses in ordinary circumstances is not the wisest part of ourselves, and it may be utterly clueless about what really matters — such as the reason we came into a body in this world in the first place.

I learned from a dream guide in my childhood that the most important knowledge comes to us through
anamnesis
, which means “remembering” the knowledge that belonged to us, on the level of soul and spirit, before we came into this world. Dreaming is the best way I know to practice
soul remembering
. We live differently when we remember that our lives have a purpose, one we consciously accepted before we came here, and that the ups and downs of our present lives are part of a bigger story.

The Workplace as a Sacred Place

Sometimes dreams remind us that the larger story is being played out in the midst of everyday life, in the place where we live or work.

Patrick, a state government employee, dreamed he was standing in front of a bank of elevators on a high floor of the building where he worked. He turned and was amazed to see an elevator door materializing in the opposite wall, where there were no elevators in physical reality. The door opened and he stepped in. The elevator carried him down to ground level. When he got out, he looked up and saw that his workplace had changed. His building had somehow become part of a mountain, and in the face of the mountain was the shape of an immense winged angel. A voice informed Patrick, “This is a sacred place.”

Patrick drew immense guidance, both practical and spiritual, from this dream. It taught him that there is really no distance between ordinary reality and the deeper world of meaning. It made him keenly aware that our regular jobs — our engagement with the regular everyday world — can be part of living our sacred purpose. There does not need to be a separation.

Called to the Banquet of Life
Marc Allen, cofounder and publisher of New World Library, recalls that in his twenties, he was “a Zen student who wanted to live like Saint Francis.” He thought money would corrupt his soul, and he scrounged to come up with $65 to pay the rent on a slum apartment. More than usually broke and down on his luck as he approached his thirtieth birthday, he decided he would try to come up with an “ideal picture” of what he really wanted to do. To his surprise, he saw that he wanted to create a publishing company that would produce his own and his friends' books and make everyone a comfortable living. He founded that company, with his friend Shakti Gawain, but it was soon in danger of financial collapse. Marc was aware that, in some part of himself, he was blocking his own success.

One night he dreamed he was climbing a mountain. The ascent was very hard at first, over steep and rocky ground. Then he came to a broad path winding round to the right. It brought him to the mouth of a cave, sealed by an iron gate with a “tangle of wrought iron” at the center. As he examined the “tangle” more closely, he found the handle of a sword. When he pulled out the sword, the gate opened at once.

He entered the cave. It was very dark, and as he advanced the space became smaller and tighter, but the sword in his hand gave him the courage to proceed. He came to a light-filled space where three huge banquet tables had been set up.

The first table was piled high with gifts and treasures — miniature houses, gold coins, electronic equipment, musical instruments, lots of expensive “stuff.” A voice told Marc: “This is the material plane. There is nothing you need to reject. It is here for your enjoyment and mastery.”

On the second table, he saw the four magical implements — the wand and the cup, the sword and the pentacle — familiar to him from tarot. The voice told him: “This is the astral plane of magic. There is nothing to reject here either. It is for your enjoyment and mastery.”

The third table appeared to be bare, except for the tablecloth, which shimmered as if it was spun from light. The voice told him: “This is the spiritual plane. It is everywhere, part of everything. It is your essence; you've always been here, and you always will be.”

Marc spread his arms, filled with relief and peace, and he floated upward, into the center of the great cathedral-like space, feeling the all-pervasive light permeating every cell of his body.

He woke from his dream, lying on his back, arms spread wide. He was filled with the warmth of the light and with a newfound clarity. The message he received was:
Go for it. Don't hold back
. The dream spurred him to re-vision his business and to plunge forward with more expansive plans and greater dreams. He says that single dream was worth years of therapy, and he credits it with giving him the energy and focus to turn a struggling company into a notable success.

Dreams Put Us in Touch with Inner Teachers

There is a passage in Dante 's “Purgatorio” where he encounters his radiant guide in the form of a lovely woman named Beatrice, who reproaches him for not heeding the dreams in which she sought him, over many years. The message is clear and enduring: Our true spiritual teachers are looking for us, which is why they can always be found. They especially come looking for us in dreams, when we move beyond the self-limiting beliefs and consensual hallucinations of the little everyday mind.

The guides who come to us in dreams put on masks or costumes adapted to our level of understanding. There is an old Greek saying that “the gods love to travel in disguise.”

The guide may appear with a familiar face — that of an old friend or a departed loved one. The sacred guide may appear in a form that has been shaped by our religious upbringing — or in a form that is wildly shocking to conventional beliefs. Genuine teachers often love to shock us awake.

The most important teacher we'll encounter is no stranger: it is our own Higher Self. Listen to this beautiful account of the arrival of a guide by the great Persian philosopher and visionary traveler Suhrawardi:

One night I experienced a dreamlike ecstasy. Suddenly I was wrapped in gentleness; there was a blinding flash, then a diaphanous light in the likeness of a human being. There he was: helper of souls, imam of wisdom, whose form filled me with wonder and whose shining beauty dazzled me. He said to me, “Come back to yourself, and your problem will be solved.”

Unfinished Portrait of the Higher Self
I dreamed once I was leading a group on a spiraling path, up toward a beautiful tower like building. Immense carved animals were stationed as guardians of the four quarters; one was a lion with a tremendous carnelian inlaid in its back that flashed fire in the sunlight. Through one of the high, open archways of the building, I gazed in wonder at an unfinished painting. It rose for several stories, at least — higher than I could track. At the very bottom of the painting was a human figure, tiny in comparison to the painting as a whole. It stood like a candle flame. Around it and above it, in light shimmering bands of color, were larger energy forms, growing and going up and up. I knew the name of this painting. In the dream, I had read this in my local paper. The painting was called, “Unfinished Portrait of the Higher Self.”

I did not see the artist in the dream, but the clue was in the dream newspaper: this was local news. It was about the dreamer — and also, I suspect, about all dreamers.

In the hurry and clutter of our regular lives, it is easy to lose touch with our larger identity and purpose. Dreams put us back in touch with the Higher Self. They help us to rise to a level of perception from which we can view life 's stresses and challenges with some degree of detachment and see how current tests may be part of a larger plan.

Taking Courage from Dreams

In a stirring phrase, Synesius of Cyrene — a fourth-century bishop who wrote the best book on dreams (in my opinion) before the modern era — observed that God makes the dreamer “fruitful with his own courage.”

Yes: there are dreams that charge us with courage for a life mission, the courage that comes from remembering and living a bigger story — the kind of courage evoked in
The Return of the King
, the third book of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy the
Lord of the Rings
. Whether or not you are a lover of Tolkien, there is a climactic moment in the final book (which comes across powerfully in the movie version) that wonderfully demonstrates the courage and the energy that become available when we claim and act from our larger selves. A monstrous army has grown to unbeatable size. The odds against the forces of good are overwhelming. The battle against darkness can only be won when the true king (Aragorn) stops pretending he is just a borderline figure (a Ranger) and stands in his majesty and power. When he does that, he is able to command legions of the damned to march with him against the greater evil, and the day is won.