"...dreaming... is the mental capability most clearly adapted to concerns
arising from our condition of mutability, or the continuous disequilibrium
of life. In brief, the dream presents the conceivable in terms of the real."
Bert O. States
E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c D.r.e.a.m.s
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electric-dreams-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c D.r.e.a.m.s
Volume #10 Issue #11
November 2003
ISSN# 1089 4284
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http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
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Download a cover for this issue
http://tinyurl.com/rit3
Kevin Wilson
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C O N T E N T S
++ Editor's Notes
++ News: Dream Library & Archive Closes
ASD Online Auction: November 1, 2003
Obituary: Bert O. States
++ Poem: Two Worlds
Alice Klein
++ Column: An Excerpt From the Lucid Dream Exchange
Lucy Gillis
++ Article: The Meaning of Meaning
Linda Lane Magallón
++ Column: A View from the Bridge
Jean Campbell
++ Column: The Waves: 07. Journey to Antarctica
Nick Cumbo
++++++++ SPECIAL SECTION : PSYCHOSYNTHESIS AND DREAMS ++++++++
++ Article: Stepping Out of Time
Victoria Gamber
++ Article: The Awakening Room
Marilyn Barry
++ Article: A Case for Expanding Dreamwork in Psychosynthesis
Richard Wilkerson
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++ DREAM SECTION: Dreams from October, 2003
Host: Elizabeth Westlake
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D E A D L I N E :
November 19th deadline for December 2003 submissions
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Post Dreams and Comments on Dreams to:
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple
Send Dreaming News and Calendar Events to:
Peggy Coats <
web@...>
Send Articles and Subscription concerns to:
Richard Wilkerson: <
rcwilk@...>
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Editor's Notes
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Welcome to the November 2003 issue of Electric Dreams, your portal to dreams
and dreaming online.
If you are new to dreams and dreaming, please join us on
dreamchatters@yahoogroups.com and we will guide you to the resources you
need. To join send an e to
dreamchatters-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
or if you are interested in sharing dreams for world peace, please join the
World Dreams Peace Bridge
http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org
I just wanted to briefly mention some items that we will tell you more about
in the news section. First, the Dream Library and Archive in Novato
California has closed. Jill Gregory is retiring and though we included a
letter from her about this, I just wanted to say how grateful I am that the
Library was so close to my home and I could visit several times a year. This
library was one of the backbones of my study of dreams for a decade. Thanks
to Jill for providing a place for dreamers who are often so ungrounded in
this society to find a ground and home.
Also, Fariba Bogzaran announced that she will be stepping down from her
position running the Dream Certificate program at JFK University. JFK is
moving from Orinda and the program has already produced many fine dream
educators. The JFK library now sports a tremendous collection of dream books
and resources. Many thanks to Fariba for pioneering this project!
Finally, we just heard today that dream author Bert O. States died earlier
this month. Bert supported the dream movement at many levels and will always
be remembered for his contributions to dreams and language. I appreciated
that Bert kept up with the dream resources online even when he didn't have a
computer.
Now, I just wanted to let you know the Dream movement is NOT falling apart,
its just that the first generation of post-50's dream researchers and
pioneers ~are~ aging.
Lucy Gillis has brought Electric Dreams readers a wide variety of lucid
dream experiences that have delved deeply into the topic. This month she is
including an except from Lucid Dream Exchange by Robert Waggoner on CILDS,
or Chemically Induced Lucid Dreams, a review of the Stephen LaBerge
presentation at the 20th International Conference of the Association for the
Study of Dreams. I would have called these "CHILDS" myself, but whatever you
call them, the new herbs seems to induce lucid dreaming and so Robert
discusses the qualitative differences of these experiences.
What do people mean when they ask what a dream means? Linda Lane Magallon,
author of Mutual Dreaming, asks this question and explores the significance
of some of the answers. Read her article on the Meaning of Meaning for a
inquiry into the ways we give and take dream experience and interpretation.
Jean Campbell's "The View from the Bridge"(The World Dreams Peace Bridge)
is a wonderful example of how a dream sharing community can impact a nation,
a world, a universe. This month she includes summary updates from its most
active global members.
Nick Cumbo newsletter and column reports on the explorations of the Sea Life
community. Sea Life, the main web forum at Dreampeace, aims to bring
together a circle of dreamers from around the globe, collaborating in
dreaming adventures, and 'dreaming with and for the earth itself.'
The Waves: 07. Journey to Antarctica. This moon, the people at Sea Life,
took a journey to the icy land of Antarctica.
We have a special section and three articles on Psychosynthesis this month.
Psychosynthesis is an approach to human development developed by Italian
psychologist, Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974).
His own work began around the turn of the century and continues in centers
and practices around the world. It is both a theory and practice where the
focus is to achieve a synthesis of the undeveloped potential fragments of an
individual's personality into a more cohesive self, with the hope of this
synthesis allowing the person to function in a way that is ever more
life-affirming and authentic. Psychosynthesis also affirms a spiritual
dimension of the person, a connection to the superconscious and alignment of
the ego with the infinite. The higher self is seen as a source of wisdom,
inspiration, unconditional love, and the will to meaning in our lives.
In the first selection, Stepping Out of Time, Victoria Gamber experiences a
dream intruder that she can't dismiss. Her training in Psychosynthesis leads
her to use the dream intrusions as a call to her higher self. But her path
of transcendence must first pass through the valley of shadows.
In the The Awakening Room, Marilyn Barry gives us an experience of how a
seemingly symbolic dream actually unfolds as a prophetic dream, and how this
precognition was a step in her path to learning Psychosynthesis.
I'm including some notes from a discussion with the psychosynthesis group
online, somewhat revised into article form. The topic is how one might use
Psychosynthesis in dreamwork. This particular paper is limited to the first
few pages of Assagioli's Collected Writings.
Our Global Dreaming News is back this month and Peggy Coats will bring you
up to date on the events in dreams and dreaming. Send Peggy news items at
web@...
Our Dream Section also returns and Elizabeth Westlake has dreams from around
the world.
Thanks to Kevin Wilson for this month's Halloween Cover:
http://tinyurl.com/rit3
You can see more of Kevin's work at:
http://www.insomnium.co.uk
If you have dreams you want published enter them anonymously in the form at
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple
Or you can put them in the dream flow directly by subscribing to:
dream-flow-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
--------------------
For those of you who are new to dreams and dreaming, be sure to stop by one
of the many resources:
http://www.dreamtree.com
http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/library
NEW from Nick Cumbo, Electric Dreams in PDF:
http://www.dreamofpeace.net/community/electricdreams/
--------------------
-Richard Wilkerson
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G L O B A L D R E A M I N G N E W S
November 2003
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If you have news you'd like to share, contact Peggy Coats,
web@.... Visit Global Dreaming News online at
http://www.dreamtree.com/
This Month's Features:
NEWS
Novato Dream Library to Close
Smithsonian Magazine Delves into REM
French Dream Book Translated
Healing Quest features Work of Patricia Garfield
REM Sleep Symposium
Dream Pioneer Bert O. States Dies
WEBSITE & ONLINE UPDATES
The Dream Chronicles
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N E W S
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>>>> Novato Dream Library to Close
Jill Gregory, founding mother of the Novato Center for Dreams and the Dream
Library & Archive, has announced that she is closing the Dream Library (the
Center for Dreams closed in 1997). To serve the dream field and as a
courtesy to the dream community, she opened the Dream Library & Archive and
began making her private collection of dream books available in her home by
appointment. For it to serve as a focal point for the unfolding dream field,
she networked extensively while operating it as an independent endeavor -
never under the auspices of or with the sponsorship of any group,
association, organization, outside business or individual. Since she
realizes that this collection is a treasure, it has been placed in storage
until further notice. She does not plan to provide access to the collection
nor to accept donations of materials.
>>> Smithsonian Magazine delves into REM
The October 2003 issue of "Smithsonian" features an article about the
discoverer of REM Sleep (see pp. 92-100). Happy reading!
>>> French Dream Book Translated
"Ancient Dreams for a New World: A New Philosophy of Mind, Dreams, and
Reality" has recently been translated from French into English and is now
available in America through 1stBooks library as an E-book (4.90 USD), and
as a paperback through Barnes and Nobles and Amazon. For more information
vist 1stBooks at
http://www.1stBooks.com/bookview/16912.ISBN: 1-4107-4595-3
(Paperback) 16.5O USD
>>> Healing Quest features work of Patricia Garfield
Patricia Garfield's work on Healing Dreams is featured in episode 13 of a
new PBS series called "Healing Quest". In the San Francisco Bay Area, it's
airing on KCSM, Channel 60, Sundays, 5:00 p.m. and KRCB, Channel 22,
Mondays, 10:30 a.m. For more information, visit the website at:
www.healingquest.tv.
>>> REM Sleep Symposium
A symposium of the International Viennese Academy of Complementary Medicine
and the Institute of consciousness and dream research, Vienna.
The REM sleep phenomenon was first described fifty years ago. It signifies
the part in the sleeping pattern of human beings and mammals that is
accompanied by rapid horizontal eye muscle movements. Only a few years
later, the scientist William Dement found a connection between REM sleep and
dreaming. Ever since then, Rapid Eye Movement and dream have been dealt with
together. The discovery of the REM sleep led to a paradigm change in the
research on dream and sleep. While psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams
under the influence of Freud dominated the first half of the 20th century,
from the 1950s on, experimental and neurophysiological inquiries as well as
questions of evolutionary biology have come to the foreground.
The Viennese symposium aims to discuss the present state of scientific
knowledge and to further the exchange between the various disciplines
dealing with dreams. It is an interdisciplinary symposium connecting
researchers of the humanities with those of the natural sciences.
Furthermore, artists have been invited to use the symposium for a
presentation of their approaches to dreaming.
23.10.2003 - 26.10.2003
Institut für Hirnforschung,
Spitalgasse 4,
A-1090 Vienna
http://www.rem50.at/
>>> Dream Pioneer Bert O. States Dies
Obituary
The Santa Barbara News-Press reported Oct 25th that Bert O. States died on
October 13th after a severe but brief battle with renal cancer.
States had an important impact on the world wide development of dream and
dreaming theory, and his book the Rhetoric of Dreams continues to be an
influential text in the field for those interested in dreams and language.
His influence and scope extended beyond the dream field into many areas of
culture and mind, most notably in the theory of drama and most recently in
painting. The books _Great Reckonings in Little Rooms_ (1985) and _The
Pleasure of the Play_ (1994), are now considered important contributions in
drama theory. Many of his students at Cornell, UC Santa Barbara and other
venues were deeply influenced by his thinking and personality.
Some comments about States from students and colleagues mention that after
producing a major body of work in drama, he began investigating dream and
dreaming, particularly the influence of language in dreams and dreams as
language and narrative.
His articles and books on dreaming became the core of a debate and dialog
between dream science and dream meaning. As Simon Williams noted, "
Challenging the Freudian conception of dreams as an expression of sublimated
desires, his books such as Dreaming and Storytelling (1993) put forward a
new theory of dreaming as a form of metaphor that earned him recognition
from learned national societies in the field. " Paul Hernadi picks up this
idea and said "his keen interest in how recent brain research illuminates
the physiology of dreaming did not eclipse his profound sense of the great
human significance of every dreamer's creative capacity for world-making.
Indeed, the dreamlike book jacket of Bert's pioneering work on The Rhetoric
of Dreams (1988) featured one of his early paintings, introducing thousands
of readers to an artistic dimension of his own creativity that vigorously
unfolded in the last decade of his life."
Bert was quick to help out the online dreaming community with early
contributions to the DreamGate/Electric Dreams Dream Bibs Online. Even
when Bert didn't have a connection to the Net in the early 1990's, he would
send information in to be posted online. See Dream Bibs at
www.dreamgate.com/dream/bibs.
Bert O. States often contributed to the Association for the Study of Dreams
(ASD) journal Dreaming and you can read a recent article Dreams, Art and
Virtual Worldmaking of his online at ASD:
http://www.asdreams.org/journal/articles/index.htm.. as well as his 2000
article Dream Bizarreness and Inner Thought, and his nfluential 1992
article, The Meaning of Dreams.
The SB News press reports that Bert is mourned by a worldwide circle of
admiring friends and by his loving family: his wife Nancy, his daughter
Jerri, his son and daughter-in-law Eric and Julie, and his grandchildren
Amanda, Jessie, Michael, and Jeffrey. There will be no memorial service at
this time, but friends wishing to commemorate Bert may make donations to the
SB Art Association, c/o Shirley Price, 6 Harbor Way # 240, Santa Barbara,
CA, 93109. Picture and publications at:
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/esm/IAM/StatesVita.html
For more see
http://www.sbcoast.com/obits/10-25-2003obits.htm
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W E B S I T E & O N L I N E U P D A T E S
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Do you know of interesting new websites you'd like to share with others? Or
do you have updates to existing pages? Help spread the word by using the
Electric Dreams DREAM-LINK page
www.dreamgate.com/dream/resources/ . This is really a public projects board
and requires that everyone keep up his or her own link URLs and information.
Make a point to send changes to the links page to us
>>>> The Dream Chronicles
www.mermbut.com
Experience a new dream illustrator on the electronic scene! Randy Carboni
illustrates dreams taken from his own dream journals on a scene-by-scene
basis, followed by the narrative of the dream itself. Fun!
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Poem: Two Worlds
Alice Klein
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In the other world my mother
calls from a hotel room
to say the toilet won't flush
and I tell her to phone downstairs
and say she wants another room.
As in real life, my mother balks
and side-steps around me
without clearly answering.
Somewhere else
a big man stands behind
a flea market table
and I stand on the other side
inquiring about a set of small
silver plates and knives and forks-
only four dollars! Are they real
silver?
It must be the way
the morning sun on that big
white-curtained window brightens
the whole yellow room
that makes me wake so early,
trailing dark threads from the other world,
a sinking feeling about my mother's helplessness
and her obduracy, my own greed
for shiny things like the silverware here
at this house where I'm staying.
For a while there's ambivalence-
to sleep some more or wake?
Neither world is comfortable. There,
I am wound up and bound
in dark tatters of story that start and end
in strange places and leave me aching.
Here, it is all sun and brightness
with everything open to view,
making me feel I ought to know
what to do. But I wonder
as I slowly pull myself up and sit back
among the pillows: It is one more
precious day to be human and alive-
how, then, not to be helpless
in the crossfire of shooting thoughts,
the greedy clutching at anything
that shines? What, exactly, to do
with this unfathomable gift of life
in a body lit by consciousness?
2002
Alice [
AliceHKlein@...]
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An Excerpt From the Lucid Dream Exchange
Lucy Gillis
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An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange
By Lucy Gillis
It seems these days there is a pill for everything. Now there may even be
one for lucid dreaming! LDE co-editor Robert Waggoner discusses the latest
discoveries in lucid dreaming research.
CHEMICALLY INFLUENCED LUCID DREAMS? NEW DISCOVERY LEADS TO NEW ISSUES
(c) Robert Waggoner
A recent presentation by Dr. Stephen Laberge of new research on herbal and
medical compounds that appears to increase the likelihood of lucid dreams in
subjects with lucid dream experience was announced at the Association for
the Study of Dreams Conference in Berkeley, CA. While we wait for the
official publication of the data, and the response from scientists in the
area of dream and sleep research, the appearance of chemical compounds as a
means to enhance the probability of a lucid dream leads us to consider the
possible issues that may result.
The fundamental issue may not be that chemical compounds lower the threshold
to lucid dreaming and thus make it easier and more likely for dreamers to
become lucid. Rather, the issue may be that chemically influenced lucid
dreams may be experientially different on numerous levels than one's typical
lucid dreams. Chemically influenced lucid dreams, (I will call them, CILDs)
may exhibit distinct differences when compared to lucid dreams in which no
special herbal extract or vitamin was taken. In LaBerge's presentation, he
suggested that self reports by the research subjects indicated that there
may be experiential differences when compared to their normal lucid dreams.
In my separate talks with one of the research subjects and also an
accomplished lucid dreamer who has taken the herbal extract, their
experiences suggests that there may be distinct differences.
>From one perspective, this development of a chemical compound has positive
aspects to it. For example, with the use of a chemical compound, it now may
be much more likely for interested people to become lucid, particularly
those who have had difficulty in the past. Similarly, there may a higher
number of lucid dream reports from which to study and investigate. Along
these lines, researchers who are setting up lucid dream experiments, may
have a greater likelihood of success if providing their lucid dreaming
subjects the chemical compound.
>From another perspective, however, this development of a chemical compound
may make the area of lucid dreaming more complicated. From this time on,
lucid dreamers may need to make a distinction between their normal lucid
dreams, and those that follow the ingestion of a chemical compound (which I
suggest we identify as CILDs, or chemically influenced lucid dreams). Much
as lucid dreamers identify WILDs or Wake Initiated Lucid Dreams as somewhat
distinct from normal lucid dreams, we may need to ask lucid dreamers to
identify their CILDs, as well. As a lucid dreaming friend suggested, it may
progress to the point that we need to identify which particular chemical
influenced the lucid dream, since there may be a set of herbs or vitamins
that influence lucid dreaming.
Beyond the verbal or titular distinction, lucid dreamers will need to ask
themselves what is the experiential difference between their typical lucid
dream and a chemically influenced one? Is that difference significant? Does
the difference involve the awareness of the lucid dreamer or the
psychological space in which the lucid dream exists? And does a notable
experiential difference constitute the need for a new classification or
descriptive clarification? Is there such a thing as a "normal" lucid dream?
Prior to this announcement, lucid dreamers had a number of lucid induction
techniques that seemed to increase the likelihood of lucid dreaming. A few
of these, such as the NovaDreamer with its flashing lights, involved
possible external alterations or physical cues to assist the dreamer in
becoming lucid. With the scientifically proven introduction of chemical
compounds as a means to assist lucid awareness, the alteration becomes more
biochemical and moves to a whole new level.
While one could say that all of us are biochemical creatures and receive
biochemical alterations by virtue of the foods we eat or the vitamin and
mineral supplements we take, is taking an herbal extract equally natural?
What if, instead of taking 8mg of the herbal compound, one took 1 mg
instead? Is it just a matter of subtleties? How can one suggest a chemically
influenced lucid dream, when all lucid dreams have a biochemical influence?
These are some of the questions that lucid dreamers may be asking themselves
in the years ahead. Whether this new development is heralded as a positive
or a negative by lucid dreamers, it does appear to mark a new era in lucid
dreaming.
********************************
The Lucid Dream Exchange is a quarterly newsletter featuring lucid dreams
and lucid dream related articles and interviews. To subscribe to The Lucid
Dream Exchange send a blank email to:
TheLucidDreamExchange-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
You can also check us out at www.dreaminglucid.com
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The Meaning of Meaning
(c) 2003 Linda Lane Magallón
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What does my dream mean? That's the most common reaction I hear when folks
find out that I'm interested in dreams. Not surprising. Our culture has
programmed us to funnel our ideas about dreams down to that single,
knee-jerk response. Before I answer the question, I must ask another. What
do you mean by "meaning"? Would it surprise you to know that not everybody
goes running for a dream dictionary? Those who compare dream dictionary
entries to their own dreams may well conclude that dreams have no meaning at
all! I don't blame them. I've discovered that while the significance of your
own dream could be found in a dream dictionary, the chances are extremely
small. There are just too many other possibilities.
Actually, I think we're asking the wrong question. I think it should be
something more general, like, "What's up with dreams?" Perhaps we might ask
why we should bother paying attention to dreams at all. Do dreams do
something? Or do they have something done to them? I think the answers to
the meaning question depends on the goals or values of those who are asking
it. Currently, I break them down into four basic possibilities: narration,
solution, resolution and first-hand experience.
(1) Narration: a search for a complete story
Do you want to uncover a missing message to yourself?
Do you sense an opportunity to transform metaphor to myth?
(2) Solution: a search for cause
Do you want to detect the actual trigger for the dream?
Are you curious about why the dream appears and acts the way it does?
(3) Resolution: a search for practicality
Are you looking for a way to enhance your waking life?
Do you want to discover what the dream portends?
(4) First-hand experience: a search for in-dream adventure
Are you impelled to try out the wider range of action available to you in
the dream state?
Do you want to explore life in an alternate state of consciousness?
Yes, I'm using a meaning system to help me determine meaning! I can't help
it. It's embedded in our language, in any attempts to think or communicate
ideas. Human beings are meaning-creators by our very nature. We put "A"
together with "B" and try to make some sense of it. Using this system,
here's a few ways to glean the meaning of flying dreams.
(1) Narrative: Flying is a *meaning-filled* story that I can relate and
relate to, after I wake.
Example: I share my flying dream with a dream group. While talking about how
it makes me feel, we speculate that flying might be an "emotional high" or a
"wish-fulfillment," like in the tale of Peter Pan.
(2) Causal: Flying is a *meaningful* mystery to solve.
Example: I trace a flying dream back to the experience of swimming the day
before. Next time, I go swimming to see if the movement will induce a flying
dream. If it does, I've got a new equation: swimming = flying dreams.
(3) Practical: Flying is a *means* that leads to a helpful end.
Example: I incubate, or program, a series of flying dreams. This helps
reduce my fear of flying in an airplane.
(4) Active: The *meaning* of flying is in the doing.
Example: I fly in lucid dreams just because it's fun.
The 4 approaches that I'm using are typical of the four human personality
types (Myers-Briggs topology). I might just as well have used astrological
elements: Water, Air, Earth and Fire. I choose to be more generic and use
words and numbers. It's still the same system. Why did I select it over any
other? I've found it to be practical and fun. But it's not been proved
scientifically, so I hold onto it lightly, playing with it until something
better comes along. You can judge for yourself whether or not it makes a
good story!
However, I don't think it's wise to limit ourselves to any one approach,
just because we score high on a personality test or have a particular
birthdate. I've given myself the opportunity to work and play with dreams
using every one of these lenses and my dreams have responded to all four of
them. Some dreams are complete creative tales from the world of sleep.
Others seem to call out for my analytical attention to detail. With some, I
find an obvious correspondence with waking life. In others, I seem to live
life in a different dimension. Often, a single dream is "multi-layered,"
that is, it can be viewed through the more than one lens, sequentially. Each
lens allows me to exercise different judgmental capacities: intuition,
logic, common sense and gut reaction.
Most dreamworkers and most folks, who remember and report their dreams, are
advocates of the narrative approach. In fact, the question, "What is the
meaning of dreams?" is a top priority of that population. Thus, it should be
no surprise to realize that most of the "answers" to the question are given
from the point of view of the first population. Most of the answers are
metaphoric. They concentrate on expanding signs and symbols to make good
stories. They are valid because they satisfy the need to perceive a message
in the sharing of a dream.
But is the message, the metaphor true, from a scientific standpoint?
Verification is the concern of the second approach. Sleep lab researchers,
dream field researchers and some clinicians write about this application of
dreams. And, using this lens, it can be determined that, indeed, some of the
metaphors are accurate descriptors of the underlying cause or trigger of the
dream. But not all theories of metaphor have been subjected to scientific
scrutiny. That leaves much of the task of making a "reality check" about
"meaning" up to the individual dreamer. The only way to do that is to
compare the "answer" with your own dream. But not just once. Your best
chance to find the meanings that suit you and your dreams are to track many
dreams over time. That requires keeping a dream journal.
Sorry, but there isn't a quick-and-dirty approach to dream meaning that will
nurture you any more than will cotton candy at a carnival. Don't get me
wrong. I like cotton candy, but as a special treat, not as a staple of my
diet. Unfortunately, because there has been such public pressure to produce
the quick-and-dirty response, dream interpretation has a pretty bad
reputation. It ranks right down there with the newspapers' daily horoscope.
Amusing perhaps, interesting yes, but too general (or too specific) to be of
much use to you, in particular.
Fortunately, and more so than any time in history, dreamwork has the
opportunity to grow up. Unfortunately, a field with a poor reputation means
little public funding, so the progress is slow and halting. But serious work
has been done in several areas and some of the pieces of the puzzle are
beginning to fall into place. We're just at the launching pad of this
further journey, though. There are comparatively few dedicated dreamers to
do the work required to move things along. Perhaps you can be one of them.
And, if you choose to view dreams through the third or fourth lenses, if you
choose to validate all the effort spent in finding meaning, or take time to
develop a personal relationship with the world of sleep, your contributions
will help balance our understanding of dreams. As we continue our
explorations, we may develop very different ideas about what we mean when we
ask, "What does this dream mean?"
http://members.aol.com/caseyflyer/flying/dreams.html
(Dream Flights)
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A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
Jean Campbell
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This month's View from the Bridge is a connected series of reports from
various members of the Peace Bridge group.
Ilkin says:
World Dreams Peace Bridge began the month by having our Jean and other
members back safely from the Hurricane Isabel and a newly designed web page
by Liz Diaz. Although Jean had nearly three weeks out of electricity and
internet connection; she managed to reach us at ASD Piber Conferance,
Bulletin Board and sometimes personally with all her creativity, sometimes
from her local library sometimes by packages from post which make us the
happiest person on the world. She even wrote a special book inspite of the
hurricane lady Isabel about "Women and Peace" which will be in Ilkin's
treasures for her lifetime. Jean's creating a special book about women under
the furry of a hurricane named after a female, is a great example for us how
powerful women can be in all conditions and how important the peace is.
"Once the lights went out, early in the morning of the day of the hurricane,
I realized that I would have some time when I couldn't really do anything
else but make the book. I felt like your paper about women and peace needed
to be commemorated...And the words of your paper, Ilkin, helped me through a
day which was really pretty scary. I mean if you haven't been through a
hurricane, you can't know how unnerving it is to have the wind blowing at 50
miles per hour for twelve hours...and that was only the average speed.
There were gusts much stronger than that. I could look out my window and
see the trees tearing apart in the wind and rain, but every time I was
afraid, I could look at your words about how women fare in other places.
And it made me calm down. It made me remember that there were other places
and times in the world, and people who cared deeply..."
October has been a busy moth for The World Dreams Peace Bridge. Many of our
members had the opportunuty to meet on the different parts of the world for
representing WDPB in workshops, conferences and meetings. Victoria and Kathy
met in Brisbane. Jean was in California meeting with May and ASD chair
members, Nick and Victoria held a "Peace Train Workshop" in Australia,
Jeremyn and Ilkin participated IFLAC Ataturk Peace Conferance in Bursa,
Turkey; performing an exibition of World Children Peace Trains, a workshop
on "Peace Trains" and taking part in "Women and Peace" forum. A great number
of WDPB members also participated ASD PsiberDreaming Conferance online.
Kathy adds:
World Dream Peace Bridgers were there in force at the latest Psiber Dreaming
Conference held this month. We love to play and especially love to play
with dreams! Jean, our moderator, was an organizer and facilitator and
presented a paper on WDPB dreaming activity - showing how we have taken the
possibility of PSI dreaming into new areas. Our DaFuMu (a dream of great
fortune) is a collective experiment in PSI dreaming. Nick, Liz and Ilkin
worked as volunteers helping to make the conference run smoothly and
brilliantly. And of course others of us were there asking questions, making
comments and joining in the wonderful PSI contests. Then there was SAO's (a
lurker on the WDPB) art gallery of dream inspired art. Again many WDPBers
were there. Liz and Richard (another lurker) presented surreal computer
generated dream images. Their art showed the significance of creating
images as a way of allowing both the dreamer and others to have access to an
intimate showing of the dream. Laura showed delicate silk screen
paintings, one of them a painting of a dream of Ilkin's. Kotaro exhibited a
beautifully elegant Japanese booklet of his drawings accompanying Ilkin's
poems to children caught up in war. Mary had a number of shaman/dream
inspired figures. One was a wonderful dot goddess. SAO's images and
dream story boards were exciting and beautiful renditions of his dreams.
And then there was his water music - intriguing beguiling sounds. His
wonderful psiber world waitress was the poster for the conference. You can
see it on the ASD Bulletin Board (search for the announcement for the Psiber
Dreaming Conference)This is written from memory so there may well be errors
but soon the art gallery will be available for all on the ASD site - you'll
be amazed!
Ilkin continues:
Nick offered a "Rainbow Dreaming" after the conferance. First dream was from
Victoria; "In my last nights dreaming, it felt as though I were part of a
massive circle of people - connected in goodwill albeit not physically
together...who had made white light appear- first in a circle between us
then up into the air so that it looked like a lightening star. In the middle
of the star was a revolving marble-sized ball that could have been lapis
lazili, but was definitely blue. Combined goodwill was keeping it afloat.
These seemed to be mass relief and relax."
Jean's "Dream Scouts" begun their adventure heading to their agent. All the
members gave their supports with DaFuMu and waiting the reply with
excitement.
Jodine Grundy's son Dr. Dave turning home from Iraq opened a photo exibition
about real face of the war. Jody writes; "A projector is cycling 300 photos
of the war, terrible, tender, playful, bored, grieving, of our soldiers and
the Iraqi people including women and children. Yes, the atrocities are show.
So is the humanity. Imagine more than 200 people coming in in small groups
of 10 to 15 and sitting silently for 35 minutes taking it all in and then
coming out in the hallway and talking and talking. Some just silent. It was
an amazing experience."
Chayim talks about his project:
The "Hands Across The Jordan" Project is reaching more and more everyday.
With all the contacts we have made either snail mail, or email we know we
can reach a guestlimit of at least 500.000 or maybe a million people around
the world. Hands across the Jordan is alive I hope." In other mails he wrote
"If peace was so easy we would all be doing it" and "Like a bridge over
troubled water.More than a song in the Middle East there is the reality of
war.The continuous cycle of turmoil for generations has seen it's time and
now must stop.We are all from the same dough just baked in
different.ovens.There is a choice to live together nicely or continue the
horror. Lets start together in a simple way.Nov.16th,2004 we shall come
together and build a foot bridge across the Jordan River.After we finish
building our bridge we will hand in hand pray for peace in silence across
the River. Come and join us.in peace."
And Ilkin reports on the Peace Conference
During IFLAC Ataturk Peace Conferance in Bursa, Turkey; Jeremy and Ilkin
represented WDPB in "World Children's Peace Train" exibition, workshop and
"Women and Peace" panel. Jeremy writes; "Oue presentations at the IFLAC
conference in Bursa the old Ottoman capital of Turkey were well received.
The extensive and colorful Turkish Children's Peace Train collected by Ilkin
stretched out nearly in front of the audience of mostly Turkish
participants, but also representatives from Kosovo, Israel, Egypt,
Argentina, India and elsewhere. The Turkish pictures reflected the universal
desire of children to live in peaceful and happy, loving and free
surroundings. These samples were drawn and painted with great care and many
demonstrated great imagination. Participants were drawn to and reflected on
the messages held within, and then moved on to the Ecuadoran Children's
Peace poster and the strings of South Korean Children's Peace Trains which
were on large color xerox paper. Explanations were also written on the
walls. Next time a expanatory recording would be in order.
Jeremy and Ilkin gave a spoken introduction of the Childrens Peace Trains to
the general session of the conference and it was happily received. Jeremy
spoke of the plight of street child, a girl of about 10, who came banging on
their taxi window in the rain at night calling out "Baba, baba..(dady, dady)
...! I am hungry! "This was on the way to the Conference, and it is for her
sake, indeed that the Children's Peace Trains are running. For adults and
other children to be aware of the plight of such children and do something
about their conditions - in this case caused by the civil war between ethnic
Kurds and Turks in Eastern Turkey. If better off children become aware of
the struggles of their brothers and sisters in other places they can feel
sympathy for them, and this early heart-training in the desire for and ways
of peace is something they can carry on into adulthood. Ilkin told the story
of the background of the girl, and the two presenters then went on to
describe their pictures and how they were collected from children in the
respective countries. The UNESCO special representative to the conference,
as well as a very distinguished old Turkish professor of International
Relations had very high praise for the picture exhibition."
Ilkin's paper on "Women and Peace- Can women Create a Massive Movement for
Peace" was describing women as also being a "side" as gender in wars; "We
must understand that although the tradition of women banding together to
resist war is at least as ancient as Lysistrada, there is a perhaps even
more ancient instinct and tradition of women fighting like female tigers to
protect their families and their children...we must understand that as much
as we may despise the endless cycles of vengeance that perpetuate violence,
many women are raised in a culture in which revenge is valued and women play
an honored role...This is a phenomenon that recurs around the world...We
must understand the desperation of many women who live in occupied countries
or places ravaged by civil war...We must seek to grasp the global nature of
our quest... Those of us who have the luxury to meet and talk about peace
must extend ourselves to understand those who live with the daily reality of
war...Maybe we can create a massive movement of women for peace only by
creating this bond of mutual understanding and sharing."
And finally
Harry Bosma is prepearing to host his second "More Lucid Dream" group and
Mary Novek is about to start a "Dreaming Project" to practice work with
Energetic Spaces and their clearing and healing.
http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org
Dreaming of peace and the interesting projects created as dreams
come true happen daily on the Bridge. Join us. To learn more about
The World Dreams Peace Bridge, go to our web site at
http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org , or join the Peace Bridge
discussion group by sending a post to
worlddreams-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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The Waves: 07. Journey to Antarctica
Lunar Moon (August 23 to September 19, 2003)
(c) 2003 Nick Cumbo
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The Waves is a newsletter reporting on the explorations of the Sea Life
community. Sea Life, the main web forum at Dreampeace, aims to bring
together a circle of dreamers from around the globe, collaborating in mutual
dreaming adventures, and 'dreaming with and for the earth itself'
Link:
http://www.dreamofpeace.net/sealife
This moon, the people at Sea Life, took a journey to the icy land of
Antarctica. It was the atmosphere of mystery surrounding previous visits
there, and the beauty of the Antarctic landscape that we set out to explore.
Upon sharing an earlier dream about a monk showing me a map of Antarctica,
with rivers and lakes running through it, Valter (Strawin) shared a
fascinating story about 'The Ancient Map of Piri Reis'.
"In 1929 a group of historians found half of the map in Istanbul on a dusty
shelf, still rolled up and drawn on a gazelle skin. The content of the map
was amazing: it focused on the western coast of Africa, the eastern coast of
South America and the northern coast of Antarctica. The most flabbergasting
point is that the Antarctic had remained undiscovered until 1818, but its
northern coastline, perfectly detailed, was shown on this map drawn in 1513.
It shows the land mass that exists under the Antarctic ice cap (and
Greenland), which were only visible before 4000BC."
Harold Z. Ohlmeyer, Lt. Colonel, USAF, Commander wrote: "The geographical
detail shown in the lower part of the map agrees very remarkably with the
results of the seismic profile made across the top of the ice-cap by the
Swedish-British Antarctic Expedition of 1949. This indicates the coastline
had been mapped before it was covered by the ice-cap. The ice-cap in this
region is now about a mile thick. We have no idea how the data on this map
can be reconciled with the supposed state of geographical knowledge in
1513."
What made this discovery all the more fascinating, was that a previous
member of the forum - Phantom Spectre, had six months earlier shared dream
experiences, with a similar message.
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ANTARCTICA IN THE PAST
One dream I had about 3 years ago, I was only able to visit Antarctica in
the past. I spent my time largely talking to the inhabitants. It was largely
a tropical area, which was inhabited by a mixture of races. To them race did
not matter. People lived very long. However there was not always peace; they
said there were nomads who would visit every so often who were very
powerful. These people called these men "fellers". I do not know the
significance of this term. Only that they are said to like making people
fall down.
Another dream I recall from memory was right after the tropical age in fact
it was very strange for an old man appeared and told me that destruction was
imminent. He said something about the formation of the earth, and that there
was still much ice in the upper atmosphere which made the entire earth
tropical. However when this fell to earth it caused a flash freeze at the
poles. Freezing, destroying everything at the poles. He explained that even
wooly mamoths were frozen with grass still in their mouth. I asked why this
happened. There was no answer, Then I woke up.
Another dream yet, I was in a town on Antarctica. It was very modern brick
building. Not anything like what we have but the inhabitants were modern
enough to build these. They also had built pottery. I asked someone what
year it was. They did not know how to respond. My guide appeared and made
some comment about it being around or before 4000 b.c. give or take 2000
years. Then I said "Wouldn't it be around the time of the Ice Age? Around
10000BC?" She said "No. Carbon dating is not that accurate, plus the plates
of the earth moved very quickly during that time which also threw everything
off for todays scientists."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In another dream of my own, I decided to venture into dreaming, and check
the computer for more info about Antarctica. I wasn't all that successful,
and was even a little bewildered when I saw the name 'Megawati' in reference
to Antarctica. However, when I decided to do a little search on the net, I
turned up this interesting development.
"There are two Indonesian scientists aboard the Aurora Australis who are
travelling as guests of the Australian Government. They will be the first
Indonesians ever to set foot on Antarctica, as far as anyone can judge, and
they constitute the Indonesian Antarctic Expedition 2002.
This Expedition was launched in Jakarta shortly after Christmas with the
official inauguration of an inscribed granite plaque by the President, Mrs
Megawati Sukarnoputri who has personally "signed" the plaque. The
inscription - in Bahasa - speaks of friendship and cooperation between
Indonesia and Australia."
http://www.ppk.itb.ac.id/~web/antartika/GALERY/DAVIS/CAMPUR_3/INDONESIAN_EXP
EDITIONERS_TO.HTM
And then there was the focus of the program; "to look at the community
structure of phytoplankton in particular with regards to the increase in UVB
radiation over the summer. This is important to us because we can make
comparisons with UVB radiation in Indonesia where the increase in UVB is
putting our archipelagoes at risk. The high intensity of light and high
concentration of carbon dioxide threaten the life under our red-white flag,
particularly in marine primary production which will, in turn, slowly damage
our marine biodiversity."
In the words of 'Ascension', which were directed at myself "The fact it is
to do with sealife is relevant of course, and the treaty between Indonesia
and Australia also, considering you are an Australian Explora, and your site
kind of offers a treaty that unites dreamers from all over the world. Way
cool!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stay tuned next moon for the results of our 'Psychedelic Dreaming'. We
welcome new dreamers to join us in our adventures.
Email:
explora@...
Forum:
http://www.dreamofpeace.net/sealife
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SPECIAL SECTION: PSYCHOSYNTHESIS AND DREAMS
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Stepping Out of Time
By Victoria Gamber
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A dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses
of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before
there was any ego-consciousness...
Carl Jung
The dream found me in all my distraction and worry; it found me in the
quiet night. I didn't know that I was being penetrated by an unseen,
unwanted partner. I was in charge of my life, and I was doing a damn good
job of it! So what if there were moments of longing, feelings of emptiness,
and almost memories, of some other time or place. I must have been happy and
at peace once, in a very different way, otherwise, why did I feel something
missing? Why did I sometimes look out at my face and not recognize me? Why
did I gaze through foreign crowds, looking for someone? Foolish thought, no
one is looking for me.
The dream came in the middle of the night, invading my being and it kept
coming.
Intruder
The ocean beat a rhythm on the distant shore, the breeze danced softly on
the open lanai. As I stirred I noticed a form huddled near the screen door.
From my view in bed it seemed a male figure, all stooped over and clothed in
brown and black tones. I felt a cold sweat on my upper lip, knowing I was
alone in the house. An intruder had entered my quiet. My heart beat harshly
against my breast, help me, help me, help me.
Sitting up in bed I'm aware that no one is there. A dream, only a dream yet
I felt the presence, my heart still beating, my palms still sweating. I
toss and turn in the large king-size bed, feeling so abandoned and
vulnerable and knowing its four hours till dawn. Only a dream and yet I
fear returning to the same dreamscape should I fall asleep again. I wonder
what my colleague, a very intellectual psychiatrist will say about this in
the morning. I try on several of his interpretations, a shadow figure, my
animus, definitely a fear of my masculine nature. I'm awakened by the
garbage truck clanging in the street below, relieved that it's time to
shower and dress. Unaware that I've been invited to commune with another
self, I interpret that dream at breakfast and dismiss it, but the experience
of it can't be dismissed. This is the beginning of my journey to uncover
the secrets of this night intruder, and the beginning of my stepping out of
time.
I had this dream in the 80s and I still remember the cold sweat, the heart
palpitations, and the extreme anxiety; the anxiety feelings permeated the
next day and the next. This was not an ordinary nightmare!
At the time of the dream, I was very involved in private practice and
training in Psychosynthesis, a transpersonal approach to psychology, and
Focusing, with an excellent therapist in Los Angeles. Concurrently, I was
discovering integral psychology. My professional life was advancing and I
had been invited to Europe to introduce other professionals to these
processes. My personal life was very gratifying: a new marriage with a
husband who understood me on a soul level, and a beautiful new home, high on
a mountaintop overlooking Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii. To top it off, I could
walk to work to a new office within one mile of my home.
From my perspective, it seemed that the trying times of graduate training
and a very painful divorce were in the near past. I felt launched in my new
life, able to confront any difficulties, and secure in my personal self.
Moreover, my beloved daughter was a student at a local college and every
morning we'd walk on Kailua Beach and commune with nature and one another,
an intensely satisfying experience for both of us. We'd always been close
and now we could share our innermost thoughts and feelings in that magical
setting. Neither of us understood why my dreams appeared to be ominous
threats from a hostile intruder.
The Intruder Came Back!
The intruder came back! We had moved from our townhouse to our new home
recently. It doesn't matter. He found me! He's outside on the bedroom
deck. The black sky is studded with bright stars behind him as he crouches
beneath the screen door. Still, very still. He's not moving. I'm having
difficulty breathing. How did he get here? How did he find me? My
confusion is intensifying my fear. I'm helpless! God! How can I protect
myself?
The morning after this dream I felt so vulnerable and frightened that I
sheepishly asked my husband how to use his handgun. He's a pilot, often
gone on long trips, and I was feeling almost paranoid, about being alone at
night. Delighted with the opportunity to teach me something, my husband
procured the gun from his drawer and proceeded to give me a long lecture on
its care and maintenance. Because I had not recovered from my evening
visitation, I wasn't paying much attention.
Am I awake or dreaming? How can I seek to protect myself from a nightmare
by learning to use a gun? Am I losing my grip on reality? Thank God Marlan
never asked me why I wanted to know how to use a gun. Nonetheless, I put
that handgun in the dresser next to my bed and I did feel a little comforted
about my ability to protect myself.
I certainly didn't discuss how my dream life was interfering with my daily
life. I was embarrassed about the gun and concerned about the interface
that dream reality was having with waking reality. When I hesitantly tried
to mention this dream to my colleagues, their interpretations seemed to
reveal more about how they viewed reality than about my nightmare. I had
Jungian interpretations, Freudian interpretations, biblical comparisons,
primal approaches, and philosophical discussions, but I could not dismiss
that haunting dream. Something unusual was happening. What?
My reality started to crumble. Without noticing the connection, I
registered for Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's seminar, "Life, Death and
Transition."1 Elizabeth suggested that I begin working with A Course In
Miracles, and I bought a copy at the seminar and promptly placed it in the
same nightstand with that gun.2 (I'm amused now by the juxtaposition of
those two symbols of protection.) A Course in Miracles philosophy speaks to
the illusion of this dimension and the awakening process, giving up
protection of the personal self to awaken to the reality of a greater Self.
The gun was the greatest protection that the personal self could find. My
Higher Self must have a sense of humor. Of course, at the time I had no
inkling that something was getting out of focus.
Intruder, Again!
All I could feel was the tightness in my throat and pounding heartbeat. The
more my heart pounded, the more frightened I became. Couldn't he hear my
heart pounding, crouched out there on the deck? Am I dreaming or am I
awake? Beads of sweat build up along my breasts and back. Fear fills the
air around me. And then I remembered the hand gun. Relief floods me as I
quickly reach for it in the drawer beneath me. Cold steel clutched in my
hands. Oh, no! I don't know how to take the safety off the gun. I can't
move; I try and find I can't move. I'm paralyzed with fear now. No one's
here to protect me and that strange ominous figure on the deck wants to
murder me. I try to shout! My mouth is too dry and the words don't come
out.
I waken trying to speak, staring at the empty screen door and the black
night beyond. A dog is barking in the distant rain forest, the sound echoes
in my room. The night-time intruder again! Checking to see if my gun is
still in the drawer, I find it hard to believe that the drawer is closed,
and I begin to weep. Still tremulous with fear, I'm weeping with relief. I
feel so vulnerable and exposed. Someone has penetrated the boundaries of my
psyche. Sitting up in the tangled mess of sheets and pillows, I feel heavy
with defeat as I turn on the light. There will be no more sleep for me.
It didn't matter to me that others had gone through this, that there was a
tradition that could have helped me. I wanted this nightmare to stop. This
was the third visitation from the night intruder. I was beginning to feel
like I might snap.3
Through that day's work, seeing clients from 8 A.M. till 6 P.M., the dream
came back in flashes. The night ahead, loomed ominously before me. Because
my husband was on another trip, there would be no protection and probably no
sleep. I felt a deep sense of fatigue as I drove home with other nightmares
from childhood and early adulthood intruding on my thoughts. By the time I
arrived home it was dark, and I was feeling a degree of discomfort. The
house looked dark and foreboding. Even the twinkling stars and the last pink
and purple streaks of sunset did not comfort me. Dawn was an eternity away.
As I reflected it seemed that survival had always been the focus of my
awareness, with the greater part of my consciousness protecting me, but I
knew that buried deep within me was another self, a precious person that I
occasionally glimpsed. I remember the day when I lost her at a garden party
on a bright summer afternoon. She stooped down to observe a tiny creature
in the grass in a sparkling world that reflected the light in her soul. Her
heart felt near bursting with the color and the sound of life. "Vicki," her
aunt called out angrily and slapped her, "get out of that mud this instant!
You're getting filthy." This wasn't mud. This was an unfolding mystery.
While she had been awed by the world, her aunt had been angry. What did her
aunt see? What happened? Fear! Fear entered her life. How had it
happened? There was no sudden storm, no flash of lightning. There were
only the sounds of people, her aunt, and a crowd of family members milling
about, but suddenly she felt different, different in a way impossible to
understand and difficult to share. They must never find out or she would be
in grave danger. How to keep the secret? How could she protect herself?
The fear grew into a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps by
sharing nothing of herself, nothing of how she loved the world and what she
saw there, she could be safe. If she only focused on the others and didn't
ever, ever again say anything she felt or thought, especially anything that
touched her deeply, she'd be safe. So the little one buried her connection
within herself, she only remembered that something had been lost. Soon she
lost that memory as well.
The little girl within me began living for others, never feeling quite at
home in the world. There was always some whisper of danger but no
indication of the nature of the danger. She tried to become whatever she
believed that others wanted, and that left her at great risk. She attempted
to use her mental faculties to understand them and so she developed powers
of discrimination and analysis. Of course, she became a psychologist so she
could understand others and better protect herself, but the price she paid
was the loss of some part of her essential nature.4
Top-notch student, helpful sister, co-operative daughter, good wife,
nurturing mother, therapist, educator, and healer, only my audience shifted
the performance remained the same-Protector-Helper. As I reflected that
evening I realized that I only appeared to be protecting and helping the
significant others in my life, what I was really doing was protecting the
lonely, frightened child within me.
Now at forty-two my dreams were bringing me pictures that exposed my
wounding and betrayals, dreams that revealed that a frightened child still
lived within me. This child, in an effort at self-protection had erected a
force field around herself but the dream was penetrating that field.
My personal self's myth of Helper, Healer, Nurturer, had forced me to value
self-protection above all other states. Protection of myself and others had
become my ritual existence, forcing me to live the shadow side of protection
as well, and the shadow side of protection is destruction. I was betrayed
into harming myself and others. Protection had built an energy field about
me so powerful that only a great nightmare could penetrate it. As a
psychotherapist I was well aware that life events could cause a crisis that
precipitated a significant transformation--a devastating divorce, the loss
of a career, and a death of a loved-one often led to growth and expansion of
the psyche. Even a positive life experience could throw one out of balance
and foster change but, I didn't realize that a dream, a nightmare, could
have that same transformative power.
Alerted by the crisis in dreamtime that something in my psyche was
unbalanced, this dream exposed wounding that had been storied from primitive
times.
The Beloved
In the cool breeze of early morning trade winds, I'm tossing amidst the
pillows and sheets. Beneath closed lids, I feel an uneasy presence in the
room. Looking up I see the Intruder again at the door. Always stooped
over, always painted in browns and blacks, face hidden in the crouching
posture. My pulse quickens my breathing coming in gasps, as I reach toward
the gun, moaning softly, "My God!" Sweating, shaking and shivering, I grasp
it in damp fingers, fumbling for the safety. I'm reassured because I've
been practicing with my husband. I've actually fired the damn thing. With
a violent movement I turn toward the screen door and then I'm stopped. I
don't want to harm him, merely to frighten him badly and banish him
entirely. Is this another dream or is this mythic visitor from the dead
actually here? Has he come to invite me to join that ancestral
collectivity?
Looking about for a target, I think, "No not the window." That'll smash and
make a mess I'll have to attend to. What about the carpet? Not that, it'll
have to be replaced. The dresser! I don't want to destroy the dresser.
There's nothing in the room that I'm willing to destroy through my violence.
My destiny had caught up with me, all the unanswered, unresolved questions
of my life, now confronted me from my inner world. "Oh my God I am heartily
sorry for all my sins..." As I continued my act of contrition, the gun
dropped from my paralyzed hand...suddenly that cosmic stillness was broken
by the strains of music.
Stars are streaming by in the blackest sky I have ever seen. They
are rivers of stars and they disappear and reappear as though volumes of
galaxies are being opened before me. Flick, the pages of stars flick over
in an ancient text. This is "all that is!" The melody of the dream
penetrates the space of it. There are strings plucking at my soul, the
color of the ancient harp painting a nebula as it looms before me. I'm
Home! I'm Home! This harp struck by a celestial guardian will ever guide me
home. My sound, my space, this is my being! Another sensation is pervading
the sound and the sight and space of all that I am. Gazing to my left is
the most beauteous of faces gazing back at me, holding my hands the entire
time. Our faces, our hands, our bodies are a symmetry. A double, a double
me, fashioned in masculine form, no larger, no smaller than me. We are the
same! My love, loving me. My being, being me. The same indescribable
oneness, one with the sound and the light and the vision of me.
Weeping, weeping for the joy of it, tears spilling off my cheeks and onto
the bedclothes beneath, ordinary light streaming in the windows, ordinary
colors fading the light of...I've been dreaming! The sound of it is still
playing me. This is the sound of home, and I'm weeping and desperately
trying to clutch that fading strain. I'm losing it.
I encountered death that dream night in 80s, and some part of my
consciousness never returned. Another aspect of my being was incarnated in
the same physical body. The emergence of the Higher Self in the dream had
flooded my being with love. I was straining with the tension of eternity
and resisted returning to the absurd, lackluster passivity of my daily
abandonment.
While I celebrated this dream for its deeply personal and emotionally
potent force, I could not conceive how I could again connect. My double
existed in mystery, while my mortal self appeared condemned to the mundane.
However, that brief communion with the dream was urging me to partnership
with my greater nature. I was feeling and listening for the images of that
dream, yearning to catch that strain in contemporary music. Seeking that
loving energy I followed more closely, a sweep of color or a cascade of
emotions. My training in the depths of the psyche had not prepared me to
understand the heights, and it was years before I could speak about this
experience. I held it close to my breast, tried to penetrate its mystery
and awaken to its presence.
The concluding dream, not only introduced the guide but it charted a
direction. It pictured an exhilarating opportunity to develop the potential
described in the dream, but that potential was both startling and
terrifying. How could I give up protection? Because I was such a sensitive
little being growing up, I had sought a way to protect myself without
harming others. Being a nurturer seemed perfect. I could hide behind the
armor of protecting others and I would be well protected myself. Of course,
it didn't work. Childhood solutions and interpretations for survival seldom
succeed. They are buried with old toys and outgrown clothes and we forget
that we once chose this rusty armor.
Seeking to be protective, I was forced into strained situations and
artificial relations. It certainly didn't work well in my clinical
training. When I'd open my mouth, fellow students would make sounds like an
ambulance arriving on the scene. "Here comes Victoria to protect the
client." "Good therapist" was not going to fit the lineage of good girl,
good student, good wife, and good mother. I finally had to pretend to give
up the supportive role to get through the practicum course in counseling.
The aggressor role was a very uncomfortable suit of clothing for me. I
never saw the path that the dream intruder had illuminated in the final
dream, the path between the way of the protector--and the course of the
aggressor--the way of the harmless. Because the harmless have totally given
up control, they are protected. Had I seen the middle path earlier, I would
not have recognized it in any case.
Concurrently, I explored the dream images. I asked my secretary, a
practicing Catholic, to write out the Act of Contrition for me. My daytime
memory could not produce the entire form of it even though I had recited it
prayerfully in my dream. The images of my early childhood training in the
rights of "The Church," had been painfully repressed. But, I loved the
ritual of that early experience and wanted more ritual in my life. Not
knowing how I could move in the direction that the dream outlined, which
seemed improbable for most and impossible for me, I began to direct my
attention more to my protective hard-shell. My daily prayer became, "Above
all else let me do no harm."
It was years before I identified the dream guide as an element of my Higher
Self.
In Psychosynthesis, a form of psychotherapy that I had been studying, the
personal self can be contacted by the Higher Self. Not looking for that
kind of devoted guardianship, I had to be hit over the head to awaken to the
guidance, care and loving direction from dream guidance. The dream process
introduced me to a spiritual connection that illustrates how we in ordinary
reality can be penetrated by the divine. The dream was the vehicle.
Actually there are many vehicles and the communication goes both ways.
We can ascend to the greater nature or it can descend into our life and even
our dreams Roberto Assagioli suggested many ways to approach the "Self" but
he hadn't discussed that the Self would descend from the dream world.
Roberto described the Higher Self as a center of unconditional love and a
distinct part of the personal self. The greater nature includes the
qualities of intuition, inspiration, creativity, ethical impulses and
heroism. As the personal self "quiets down" the Higher Self can emerge. It
my case, the emergence required a nightmare. It appears that I seldom
quieted down. It only required my surrender to emerge in conscious life
but the dream guide had to cause a crisis, to interface with ordinary
reality. The final dream became a vehicle for awareness of the
superconscious state and an introduction to synthesis.
Assagioli calls this process identification. When we identify with the
consciousness already within but resonating at a higher frequency, we are
one with it. The resonance between self and Self causes the emergence of a
new pattern, a template of greater consciousness, similar to the manner in
which a laser of a certain frequency causes an image to emerge from a
multiple image hologram. This dimension of being was revealed in my dream
series because it was always part of my existence, but a part that I
dismissed in my early days. But it remained, contained within my inner being
as Assagioli suggested. The alignment with the Self can bring breakthroughs
into personal life, mystic connections, and holistic experience. We can
climb the ladder to the farthest reaches of human nature by journeying
within.
My fascination with the world of sleep had led me to question the world of
awakening. Which experience was more real? Certainly the phenomenal
dreamscape was more real than my ordinary life. The mystery that seemed
essential to this process was forcing me to grapple with daily life and
struggle to find meaning in my total life experience. I discovered that my
dreams were intricate and complex works of beauty, much like works of art
and drama. They had meaning on many levels simultaneously. As I played in
dreamtime, I recognized that my creativity expanded. I was stepping out of
time.
Apparently, by being willing to enter the doorway to death in dream state,
my focus was being shifted from protection in ordinary reality. Those who
report near-death phenomenon state that experience of death alters
consciousness.
Modern medicine rescues increasingly large numbers of individuals from the
throes of death. Frequently they recall the experience as they are
resuscitated. Intrigued by the near-death descriptions, several
psychologists and physicians, most notably Raymond Moody and Kenneth Ring,
published the results of these studies. Moody's popular books, Life after
Life and Reflections of Life after Life, detailed the same phenomenon that
had been described almost 100 years before in Richard Bucke's classic Cosmic
Consciousness. The near death experience, described in length in both the
8th century Tibetan Book of the Dead and the 2500 year-old Egyptian Book of
the Dead, is a universal experience, and one that is becoming increasingly
widespread. Compelling evidence from nearly 8 million adult Americans who
have experienced an NDE, confirms the ancient descriptions. The territory of
the Otherworld is suffused with light more brilliant than any incarnated on
earth, celestial music emanates from welcoming spirits, whose mellifluous
tones harmonize with the prismatic light, and love reaches out to embrace
everyone in serenity and peace.
The crises of life when we are threatened with great loss, especially the
loss of life or the loss of loved ones bring us to the brink of the
Otherworld. That world, which had once seemed so nebulous, suddenly becomes
more vivid.
It now appeared that the Otherworld could descend on us in ordinary
consciousness and transform us through transpersonal dreams or cosmic
consciousness, or we could rise to meet it in near-death experiences and
altered states. The traffic went both ways. These transformative dreams
can often come after periods of crisis, cycles of confusion or extreme
physical pain. Apparently, the shift from the habitual causes the personal
self to relinquish its hold to some extent. Then the Higher Self can come
knocking at the door.
The surrender to death in that twilight state of consciousness, the dream
state had much the same effect. Survival was no longer the force of my
awareness, the large part of consciousness that had protected my survival
was released to experience other states of being. I had been initiated into
a dream process as ancient as man, and I was carried beyond, into realms of
consciousness that were familiar to early man. He storied these realms. He
painted them on cave walls and animal skins. He preserved these
descriptions for eternity. Many of these gifts from antiquity are still
with us.
The death that I feared from the intruder had only brought me face-to-face
with the transcendent, the symbolic; the sacred had become undeniable. Many
Eastern religions believe that the world is illusory and only the spiritual
planes exist, 5 I had been bred on materialism and nursed on objectivity.
My paternal grandmother, fingering her rosary before the virgin shrine,
lived in the illusion of the ethereal. Perhaps she was in resonance with
infinity, while I was only on the playground with impersonal forces. There
I had been found, trapped in the dogma of science and there I had been
introduced to the numinous.
Eventually, I discovered that unique dreams like mine continue a dialogue
across the centuries and over great distances. The tradition penetrated the
depths of the ice flows and the deepest jungles of a primitive planet. It
spoke from every major religious document and spiritual tradition and it
permeated the myths of every major civilization.
Those who lived within this tradition befriended a powerful unconscious
force and became partners with the transcendent, with the Higher Self.
Those who denied the tradition felt themselves victims or martyrs, abandoned
on the edge of the universe and controlled by forces they neither understood
nor supported. Their story is told and retold through the centuries and
conveys the alienation of the human separated from the sacred. Each of us
journeys with the night-time Shaman to encounter archetypal themes,
consciously or unconsciously. Should we leave the engagement out there in
the twilight zone, or should we begin to live out these themes consciously,
bring them to the surface and step out of time.
References
1. Peck, M. S. (1978). The road less traveled. New York: Simon & Shuster.
2. Phillips. A. (1981). Transformational psychotherapy. New York: Elsevier
3. Keen, S. & Valley-Fox, A. (1989) Your mythic journey. Los Angeles:
Tarcher.
4. Kubler-Ross, E. (1980) Hawaii Seminar.
5. Anonymous. (1975) A course in miracles. Tiburon: Foundation for Inner
Peace.
Victoria A. Gamber, Ph.D., is a transpersonal psychologist, Associate
Professor of Psychology at Ottawa University. She maintained a private
practice in Colorado and Hawaii where she was the Director of the Focusing
Network of Hawaii, and former Director of the Transformational School of
Hawaii. In addition to supervising degree candidates in psychology, serving
as a consultant to the medical and business community, she facilitates of a
variety of seminars and workshops on transpersonal psychology.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in counseling and
pursued graduate work at the University of California (Berkeley) in
philosophy, and at Duquesne University in phenomenological psychology.
Victoria Gamber [
vgamber@...]
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The Awakening Room
By Marilyn Barry
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I've always had prophetic dreams but the dream I am about to describe is the
most accurate and extraordinary. I had the dream in 1979 when I was in
therapy with a Jungian analyst in London. I was in the process of deciding
whether to give up my teaching career and move to Findhorn - a spiritual
community in Scotland.
In the dream I was emptying a bucket of dirty water into a deep enamel sink.
Then I walked along a narrow corridor leading to a small room with a bed in
it. The bedclothes were thrown back as if someone had just woken up. The bed
was bathed in golden sunlight which streamed in through a window
over-looking a garden with rose bushes. I stood in the room, smelling the
fragrance of the roses, and felt totally at peace. When I turned to leave
there was a man standing in the doorway dressed entirely in black. "You
don't remember me, do you?" he said. I was embarrassed because, although he
was familiar to me, I could not remember who he was.
My analyst and I worked on this dream at great length. Of course, we saw it
as symbolic. I wouldn't know for another six years that it was prophetic. We
called the room The Awakening Room and I dialogued with the man in my dream.
He said he was a "doctor of the spirit" and we would meet in the future. In
1980 I moved to Findhorn and was there for five years before deciding to
study Psychosynthesis, but where? My search took me to New Zealand,
Australia and America. In New Zealand I met a couple who suggested I study
at the Psychosynthesis Centre in Pasadena. Someone in Australia told me that
the centre in Pasadena had recently closed down, but I had already written a
letter. I subsequently received a reply from a woman who was now holding
classes in her home in Pasadena. As the classes were about to begin, I flew
immediately to L.A. to begin my studies.
After the first class I was offered a room in my teacher's house in exchange
for cleaning. The room was off the kitchen at the end of a narrow corridor -
just as it was in my dream. It overlooked the garden, where there were rose
bushes, and in the morning golden sunlight streamed in through the window.
Every week I emptied my bucket of dirty water into a deep enamel sink when I
washed the floors. Of course, I told my teacher about the dream I'd had six
years earlier.
She told me that she had wanted to rent a house in the mountains but her
signed letter of agreement had been lost in the mail, and she ended up
renting this house.
She also said: "I bet you're going to meet the man from your dream." I DID
meet him and he did stand in the doorway of my room dressed in black - just
as he had in my dream. He was then a therapist and now he's a Medical Social
Worker. Both could be described as a "doctor of the spirit". I wrote a book
about the process of remembering who he was which totally challenges our
perception of time and space. You can read about it on my web site:
www.innerwayonline.com
What's fascinating to me is the fact that it all depended upon meeting a
couple by chance in New Zealand and my teacher's letter of agreement for the
house in the mountains being lost in the mail. Yet, despite the
improbability of it all, I did end up in The Awakening Room - just as my
dream had predicted.
Marilyn Barry
innerway@...
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A Case for Expanding Dreamwork in Psychosynthesis
Richard Wilkerson
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In the introduction to Psychosynthesis: A Collection of Basic Writings,
Roberto Assagioli examines Psychosynthesis against the context of
Existential psychology and uses this lay out an overall plan for the
project. This nine point examination may also make a useful starting point
for a discussion of dreamwork in Psychosynthesis.
1. Both Existential psychology and Psychosynthesis place an emphasis on
identity and the self. This inner identity show up in unique ways in
dreams.
First, the dream can be seen as a representation very easily. That is, when
we are asleep, we feel we are in the dream, but when feel we are awake we
say the dream was in us. We have separated ourselves from it and now hold
much of the dream as a representation, though we may not know what it
represents. Dream science has theorized that while all mammals dream,
initially to keep the large mammalian brain active during sleep, it is
unlikely that the recall of these dreams would do anything but confuse the
animals. There would be a problem between memory and dream imagination.
Whether this is true or not, mammals do have mechanisms to ~not~ recall
dreams. This held true until animals developed the capacity to represent
things no longer present. In other words, it appears as if our language
capacities allow us to bridge the memory gap. People who suffer from
nightmares easily doubt the depth of this theory, but anyone who has
forgotten a dream knows the importance of quickly going over the dream upon
waking. Anyway, waking up from a dream is the first level of
dis-identification. And even those suffering from nightmares are well aware
that regaining control and having the ability to speak the dream, to tell it
to someone or even oneself, is very important. We dis-identify when we wake
up. Some dreamers are so good at this that they dis-identify ~during~ the
dream, and this is called lucid dreaming, or being aware one is dreaming
while remaining in the dream. Also, we often get very dreamy while awake.
So, first there is a kind of dreaming-in-general identity, and a
waking-in-general identity, both of which may occur in the waking or
sleeping state.
The second level of identity is the dream ego. There is usually
(usually) a major identification with a particular character in the dream
that we call "I." I in the dream may or may not correspond to our waking
ego. I have found that the core waking ego identity is usually fairly
similar, which notable exceptions. One man told me a dream where he killed
his brother by stabbing him in the back as they both climbed a ladder. In
waking life, the man didn't even have a brother as was a very gentle
personality. Instead of shifting into what the dream might represent, we can
here just say that while the man woke up and recognized or felt the
dream-murderer as being himself, he could not recognize the murderous
impulse, it just wasn't part of his waking identity structure. The point
here is not to make a metaphor of the dream, but just to say that at the
second level, the dream ego may or may not have the share the same
characteristics as the waking ego.
The third level of identity that may be of importance in a Psychosynthetic
dreamwork will be the identities that inhabit the dream that the dreamer
doesn't identify as him/herself. In Psychosynthesis these are often
referred to as sub-personalities. Two approaches suggest themselves, seeing
dreaming itself as a kind of sub-personality work, and using the dreams to
bring sub-personalities out in waking sessions.
The forth level of identity is the relationship of the parts to the whole,
or the sense of the Superconscious manifesting in the conscious or
pre-conscious of dreams. At the level of I-Thou, the dream provides a
unique mediation, a realm of imaginal play in of the axis between the larger
and smaller self. That is, the dream level mediates between the concrete
ground below and the ideal above and connects them. The dream hovers
between. Its no wonder the Greeks call butterflies "psyche."
2. Assiagioli's Psychosynthesis considers the person as dynamic, a growing
individuality at multiple levels of latently developing potentiality. As
with the sub-personality work above, the many layers of the dream can be
explored in their developmental aspects and as indicators and attempts by
the psyche to manifest potentialities. The dream image can function in a
unique way to hold the tension between two or more new psychological
potentialities that need a higher self to synthesize them.
3. The Centrality of meaning is critical to both Existential Psychology and
Psychosynthesis. Meaning we give, meaning we are looking for. Dreamwork
provides a way to practice giving meaning, and for exploring meaning in our
lives through the overlay of the dreamworld on the waking world. We give
meaning to a dream, and it reveals to us its significance. We also explore
the meaning of dream within the dream itself, in its own coherence.
Further, by exploring the giving of meaning itself to dreams, we encounter
the core of meaning-making, of values and our relationship with them. This
occurs not only in the material realm, but also in the spiritual realm,
where we examine our alignment with the infinite.
Dreams can also help in giving responses to our meaning-giving and
meaning-seeking. A young woman kept sending me e-mails about her dreams of
her unfaithful boyfriend. She said her boyfriend continually had to convince
her he wasn't having an affair. She didn't much like the suggestions that
she take her dream boyfriend as an aspect of herself. Still, she was
haunted by these dreams and continued to write me. I suggested she ask the
dream itself what it meant, and to repeat this intention before going to
bed. The next night she reported the following dream: "I found a box of my
old toys under my bed. Some dolls and things. I haven't thought about them
for years." Upon waking, she said she felt like these old dolls, and was
afraid of being forgotten. The unfaithful boyfriend dream then made sense to
her in that she felt she was like a doll that he didn't want to play with
anymore. She also wanted to develop something in herself that was "worth
playing with." Using the dream to interpret the dream turned out to be a
better approach for her than trying to understand directly that the dream
boyfriend might be a part of herself.
In a world where meaning and value is at risk of being quantified by
capital economy, the dream offers a uniquely sequestered-yet-connected realm
for deep research into meaning.
4. The importance of values. In #3 I discussed values in relation to
meaning. But values can be explored in dreamwork on their own as well.
Assagioli suggests a spectrum of values, such as noetic, artistic, ethical
and religious.
Dreamwork can give us indications of development of values when explored
over a series of dreams. A man trying to develop his emotions may pass
through a series of cold and frozen landscapes with fish and artic animals
to warmer zones and more human relations.
In dreamwork, we can explore not only the values exhibited by the dream
ego, but also by peripheral characters, animals, and other autonomous beings
and objects in the dream. In Psychosynthesis, one is encouraged to find
models of behavior, heroes and people we can not only look up to but also
emulate. These models will hold the values that will guide our development.
Yet getting to fixated on one hero can be a problem. By developing some of
the values of our dream characters, we can assure ourselves of unfolding our
wholeness as well as actualizing our main potentials. Three general areas
come to mind, taking my cue from Carl Jung. The first are the values we
detest. These are of vital importance to us. Dream characters that make our
skin crawl, that we see as morally inferiors, who we would rather die than
be seen as. Exploring the values of these characters in dreams vastly widens
and loosens our own value systems. Secondly, the values of those who we
desire above all else. Though more dangerous than the first group, these
dream people, often lovers, can lead us into value systems that bridge the
human to the beyond-human. They begin to do this through drawing us into
things we have never been. Finally, the beyond human, the superconscious
values. These are the most difficult and the most fulfilling, the most
rewarding and yet the most challenging. For example, when we are given
visions of peace on earth, yet feel the full brunt of the disparity between
the vision and reality, then the real difficult task of bridging these two
irreconcilables is most fully experienced, and hopefully, most fully
manifested. This is the place where we can easily despair and dreamwork can
be very helpful in providing images that hold the synthesis of the
impossible together long enough for our ego consciousness to forge a place
to hold and receive the reconciliation from the superconscious.
5-6. Important to both Psychosynthesis and Existential Psychology is
becoming aware of the motivations with determine our choices. As above with
the various types of characters, each realm of conscious and unconscious
will involve its own set of motivations and choices.
Also in dreamwork, we like to say that each dream is multiply determined.
Instead of finding a single message (though this may be all we can handle at
any one time) sent by a single source, the dream is often seen as a complex
of contents and their expressions, motivated by layers of determining
forces, including physical, social, historical, genetic, situational,
contextual, personal, transpersonal and biocosmic. Like a woodcutter
carving a leg of table, the woodcutter is informed by her background, the
institutions, the family, the lunch, the synchronicities and random moments,
the perspectives on the wood and the body musculature applies. All this may
be seen as the woodcutter giving expression to the content, just as the many
forces give expression to the dream. Expression and content may change at
any moment, as determined by the forces applied. An unexpected knot in the
wood and she may slip and fall, and there we say the wood-knot gave
expression to the woodcutter. And in the dream it is the same. One moment,
the forces of the dream may be guide by the emotions of the previous day,
the next an alarm clock may go off. The exploration of these motivations in
dreams help us understand our multiply determined parts of our self as well
as our absolute freedom. Both come with their own sets of problems and
satisfactions.
7. Another mutual concern is the seriousness and depth of life. Often in
psychospiritual practices, we fix an eye on the ideal and ignore all else,
trying to force these ideals on the stubborn, material world. This can cover
up the place of anxiety that we need to deal with and how to face the depth
of suffering that surrounds us. Dreams can help in this endeavor as they
are from and in the realm of soul rather than spirit and material. Both
spirit and material are addressed by dreams, but it's the psyche that the
dream lives, the imaginal realm, the place where we suffer and encounter
basic anxieties. People whose outer lives can be filled with success and are
too busy to descend into the depths of misery will still spend several hours
a 24-hr day dreaming and attention to these dreams may help in creating
stairwell downwards. Post Jungian James Hillman talks about the need to
reverse all our dreamwork, to allow the dream to take us down into the
underworld, not to bring the dream up into the waking world. Learning to go
down and not be a hero, not try to bash the phantoms with clubs like
Hercules tried to do in the Underworld. Rather, with each step down, we
learn to take off one more piece of clothing until we finally enter the
realm of the soul, completely naked.
8. There is an emphasis on the future and its role in the present in
Psychosynthesis.
Dreams have always had a role to play in this area. Dream prophecy can be
found on the earliest cuneiform tablets. Prophecy isn't exactly what
Assagioli had in mind, but as Carl Jung noted, dreams continually push
towards the future and have a distinctly teleological bent. Perhaps this is
due to their connection with the project of wholeness and individuation, and
perhaps this is simply due to the fact that dreams play with all things,
sacred and profane, and thus are continually spinning out possible and
impossible futures. Exploring the role of play and possibility in dreams,
both sacred and profane, will help further the understanding of the role of
the future in the present.
9 . The uniqueness of the individual is essential to Psychosynthesis. This
is extended to mean that every individual may need his/her own unique
psychosynthesis, their own new techniques and method. Dreamwork may be very
helpful here. Each night we have six new dreams, and each one create a whole
world of its own. We don't recall but a few of these each week, but this
attests to the power of unique creativity in a dream. Some feel that the
final goal of dreamwork is that each dream is its own interpretation. That
is, no standard set or system can be applied to dream if we expect the dream
to reveal to us it most unique gifts. In exploring the uniqueness of each
dream, we begin to articulate our own uniqueness. Further, we come to the
limit of dreamwork as well. Since every psychosynthesis is unique, dreamwork
may not be for everyone. And dreams have their limits. While Jung liked to
say that dreams were already doing what they needed to do and dreamwork was
like alchemy, just helping the natural process along, there are limits. PTSD
dreams, especially combat dreams, can become trapped in a recurring cycle of
endless nightmares. True, dreamwork can help alleviate this situation
(especially re-entry dreamwork) but I think we need these limits to not
deify dreams. Also, I think we need to recognize that dreams may have
motives and goal that are not always our own. That is, like our friends and
family, like any autonomous being, there is always a risk that when we allow
them to offer themselves and not just represent us and our own needs, they
may present something quite un-needed at the time.
However, this is something that our friends, and our dreams, will tell us
when the time comes. Being present with the dream image means attending to
the image as it appears. Robert Avens says that " Essence appears when we
pay attention to phenomenon, when we take them to heart." He goes on to say
that taking to heart is allowing things to be as they are. Charles Ponce
also points out that:
" things are right as they appear in each moment and that what the moment
brings is right... for it is the manner in which we receive ourselves that
determines whether we grieve or sing, whether what we hear in ourselves is a
cacophony or a melody, whether in that moment we stumble or we dance."
Developing individuation and uniqueness is not just about the ego, but about
the whole self and dreamwork allows us to address both this multiplicity and
unity.
In conclusion of the nine points that Assagioli makes about the similarities
between Existential Psychology and Psychosynthesis, and how the value of
these similarities may be explored with dreamwork, I just want to emphasize
that while dreams are not everyone's path, they are part of everyone's
psyche. In ignoring dreams we ignore a large part of our life and risk
loosing a major sense and appreciation of the world, the self and their
possibilities and depth.
-Richard Wilkerson
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** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS
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________________________________________________________________________
Message: 686 -001
Subject: 12:22 AM
dream_title: 12:22 AM
dream_date: 9/3/03
dreamer_name: curly91282
dream_text: I was driving down interstate 95. I get off on the wrong exit
so I look for a way back on 95. I see my exit. I look through my
windshield, I have to crane my neck because the exit sign is turned around
backwards. As I get off the exit I see a woman in a white car veering off
he road to my right. I panic for some reason, and my car starts to
fishtail. I look out my windows, to my right is an ocean and to my left is
a mountain. I hit the mountain with the backend of my car, just as my car
begins to go towards the water I stop in the middle of the road. I get out
of the car, frustrated because I know that now it will have to be repaired.
I start walking while dragging the car behind me. the car has now shrunk to
about the size of a barbie car. I remember being really amazed that I was
carrying a car. I look down at the road and see that it is a stream with
cobblestones on the bottom. I stop in the road and turn around to see a
woman getting out of a white minivan. She looks at me and asks me if this
is where the ambulance stops. I say nothing and look to my left where I see
a large fountain made of brick. it is broken and over flowing. I look a
the woman again and she is taking a child's car seat out of the car. in the
seat is a mallard duck, covered in dirt with a broken wing. I look to my
right and see two men sitting in theatre seats. I turn to see what they are
looking at and I see an old singer sewing machine in it's desk sitting in
the fountain. one of the men is white and the other native american. they
are both wet and tired. the woman asks them to help her move some things,
they say no. She says she will give them breakfast, and they say yes.
dream_comments: I really just want to know what this means. I have dreams
all the time that are just random and I don't think they mean anything. This
one seems like it should mean something.
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 686-002
Subject: UFO dream
dream_title: UFO dream
dream_date: 8-28-2003
dreamer_name: kua2u
dream_text: My husband was driving a white commuter type van full of people
and I was in the passenger seat. We were driving by the National Security
Agency at Ft. Meade, Maryland (where he used to work). In the sky I saw the
black form of a stealth bomber and I told Tim. He stopped the van and we all
got out to see the stealth. As it flew over us it made a propeller sound and
I knew this wasn't right. I said, "It shouldn't be making that sound." Then
the huge form of a UFO completely blocked the sky and settled over us,
showering a blue light beam upon us all. I knew they were choosing people to
go with them and I raised my hand and said, "me! me! I want to go." (as I've
often said I'll do in real life)
Then I was in a classroom in a big building that looked like an earth
classroom, but I knew I wasn't on earth. Most of the people in the class
were newby, like me, altho I didn't recognize anyone. But there were also
some intermediate people and a few other people who'd been there a long time
(one old timer looked like Al Pachino). T
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 686 -003
Subject: crazy
dream_title: crazy
dream_date: 7-2-03
dreamer_name: anonymous
dream_text: I had a dream that something was feeling on me and everything,
but it was so really like I was really awake. I couldn't move at first but
then I went to fighting
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 686-004
Subject: Past lover
dream_title: past lover?
dream_date: august 10th 2003
dreamer_name: ladyspoem
dream_text: riding in somekind of traveling motions passing the others like
traffics..seeing my past lover..he drives his own truck with two of his
friends...past lover opened the front door,ball came rolling.
dream_comments: still wondering what it means?!?
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 686-005
Subject: Re: 12:22 AM
Hi Curly,
Thanks for posting this dream. It is a fantastic dream with well- defined
movements. A lot of interpreters would attach meanings of allsorts to this
dream. I have different ideas about dreams, as I am a light sleeper and
usually analyse my dreams straight after they happen.
Here is my thoughts on your dream: colours and strange ideas ˆ like getting
of at the wrong exit, and pulling the car like a toy, and the many other
unusual happenings in this dream are there to raise your level of
consciousness so you can be aware of dreaming. Craning the neck and looking
all over the place indicate that you have some neck ache, or you are
sleeping in an uncomfortable position and the dream is trying to move you
and ease the pain without waking you up. The reference to an ambulance
indicate that you are experiencing some pain. Again, the incident with the
childs car seat, the mallard duck and the colour of the two men are there
to raise the level of consciousness. Colour and strangeness in dreams is
like food in the waking life. Dreams need some sort of mental energy to
keep them going. I hope this explains some aspects of dreaming. I think
dreaming is an important part of life. It controls and safeguards the
sleeper ˆ keeps him or her asleep to get a good nights sleep, wakes the
sleeper out of danger, and most important of all ˆ wakes him or her in the
morning! It is the way dreams are created that is the wonder of this world!
Cheers H
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 687-001
Subject: The moon
dream_title: the moon
dream_date: several dates since '89 - '94
dreamer_name: anonymous
dream_text: the first thing i saw in my dream (at least from what i
remember) is that i found myself standing on the earth is some forest. then
i look up, and the moon is right above me, not further than 10 inches from
my head and it's spinning on my index finger that i'm pointing up. not
touching it tho then i wake up
dream_comments: i've heard that many people share this dream my brother and
two friends of mine had a very similar dream
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 687-002
Subject: killer squirrels
dream_title: killer squirrels
dream_date: 3/7/03
dreamer_name: the one
dream_text: i am in a familiar garden standing by a pond when from nowhere a
squirrel jumped up at me holding between its paws some length of thin wire
and started to strangle me and another jumped onto me .all i could do was to
stand there not able to move ,my older sister was standing nearby and as i
pleaded with her to help me i found she was less than compliant,in fact she
totally refused to help me.next thing i know i am dead but still conscious
of myself,a familiar but unknown voice tells me that i will be ok and that i
should rest for now until he will come for me,the resting seemed to go on
forever but at the same time was over in a split second when i found myself
on an old wooden boat with an old friend whom with i had fallen ou with a
few years ago,i was conscious now that i was a ghost as i could not touch
anything around me, this was terrifying to say the least,however as in most
of my dreams i warped to a completely different location and was being led
somewhere by the familiar but unknown voice i had heard before but still
whenever this voice entered the dream my sight disappeared so that i could
not see.i dont know where i was being taken to but when i got there my old
friend was there,he could see me now and as i felt my touch sense return i
shook my old friends hand and immediately woke up.
dream_comments: this was a very bizarre dream and was quite disturbing as i
usually have wierd dreams but this was the only time i ever died in a dream
before, william sizer aged 23
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 3
Subject: Around the world in 4 dreams
dream_title: Around the world in 4 dreams
dream_date: 24/06/2003
dreamer_name: Flowerpot
dream_text: Dream 1: We are flying together over a town covered in snow. The
view is beautiful, the sky filled with stars. I am naked and flying on a
body-board. My therapist is dressed and flying slightly higher and behind
me. At first I feel frustrated because I cannot gain enough height. So I
take him by the hand and make him believe that together we can fly higher,
and we do.
Dream 2: I find myself in bedroom, there is sunlight coming in through the
curtains. The bedroom is decorated in a creamy white colour. My therapist is
lying on the bed and I am standing up next to him, completely naked. He
smiles at me. I don't know what to do, but smile back.
Dream 3: I am in a hospital with loads of dust and sand on the floor. It
feels like I'm in the middle East. I'm lying on the massage table waiting
for a doctor to come. I'm huddled up in a blanket which covers all but my
face and wait and wait and wait. Then I get bored and go to the doctor's
room next door. My therapist is sitting there, he is wearing no t-shirt. He
is looking at some drawings he made of my heart: a skeletton, with red and
blue shields at chest level. He doesn't seem to realise that my heart is on
the right side instead of the left. So I tell him I am medically followed
for that by a cardiologist. I tell him I know about the deformation. He asks
me how I know. I walk away and tell him I'm not five years old any more. I
go back to the massage table and wait some more. Then I go out of the room
again and find myself faced with two Arabs with big bushy black beards. They
are pointing huge bazooka riffles at me. I don't feel scared but try to calm
the situation anyway. I explain them that I am ill and am waiting for the
doctor to come. They start talking and shouting in a weird language. I get
anxious and tell them I really need to see the doctor. They tell me all
doctors have left the hospital. I feel abandonned. So I go back into my room
and try to escape via some underground tunnels. In the tunnel I find some
prisoners who are trying to break the chains around their ankles. I feel
that someone is behind me.
Dream 4: I'm in the states. There are many cars on the high way. I see road
signs (I think I'm entering Miami), it's early evening... There are some
police men and women talking. I'm on the massage table. My therapist is
massaging me. Some people from my workplace walk past and look at me
puzzled. This dream is very confused, I can't make a story out of it.
dream_comments: Dear,
Having visited your website, I have several dreams of the last few days
which I would like to share with you. I don't know if these could even
remotely be considered as a contribution to humanity, but the overall
feeling i get from the dream is loving and healing.
I have seen a therapist for energetic massages three times now, and since my
last visit a week and a half ago, I have repeatedly had dreams in which he
figures. FYI: I am 27, married and living in Europe.
Would much appreciate any feedback on my dreams.
Will I receive comments to my personal email? If so, my address is
fiona_debrabanter@...
Please DO NOT use this email address for any other purposes.
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 687-004
Subject: Fantasy World
dream_title: Fantasy World
dream_date: June 18th 2003
dreamer_name: Rob and Mary
dream_text: We were walking through a forrest of green trees with several
mystical animals running around. We saw many unicorns running wild. The
dream was guiding us through this forrest and a strange language was being
spoken in the background. Suddenly the clouds covered the sun and made the
forrest dark and bleak. The earth spilt open and released a strange cloud
of red smoke. Then we woke.
dream_comments: We really want this dream interpretted so we know what we
should do.
______________________________________________________________________
Message: 687-005
Subject: 6-30-03
dream_date: 6-30-03
dreamer_name: Jess
dream_text: I was running up a big staircase away from people that were
going to get me in trouble. the hallway that the stairs led to was full of
people having sex. i chose one room, and the people were just laying there
talking. i knew the one girl who was a cheerleader and thought i recognized
the guy with her. he kept his head turned away from me while the girl and i
talked. i finally asked him to turn his head, and when he did, it was my
boyfriend. i ran out of the room crying and ended up in my shower moments
later. my boyfriend came into the shower room and wanted to talk to me, and
was laughing. i told him i didnt want to talk and to go away and i started
crying, and he was laughing. i got out of the shower, got dressed, and went
into the family room, which was 2 times bigger than usual. i wanted to try
and talk with my boyfriend. i asked if he was ever going to tell me and he
said no. we fought, i called him a lot of names and smacked him a bunch of
times, and he laughed and said he didnt care. he told me he loved both of us
the same, and i started crying and screaming again, telling him that he had
to chose one of us and only one. the expression on his face was hurt, almost
full of pain, and surprised. i left the room and then i woke up.
dream_comments: i have no clue what this means..but all day ive had bad
feelings in my stomach, like something is wrong.
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 687-006
Subject: Aliens
dream_title: Alians
dream_date: 12 June 2003
dreamer_name: mary jane
dream_text: well one night richelle matthew cameron and me were in a tent
thing that goes from your house and down to the ground well that thing and
then we heard a funny noise it was coming from the house in my dream first
we did not know what it was then we had it it was an alian not just one not
just two but three and they were talking in there alian voise do ho iu all
those things then they came coming in and we were friked and i was like
ahhhh then it terned out to be mum and dad and pop.
dream_comments: wired first i did not know were mum dad were in the dream
but then at the end it explaned it all.
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 687-007
Subject: Murder
dream_title: MURDER
dream_date: 6/30/03
dreamer_name: BABYGRL
dream_text: i had a dream that my friend and i plotted to murder a chick and
We actually did it. After we killed her, we cut her body up in pieces and
Threw it in my trunk of my car...the cops finally found us, and i was put in
Jail for 7 years, (because i wasnt actually the one who killed the girl, i
Just was watching), and my friend went to jail for 15 yrs.
dream_comments: WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS MEAN?..ITS FREAKING ME OUT BECAUSE I
WOULDNT HURT ANYONE?!
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 688-001
Subject: Confusion City
dream_title: Confusion City
dream_date: 6/17/03
dreamer_name: MCFC
dream_text: The dream begins and I am under the water in a clear blue
swimming pool. I am frightened when I look up and see that the pool is
enclosed, like a tank, and fear that I won't be able to get out. Then I see
a small hole where light is shining in. I swim to it and pull myself up
into a large, old olympic-style pool that is drained. I see it is old and
the sides are stained with a rust color. I see myself as a child, a young
girl about 7 or 8, wearing a black bathing suit and swimming cap. I look
out of the pool and realize I am on top of a building in a city. The sky is
overcast and everything looks bleak, almost black and white. I then see a
middle-aged man wearing all black. He looks at me, then turns away. I
notice he has dark hair and a bald spot. I climb out of the pool and look
around. I see many men running around the buildings, and they all look like
the first one. I realize I am dreaming, but I want to know what is going
on. I try to ask one of the men what they are doing, but he ignores me. The
men rush busily about. I follow one man who jumps off of the platform that
the pool is on and begins going up a ladder. I follow him onto the platform
and when I begin to climb the ladder, I wake up.
dream_comments: This dream disturbed me, although while dreaming I knew it
was not real. I think it has an important message for me because in the
dream I was trying to figure out what was going on, I remembered it so well
and it was so vivid. I think it may have something to do with my parents or
having a child.
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 688-002
Subject: Reunited with Dad
dream_title: reunited with dad
dream_date: 6-25-03
dreamer_name: Pupdog
dream_text: I'm standing at the end of my old drive way (we moved) with my
Dad (who is no longer alive)and we were standing there smoking on a pipe and
talking about how my old car (which I no longer have)is broke down at the
lake and it needs fixed. He told me not to worry about that old car and
then he gave me a hug and a kiss on my forehead, and said he had to go, he
turned around and started walking back down the drive way, I went to chase
him and I was saying "Dad wait up I'll go with you" and then he disappeared!
dream_comments: I know there isn't much to this dream theres is nothing
crazy and wild about it. It's more of a personal confusion! My dad
committed suicide on August 13th of 02' and I was the one who found him! We
lived on a farm at this time, my dad was the caretaker. That's the drive
way I am referring to. We no longer live at the farm, my mom couldn't stay
there. This is the first dream I have had since my dad died with him in it
that wasn't a flashback to the day I found him. I woke up actually crying
just like I was in the dream when he disappeared. Do you think that maybe
this could be some kind of sign or message my dad is trying to get to me?
Also do you think maybe he really visited my in my sleep? And at the end of
the dream he turns back down the drive way and starts walking towards the
house when he said he had to go do you think maybe he is trapped at that
farm house? I know all this is far fetched and kinda stupid, but I've been
searching for answers and reasons since August 13th and I figured it
couldn't hurt to see what someone who knows about dreams thinks!? This dream
was so vivid like he was really there with me I could see his smile and feel
his hug and it was almost like I knew I wasn't supposed to be able to be
talking to him and it felt like it was present ya know like I knew that when
he turned and walked away that that was it I was going to wake up and he was
going to be dead and that's why I wanted to go with him. Thank you for your
time I hope it hasn't been a waste! It would be muchly appreciated if you
could privately send me an email at
JFIELDS@... if you think
there is any significance to this dream. Sincerely, a lost daughter
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 688-003
Subject: Owls
dream_date: 7/1/03
dreamer_name: silverblue
dream_text: I am standing on the edge of a clearing of tall grass within a
forest setting at night. Surrounded by a small group of friends I have never
met, we run out into the grass chasing what appear to be fireflies only
larger. We knew them as owls, some kind of messenger we had to catch. They
glowed with a divine light and flew faster than any of us could run. People
in the group began yelling for us to turn back. Deer or maybe gazel were
racing back toward the safety of the clearing we had started from. There was
a beast about. And though I never saw it I did feel its presence and its
insatiable need to feed . . . on something. This running back and forth
accorss the grass continued at least three times.
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 689-001
Subject: Reacurring dream
I've had the same dream over and over agian. It started when I was about
seven years old. It starts out with an old typewritter, typing random
letters. The letters start out small, and then get bigger and bigger, until
they are so big that they look they're going to crush me. I can hear the
pounding of the stamp pad in the typewritter, getting louder and louder.
The dream seems to only last for a few minutes, yet it lasts all night
long. It's not a very exciting dream, but it's one I won't forget. I get it
every once in a while, and I believe that I'll always have this weird
dream. I wish I knew what it meant...
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 690-001
Subject: So weird???
dream_title: so weird???
dream_date: 10/03/03
dreamer_name: confused?
dream_text: I am married (a year on the 19th) In my dream, I was at home and
there was a man, it looked like my husband, But it wasn't it was a guy that
I went to high school with 11 years ago. He asked me to make love to him, I
said no, I loved my husband and that I couldn't do that to him or myself.
The next thing I knew, I was making love to him and enjoying it like it was
my husband. The next thing was, I told him not to "finish" because I was
trying to get pregnant.He jumped up. We both went to take a shower. He was
in black shorts,I was washing his hair, when we both heard the sound of my
mother's car alarm horn. Not going off just setting it. He jumped out of the
shower with the shampoo still in his hair. When he opened the bathroom door.
My mother saw me in the shower and he ran out. The door shut, re-opened. The
hurt in my mothers face was so sad. Her telling me, "what is going on?" I
said I didn't know what she was talking about.Then the feeling was like I
didn't understand why she was mad. My husband and I were taking a shower? SO
he turned back to my husband? Everything felt so real.
dream_comments: My husband and I do live with my parents. I am trying to get
pregnant. We are also going through a tough custody battle with
hisDaughters.
________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
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