Dream Visions

Dream Interpretation Books | BYB

I have never much liked dream interpretation books. You know the kind: “If you see black dog, it means…”

Experts and personal experience both say that the same symbols mean different things to different people. They even mean different things to the same person at different times.

Dream symbols are culturally based. So the same symbol may mean a lot to people in one culture, and nothing in another.

Some of the dream books I’ve seen are clearly old and out of date, featuring objects that modern people would never dream about, because they are not part of our lives. Maybe our grandparents (or theirs) would have dreamed about gaslights, or ice delivery men, but we would not.

Most of the old books are quite sexist, and many contain racial stereotyping that is just unacceptable today. So they are not only useless but also unpleasant.

As I have written here before, the dream studies and research done over the last few decades by psychologists and other clinical researchers have shown that whatever symbol system you feed to your subconscious mind—whether consciously studied or absorbed from your culture—will be used to communicate with you in dreams.

So another way to look at dream interpretation books (and people, courses, and web sites) is this: Are these the symbols and meanings that you want to store in the deepest part of your psyche and use to communicate with your inner self? In some cases, the answer would clearly be, “No!”

On the other hand, I’ve been thinking lately that if you do find a set of symbols that you like, a dream interpretation scheme that you are happy with, why not deliberately study and absorb it?

Why not chose a set of symbols that will be beautiful, meaningful, and uplifting for you? Why not choose a set of symbols that are relevant to your own life? And then study them till you make them your own?

Giving your inner self a large vocabulary of meaningful, relevant, and beautiful symbols with which to construct your dreams might make your dreams not only easier to interpret but more pleasant, too.

Sounds like it could be a real blessing, a blessing that you can give yourself. What do you think? Please share your thoughts.

Meanwhile, I hope you are blessed with beautiful dreams that are meaningful and helpful for you.

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Senoi Dreamwork | Blog Your Blessings

I’m still reading Creative Dreaming, the wonderful dreamwork book by Patricia Garfield, Ph.D., that I reviewed in a previous post.

I keep finding more and more good information in it. In particular, there is a whole chapter on Senoi dreamwork that is worth the price of the book all on its own.

The Senoi are often mentioned in connection with dreamwork, but often without much or any explanation of who they are and why they are important. The Senoi are a tribal people of what is now called Malaysia.

Back in the 1930s and 1940s, the Senoi were studied in their homeland, while they still lived in their traditional way. What the anthropologists discovered was startling!

The Senoi were a peaceful people who lived in the midst of warring tribes, and everyone let them alone! Despite their entirely peaceful ways, they were considered to be powerful magicians by surrounding tribes. So no one in the other tribes wanted to mess with the Senoi.

What was the source of their power? Senoi life was centered on dreams and dreamwork!

Each morning everyone in the extended family shared their dreams. They helped each other interpret their dreams, and they trained their children in dreamwork.

From babyhood on, Senoi were trained to control their dreams and to use what they gained from dreams to live a happy, peaceful, creative, and fulfilling life.

If a Senoi child had a nightmare, she or he was coached in turning the nightmare around, killing and/or befriending the dream enemy, and demanding a gift. The gift must be a song, poem, artwork, play, or invention that could be brought back and shared with the village.

Senoi dreamers learned to pursue pleasure, including sex, and to enjoy adventures in their dreams. Always, they were to bring back creative gifts to share with the community.

The most famous writing about the Senoi was published in the late 1940s by an anthropologist named Kilton Stewart. What he had learned from the Senoi (and learned to practice himself) was so amazing that others began to attack his work. They said it could not be possible, or true.

Unfortunately by then Kilton Stewart was dead. His mentor, another anthropologist had also died without leaving many notes.

Others went to Malaysia and were told by authorities that Stewart was wrong. By then, according to Garfield, the Senoi had been forced out of their ancestral lands by the new Malaysian government and forcibly resettled in camps, where they were forced into lifestyles that destroyed their old ways.

The new government did not want it to be known that they had so persecuted and oppressed such a peaceful and creative people. So the researchers who had set out to debunk Kilton Stewart were easily convinced that there had never been a Senoi society like the one Stewart so vividly described.

Patricia Garfield had written about the Senoi and had tried their methods. She knew that they worked.

Determined to find out the truth, Garfield went to Malaysia herself and persevered until she found independent guides and translators who would go with her. She sought out the remaining Senoi and interviewed them carefully.

She describes that adventure in her book. Kilton Stewart was fully vindicated by the testimony of older Senoi who described their traditional life in their old homeland exactly as he had. Stewart was right!

For more on exactly how to use the Senoi dreamwork methods to enhance your own life, and that of your family and friends, you really should read the book, Creative Dreaming.

I feel very blessed to have found Creative Dreaming, and I think you will, too.

Creative Dreaming | Blog Your Blessings

When I started working with dreams, years ago, Patricia Garfield was one of the two best authors on dreamwork that I found. She is a clinical psychologist who also works with her own dreams.

Currently I’m reading the second edition of her book, Creative Dreaming, and I highly recommend it.

Garfield’s books are different from those of Robert Moss (Conscious Dreaming, Dreamgates, and Dreaming True). She spends a bit more time explaining the research that has been done on dreams and the methods that she recommends for getting/shaping the dreams you want.

She writes very clearly and simply, so her books are fun to read and easy to understand. I also think that she is a bit more detailed in explaining how to work with dreams. So it seems easier to understand her methods and put them into practice.

Garfield gives great practical advice on transforming nightmares into pleasant dreams. She also has a lot of interesting information on how to use dreams to get answers. And she devotes a whole chapter to Native American beliefs about dreams and visions, and what we can learn from their methods.

This is a great book, and I’ll probably write more about it later. Meanwhile, give it a try, and let me know how it works for you.

Creative Dreaming was published several years ago, so you should be able to find it in the library. You can definitely find it on Amazon, where I got mine.

Sorry I haven’t blogged for awhile. I got a new job—but with a long commute. Then I got sick. I’ll get back on schedule with blogging as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, I feel really blessed to have a great job, working with fun people.

Conscious Dreaming by Robert Moss | BYB

Conscious Dreaming by Robert Moss is currently my favorite book on dreams and dreamwork. You can see that my copy is pretty battered. I not only use it; I also carry it around and share it with others.

Born in Australia, Moss has recorded, studied and followed his dreams for decades. His dreams led him to England and then to the United States, from a career as a successful journalist and best-selling novelist to a teacher of dreamwork and author of dream books.

His dreams even led him to buy a particular house in a particular town in Upstate New York. Then they led him to Native American elders who could help interpret them. The elders told him that he was dreaming the traditional shamanic dreams of their people.

Moss’s books are clearly and simply written, easy to read, and filled with vivid, true stories of people and their dreams. There are lucid dreams, shamanic dreams, and dreams of future events.

Best of all, he explains clearly how to work with our dreams, how to help others interpret their dreams, and how to work actively with dreams, going back into the dreams to get more information. It is amazing how so much information and instruction can be so entertaining to read.

Moss and his dream groups use a nine-step program for understanding and working dreams. They use contemporary techniques derived from indigenous cultures around the world. His method helps you understand your past, shape your future, get in touch with your deepest desires, and receive guidance from your higher self.

Moss believes that dreams prepare us for future events, so that we can avoid disasters or at least be prepared to cope with traumatic events. And he tells some compelling stories that seem to prove his point.

His skills as both a top journalist and a best-selling author show through in his writing. It is clear and easy to understand. You won’t notice his skill perhaps—this is not showy writing—but you will enjoy the book more and understand the concepts more easily because of it.

He takes ancient wisdom and methods that have stood the test of time and makes them easy for modern people to understand and use. That is quite an accomplishment, and he can do that because he has experienced it himself.

Robert Moss is not just reporting on other people’s ideas and experiences. He is a master of dreamwork (though very unassuming about it), and he is able to explain it so that we can understand it.

After reading any of Robert Moss’s dream books (and you’ll be happy to know there are others), you will probably want to gather a few people into a group to work with dreams together. By following his instructions, you can do that—and have fun doing it.

If you do start your own dream group, or if you have one now that you work with, please stop by and leave a comment to let us know what you are doing and how it is going.

I hope to someday be able to take one of Robert Moss’s dream workshops. Now that would be blessing! Meanwhile, I feel wonderfully blessed just to be reading his books.

Here’s Something to Dream On | BYB

Recently I got an email message about a special “Dreaming” issue of a wonderful art zine called Astarte’s Mega-Zine. You may not have heard of it. It’s fairly new and probably not on the newsstands. But the writers include well-known artists and authors such as Lucia Cappaccione.

In looking at past issues I have recognized most of them from their bylines in national magazines. I’ve even taken workshops from some of them.

I’m very excited that this innovative visual and written arts publication is devoting a whole issue to dreaming. If you go to the website and see what the issue includes, I think you will be, too.

Just as studying symbol systems helps your subconscious mind communicate with you, viewing and reading vivid imagery—visual and written—can also enrich your dreams.

Following is the entire message, links and all. I didn’t want to wait till I got my copy of the magazine to tell you about it.

We all need dreaming in our lives.

When I set the theme for issue 5 of Astarte’s Mega-Zine as
“Dreaming”, I never expected the enthusiastic response I got
from the Go-Make-Art Panel of Experts and other contributors.
Wow. Have we ever got some inspiring reading and projects
for you!

http://www.Go-Make-Art.com

Also new on our site this month:

- Jacqueline Sullivan audio interview
- Hanna Andersson art in The Spotlight
- New Panel of Experts members: Seena Frost & Clare Goodwin

… and the Dreaming issue, of course.

Check it out:

http://www.go-make-art.com/products/astarte.html

If you aren’t a subscriber yet, perhaps it is time.

Go-Make-Art. It’s good for you!

Stacey
Go-Make-Art.com

PO Box 801
Marshfield, Wisconsin
54449
US

I hope you will take a look at the Astarte’s Mega-Zine website, order the “Dreaming” issue (or subscribe), and share your experiences after reading it and absorbing the imagery.

When the email arrived, announcing this “Dreaming” ezine, I considered it a blessing. I hope you do, too.

Let us know how (or if) it affects your dreams.

Lucid Dreams in 30 Days

Another handy book on lucid dreaming is Lucid Dreams in 30 Days by Keith Harary, Ph.D., and Pamela Weintraub. Published in 1989 by St. Martin’s Press, it is a slender paperback that sold for about $6 originally. You can still buy it on Amazon.com.

Dr. Harary is a psychologist, internationally known for his research on altered states of consciousness. He has written dozens of scientific and popular articles and a couple of dozen books.

Pamela Weintraub, was a senior editor at Omni magazine and a contributor to the health and psychology sections of Discover, Ms., Longevity, and other national magazines.

The book offers a complete, step-by-step plan for learning to dream lucidly. You can work your way through the program in 30 days or work at your own pace, taking as long as you want to.

The text is clear, simple, and easy to understand. The authors waste no time getting to the point.

Yet they provide all the background information you need to do the dream exercises they provide. In fact, they cover an amazing amount of ground in such a small book, and they do it well.

Each chapter has a section for each day of the program. Each section is several pages long, with stories, explanations, background information and dream exercises. The chapters and sections are as follows:

Week 1 Waking Up to Your Dreams

Day 1-2 Dream Recall

Day 3 Temple of Dreams

Day 4 Vision Quest

Day 5 Life is But a Dream

Day 6 Dream Rehearsal

Day 7 Edge of Consciousness

Week 2 Lucid Dreaming

Day 8 Reality Check

Day 9 I Love Lucidity

Day 10 Dreamer’s Guide to the Universe

Day 11 Who’s Flying Now?

Day 12 Whirl Without End

Day 13 Dream Weaving

Day 14 Free Dreaming

Week 3 High Lucidity

Day 15 Altered States

Day 16 The Adventures of Gumby

Day 17 High Lucidity

Day 18 Winds of Change

Day 19 Shifting Sands

Day 20 Trading Places

Day 21 Free Dreaming

Week 4 Creative Consciousness

Day 22 Dream Therapist

Day 23 The Healer Within

Day 24 Double Vision

Day 25 Dream Lovers

Day 26 Forbidden Fantasies

Day 27 Extended Awareness

Day 29-30 Toward Higher Consciousness

What I don’t like about this book is the authors’ seeming lack of awareness of how our dreams affect others. They also don’t quite seem to realize that encouraging people to focus on their sexual fantasies about people they know and see every day could turn into a dangerous obsession.

These authors know the techniques, but they seem a little weak on the ethics and metaphysics of dreaming. Lucid dreaming can be very powerful. Please don’t do anything in your dreams that would be unethical in daily life.

Oddly enough, the authors discuss the possibility of psychic dreaming in the very next section, including the research indicating that people communicate in their dreams. Yet the implications never seem to have sunk in. They just don’t seem to get it!

Research has shown that everyone is psychic to some degree, though most do not realize it until some event brings it to their attention. And you certainly aren’t likely to know if they are psychic, even if they do know it.

In North America people generally keep such things to themselves if they are smart. In some parts of the U.S. letting other people know that you are psychic could have serious legal and economic repercussions. You could be ostracized, lose your livelihood, even lose custody of your children.

So you may not know that the object of your fantasies feels your attention on them. They may become aware of it through your dream visit or through your fantasies in preparation for the dream. And a lucid dream or out-of-body visit from you may be extremely unwelcome or even damaging to them.

Lucid dreaming may be a great way to commune with your spouse while separated by business or military duty. But it is a very bad idea to use lucid dreaming to indulge in sexual fantasies about your neighbor, a coworker or your boss’s wife. It could also have practical, unpleasant, real-life repercussions for you.

Needless to say, indulging violent or nonconsensual fantasies, especially with underage or helpless partners, is just asking for very, very bad karma. That is to say, you would be damaging your own soul.

At the very least, the concentration you need to do to make such things happen in your dreams could create or strengthen an obsession, making it harder to refrain from acting out the fantasy in real life. That is dangerous!

Except for that weakness, Lucid Dreams in 30 Days is a useful and interesting book and a real bargain. I recommend giving it a try.

Stephen LaBerge’s Lucid Dreaming Set

Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., popularized the term lucid dreaming back in the early 1980s with the success of his best-selling book, Lucid Dreaming.

He is not the only lucid dream researcher, and as we have seen with the Tibetans, he is certainly not the first. But LaBerge is the most successful at communicating the idea of lucid dreaming in a way that people in Europe and the United States can understand. LaBerge gets people excited about trying lucid dreaming.

Since the original best-selling book, LaBerge has written several others on lucid dreaming. I’ve been reading a book-and-CD set of his, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life, published by Sounds True in 2004.

It is hard to evaluate lucid dreaming CDs from just listening to them. What matters is how well they work. And it is hard to know whether or not they work.

If you are dedicated and focused enough to play a lucid dreaming CD every night, you could probably learn to do lucid dreaming without the CD. And once you can do lucid dreaming, it it hard to tell whether a new CD would be helpful to someone else.

This set is inexpensive and beautifully produced. It lists for $19.99, but I got it for $13.50 on Amazon, and you may find a good used copy for even less. So it is a great value for the money and well worth trying.

Laberge has a good reputation in his field. He has been teaching people to do lucid dreaming for quite awhile. Chances are he knows what he is doing.

If you have used this set, I would love to know what you think of it. Please leave a comment and share your opinion and experience. Meanwhile, as soon as I have results to report back, I’ll let you know.

Dream Wisdom | Blog Your Blessings

According to dream researchers and therapists such as Strephon Kaplan-Williams and Tenzin Wangyal, the dream self is wiser than the waking self. The dream self knows when the body is weakening or getting sick, when jobs or relationships are becoming toxic, when accidents are about to happen.

I am grateful today for the wisdom of dreams and for the tools to learn to access and interpret that wisdom, including books, recordings, therapies and other practices, ancient knowledge and modern research, and the wise dreamer inside of each of us.

An Abundance of Dream Books | Blog Your Blessings!

I’m reading a wonderful book on dream therapy right now, The Elements of Dreamwork, by Strephon Kaplan-Williams. I will review it and discuss parts of it in more detail in future posts, but for now, you can get it on Amazon and read it if you’re interested. Sadly it is out of print, but you can pick up a copy for just pennies (plus shipping.) I highly recommend it.

I also have several more dream books to discuss on this blog. If we could only buy time along with books….

Anyway, I’m grateful for great books and a place to share them. So I guess the Internet, WordPress, and the dream books are this Sunday’s blessings.

Have a safe New Year’s Eve and a wonderful New Year!

P.S. Book reviews and discussions coming soon.

Dream Information for All | Blog Your Blessings

In the last two generations there has been a huge amount of scientific research into dreaming. Researchers have studied both the physiology and the subjective experience of dreaming. Therapists have kept careful notes and published their findings from thousands (millions?) of patients.

One of the interesting findings is that the kinds of dreams we have (the metaphors and meanings of symbols) are shaped by our culture, our beliefs, and the school of therapy that the therapist believes in. One psychologist documented how her dreams used Freudian metaphors when she was in Freudian analysis, Jungian symbolism when studied by a Jungian therapist, and so on.

The point of this is that there is now so much good information about dreaming that you can find a wealth of good books, CDs, tapes, DVDs, and such on line and in local bookstores and public libraries. You can find information on modern dream research. You can also find formerly secret traditional dream lore from many cultures around the world, ancient and modern, indigenous and mixed.

We are indeed blessed to live in a time when so much scientific, traditional, and esoteric dream knowledge is easily available to us. May we use it wisely!