Though we seem to be Sleeping,
There is an Inner Wakefulness
That directs the Dream,
And that will eventually startle Us back
To the Truth of who we are.
––>Rumi
Dreams educate us about the nature and workings of the psyche, how the soul speaks in a symbolic language of images and stories, and how we assemble our individual version of reality through a narration of our story.
Our ego mind experiences life by telling us into this story and that story, into many stories. Many of our stories aren't true, or are the truth embellished. Others aren't even our own stories but rather imprints, impressions, introjects, projective identifications, defenses or delusions.
The dreaming will teach you that, in fact, we unconsciously choose our stories; and further, that we can awaken and make better choices.
In the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from
losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old
unforgotten wisdom that is stored up in us.
And where do we make contact
with this old man or old woman in us?
In our dreams.
––C.G. Jung
Consensus reality floats on a vast mythopoetic ocean, the Dreamtime, which is present and available to us at all times. Yes, we dream twenty-four hours a day, during wakefulness and during sleep. Only when we drop below the threshold of reverie and into sleep, do we dream without distraction.
The soul, or psyche, is at work continuously, mediating between our ego personality and all else that happens to us, inside and outside, in a constant stream of images and associations. And these images connects us to everything in the visible and invisible worlds, the personal and the transpersonal, linking our individual stories to the great stories of the human enterprise.
What we dream reflects forward and backward on everyday waking reality. The ability to move easily between the two worlds, of ego-awareness and the soul’s perspective, once the exclusive province of mystics, poets, artists, and shamans, is today an open secret and a valuable skill for a calamitous world.
What a marvelous natural mechanism exists within us! Human consciousness has more depth than we can know or imagine, greater than even scientific observations can reveal. It is not the distant galaxies, nor the inscapes of neurobiology, but rather human personality that is the Great Mystery. And the mystery reveals itself nightly in our dreams.
Dreaming is a unique resource. In symbols and imagery, dreams deliver concise, important personal information to the dreamer. Your dreaming tells you what you need to know about your conscious circumstance and can help you to construct a life of meaning.
Dreams come to us through the conduit of the soul. The dreaming is the voice of the soul, the psyche, the part of us that is the experiencer of our experience. Soul is a reflective perspective on all our personal perceptions and awareness, a middle ground between the doer and the deed. Soul is not, as we have been told, a theological construct. Soul is what turns mere events into experiences.
There is sleep laboratory evidence demonstrating that fetuses in-utero display the rapid-eye movements (REM) that signal dreaming. So, the soul is present from the very beginnings of our earthwalk. And the soul’s language is images, it speaks in symbols and stories.
Call the world if you please, ‘the vale of Soul-making.’
Then you will find out the use of the world.
––John Keats
You can engage your dreaming for self-knowledge and inner guidance. The dream presents a comprehensive holographic view of your life experiences.
Dreamwork is a laboratory for inner development. Your dreams, while compensating and balancing your conscious attitudes, provide self-diagnostic information. The skill-set to work with dreams is innate, the learning curve is gentle. The constructive approach to dream interpretation, a practical technique of amplifying and interacting with the dreaming, operates on a simple assumption: your dreaming will never present anything to you that you are not ready to see, hear, and integrate.
We know from sleep studies that everyone dreams every night, many dreams, about one dream period every ninety minutes. Yet not everyone remembers their dreams. The process of recalling dreams is very suggestible. People who say they never dream are simply not remembering their dreams.
Your dream-weaver is working continuously, when you are asleep and when you are awake, creating an uninterrupted, personal image stream, a narrative constructed from your own sensorial life.
Why would you want to know what you are dreaming?
• Because dreams tell you what you need to know and ought to know about your life right now.
• Because your dreams reconnect you to your feeling life and restore balance to your moods and emotions.
• Because dreams are a source of inner guidance, both progressive and cautionary.
• Because dreams are a personal portal to making sense of your life.
• Because dreams will add depth and humor to your understanding.
• Because dreams connect us to the bigger picture of being human, allowing us to see the unique transformative path each soul must follow.
• Because life reveals itself to us in our dreams. It’s no wonder the ancients believed it was God who speaks through dreams; indeed, it is a higher power that sees the matrix of reality, not just the portions revealed by our limited mind and senses.
• Because dreaming awareness produces the healing power of meaning.
Dreams are self-luminous:
they shine of themselves, as gods do.
Myths are public dreams.
Dreams are private myths.
By finding your own dream and following it through,
it will lead you to the myth world in which you live.
––Joseph Campbell
©Jeremiah Abrams, jeremiah.abrams@gmail.com
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DREAM SEMINAR–SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
If you are interested in learning dream interpretation or working on your dreams, and you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can join our ongoing Dream Seminar on Wednesday nights. These are live 3-hour sessions conducted by Jeremiah Abrams.
contact Monika Broecker at THE CENTER FOR PERSONAL GROWTH=
http://centerforpersonalgrowth.typepad.com/blog/see-you-in-your-dreams.html
Monika Broecker= soundofspirit@gmail.com
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DREAM SEMINAR FACT SHEET
• for all levels of dream experience, though beginner's mind always works best with dreams, regardless of your experience.
• Format: experiential format, a socratic dialogue whenever possible, questions and answers and interaction in service of our better understanding of the dreaming, the dream process and the challenges of interpretation. The primary learning will come from working with participants' dreams and the group dialogue. Some didactic material will be presented at the beginning of each session and information and technique will be intersperse in the dialogue around the dreamwork.
• Themes: we will address issues of dream recall, the various approaches to the dream, some history of dream interpretation and incubation, CG Jung's theories of the unconscious and his method of dream amplification. Other relevant themes will emerge from the dreamwork itself.
• Materials: Bring your dreams. No specific readings are required, handouts will be provided on dream recall. It always helps the dreaming if you are reading specifically about dreams and dream process, the psyche seems to respond strongly and recall is improved.
• We will honor the strict confidentiality of the group. Participants are encouraged to trust their inner process and the interactive process. We will be modeling a way to be with another's dreams and our time together will allow you to practice deep empathy for yourself and others.
