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Electric Dreams Volume 10 Issue 11
"...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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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
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++ 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
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Post Dreams and Comments on Dreams to:
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple
Send Dreaming News and Calendar Events to:
Peggy Coats <web@dreamtree.com>
Send Articles and Subscription concerns to:
Richard Wilkerson: <rcwilk@dreamgate.com>
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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@dreamtree.com
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@dreamtree.com. 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@msn.com]
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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
© 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)
© 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.
------------------------------------------------------------------
----
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/INDO
NESIAN_EXPEDITIONERS_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@dreamofpeace.net
Forum: http://www.dreamofpeace.net/sealife
o=============================================o
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@cox.net]
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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@cali.co.uk
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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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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
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 keeps him or her asleep to get a good
nights sleep, wakes the sleeper out of danger, and most important
of all 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@hotmail.com
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@digitfind.com 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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