Dream
Work
“Most
of the instructions for dream work are too heroic. They are determined to blast
the dream open and reveal its secrets in plain language. It might be better to
approach a dream the way you might walk into an ancient temple—with reverence
and appreciation for mystery.”
Thomas
Moore (Soul Therapy, p.137; Harper One, 2021)
Many
people take their dreams seriously, and almost all of us understand that there
are big dreams and housekeeping dreams. When we have a dream that is detailed
and bold in its presentation, we are being asked to pay close attention. One of
Carl Jung’s associates and analysands, Marie Louise Von Franz, called dreams “letters
from God,” because they are sacred and because they are, indeed, messages from
our Self, the god-spark within.
Big dreams seem, at least
for me, to come at transition points—points when I am moving from one way of
being in the world to another. Sometimes they are only images without words and
sometimes they are like watching a movie. Some dreams have so many pointed-out details
that I have to write them down to be sure I don’t miss something—everything in
a dream has meaning. By pointed-out I mean that the dream shows something to
you, pauses, makes sure you notice it before moving on. And by housekeeping
dreams, I mean the ones that are universal to all of us, such as being back in
high school, realizing there is a class you have completely forgotten about and
now you have a test, but you haven’t even opened the book—in fact, you don’t even
know where the book is. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t had that anxiety dream.
Another is the “house dream” in which you walk around inside your house and discover
rooms you didn’t know about, haven’t seen before. You go room to room
discovering new and surprising things. This is typically a recurring dream. The
house may change, but the action is the same.
I agree with Thomas Moore
that we don’t need to over-analyze dreams, which is not to say we should discard
them. We should honor them in whatever way works for us. I like to draw them or
recreate them in fabric. Other people journal about them or record them. We
should pay close attention, even write down everything we remember, and sit
with it. Hold the images and the words and allow them to reveal themselves to
you. In most Native American traditions, dreams are taken at face value, they
mean what they mean. Big dreams are brought to the Council because they are
considered to belong to the community. Each person on the Council hearing the dream may say
something like, “If this were my dream, I would pay attention to …..”
and name the words or images that most impacted them. But they do not attempt
to interpret the dream’s meaning.
Another way to clarify a dream's meaning is to use associations—what does this image mean to you? Have you seen
it before in waking life? What does it remind you of? You can also look up the
symbols online. If I dream about a badger, for instance, I can ask in my search
box, what is the symbolic meaning of the badger, and perhaps glean some understanding
that will clarify why it was in my dream.
Dreams are like love
letters from God—they bring essential information to help you when you need it.
They let you know that you are cared for—that your spiritual growth is
important. Walk on that holy ground with reverence and gratitude.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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