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 The
Dream WorkshopA Guide to working with Dreams,Vision and Dreamquesting Working with your dreams is an exciting and necessary part of any spiritual growth, there are many methods for enhancing dreams or vision work, and I hope to give general guides which may assist you along your journey. Máelwys /|\. The Dream Dreams have always been the great mystery, we know not from where they come, or why they have developed as a major part of our evolutionary history, and part of the mystery is that so few people actively respond to their Dreamlife. We may dream up to five different dreams in one night and wake the following morning without remembering any. But if you commit yourself to dreamwork, you will find yourself becoming more conscious of outer actions and choices and therefore more responsive to life. One of the best ways of starting to remember dreams is to keep a Dream Journal, this is a kind of diary of dreams in which you write down every morning what you can remember of the nights dreams. You can then take steps to actualise or re-experience some of these recorded dreams in certain significant ways. By doing this you are not just living life in the outer sense, the functions of everyday living, but can enter the day, with all its activities, from a base in your inner world. You will become more responsive to life because, through dreamwork, you will be more aware of possibilities and events which may occur that day. For example if a problem occurs during the day bringing about a loss of some kind, the possibility might have been known and worked with in dreamwork. Choices that have to be made may well have been rehearsed in previous dreamwork, and should an experience of meaning develop in the outer world, it may well have been evoked by a significant dream and its dreamwork. By creating our own Dreamworkshop, we give ourselves a chance to rehearse what could occur within our lives at some point in the near or distant future. Within dreams we are given the opportunity to experience situations and events which may or may not occur in the outer world. Whether it materialises or not, in the outer, is immaterial, it is experience which helps us to see and offers advice. Within dreams we can travel to new and exciting continents, we find Murder, extraordinary feats of courage, fame, glory, travel the universe, make love to new and exciting partners, meet with friends and strangers, and much much more. It is obvious then that an active dreamlife can bring us many more experiences than could experience in everyday life. The opportunities are multifold and the experience in dreams will help us to make the best of any situation which may occur in the outer world because we have already rehearsed most in our dreamworlds. Of course the question has to be asked, are dreams just psychological entities, products of a persons mental processes? or is there indeed more? Many times outer events coincide with dream events in very meaningful ways, so is there a motivating force which creates both the dream and the life? The core reality may not be materially based. When the spirit of an old friend or family member returns to us in dreams, are they only a memory trace, an inner image, or archetypal image within the psyché, or are they presences of energy which still exist after a persons death, spirits, which choose to visit us in dreams? As a devotee to the mysteries, I do not need to know the answers, I approach the dream only as something which is full of possibility, and work with dreams on as many levels as possible, inner, outer, spiritual, mundane - The more open we are, the more possibilites are available to us. Nor need we fear falling into an unconscious broth of fantasy and projection, or becoming divorced from reality, for the dream and dreamwork can be very grounding. Dreamwork itself is constantly opening up new insights and possibilities. Taking your dreamwork possibilities to the outer life and trying them out brings positive or negative consequences. If the consequences are negative, then we know something we did not know before, however if the consequences are positive we move on to a newer, fuller, richer life, and even greater mysteries. We know so little about dreams and where they come from, the most important fact is, we have the dream, and we know from Dream-sleep research that everyone dreams, even if many don’t remember their dreams. Hopefully from the Dreamworkshop, we will learn much more, and if we can’t obtain answers, at least we can create responses. Creating meaning The meaning of a dream comes from actualising it rather than interpreting it. Interpreting dreams actually distances us from them whereas actualising, or re- experiencing, them brings us closer to them. Dream interpreting usually involves one person projecting their own personal material into someone else’s dream and personality. This simply means that someone is telling you what your dream means to them rather than to you. There are many self-actualising methods which have worked for many people who have sought to find meaning from their dreams. The work, though exciting, may well be hard, and you may even stop remembering your dreams for a while, but rest assured, you will also become much more grounded in your own life journey and the sources which vitalize your being. Part Two Last Month we talked about starting Dreamworkshops for ourselves, and hopefully many of you will by now have recorded some of your dreams and begun to actualize them. I suggested that a dream Journal would be a good idea, and for those who have not yet started then now is the time. This Month we are attempting to cover some of the techniques of Dreamwork, which may help you to work with your dreams and gain a greater consciousness of your outer actions and choices, and therefore become more responsive to life. The following pages will give you a guide to beginning your journey. The information is taken from Strephon Kaplan Williams Dreamwork manual (Aquarian Press). The Jungian-Senoi Approach Beginning your Journey The Golden rule of Dreamwork might be stated as follows: To get to the meaning of dreams, actualize dreams rather than interpret them. Actualizing one’s dream brings one closer to the dream. Interpreting one’s dream distances one from the dream. The meaning of a dream comes from the dreamer’s re-experiencing the dream and not from what someone else may say about it. Actualization is the re-experiencing of a dream, or some aspect of it, with similar or greater emotional intensity than that of the original dream. Actualization also refers to gaining meaning from a dream by doing specific outer-life projects which embody some part of the original dream. Thus we include under the term ‘actualization’ both re-experiencing the dream in itself and transforming the dream into specific outer-life experiences. Interpretation is the translating of image into concept, using an outside symbol-system or reference language. The interpreters, whether of dreams, personality or whatever, seek to take the living, primary experience of a symbol and categorize or fit it into a generalized conceptual system. Symbols are fluid and can often, seemingly, be made to fit into a number of different symbol systems. But there are certain fallacies in the interpretive approach, as shown in the following example: One person attempts to take over someone else’s dream by calling on his knowledge of mythological symbols to tell the dreamer what her dream symbol means. The dreamer doesn't do her own exploration herself but accepts his authority. The interpreter may in fact be projecting his inner contents onto the other’s dreams an masking, with his knowledge, his true intentions. He does not help the dreamer to go through her own process with her own dream, but tells her instead what to think about her own dream. He, for his part, stays within his own authority, causing him to be ‘puffed up’ and distorted with his knowledge, which he projects onto the other’s psyché This can be a dangerous story, repeated many times with many people. In contrast, if we teach people to actualize their dreams, if we give other’s the skills to re-experience their own dreams, we will be freeing ourselves to better live our own lives and not other people’s lives as well. Which is the reason for this inclusion of the dreamworkshop on my Site, in an attempt to help those who seek knowledge from their dreams. Too often I have been asked for dream interpretations and it is obvious to me that many attempt to interpret for others, their dreams. Dreamworkshop will aid with re-experience and actualization of dreams. Consider the analyst who would make behind-the-scenes personality judgements about his clients, but would not say, when asked, how he arrived at those judgements. By what methods and processes was he analysing his clients? Or where in their dreams was the evidence for what he was implying? Did he really know? or was he keeping secret the analytic process by not teaching his clients the skills to determine their own growth and follow the guidance of their own dreams? In contrast, the actualizing approach teaches the methods for individuating right along with the process of individuating. Developing a Dreamwork methodology. Until quite recently, those interested in working with dreams have not seen the need for a dreamwork methodology since the chief method for understanding dreams has been the interpretive one, whether the system be Freudian, Jungian or any other, ‘this symbol means this’. However new ways for working with dreams, which are not interpretive have now been devised, such as Gestalt process or Jungian active imagination. Although no one I know of has so far attempted to pull together material from many sources to create a comprehensive dreamwork methodology. A methodology itself does not have to be particularly tied up with a specific school or psychology. we need to distinguish the methodology of an approach from the context and personality theory of an approach. In the Jungian-Senoi experience, the primary focus is the dream and the specific dreamwork methods which help a dream come alive. We hope to cover many theories and methods in Dreamworkshop, which will present a fully developed and varied approach to dreamwork. Although we recognize that many may not be covered, one notable exception being the Gestalt Method which can give people powerful and direct experiences of a symbol but may not always help strengthen the Ego or integrate the energies released. However the dialogue technique may well get to the same dynamics as Gestalt process work but at a more introverted level, and with the ego keeping it’s own separate identity. We feel that using the Gestalt technique a person may experience a release of archetypal energy, but he or she may not have much ego function left to integrate what is evoked. Producing Specific Changes in Dream States. The chief methods used for producing dream-state changes are:  -Direct Dream re-entry - a method
whereby the person re-enters the dream meditatively and re-experiences
it’s dynamics visually and emotionally, a process which leads to new
developments and resolutions in the re-entered dream. This method also seems to produce profound changes in personality. Guided re-entry, versus self re-entry, seems to produce the most profound changes. -Following the Dream Ego - a
method in which one analyses carefully what the dream ego is doing
and not doing in a dream in order to arrive at the dream ego’s attitudes
underlying such dream behavior. Once the dream ego’s actions and attitudes are clearly delineated, this knowledge can be applied to the waking ego’s actions and attitudes. -Rewriting the Dream - using
the imaginative process to rewrite a dream with more creative responses
on the part of the dream ego and other characters. This method when done regularly with a chosen dream theme, can evoke changes in future dreams consistent with the direction of the dream rewriting. -Dream Incubation - a method
in which pre sleep preparation is used to evoke a dream on a given
subject. -Dialoguing with Dream Images
- this method evokes the conceptual level of dream symbolism and thus
makes one conscious of new levels of possible meanings. -Working in Art, Drama, Movement
and Song. - expressing and sometimes transforming dream energies and
images. -Meditating to the Dream - holding
dream images in daily meditation, often waiting for spontaneous resolution
during meditation or in a new dream. You may feel ready to enter into any of these states of consciousness already or you may still be wondering what the whole point in the process of Dreamworkshop is. Many dreamwork experiences occur regularly, at an everyday level. The methodology we are working with in this issue is based on practises by the Jungian-Senoi school, it may be as well at this stage to give some enlightenment as to some of the experiences you may encounter using Dreamworkshop in this way. Dreamwork Results at the Everyday Level. People learn to deal with current relationship issues such as assertiveness, sexuality, and attractions to partners outside the primary relationship, anger, lack of communication, and psychic awareness. Thus, dreamwork can make an intimate relationship much more honest, open and interesting. It can also lighten the burden created in relationships by the participants’ projection of inner material. In Jungian terms, intimates project their opposite sex characteristics, the anima or animus on each other. But they also may project shadow, or self-rejected parts of themselves, as well as parent-child material. In fact we seem to be capable of projecting onto our partners anything we have not yet integrated. Dreams will reflect fairly clearly what we are currently projecting, and dreamwork will will enable us to deal with the projections without forcing the relationship to take the burden. Clearing the psychic air frees intimates to deal with other relationship issues, and there are always many, even in an arena somewhat free of projected material. Much more can be said about the values of dreamwork in forming meaningful relationships. Dreamwork has proven to be quite effective in processing parent-child dynamics. Basically, leaving home at the age of 18 or whenever we do it is an act of outer courage. About 10 years later, many of us find that, psychologically we never left the original family. Those ten years have been spent reliving the old parent-child syndrome in other adult situations in which our authority figures and intimates take on our parental projections and attitudes while we ourselves remain rather childlike and immature. At about 28, major crises in relationship, vocation, spirituality and mental processes may develop. A second graduation is necessary and may take several years to get through. Working actively with dreams during this period, we notice the parents appearing in various forms which are not always pleasant. And also revealed are our most childlike and defensive behavior. But as we work with this dream material and make creative changes also in outer situations, the dream parents will change, sometimes for the worse, mostly for the better. There will also be many children in the dreams to relate to and nourish. Our own outer children, and how we relate to them, will also be a part of this parental landscape. And, perhaps the most crucial of all, the dreams and dreamwork will reveal to us the life-limiting patterns, attitudes and expectations taught over and over to us by our sometimes insecure and mixed up parents. We will discover most likely that we have indeed been living out our parents’ worst stuff. Shake it off. See it in Dreams. Dialogue with these inner parents. Find your own values and potentials and ways for living life. Get to the anger created in you by having had thrust upon you the unlived and rejected life of your parents and even Grand parents. Needless to say the outer relationships with the parents change significantly through this kind of dreamwork. And, if a parent is no longer alive, they may still be there in dreams for you to continue to relate to and work things out with. Parents may also have repressed feelings toward their children which will show up in dreams. Gradually, graduation from the parental syndrome comes. There are periods of much uncertainty, much suffering, much choice making and much new creative potential. And, when the syndrome is basically worked through, you will emerge into adult life following your own unique direction and destiny. Such a process is deeply moving, and we need to say that it might occur at any period in ones life. The choice is always there to decisively solve the parental problem and move fully into the adult world. Another basic aspect of the Dreamworkshop experience is building the creative ego. The symbol most common to all dreams is the dream ego, the image of ourselves in our dreams. In a dream we can observe the dream ego’s actions and determine what attitudes or personal laws are motivating or governing those actions. Each of us has a part of our personality which functions as ego, as the choice maker and awareness carrier of who we are and what life is all about. But, since we ourselves are ego, we have a difficult time finding out who ego is. It takes ego to observe ego. Dreamwork, then, gives a clear viewpoint from which to observe and work with our own ego’s choice making abilities and attitudes. Are we usually observing the action in the dream? Do we often run from adversarial situations in dreams? The answer is a definitive ‘Yes’ for most of us. In outer, everyday life, do we not also act in a very similar way? And if we are tentative, hesitant, uninvolved and fearful toward much that is life, what must be the quality of our daily living? Dreamworkshop provides a fluid arena for seeing how we do and do not make creative and life- affirming choices. Dreamworkshop is the arena for experimentation and change because the process happens more on the inner than the outer level. Making certain choices in the outer before they have been tested on the inner level can lead to disastrous consequences. In working with our dream ego’s, through such techniques as following the dream ego and dream re-entry, we can try out new ways of creative behavior. We can face adversaries more directly. We can express deep emotions. We can explore new territory and people. We can relate in new ways. Then, when we have become more conscious, we can, in outer life, try out new ways of acting and choosing. The results can be quite impressive, with real and lasting changes occurring in daily life. Good luck with your dreamworkshop, we will continue next month and hopefully guide you into new dimensions of living life to the full. Maélwys /|\ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * “The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.” Rilke . Feedback on your experiences with Dreamworkshop would be greatly appreciated, it’s always nice to know that the work we do is of interest to our readers. Mel...
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