| In
Aboriginal Lore, the Dreamtime is not separate from the
material world but co-exists with it, and can be accessed
in sleep and meditation as a source of inspiration and
wisdom direct from the first hero creator gods who are the
ancestors of modern man. It is the archetype of
dreams themselves. It is a formless state, from
which various Sky Beings emerged to shape the land and
bring culture, law, ritual and religion to the Aborigines.
All Aborigines and not just their mekigars (magic
men) contact the Other-World.
In the modern Western world we
have lost touch with the world of dreams as a rich source
of psychic wisdom beyond our own personal unconscious
mind. If we learn to listen to our dreams they can
give us access to the universal pool of past, present and
perhaps future experience through Jung's Collective
Unconscious theory.
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Creative
Dreaming
The Greek philosopher Aristotle
said, in his Prephesying by Dreams, in 350 BC:
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The most
skilful interpreter of dreams is he who has the
faculty of ovserving resemblances. Anyone
may interpret dreams which are vivid and plain.
But, speaking of resemblances, I mean that dream
presetations are analogous to the forms reflected
in water, as indeed we have already stated.
In the latter case, if the motion in the water be
great, the reflection has no resemblance to its
original, nor do the forms resemble the real
objects. Skilful, indeed, would he be in
interpreting such reflections who could rapidly
discern, and at a glance comprehend, the scattered
and distorted fragments of such forms, so as to
perceive that one of them represents a man, or a
horse. |
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Dream interpretation is therefore
a skill like scrying and divination, through which you can
access this deeper source of wisdom. The key is to
dream creatively - that is, have dreams which are full of
symbols, have several levels of meaning and are rooted in
the wider experience of mankind rather than those which
are, in Aristotle's words, 'vivid and plain' and relate
only to immediate problems and concerns.
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Meaningful
Dreaming
Ring your bed with small scented
candles. Alternate purple for psychic awareness and
pink for peaceful sleep (for example, rose, lavender,
patchouli or jasmine). Or you can use unscented
candles and burn one of these psychic and sleep-inducing
essential oils for a short period in your bedroom before
you go to sleep. Make sure these are extinguished
before you fall asleep. If you feel you might drop
off under these restful conditions it might be wise to set
an alarm clock to wake you up.
Lie quietly enclosed in the
gentle light and focus on a single image in your mind's
eye - a huge pink glass tank containing tiny translucent
fish that float gently before your eyes. Let each
fish become a rainbow bubble that as it leaves the water
expands into a rainbow and floats away.
Blow out the candles alternately
round the circle, beginning with the one furthest away,
the first to send light to your friends and family, the
second for peace to your enemies and those who have hurt
you by word or deed. It is important to empty your
mind and heart of negativity so that your dreams are
positive.
Carry on until you have one
candle left burning.
Gaze now into the light of the
last candle and let it draw nearer and nearer until you
are bathed in the warm. golden glow and pass through into
a glorious rainbow. Let the colours filter round and
through you and, as you close your eyes, let the light
radiate within you. Now let the colours fade and
merge into soft cotton wool clouds of white or pink that
cocoon you as you drift gently wherever your psyche takes
you. In this half-dream state you can create your
own entrance to the world of sleep.
Blow out your final candle and,
in the darkness, recreate in your mind's eye the golden
glow and cotton wool clouds until you sleep.
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Recording
and Interpreting your Dreams
Keep a special dream notebook
next to your bed so that you can record your dreams the
moment you wake, even in the middle of the night.
Note down absolutely every detail you can recall, however
disjointed or surreal.
You may find that the same
symbols occur quite frequently and that you even see an
unusual symbol very shortly afterwards in real life.
Jung called this synchronicity (or meaningful coincidence)
and it indicates that the symbol is relevant to your
present situation.
While you may find that
conventional dream symbolism can offer clues to dream
meanings they only provide a template and should always be
interpreted according to the context and feelings they
evoke within a specific dream.
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Predictive
Dreams
True precognitive or predictive
dreams, whether sent from our own unconscious radar that
can detect danger before it occurs or some disincarnate
force, are far more urgent, real and frequent than
ordinary dreams, and they do not always offer a point
where the danger or potential tragedy can be averted.
A place or incident can be clearly indicated, recognition
of which in the outside world can altar the ending of the
dream in the real world.
However, precognitive dreams can
also be about quite ordinary events and push us in a
direction that may be one we had subconsciously desired.
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Lucid
Dreams
Lucid dreams refer to the state
of psychic dreaming in which the dreamer is awake and she
or he is dreaming but nevertheless does not wake up, in
much the same way as Aborigines enter the Dreamtime.
We have all experienced these dreams, which are sometimes
called 'waking sleep'. It is in this state that dead
relatives may appear and give information not known to the
dreamer or in which the dreamer may travel to strange
lands and other dimensions.
These dreams are described as
'more vivid than dreams'. The dreamer is often
surrounded by a golden light that may remain with him or
her and the dreamer may take control of or change the
dream while still within it. In this state those
close to us may share a dream or pick up each other's
distress, and information gained through these channels
should not be ignored. Stephen LaBerge, founder of
the Lucidity Institute in California, believes that lucid
dreaming, in which symbols and characters can be examined
and interacted with, is a powerful spiritual tool in
taking charge of your destiny.
If you can learn to take control
of your dreams, whether talking to a deceased relative or
a friend, visiting other realms or receiving information
that may be of use in the waking world, then gradually
more and more of your dreams will become lucid and your
nightmares will grow less fearsome.
Robert Louis Stephenson saw what
he called the Little People in his dreams, fairy folk who
gave him access to material for his books that his own
conscious mind could not reach. Perhaps, also, the
material was beyond his personal unconscious and came from
a deeper well of human experience. Night after
night, he dreamed episodes of stories that were told to
him, he said, by the Little People. These formed the
substance of many of his famous books. He also
dreamed the story of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, in
which the figure of Hyde was pursued and took powder which
made him change in the presence of his pursuers.
As well as stories, inventions
have been discovered in dreams. For example, the
American Elias Howe invented the sewing machine in the US
but was unable to find a way of attaching the thread to
the needle. Conscious efforts failed to provide the
answer. One night, however, Elias dreamed he was
being taken to his execution and noticed that his guards
had spears with holes near the top. Within his dream
he made the connection, quite irrelevantly in view of his
impending execution, that would solve the problem of the
needle on the sewing machine. He woke himself before
the execution and the next morning the sewing machine was
perfected.
Where the psychic or
psychological, innate creative or divine or cosmic
inspiration through the dream state begin and end cannot
be measured. What is crucial is to access this well
of unconscious wisdom in which answers to all kinds of
problems can be found. And whether we do it is less
important than how we do it.
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Changing
Dreams
Spontaneous dreaming is a vital
part of our dream processes and to try to direct every
dream is counter-productive and may leave you feeling
tired or irritable in the morning. So you should aim
for three lucid or controlled dreams a week at the most
and some weeks only one. Certainly try to change
your dreams only if you are feeling positive, as fears and
negativity are best left to unravel even at the expense of
the odd nightmare. Indeed you may sometimes need to
see a dream through, and face whatever the crisis is, as
part of your creative dream work, in order to overcome
your fears and leave you ready for the next day.
- Begin with day-dreaming,
letting a scene unfold. Consciously change a
detail, the colour of the flowers, the nature of an
encounter, beginning with the physical and gradually
changing negative people and responses into positive
ones.
- As you wake from a nap or
sleep, before you are fully awake move back into the
dream, as you did when influencing the content of your
dreams, and rerun the dream so that first the physical
details and then your reactions become more positive.
- Create a dream beginning as
you drift into sleep and, when you wake, shape the
dream to fit with the dream beginning.
- Influencing the outcome of a
dream and keeping control in the middle of a dream can
sometimes be achieved by using pre-arranged signals
from natural sources. Whenever you feel afraid,
worried or angry in real life, hold a particular
crystal (perhaps a clear crystal quartz), a flower in
season, a silver ring, a protective medallion such as
a St Christopher, a small white china dove symbolising
peace, or a row of beads such as amber that have a
link with the unconscious world and consciously
quieten you.
- Use the same symbol in your
day-dreams and keep it by your bed at night.
- Hold it as you drift into your
dreams and in time it will become a talisman,
triggering your power to create change and to protect
yourself from harm in your dreams.
- Sleep with it close to your
pillow and you may find you wake in the morning
holding it and that it has featured almost as a
magickal token in your dreams, enabling you to
overcome danger or fear and open doors.
- Once you have associated the
crystal with your dreams, tell yourself before
sleeping that you will use the crystal to change the
dream, especially if it becomes frightening, or to
enable you to talk to people or travel in your dreams.
- Alternatively, you may use a
particular word such as Shalom (Hebrew for
Peace), Blessed Mother/Father, Isis or even the Hindu
and Buddhist OM as a chant - whatever seems to evoke
in you a feeling of positive power. Use the word
as a mantra in real-life situations, in your
day-dreams, and when you wake. If you say it
last thing at night before you drift off to sleep it
will gradually come to be a trigger whereby you
recognise your own power within your dreams.
- If you want to dream of a
lover, follow the age-old custom of placing a love
token or his/her picture beneath your pillow; for
travel a tiny silver charm of a plane or boat; for
money a coin. And you may find that, not only do
you dream of your lover or travelling to exotic
places, but creative solutions also come to you in
sleep that can help you realise your plans the outer
world. Like the Aborigines, you can, by creating
your own Dreamtime, bring past and present, the
archetypes and their earthly reflections, closer
together and so be able to influence your own destiny.
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