January 2008 Issue

In This Issue

Feature Article:
Dream Management
Dreams in Mythology:
Morpheus, God of Dreams
Famous Dreams:
Mark Twain's Dream
Reader's Dream Analysis:
The Game
Reader Comments:

From The Editor:

Happy New Year, Upcoming Issues

=========================

This Month's Quote

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake
—H.D.Thoreau 1849

=========================

H A P P Y N E W Y E A R

=========================
Feature Article

This is a rather long article, so I've split it into two parts. The second part will be continued in next month's issue.

Dream Management

To understand the usefulness of creative dreaming and dream management fully, we must have a basic comprehension of the meaning and function of all types of dreams. We need to have some kind of idea as to what their purpose is for us, from both a psychological and spiritual point of view. How can we use our dreams to help us manage our everyday lives? Can we make a radical shift in our lives and change them for the better and not make use of dreams? Certainly we can ascertain that dreams will often highlight our innermost fears or will warn of impending sickness. Surely we can use them in other ways to learn about ourselves and to maximize the potential within. It isn't enough to remark on the fact that something is happening in a dream –we also need to know why. What was the rationale behind the dream? To do this we must be able to remember our dreams.

To be able to control dreams, we first have to define what ‘control’ actually means on an individual level. You may decide that you wish to stop having bad dreams. You may wish to use dreams to make something happen in ordinary everyday life. You may wish to have your dreams solve a problem, such as a personal or business decision that needs to be made.

For the purpose of this article, the definition of control is simply “the potential to be able to influence, either voluntarily or involuntarily, what happens.” This suggests first of all, that you can influence your dreams through lucid dreaming and through dream incubation (pre-sleep request). Secondly, this suggests that you can have an influence on your everyday life through the management of your dreams. Your actions will have an effect on what occurs. However, you do need to differentiate between voluntary and involuntary control. Voluntary control means that you decide you want something in particular to happen and take steps to cause it. Involuntary control refers to unintended consequences of your actions. An example of voluntary control in a dream is to confront a figure within a nightmare and to bring it into submission. Involuntary control is to wake up from the nightmare, not dealing with the issue at hand.

It’s possible to begin to control dreams even before you enter into the dream state. The simplest way to learn control is to try to choose the topic of the dream. This is a form of dream incubation. Often, initial attempts at dream incubation are unsuccessful, or inconclusive. With practice, however, you will begin to see that it's what the unconscious has understood the topic to be. For example, if you request a dream to show you the way forward, you may have a dream in which the image is of you playing ball with a dictionary. The dreaming self (or unconscious) has interpreted your request for the way “forward” as “for word.”

Another aspect of dream control is to try to influence the setting of the dream. Normally such attempts have had little success –it’s almost as though the dreaming self needs to choose its own scenario to get its message across to the conscious mind. It’s a total mystery as to what determines the original setting and situation where one finds oneself in a dream, unless it's the search for information and psychological balance. Some dream workers contend that dream control can only occur within the framework of the original dream setting. That is, any inappropriate action we may attempt to force upon the setting is blocked.

This line of thought doesn’t allow for the inexplicable and sudden changes which may occur in the ordinary dream scenario. Often these spontaneous changes alert the dreamer to the fact that he or she is dreaming and opens up the possibility of dream manipulation. We do have the ability to exercise what has been called concurrent control –the ability to decide on, or change, the course of a dream as it happens. We can choose to change a dream setting at will.

Being successful in creating a dream scenario doesn’t necessarily mean that one has the ability to control the developing story of events in a dream. It’s only with fairly comprehensive training that we’re able to make adjustments to more than one component of the dream. It’s the observer part of the dreamer, the self-awareness, which experiences and assesses the events happening. There’s some evidence, however, that highly motivated people can consciously choose to dream about their chosen subjects. Post-hypnotic suggestions have also been used to bring about particular dream goals. In controlling dreams there are inevitably certain questions which arise:

• Do we have more control over our experiences in dreaming than in waking?
• Can we program or control our dreams?
• Does controlling dreams affect our waking life?

The answer to the first question is ‘No, not consciously.’ It’s only when we choose to work consciously with our dreams and to impose an element of control on them, that we can allow ourselves to make comparisons between our waking and sleeping selves. In the waking state, we’re often consciously imposing controls and inhibitions, which means that we make decisions in the light of what we “know” to be real; in the dreaming state, the subconscious rationalizes its decisions only in the light of the unfolding events of the dream story.

To the question of programming, the answer is “yes, with practice and belief in the ability.” As noted above, it’s possible to choose, in our waking state, the topic of the dream, although not necessarily the course of dream events or the actual dream scenario. Because dreams are entirely created by the inner self, it should be possible to experience anything imaginable. However, it may be that we fail because we aren't able to summon up enough creativity. We may not have enough emotional investment in the process to enable us to create suitable images or energy patterns. Some dream workers also argue that there are physiological limitations on the ability to control dream imagery.

In answer to the third question, there’s an interrelationship between the dream state and waking life. It is, in fact, two-way traffic. Just as our waking life affects our dream time (day residue), so also we can use the information and images we receive from our dreams in various creative ways in our waking time.

There are many dream workers who disagree with the principle that dreams should be controlled in any way whatsoever. However, because you, as a dreamer, are not in a laboratory setting, you may want to experiment and to try out various ways of controlling and managing aspects of your dream life. It’s worth remembering that even now opinions vary as to why we dream, so it’s more than probable that your own beliefs will play a significant part in how much control or what sort of control you will impose.

If you believe that dreaming helps to balance your psychological makeup in some way, you’ll not wish to impose too much control on the dreaming process. On the other hand, if you believe that the lucidity reached in dreams can help you gain a measure of peace and tranquility and even bliss (as believed by Tibetan Buddhists), then you may choose to experiment with more control. Equally, if you believe that the dreaming self holds within itself answers which are not consciously available (as I believe), then you will wish to access this material through dreams.

The rich imagery which is available to us in dreams, both lucid and otherwise, means that we must learn to make use of two states of awareness. These are of prime importance in the management and understanding of dreams. Many people feel that the state of alertness which occur just before (hypnogogic) and just after (hypnopompic) sleep are akin to, or maybe even be, creative (lucid) dreaming.

To some extent this is true, in that they are both times in which the material available to the dreaming self is presented for review. In the state of lucidity, one is aware that one is dreaming, while in the hypnogogic state one is aware that one is not. Some dream interpreters tend to feel that the hypnogogic state is very similar to the creative dreaming state.

The hypnopompic state occurs just as we are waking up from sleep and is one in which we are often able to retain the images of the dream state, to remember the ‘great’ dreams or anything which we consider to be important. In this state, the images are not necessarily connected with one another but pop up at random, and very quickly disappear. Only if we train ourselves to remember and work with the images do we make use of this state. It's often in this condition that the dreamer hears their name being called –the voice is often accepted as that of a relative who has passed over, or by some as that of their Spirit Guide or Higher Self. If someone cannot accept that this is feasible, they will often disregard this highly creative time and lose a great deal of information. With practice, it can be a time when wishes and desires can be given substance and brought into reality.

The hypnogogic state is one which occurs just as we are drifting off to sleep. As the untrained dreamer settles into the sleep state, images occur apparently without any particular order. Such images might be of tranquil scenes or beautiful landscapes, archetypal images representing such things as the four elements, shamanistic animals and spirit faces –familiar or otherwise can also occur. This is akin to the random scanning which goes on when a graphic artist selects pictures to illustrate a particular theme. It’s doubtful if the dreamer necessarily knows or recognizes any of the images. I, more often than not, have a parade of faces flash in my mind, one after the other. I haven't yet recognized any of them. If I were any kind of artist, I would try to sketch them. It would be very, very interesting to see if I notice or recognize any of the faces during my waking life during the following day/s.

As the dreamer begins to accept more responsibility for his/her dreams, perhaps incubating some, the images become more pertinent. The more the dreamer becomes “open” to such images, the quicker the mind responds to the inner images which are “the stuff of which dreams are made.” The images become more meaningful and detailed, tending to appear more rapidly when their validity is accepted. When the dreamer accepts the images as part of the subconscious, lucidity becomes attainable.

It’s sometimes worthwhile to use straightforward dream symbolism to make sense of the figures and shapes which can appear in the hypnogogic state. During the semi-dream state and the fluctuation of awareness of the hypnogogic period, images may be transient by nevertheless offer food for thought and a way of getting rid of remaining traces of everyday existence (known as day residue). This leaves the mind free to deal with the more meaningful images which can then be released through either creative or conventional dreaming. It seems that the mind is more receptive to “programming” in both the hypnopompic and hypnogogic states.

The faculties of clairvoyance, clairaudience and precognition can all begin to become apparent during the hypnogogic period. During this time, images often become very well defined, auditory fragments are heard and the individual “knows” something which was previously unknown.

Dreams and altered states of consciousness (ASC) seem to open up channels of communication with the supernatural. Hallowell, working specifically with the Saulteaux tribe, has shown that their dreams enhance everyday life, confirming or verifying the belief system by which they live. This helps them to make various adjustments to their day-to-day experiences.

Where ASCs are accepted as normal (generally in “primitive” cultures), dreams and creative dreams form an integral part of the development of the individual. Bourguignon, Hallowell and Wallace, in their various researches have discovered the point that lucid dreams are used to expand experiences and enhance the development of the self. By studying “primitive” peoples and their use of dreams and/or drugs, we gain fresh insight into the workings of our own subconscious minds. This is backed up by research into hallucinogenic drugs by people such as Timothy Leary and La Bere in the late 1960s.

Lucid dreams, hallucinations and spirit visitation represent only three aspects of a whole series of altered states of consciousness where certain steps and changes can be acknowledged. In most human societies, the handling of these three aspects has been culturally accepted. It’s only in “advanced or sophisticated” Western society that widespread acceptance of the requirements of the inner self has not been manifested.

The second half of this article will continue in next month's issue.

=========================
Dreams in Mythology

Morpheus, God of Dreams

MORPHEUS (Morpheus), the son of Sleep, and the god of dreams. The name signifies the fashioner or moulder, because he shaped or formed the dreams which appeared to the sleeper. (Ov. Met. xi. 635.)

Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.

MORPHEUS was the leader of the Oneiroi, the gods or spirits (daimones) of dreams. He manifested himself in the dreams of kings and rulers in the likeness of men as a messenger of the gods.

Morpheus was probably equated with the Dream-Spirit which Zeus sent to visit Agamemnon in the Iliad.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 11. 585 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.):

"[Hera commands Iris to summon a Dream :] `Iris, my voice's trustiest messenger, hie quickly to the drowsy hall of Somnus [Hypnos], and bid him send a Dream of Ceyx drowned to break the tidings to [his wife] Alcyone.' Then Iris, in her thousand hues enrobed traced through the sky her arching bow and reached the cloud-hid palace of the drowsy king [Hypnos god of Sleep] . . . Around him everywhere in various guise lie empty Somnia [Oneiroi or Dreams], countless as ears of corn at harvest time or sands cast on the shore or leaves that fall upon the forest floor.

There Iris entered, brushing the Somnia (Dreams) aside, and the bright sudden radiance of her robe lit up the hallowed place; slowly the god his heavy eyelids raised, and sinking back time after time, his languid drooping head nodding upon his chest, at last he shook himself out of himself, and leaning up he recognized her and asked why she came, and she replied : `Somnus, quietest of the gods, Somnus, peace of all the world, balm of the soul, who drives care away, who gives ease to weary limbs after the hard day's toil and strength renewed to meet the morrow's tasks, bid now thy Dreams, whose perfect mimicry matches the truth, in Ceyx's likeness formed appear in Trachis to Alcyone and feign the shipwreck and her dear love drowned. So Juno [Hera] orders.'

Then, her task performed, Iris departed, for she could no more endure the power of Somnus, as drowsiness stole seeping through her frame, and fled away back o'er the arching rainbow as she came. The father Somnus chose from among his sons, his thronging thousand sons, one who in skill excelled to imitate the human form; Morpheus his name, than whom none can present more cunningly the features, gait and speech of men, their wonted clothes and turn of phrase. He mirrors only men; another forms the beasts and birds and the long sliding snakes. The gods have named him Icelos; here below the tribe of mortals call him Phobetor. A third, excelling in an art diverse, is Phantasos; he wears the cheating shapes of earth, rocks, water, trees--inanimate things.

To kings and chieftains these at night display their phantom features; other dreams will roam among the people, haunting common folk. All these dream -brothers the old god passed by and chose Morpheus alone to undertake Thaumantias' [Iris’] commands; then in sweet drowsiness on his high couch he sank his head to sleep. Soon through the dewy dark on noiseless wings flew Morpheus and with brief delay arrived at Trachis town and, laying his wings aside, took Ceyx‘s [ghostly] form and face and, deathly pale and naked, stood beside the poor wife‘s bed. His beard was wet and from his sodden hair the sea-drips flowed; then leaning over her, weeping, he said : `Poor, poor Alcyone! Do you know me, your Ceyx? Am I changed in death? Look! Now you see, you recognize - ah! Not your husband but your husband‘s ghost. Your prayers availed me nothing. I am dead. Feed not your heart with hope, hope false and vain. A wild sou‘wester in the Aegaeum sea, striking my ship, in its huge hurricane destroyed her. Over my lips, calling your name--calling in vain--the waters washed. These tidings no dubious courier brings, no vague report: myself, here, shipwrecked, my own fate reveal. Come, rise and weep! Put on your mourning! Weep! Nor unlamented suffer me to join the shadowy spirits of Tartara (the Underworld).’ So Morpheus spoke, spoke too in such a voice as she must think her husband‘s (and his tears she took for true), and used her Ceyx‘ gestures. Asleep, she moaned and wept and stretched her arms to hold him, but embraced the empty air. `Oh wait for me!’ she cried, `Why haste away? I will come too.’ Roused by her voice‘s sound and by her husband‘s ghost, now wide awake, she looked . . . but found him nowhere . . . She cried, `. . . He is dead, shipwrecked and drowned. I saw him, knew him, tried to hold him--as he vanished--in my arms. He was a ghost, but yet distinct and clear, truly my husband‘s ghost, though to be sure his face was changed, his shining grace was gone. Naked and deathly pale, with dripping hair, I saw him--woe is me!" - Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.585

=========================
Famous Dreams

Mark Twain

At age 23, before he became famous as Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens dreamed he saw a metal coffin resting on two chairs in his sister's sitting room. As he approached the coffin, he saw the body of his brother Henry. One detail in particular caught his attention: a bouquet of white flowers, with one crimson flower in the centre, lying on Henry's chest. A few days later, a Mississippi riverboat blew up and many of the passengers and crew were killed. Henry had been one of the crew members.

When Clemens rushed to the scene, in Memphis, he found his brother lying unconscious on a mattress in an improvised hospital. There was some hope that his brother would pull through, but six days later, he died. When Clemens arrived at the room which was being used as a temporary morgue, he found that most of the dead were lying in plain wooden coffins, but there was one metal coffin lying on two chairs. Henry's struggle to survive had inspired such interest among the Memphis ladies that they had taken up a collection and bought a metal coffin for him. As Clemens approached his brother's casket, an elderly lady entered the room carrying a large bouquet of white flowers with one crimson red rose in their centre, and laid them on Henry's chest.

=========================
A Reader's Dream

Title: The Game

Date: Feb. 26, 2001
Time: ?
Category: School
Series:
Day: ?
Sleep Cycle: ?
Dreamer: 39 year old female

I was in school (university)and we were all in the Wenjack Theatre [large lecture hall]. It was New Years. Everyone stood up and yelled "happy new year."

There was a reception desk out in the hall. It was dark.

We had to play a hide-and-seek game where we had to hide in parts of the brain. The professor was looking for someone to begin. I wanted him to chose Kate, but he chose me to be the one to hide with this guy in a Scream costume.

I was writing about places we could hide that were involved in the attention regions of the brain --the hippocampus, parietal lobe. I was upset that I was picked. I felt embarrassed. I was writing in yellow highlighter.

We chose finally to hide in the Superior Colliculus and the small section of the temporal lobe. I clearly remember the shape of the region.

NOTE: I had been studying the attention chapter of my neuro text before going to bed.


Analysis


The opening scene or setting of the dream is a school (university = higher learning) and the dreamer is in a large lecture hall will other students. Schools generally represent lessons learned or to be learned, or knew information to be received or assimilated.

Note: I know this dreamer, and I know that at the time of this dream, she was attending university to upgrade her degree, so it wasn't a past school days type of dream.

There is a time reference in that she notes that it is New Years. This may represent that she is embarking upon a new life cycle or a new phase of her life. Something new is obviously being referred to.

She finds the reception desk, hall and darkness important enough to note, which suggests that these elements are very relevant to the overall interpretation of this dream. As well, there is a double emphasis on the "hall" symbol. Darkness often times represents the unconscious or the hidden or unknown in dreams...so this may be the message the dream is trying to get across... new, as yet unknown or unconscious information is to be received, learned or processed.

The dreamer is instructed by the professor (usually a representation of a spiritual guide, Higher Self or authority figure) to start a game where she must hide. She doesn't want to be picked (to begin the game). Perhaps she was feeling singled-out or out-of-place at this point in her life or education. The partner she is paired with is costumed, this person is hiding behind a mask, and is unrecognizable or unknown. And he is in a scream costume from the movie Scream. There is a double emphasis on hiding, or something hidden here as well.

She then chooses to write about her options for a place to hide rather than take action. The dreamer is embarrassed about being chosen, or singled-out. Perhaps she is uncomfortable with praise, acknowledgement or success. She highlights this emotion (feeling) in yellow. Again, an action that draws attention to, or emphasized something is being carried out. Yellow, of course, can represent cowardice or it can represent happiness, brightness, or joy. However, the overall feeling of this dream does not bode well for the happy, sunny meaning of the colour yellow.

The dreamer writes about the attention regions of the brain. Combine this imagery with the scream costume symbol and the lecture hall and it's relatively clear that her subconscious (or Higher Self) wants her attention. It's trying very hard to get a message across. But what is the message?

Perhaps the message of this dream is that she must find what she seeks within herself, that she must build up the courage to take action. Or perhaps the dream is trying to help build up her self-confidence. And, of course, it could also just be a way for her to learn and integrate the new neurology material. Only the dreamer can say which one, or all, of the interpretations are correct.

Again, I only provide a brief example of how I go about analyzing a dream. It would take several pages to do a full analysis, and I always require the dreamer's input. But this little sampling might help with your own interpretations.

=========================
Reader Comments

No comments this issue.

=========================
From The Editor

Hello friends and fellow dreamers.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for being a part of The Nocturnal Times and Dream Lady family. I appreciate your time and support.

Wow, 2008 already! Hard to believe isn't it. Well in this section, I'm just going to give you a brief outline of some of what's planned for future issues. Now this isn't written in stone because you never know what's going to happen or what new info we may find.

- Dreams as Oracles
- Paranormal Dreaming
- Dream Sharing
- Interpreting Waking Life
- Dream Incubation

We are planning to add interviews with leading dream authors and experts. And beginning next month, we're adding a new feature: Symbol of the Month. In this new section, we'll analyze one or two of the more common symbols/images found in our dreams.

If there is anything you would like us to address, or write about, please let us know.

Have a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

Blessed Be and Dream Well!

Terry

December 2007 Issue

Feature Article:
Dream Tending
Cross-Cultural Dreaming:
Native Americans And Dreams
Celebrity Dream:
Rihanna
Reader's Dream Analysis:
Christmas Painting
Reader Comments:
From The Editor:
Season's Greeting and Gifts

==================================

This Month's Quote

Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions

—Albert Einstein

==================================

Feature Article

This is a rather long article. If you would rather download it and read it offline or at your leisure click here for the pdf file.

Dream Tending

Four to five times each night images dance and play inside our brains, weaving together ingenious stories. This drama of the night affects our daily experience, shapes our decisions and largely determines who we are and who we’re to become.

In the morning a person awakens and declares: "I had a dream." Who had the dream? Conscious ego, the one who calls himself "I"? "I" made up that story because I was in a situation that frightened me yesterday or because my boss criticized me, or whatever the residues of yesterday's events. Because of these past events, "I" created that dream.

The ego wants, and perhaps needs, to believe that it is in charge, that the conscious "I" is in control. As Swiss psychologist Carl Jung observed, this is particularly true during the first several decades of a human’s life. In order to sustain the illusion that the ego is in control, ego has to pretend everything else is static, nonexistent, or at least, less powerful. Each night the unconscious speaks in the language of dreams; each morning ego scrambles for control, announcing: "I had a dream."

But, if "I" didn't create my dream, who did? Most psychologists believe that a dream is a product of the human unconscious. But what is the human unconscious that it can construct these ingenious symbolic productions four or five times a night?

Dr. Stephen Aizenstat tells us that over billions of years life evolved into a variety of forms that we know today, one of which is the human being. We are born out of the essential, organic life process—made of the same stuff as is all life. Human beings are but one expression of nature. The psyche is an evolution of life energy within the natural world, and thus participates in the ever-changing patterns of evolving and dissolving life form.

The unconscious isn't created by "me." The unconscious is born out of the rhythms of life. The dream—one expression of the psyche—is located in these essential life rhythms. Dreams are expressions of a psyche that is grounded in nature. Dreams are alive.

How shocking might it be to come to the awareness that the world is alive and that each organism within the world has a life of its own, interacting with other life forms (like you and I). Imagine that you’re lying down in a beautiful meadow on a thick, green bed of grass. You’re just relaxing and enjoying the warmth of the sun on your face. You turn your head. Suddenly, you’re eye to eye with a fly. You brush the fly away only to notice an ant is crawling up your arm. Then, you see a worm emerging from the ground onto your hand.

It hits you: this is not outdoor carpeting! You’re lying in the midst of a living, breathing, changing ecology with millions of creatures crawling around and in and out and getting born and dying, right along with you. We’re not isolated living beings on a static and dead landscape; we’re participants, essential members of a living ecology. Our very existence is dependent upon our interacting intimately with other life forms.

The ego lying on the grass with all the other creatures is confronted with the realization that a human being is just one of the many players in this game of life. This holds true in the psychological realm as well as the physical realm. The person who calls himself "I" is one constituent member of the psyche. Aizenstat, suggests that imaginal figures are meandering around day and night, within us and without us, each with lives of their own. The ego is but one of many members of a living ecology of imaginal figures that compose a psyche.

A dream is an event in which some of the many imaginal figures (the symbols within the dream) of psyche reveal themselves. In the dream, the ego is often pictured as one of a cast of characters. Other dream figures (human or not) interact with dream ego, and, in the dream, they have lives of their own, physical bodies of their own, feelings and desires of their own. These images are members of life itself.

A dream is one manifestation of nature revealing herself through images. This revelation can reflect one's personal nature, our collective human nature, and/or the nature of the anima mundi—soul in the world.

In order to conceptualize the different functions of the psyche, psychologists define several levels. Most psychologists agree that these levels include the Ego (consciousness), the Personal Unconscious (subconscious), and the Collective Unconscious. Aizenstat adds a fourth level, the World Unconscious. I would call this fourth level the Universal Consciousness or Universal Unconscious.

Because dreams emerge from the psyche, they are shaped by all four of these levels, in what the alchemists of the past called "a gentle mingling between levels." Although a particular dream may reflect one level more than another, it’s important to listen to what the dream may say on each of these four levels.

The children's song tells us: "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream." By the time a child sings this wise song, he or she will have some awareness of being the rower of the boat. "I," ego, am sitting in my life vehicle, holding the oars, rowing from one circumstance to the next.

The rower of the boat may be aware that the flow of the river, to no small degree, determines where the boat goes. We are born into this life in a stream, a particular stream of forces in our individual life circumstance. This stream can be said to constitute the Personal Unconscious.

It is the destiny of a stream to join with other individual streams into a river. In this metaphor, the river, composed of the many streams, represents the Collective Unconscious, a concept postulated by Carl Jung. Jung observed that individuals throughout time and across cultures seem to share universal psychological forms, which he called “archetypes.” The Collective Unconscious can be said to be the psyche of the human species, in which we each experience the nature of our species and its shared patterns of perception.

The Collective Unconscious is thought to be universal and transpersonal. The same archetypal imagery that appears in dreams can be seen in the motifs of age-old myths, legends and fairy tales found in every culture throughout the history of the human race. Jungian psychologists tend to focus on the dream in terms of the relationship between ego and the Collective Unconscious, hearing the particular archetypes presented and exploring how ego is in relationship to them.

Continuing in this charming metaphor, the river eventually joins with the deeper waters of the ocean—the source of life itself. The ocean locates us in yet another dimension of the psyche, one not often assumed by psychologists, but commonly perceived by poets and mystics throughout history as well as in contemporary findings of theoretical physics. In this oceanic place, which Aizenstat calls the World Unconscious, the unconscious is imagined as connected to an embedded and hidden order underlying all of reality.

The Universal Unconscious consists of the "subjective inner natures" residing in all the phenomena of the world. Therefore, it’s not limited to the personal or collective human condition. At the level of the World Unconscious all the phenomena of the world are interrelated and interconnected. These "inner natures" of the world's organic and inorganic phenomena make up the contents of the World Unconscious and they are reflected as dream images in the human psyche.

A dream heard from the psychological perspective of the Universal Unconscious gives voice to the phenomena of the world, speaking through dreams on their own behalf. For example, the image of "house" that appears in a dream may be talking about its experience in the world, its plight. Walls may indeed talk, and the tale they tell may be of their own making, located in the Universal Unconscious—not necessarily a mere projection of the human psyche.

The Personal, Collective, and World/Universal Unconscious inform one another and are in continual dialogue. Becoming connected to the inner life of our personal experience connects us to a larger sense of self than we knew before. The sense of being part of the shared human experience allows us to experience our species relationship to an even more fundamental process—that of the natural rhythm of life itself.

The various levels of psyche all express themselves in the form of images. It’s through understanding the nature of an image, and learning how to "tend" an image that we can experience the living psyche.

"I" am not in charge of "my" images. Images have lives of their own, and walk around as they choose, not as "I" choose. They inhabit the landscape of the dream, walking its ground, flying its skies, and swimming its seas. Images present themselves in the dream as living entities in an evolving landscape.

Nor do "I" create these images. They are not rooted in my personal psyche. Elaborating on this idea, archetypal psychologist James Hillman says, "Images come and go at their own will, with their own rhythm, within their own field of relations, undetermined by personal psychodynamics.

. . . The mind is in the imagination rather than the imagination in the mind."

Each image has presence, substance, and imaginal body. To experience an image in written description only, as part of a narrative, is to miss the living, active, embodied creature that is the image. In "my" dream last week the elephant looking at me had wide flared ears, and its left tusk was broken off at the tip. With respectful distance and caution, I walked around to its rear side, seeing dirt and tiny rocks scattered over its thin-haired rump. Its tail was busy swatting flies from either side of its sagging hind quarters. This dream elephant, like all images, has body and exists in three-dimensional space.

Dreaming is not merely a human production; it is an ongoing activity in which we participate. It is as if the dream is a social event which "I" experience, yet which each of the other characters or objects also experience from their own point of view.

As they interact in the realm of the dream, images affect and change each other. When the elephant, as an embodied image, runs into another embodied image, say that of a hunter, it is a certainty that each figure is affected by the presence of the other. To understand the dream is to realize that each image is a participant in a living network of interacting images.

An image that meanders through one's dreamscape does not ask to be captured, tranquillized, dissected, labeled in Latin, and reduced to a statement about one's childhood or present trauma.

Nevertheless, this is an all-too-common psychological approach to images, and it creates several problems:

1. In the move to explore the events of the dreamer's Personal Unconscious, the image itself is often lost;
2. Reducing the image to a meaning renders the image dead; and, most problematic,
3. When one affixes meanings or interpretations to an image, one has not addressed the image for what it is. The image is an alive, embodied expression of psyche—present to be experienced, seen, felt and heard.

How can we approach an image to hear it on its own terms?

To experience the living nature of the dream is not, as Aizenstat has said, a return to the cause and effect methods of making meaning, but rather, requires a certain attitude, an approach he calls "DreamTending." To tend a dream is to attend to the dream images in the immediacy of their presentation, as if each dream figure were a guest visiting you for the first time. As host to these guests, you want to get to know them, tend to them. You listen to what they have to say. When you enter the territory of the living image, there are no established trails, no familiar landmarks.

The topological maps of ego no longer apply, for one is in a place much larger than ego. The navigational skills so useful and familiar in traditional interpretive approaches to dreamwork must give way to a new, more interactive craft. The causal logic of determinism gives way to the poetic language of metaphor.

As Ezra Pound reminds: "The leaves are full of voices." In the quiet of deep listening, the landscape reveals itself to the receptive participant. The sense of the poetic that lives between the participant and landscape comes into awareness, into life—each affecting the other, each dependent on the other. The landscape and the hiker are part of an aesthetic realm of experience which informs them both.

These same approaches are also at play in dreamwork. When we dutifully write down the dream, go into the analyst's office, repeat it in its linear, narrative form with the intention of interpreting its meaning, the dreamscape has stopped or become frozen—just like the shutdown of wilderness activity at the arrival of the intruder. However, like the hiker who pauses to be present to the possibilities of the wilderness, an analyst working with a dream can pause, wait and listen, allowing for the natural rhythm, the indigenous nature of the psyche, to again resume activity. Then the dreamer and the dream analyst can be in correspondence with the natural activity of the dreamscape.

DreamTending is an approach to dreamwork that respects the living reality of the dream. The dream analyst literally shifts her chair from the familiar face to face configuration to a somewhat more open side by side positioning, as if analyst and dreamer were sitting together to watch a movie or play. Seated beside the client, the analyst is not so immediately locked into the personal responses of the dreamer which—when one is looking straight across at the other—are so tempting to explore at each and every turn. In tending a dream, the analyst is concerned first with evoking the dreamscape, inviting the actuality of the dream into the room to be experienced. The analyst asks the dreamer to tell the dream in descriptive detail in the present tense. In the telling, the dreamer sees, hears and expresses the images as alive and active in present time/space.

To evoke even greater detail, the analyst asks the dreamer to look with increased focus at specific aspects of the image and to describe in vivid detail, the texture, coloration, movement or shape of the dream figure. For example, in the dream image of a giraffe, the dreamer may be asked to mindfully observe this particular giraffe, noticing its unique characteristics. The analyst can encourage the dreamer to look into the giraffe's eyes, into the inner world of this particular dream animal, thus bringing its live presence even more fully into dynamic relationship with the dreamer. The dreamer is encouraged to physically move her body to interact with the giraffe and to use her sensate functions of smell, touch, and even taste, to more fully experience the living reality of the image. Questions like: "How coarse is the giraffe's coat?" or "Can you smell the giraffe?" not only provide specific details but also allow the image to reveal itself in the here and now presence of the dreamwork.

The analyst empathetically enters the dreamtime with the dreamer, as well as keeping an analytical perspective. The dreamer and the dream analyst become located in the dreamscape, surrounded by it. The dreamer and the analyst enter the living experience of the dream. The craft of tending a dream differs significantly from the traditional practice of dream analysis in its initial orientation to the dream.

Most dream workers have been taught to ask: "What does this dream mean?" This question tends to freeze the dream within preconceived representations, or within one of a number of unnecessarily complex psychological explanatory systems, however imaginative and knowledgeable they might be. How different this is from tending a dream, where the primary question is, "What is happening here?"

The simple question "What is happening here?" locates the dreamwork in the immediacy of the present experience of the dream, looking to the image bodies themselves to reveal their purposefulness, their stories. The dreamer looks neither back to whence s/he came, nor forward to some dire or luminous future consequence, but rather down and around, noting what is just so at this particular moment in time in this particular place. To tend a dream is to recognize that in the telling of the dream the dream is already in the room—existing right now as a living imaginal process.

When a dream image evokes a memory of a childhood event, for instance, a dream analyst must ask why psyche presents this specific historical image in this dream now. The point is not the historic event itself or how the dreamer felt about it in the past. The point is that something about this past event matters now. What root image in psyche, what essential life rhythm within this particular dreamer, evoked that past experience? How has that image evolved in its life to the present time?

That "root image" is being felt again, in its relevance to present as well as future experience. The dream analyst can listen to the "root image" of the historic experience, particularly listening to the current living expression of the image in present time. In this way of working, the dream analyst is able to stay with the living image, traversing time in the context of the image, rather than using an image only as a vehicle to access, or work through, personal history. Thus understood, the image itself is the primary referent, not the historical incident evoked by the image.

The dreamer, a woman who has considerable experience in working with her dreams, relates a dream that she has already spent time considering on her own but feels somehow that she is missing something. She has a sense there is something more. Here is the dream as she first related it:

I am walking along the edge of a seaside cliff. I walk until I get to the end of the path, and I become stranded. There is no place to go.

After listening carefully to the dream several times, she is asked to "associate" to the images or the predicament in the dream. Associations are useful in the beginning. They provide personal context as well as give the dreamer the opportunity to tell what she knows about the circumstance pictured in the dream. For the most part, associations are made to current or historic awake-life circumstances and are therefore limited to the contents of the Personal Unconscious.

Methods of Association are reductive in that all images are reduced back to personal circumstances. The dreamer reported the following associations:

Well, it reminds me of a place we visited on a family vacation once when I was ten. I used to walk along the edge of the cliff when I needed time to think. That was the summer my parents were fighting so much. I was afraid they would hurt each other. I guessed they would be getting a divorce, and I didn't know what would happen to me. You know, I'm feeling kind of the same way now. With all the turmoil and budget cutbacks at the agency I work in, I'm wondering if I have reached the end of the line as a staff counselor. I am experiencing a great deal of chaos and fear of possible separation.

In addition to asking about the dreamer's personal associations to the dream, she is asked to consider how certain dream images may reflect relevant material from mythology and/or literature. This method is known as Amplification and relates the dream imagery to the archetypal patterns of the Collective Unconscious. It’s a prospective approach in that the dream imagery is listened to as it pertains to the emerging process of the dreamer’s individuation. Extending the dreamwork beyond personal associations, a process of "amplifying" the images, evoked the following from the dreamer:

I've felt many times that I was on the edge of something which I could glimpse but not see or experience clearly. It’s as if I were on a path leading to somewhere important, like a pilgrimage or journey to some important place or "calling." I keep thinking of Penelope being stuck at water’s edge at Ithaca—waiting. As a woman, I often feel as if I have been stranded, waiting at the end of a path, waiting for my man to come home, waiting for that which is out of my control.

Both Association and Amplification reveal important insights for the dreamer.
Through Association, in working with the material of the Personal Unconscious, the dreamer had the opportunity to honour childhood fears in the presence of a caring analyst and to explore those fears in relation to her current work situation. Through Amplification, in exploring material of the Collective Unconscious, the dreamer became aware of archetypal themes relevant to her life.

The universal images of "water’s edge" and "waiting" were suggested as representing potentially important inner life struggles, both part of an individuation process now coming into increased awareness. In both instances, however, the dream images themselves remained frozen, not given the opportunity to reveal themselves as they currently exist and move. In both the reductive (association) and prospective (amplification) approaches to the dream, the dream was used as a fixed justification to either summon memories of the past or to forecast a vision of the future.

These kind of analytic investigations, however useful, are limited and invariably leave out the here and now reality of the dream experience. Not surprisingly, the dreamer in this instance felt that somehow the dream held something more, something yet to come alive.

For the third telling the dreamer was asked to pause and listen, to become aware of how the images of the dream fill the room. The mud of the seaside cliff, the smell of the water—all of the images—came alive. They became embodied. They had substance. They were visible. And the dreamer was really at that moment in the dream work. She was being moved and touched and informed by the images of the dream. As a result she felt a sense of ground, a sense of immediate connection to this natural landscape, and she experienced the pulse of the dreamscape move and work through her. She was now located in the dream, and, in turn, the dream had now located her in its activity.

By remaining stationary on the path (as actually pictured in the dream) and by experiencing the physicality of the mud and the marbled rock (as they made their presence known in the dream), the dreamer felt neither the regressive need to retreat backward on the path, nor the fear of what the future held. Both past and future are favored by traditional approaches to dreamwork—regressing into one's past or progressing into the next phase of individuation.

To tend a dream is to allow its activity, its rhythm, to return to its own landscape. To hear a dream deeply allows the dream its presence, its being, and its becoming. And as that rhythm returns and the dream again becomes alive, is it not true that we, at that moment, re-experience our natural place as constituent members in nature's psyche, reconnected to a deeply resonant ecology. Are we not in this experience, re-connected to our essential rhythm—sourced by the very pulse of life itself?

Notes

Dr. Stephen Aizenstat Founding president of Pacifica Graduate Institute, a core faculty member of the institute, and a clinical psychologist. His original research centers on a psychodynamic process of "tending the living image," particularly in the context of dreamwork.

==================================

Cross Cultural Dreaming

Native Americans And Dreams

Dreams have played a central and determinative role in the formation of the religious and riritual worlds of most Native American groups. As early as 1623, dreams were recorded among the Hurons by the French Catholic Recollect brother Gabriel Sagard. These accounts were then expanded by the writings of the Jesuit priest Jean de Brébeuf, who lived with the Hurons around Georgian Bay (1634-36). According to these writings, young Huron and Iroquois men would fast for extended periods, either in a partitioned rear section of their longhouse or in a specially made shelter. These fasts could last as long as thirty days and were undertaken so that the young men would have a vision or powerful dream that would enhance their abilities in hunting, warfare, or healing. The records of Brébeuf also include dramatic accounts of dreams and visions that came spontaneously to women and played a role in determining those women's participation in various ceremonial rites.

If the dreamer was successful, he would obtain a vision of a dream spirit who would give him a specific ability or power and show him how to solicit that power through special songs and ritual activities. Among most native groups, the dream spirit would then become a lifelong protector and helper whose aid and abilities could be solicited through prayer and tobacco offerings. In dreams, the dreaming soul—that aspect of self that travels in visions away from the body—could contact the dream spirit and receive instructions. Dreams were considered by many native groups to be the most valid means for communicating with the spiritual powers and the primary basis of religious knowledge. Advanced dreamers who became religious specialists would interpret dreams in order to diagnose illness, foretell the death or return to health of the sick, predict the outcome of expeditions in hunting and warfare, as well as which objects could be substituted for those things appearing in dreams which were difficult or impossible to procure for carrying out dream induced rituals.

Many ceremonies were attributed to dream origins. Foundational dreams would be transmitted through kinship groups, who held an exclusive knowledge of the dream and of the correct ritual for its enactment. The dream was usually owned by the head of the family and passed on through special ceremonial rites. However, additional dreams, especially by those who were recognized religious leaders, could modify and change the ceremonial patterns. A unique aspect of the Iroquois dreaming traditions was the dream-guessing feast, when dreamers would join together and go from longhouse to longhouse in entranced states induced by their dream spirits. Handling red-hot coals and dancing and singing, each dreamer would ask that his or her "dream desire," narrated in the form of a riddle, be guessed by other members of the longhouse. When the riddle had been correctly solved, gifts would be given to the dreamer to satisfy the dream desire. A failure to receive the correct gifts could indicate the coming death of the dreamer.

Southeastern sources clearly show the centrality of dreaming in the religious worlds of most native groups in that region. Dreams were actively sought, both in regular sleep and in special fasting, and the songs and powers given through them became an intrinsic feature of the social and religious life of the dreamer. Dreams revealed the existence of a spirit world that had continuity with and similarity to the world of the living and that could be visited through dreams. Among the Choctaws, Creeks, and Cherokees, certain dreamers could travel to a village of the dead and there converse with their former relatives. Dreaming thus gave an experiential confirmation of the existence of other worlds, including that of the dead. Among the Cherokees, dream interpreters would seek out the "seat of pain" for those who were ill by asking them extensive questions about their dreams ranging back over months and sometimes over a period of years. Dream typologies were developed by means of which particular types of animals, actions, or various other dream images were given specific meanings and used diagnostically to predict future events or indicate cures that would bring the dreamer back into harmony with the dream spirits. The creation of the Cherokee syllabary by Sequoyah allowed many of the Cherokee spiritual leaders to record in the indigenous language a variety of formulaic prayers and ritual songs—most of which originated in dreams that had been passed on through oral tradition until they were written down by native practitioners in the old Cherokee language.

The most well known dreaming practices are those of the native peoples of the Great Plains. With her research, conducted in the 1920s, Ruth Benedict set the stage for interpreting Plains dreaming as the primary means by which a particular group reinforced its "culture pattern." Dreams were seen as stereotypical in reproducing similar content that supported the religious worldview of the dreamer. However, alternative research later done by many native ethnographers showed clearly that dreaming was not stereotypical, that every dream had many unique and divergent qualities, and that no two dreams were ever identical.

The distinction between dreams and visions was not considered significant; the primary criteria for evaluating the sacred power of a dream or vision depended upon the degree to which the subject could reproduce a visible, positive result as a consequence of his or her following either a dream had while sleeping or a waking vision attained while fasting or praying. Only those dreams or visions that resulted in a direct manifestation of power were considered sacred.

On the Plains, dreams were acquired in two basic ways: either they came spontaneously or they were sought ritually. A majority of the dreams and visions collected in the ethnography were spontaneous; acquired without conscious effort, they nevertheless made a lasting and lifelong impression on the dreamer. Spontaneous dreams were common for women under specific circumstances, such as during times of mourning for the recent dead, when Plains women would often slash their legs and arms and wander away from camp crying to the sacred powers.

Domestic quarrels and conflicts among close kin groups could also result in a woman's wandering away from camp and then having a remarkable visionary experience. Women who were captured by enemy warriors and later escaped to wander over the plains for many days without food, seeking their home tribe, often had visions. Dreams also came unsought during periods of illness. Such was the case with the famous dream of the Oglala Sioux holy man Black Elk, which occurred to him in 1872 at the age of nine.

The more structured vision quest or dream fast was usually undertaken by Plains men, and sometimes women, during adolescence, but it was sometimes repeated among certain groups throughout life. Young men went to experienced elders, usually relatives, to receive instructions for carrying out a proper dream fast. They would undergo various purification rites and then go to a nearby hill, on the top of which they would either make a circle within which they remained or dig a pit in which they stayed throughout the fast.

Dressed in a minimum of clothing, with long hair unbraided, carrying only a pipe and a robe, they would pray continually to the holy powers to grant them a powerful dream. After as many as ten days of fasting, a successful dreamer might come down from the hill and relate his dream to elders in a sweat lodge. Or he might wait a specific number of days before approaching a leader of a dream society, whose members held rituals related to a particular dream spirit, like the buffalo or bear, and ask to join the dream society based on his successful vision.

Successful dreams were enacted, and the power of the dream had to be demonstrated for the dream to be accepted as an authentic gift from the dream spirits. Successful dreamers were expected to demonstrate remarkable or powerful abilities as a sign of a power-granting dream. Dreamers used a variety of objects to hold the power given to them in the dream, and would paint themselves and their horses according to dream experiences. The dream objects were kept within sacred bundles, which were unwrapped only under ritual circumstances, during which the dream was often narrated. In using the dream objects, dream songs were sung; these songs epitomized the heart of the dream recreation. Dream images were painted on tipis, robes, and other gear to empower those objects. Women would use dream images as a source for designs in crafts as well as in quill and bead work and other types of clothing ornamentation.

The designs of the famous Ghost Dance shirts used during the religious revival that began in the 1890s were all said to have originated in visionary dreams. In Plains culture, dreams were central and a primary means for innovation and change in religious and social practices.

Dreams played a powerful social role among Northwest Coast peoples as well as among many Inuit groups. Franz Boas (1925) collected an entire volume of Kwakiutl dreams, showing the rich and complex dream symbolism that completely pervaded the Kwakiutl spiritual world. Sometimes a dream spirit would embed a dream crystal—a valuable source of power—in the body of the dreamer. The possession of such a crystal was a sign of a dreamer's initiation into advanced dreaming practices.

Many flying dreams have been recorded; they signify the dreamer's ability to explore hidden dimensions of the religious cosmology. Dreams among Northwest Coast peoples as well as subarctic peoples indicate a strong belief in reincarnation. Many dreamers have claimed to know about their past lives through dream experiences, and there are records of women who dreamed of giving birth to someone who had recently died in the community. Certain dream spirits might send negative or frightening dreams, such as Stimsila among the Bella Coolas. On the other hand, certain dream spirits were regarded as protectors and accompanied the dreamer throughout life, revealing in dreams future events, matters pertaining to secret societies, and other critical life experiences.

Among the Pueblos, Navajos, and Apaches of the American Southwest, dreams were of much less significance. The highly structured ritual life of the Pueblo people and the complex healing rites of the Navajos did not normally allow for innovation through dreams.

Traditional knowledge was transmitted through learning the rites and songs of the ceremonies and not through dreaming practices.

Dorothy Eggan (1949) collected Hopi dreams and noted how they function in a personal way for the dreamer. But, she found, they are not usually connected to religious sanctions, nor are they considered necessary for becoming a participant in communal rites. However, Hopis evaluate dreams as either good or bad and take appropriate actions to counteract the effects of negative dreams.

Among the Zunis, dreams are also evaluated, and only bad dreams are shared. For the Navajos, dreams may determine what type of diagnostician the dreamer may become, and they play a role in determining the causes of illness.

References

Ruth Benedict, American Anthropologist The Dream-Seekers: Native American Visionary Traditions of the Great Plains "The Vision in Plains Culture," 24 (1922): 1-23;
Irwin, Lee, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994);
Barbara Tedlock, Dreaming: Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

=========================

Celebrity Dream

Rihanna's Dream

Rihanna had a nightmare about watching a plane crash into a building and pieces of it landing on her brother. Naturally, she had no idea why she had this dream and worried it might be telling her something bad was going to happen to her brother.

On one level, the plane represents her career and how it's "taking off." However, it crashes in her dream which might indicate that she fears her career could come crashing down before she reaches her career goal. (Plane crash dreams are very common with celebrities, by the way.)

Rihanna and her brother are very close and she misses him very much. That made me realize that she's concerned her rising celebrity -- that has her jetting all over the place -- might harm the close relationship she has with her brother, the building representing that relationship.

=========================

A Reader's Dream


Title: Christmas Painting


Date: Oct. 4, 2004
Time: 6:30 AM
Category:
Series: Christmas
Day: Monday
Sleep Cycle: 1



I was up late playing pool on the computer. I went to bed but couldn’t sleep so I got in the car and went to work with Mike. We drove down a hill. I then walked down stairs.

There was a cot, or rollaway bed at the bottom of the stairs. I laid down and fell asleep for awhile. The place was then Mike’s work and/or school, and people were coming down the stairs and walking past me. A girl I knew sat on the end of the cot. When I had laid down, I had taken my top off to go to sleep. I now sat up, with the blue, patchwork quilt wrapped around me. The girl that had sat on the cot beside me had also been topless and had to put her top back on. After she was done, she asked me if I needed a hand. I said, “I got it.” I pulled the blanket up around me and over my head, then put my bra and shirt on. After getting dressed, I was very warm under the blanket and figured it was because of my breathing. I came out from under the blanket. I laughed and joked with the young woman and I told her that I couldn’t fall asleep at home so I went for a drive with Mike. I laid down for a minute and fell asleep for 15 or 20 minutes.

Then there was something about Jeff (my brother). I think he asked me what I was doing there. He had been in some kind of auto race. He wasn’t impressed with it. It wasn’t a serious or professional race or something. I asked if it was a Nascar kind of race. He said it was just Busche racing, or amateur stock cars rather than the Winston cup. Another man, who had also been in the race, seemed happy about it and proud and was at a table with a young woman bragging (I think). The race was over, and the driver was now wearing a white short-sleeve shirt. Jeff said he better get back to work.

Then another young woman (reminded me of Anna from the OC) came up to me and we were talking. I said something about Wednesday, about having the car or being there again Wednesday because I had to get up and get the car. She said she’d probably pop in before then, to see me because she had some gifts or presents to drop off. Something else was said and then she said, “it’s all about others right?” She was then fixing or putting the finishing touches on a painting that was on the wall. It was a watercolour, or acrylic painting, and it was still wet. She used her finger and something else to blend and texturize the reds and greens of the Christmas painting. I think it was a painting of a poinsettia, and it was beautiful.

Then Kelso (from That 70s Show) was trying to fix, or touch up, a different painting on the other wall. He had a crayon or short pencil crayon and was scribbling and scratching or digging (etching) the wet paint. I told him he shouldn’t be considering being a painter. Then I told him that when he paints, his jaw drops and his mouth hangs open, making him look ugly and stupid. I was then walking up the stairs with Jackie (from that 70s Show) telling her what I’d told Michael. I said that (because of his vanity or ego) she should keep him from trying to paint anymore.


Analysis

There are three distinct parts to this dream, however they all have common elements and all tie together. The opening paragraph states what the dream is trying to impart to the dreamer, or in the case of Dream Tending, the ego. This dream is focusing on the dreamer's feelings that her life is going down hill. However, that is only one level of examination. The opening statement may also be telling the dreamer that she needs to look, or go, deeper into herself to discover the answer/s or solution/s to the dilemma or situation she is struggling with. The first statement may also be suggesting that it's time to stop playing games, get her act together and get to work.

The first part of the dream focuses on the dreamer's feelings of comfort and security. She is completely content in the cocoon of comfort and safety she has created for herself until the situation becomes uncomfortable ...stifling. The discomfort results in her emergence from her self-imposed shelter. Once she removes that which is hiding or covering her true self, her life becomes lighter, filled with fun and laugher.

The dreamer begins to question her life, her choices and decisions in the second part of the dream. Her perspective and ideals are brought to her attention. Her life, her goals and her successes (or lack of) are a matter of how one looks at them. She might not have the big prize yet, but every little success, every win, brings her one step closer. Change always leads to something new, something different.

The dreamer takes control of her own life, she's ready to take charge and take a chance. She is being told that her happiness comes from her creative gifts and that these gifts should be shared with others, that her gifts are beneficial to others. She now just needs to refine and then bring into the world her spirit of kindness, goodwill and generosity.

The third and final section reminds her that the past is in the past, that she was then a different person. She is being warned not make the same mistake again. She is being advised not to allow others to determine the course of her life, her choices and her destiny. The dreamer is in charge of her own life. If she takes back control of her own destiny, she will ascend, move upward and toward her goal.

Please note that this is a brief, one-dimensional analysis. If it were conducted via phone, email or in person it would be much, much more detailed and much, much longer. So for brevity and space' sake, I kept it very short and simple.

=========================

Reader Comments

No comments this month.

=========================

From the Editor


Hello friends and fellow dreamers.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS !

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for being a part of The Nocturnal Times and Dream Lady family. I appreciate your time and support.

Since this is the last issue of 2007, I also want to wish you all a very happy holiday, and a happy and prosperous New Year. And, of course, I have a gift for my dearest subscribers.

Christmas Countdown Ebook. For each day of December (up to the 25th) there is a different article about the rich history of Christmas, with recipes from over a hundred years ago, downloadable desktop wallpaper, and links to Christmas gifts and goodies.

click here to download your copy

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens Ebook. The original story that spawned numerous other pieces of literature, film and more.

click here to download your copy

Have a safe, healthy and wonderful holiday. I'll talk to you in the new year.

Blessed Be and Dream Well !

Terry

November Issue

Feature Article:
Can Dream Content Analysis Determine the Meaning of a Specific Symbol?
Cross-Cultural Dreaming:
Dream Theory in Malaya
Celebrity Dream:
Reese Witherspoon

Special Articles:
Dream Reveals Wife's Killer
Dream of Organ Donor
Reader's Dream Analysis:
Reader Comments:
From The Editor:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Feature Article

Can Dream Content Analysis Determine the Meaning of a Specific Symbol?

According to Robert Van de Castle, not only is dream content analysis useful as a comprehensive system of classifying and scoring the content of reported dreams, but is also illuminating in a number of different ways as well. By pointing out differences and similarities between the dreamers scores and the norms which have been developed by Hall and Van de Castle, it can define an individual's uniqueness with considerable precision. But content analysis can also be used to explore the symbolic or theoretical significance of a specific dream element (or image). An excellent example of this method is a large-scale study that Van de Castle carried out to explore the significance of animals in dreams.

Dream theorists have offered several speculations as to the meanings which might be attributed to animal figures in dreams. Freud proposed that "wild beasts represent passionate impulses of which the dreamer is afraid, whether they are his or those of other people." (No surprise there. Freud believed everything in a dream was some type of suppressed animal drive).

Wilhelm Stekel claimed, "The danger of approaching insanity expresses itself in dreams of … a sudden attack by a wild beast." If, that were the case, I think all children and many adults would be considered insane. Children dream quite often of wild animals threatening them in some way. And women often dream of being attacked or threatened by a wild "beast" more so than men, but men do still have these types of dreams.

Van de Castle began research into this subject with a quantitative analysis of how often animals appeared in adult dreams and which animals were most common. He examined two thousand dreams from female college students and two thousands male students. The number of animal dreams for each sex was on average 7.5 percent. The most common animals were dogs, then horses, followed by cats, birds, snakes, fish and then insects.

For children aged four to sixteen, animal figures were present in just over 39 percent of the dreams of 4 - 5 year olds, and the percentage steadily decreased as the age group increased.

When Van de Castle considered the frequencies for all animals, it was clearly demonstrated that children dream more often of large and threatening wild animals, while college students dream more often of pets and domesticated or small animals. One interesting gender difference that Van de Castle found during this study was the kinds of animals males and females dream of. Girls and women reported significantly more mammals while men and boys reported significantly more non-mammals.

Van de Castle postulated that this difference could be attributed to the fact that since mammals are biologically, behaviourally, and conceptually more similar to humans, people who report more mammals in their dreams should also be inclined to report more human characters. And, as was expected, in their normative tables, Hall and Van de Castle found that women report significantly more human characters than men do. As well, individuals who give mammal responses on the Rorschach Inkblot Test are considered to have greater acceptance of their own emotions. Thus, the normative tables (Hall and Van de Castle's) indicated that women describe their personal emotions in dreams more often than men do. They suggested that this may be the case because women are more preoccupied with, and socially accepting of, humans and humanlike characters, and because they display more emotional self-acceptance.

To investigate what further meanings might be attached to animals in dreams, Van de Castle carried out a "contingency analysis" to determine what other elements are present when animal figures appear in dreams. In other words, he looked at what other dream elements (images) were found when an animal shows up in a dream. Several significant finding emerged from the study. Dreams became progressively shorter as animal figures predominated. Since anxious dreams can cause premature awakenings, it's possible that there was something sufficiently threatening about the animal dream to cause the dreamer to wake up.

There was a marked and progressive increase in the percentage of aggressive dreams as animal figures predominated. Not only were there more aggressive dreams but, within the dreams, the number of aggressive acts associated with each dream character also increased.

Animals behaved the same way toward both sexes. They attacked male characters twenty-three more often than they extended friendliness, and they attacked females twenty-four times more often. The dreamer's response to the animal varied according the sex of the dreamer. Male dreamers attacked the animal twenty-three times for every five times they were friendly; female dreamers, however, attacked animals only seventeen times for every ten times they befriended it. The sex of the dreamer, therefore, had some influence on how the animal was reacted to, but no on how it acted.

Van de Castle suggested that animal imagery may also be related to sexual maturity. He obtained several hundred dreams from female nursing students in Miami, as well as information on their menstrual cycle. The most sexually immature group (those not beginning their cycle until thirteen or later) had the highest percentage of animal dreams. Those beginning their cycle at the "normal" age of twelve had an intermediate animal percentage, while the most sexually mature group had the lowest percentage of animal dreams.

It's been shown (at least according to Van de Castle) that age and sex can be important variables to consider when attempting to understand the significance of animal figures in dreams. But what about the contribution of culture? Van de Castle examined cross-cultural dreams of Australian Aborigines, natives of South Pacific islands, Hopi and Kwakiutl Indians and Peruvians. The only type of animal to appear in the dreams of all these cultures was some form of bird. The other animals particular to each culture: kangaroos to Australians, etc.

After all of these studies, are we any closer to understanding "what animals mean" in dreams? I have to say that we are not. Though the statistics are informative, content analysis cannot tell us what each symbol "means." What can we derive from the content analysis of animals though? Well, we can say that an animal (or at least a wild animal) often represents fear or aggression. What are we afraid of? What is the aggression aimed at? As I stated in the first part of this article, content analysis is a very helpful technique to begin the process of analyzing a dream. But it isn't sufficient as a complete method. I begin with a content analysis and then continue with different methods, which I will discuss over the next few newsletters.

If you would like to read more from Robert Van de Castle, I highly recommend Our Dreaming Mind.



If you would like to experiment or test out the Hall-Van De Castle System, I have provided the complete system for you. Just click here to download the zipped file (free). You'll require Winzip (or other zip program) Adobe Acrobat Reader to read the PDF files, and Microsoft Excel, or another spreadsheet program, to use the analysis program included. However you don't have to use the analysis program. Everything you'll need to use the system by hand is provided.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cross Cultural Dreaming

Dream Theory in Malaya


During a scientific expedition traveling through the unexplored equatorial rain forest of the Central Range of the Malay Peninsula in 1935, anthropologists were introduced to an isolated tribe of jungle folk, who employed methods of psychology and inter-personal relations so astonishing that they might have come from another planet. These people, the Senoi, lived in long community houses, skillfully constructed of Bamboo, rattan, and thatch, and held away from the ground on poles. They maintained themselves by practicing dry-land, shifting agriculture, and by hunting and fishing. Their language, partly Indonesian and partly Non-Kamian, relates them to the peoples of Indonesia to the south and west, and to the Highlanders of Indo-China and Burma, as do their physical characteristics.

Study of their political and social organization indicates that the political authority in their communities was originally in the hands of the oldest members of patrilineal clans, somewhat as in the social structure of China and other parts of the world. But the major authority in all their communities was at the time held by their primitive psychologists whom they referred to as halaks. The only honorary title in the society is that of Tohat, which is equivalent to a doctor who is both a healer and an educator, in our terms.

The Senoi claim there has not been a violent crime or an intercommunal conflict for two or three hundred years because of the insight and inventiveness of the Tohats of their various communities. The foothill tribes which surround the Central Mountain Range have such a firm belief in the magical powers of this Highland group that they give the territory a wide berth. From all the anthropologists could learn of their psychological knowledge and understanding of strangers in their territory, the Senoi said they could very easily devise means of scaring them off. They did not practice black magic, but allowed the nomadic hillfolk surrounding them to think that they did if strangers invaded their territory.

This fear of Senoi magic accounts for the fact that they have not, over a long period, had to fight with outsiders. But the absence of violent crime, armed conflict, and mental and physical diseases in their own society can only be explained on the basis of institutions which produce a high state of psychological integration and emotional maturity, along with social skills and attitudes which promote creative, rather than destructive, interpersonal relations. They are, perhaps, the most democratic group reported in anthropological literature.

In the realms of family, economics, and politics, their society operates smoothly on the principle of contract, agreement, and democratic consensus, with no need of police force, jail, psychiatric hospital to reinforce the agreements or to confine those who are not willing or able to reach consensus. Study of their society seems to indicate that they have arrived at this high state of social and physical cooperation and integration through the system of psychology which they discovered, invented, and developed, and that the principles of this system of psychology are understandable in terms of Western scientific thinking.

Being a pre-literate group, the principles of the Senoi's psychology are simple and easy to learn, understand, and even employ. Fifteen years of experimentation with these Senoi principles have convinced researchers that all people, regardless of their actual cultural upbringing and beliefs might profit by studying them.

Senoi psychology falls into two categories. The first deals with dream interpretation the second with dream expression in the agreement trance or cooperative reverie. The cooperative reverie is not participated in until adolescence and serves to initiate the child into the state of adulthood: After adolescence, if he spends a great deal of time in the trance state, a Senoi is considered a specialist in healing or in the use of extrasensory powers.

Dream interpretations, however, is a feature of child education and is the common knowledge of all Senoi adults. The average Senoi layman practices the art of dream interpretation of his family and associates dreams as a regular feature of education and daily social intercourse. Breakfast in the Senoi house is like a dream clinic, with the father and older brothers listening to and analyzing the dreams of all the children. At the end of the family clinic the male population gathers in the council, at which the dreams of the older children and all the men in the community are reported, discussed, and analyzed.

While the Senoi do not, of course, employ a Western system of terminology, their psychology of dream interpretation might be summed up as follows: man creates features or images of the outside world in his own mind as part of the adaptive process. Some of these features are in conflict with him and with each other. Once internalized, these hostile images turn man against himself and against his fellows. In dreams man has the power to see these facts of his psyche, which have been disguised in external forms, associated with his own fearful emotions, and turned against him and the internal images of other people. If the individual does not receive social aid through education and therapy, these hostile images, built up by man's normal receptiveness to the out side world, get tied together and associated with one another in a way which makes him physically, socially, and psychologically abnormal.

Unaided, these dream beings, which man creates to reproduce inside himself the external socio-physical environment, end to remain against him the way the environment was against him, to become disassociated from his major personality and tied up in wasteful psychic, organic, and muscular tensions. With the help of dream interpretations, these psychological replicas of the socio-physical environment can be redirected and reorganized and again become useful to the major personality.

The Senoi believes that any human being, with the aid of his fellows, can outface, master, and actually utilize all beings and forces in the dream universe. His experience leads him to believe that, if you cooperate with your fellows or oppose them with good will in the day time, their images will help you in your dreams, and that every person should be the supreme ruler and master of his own dream or spiritual universe, and can demand and receive the help and cooperation of all the forces there.

A collection of the dreams of younger and older Senoi children, adolescents, and adults, were compared with similar collections made in other societies where they had different social attitudes towards the dream and different methods of dream interpretation. It was found through that the dream process evolved differently in the various societies, and that the evolution of the dream process seemed to be related to the adaptability and individual creative output of the various societies. It may be of interest to here to examine in the methods of Senoi dream interpretation:

The simplest anxiety or terror dream found among the Senoi was the falling dream. When the Senoi child reports a falling dream, the adult answers with enthusiasm, "That is a wonderful dream, one of the best dreams a man can have. Where did you fall to, and what did you discover" He makes the same comment when the child reports a climbing, traveling, flying, or soaring dream. The child at first answers, as he would in Western society, that it did not seem so wonderful, and that he was so frightened that he awoke before he had fallen anywhere.

"That was a mistake," answers the adult-authority. "Everything you do in a dream has a purpose, beyond your understanding while you are asleep. You must relax and enjoy yourself when you fall in a dream. Falling is the quickest way to get in contact with the powers of the spirit world, the powers laid open to you through your dreams. Soon, when you have a falling dream, you will remember what I am saying, and as you do, you will feel that you are traveling to the source of the power which has caused you to fall. "The falling spirits love you. They are attracting you to their land, and you have but to relax and remain asleep in order to come to grips with them. When you meet them, you may be frightened of their terrific power, but go on. When you think you are dying in a dream, you are only receiving the powers of the other world, your own spiritual power which has been turned against you, and which now wishes to become one with you if you will accept it."

The astonishing thing is that over a period of time, with this type of social interaction, praise, or criticism, imperatives, and advice, the dream which starts out with fear of falling changes into the joy of flying. This happens to everyone in the Senoi society. That which was an indwelling fear or anxiety, becomes an indwelling joy or act of will; that which was poor esteem toward the forces which caused the child to fall in his dream, becomes good will towards the denizens of the dream world, because he relaxes in his dream and finds pleasurable adventures, rather than waking up with clammy skin and a crawling scalp.

The Senoi believe and teach that the dreamer - the "I" of the dream - should always advance and attack in the jaws of danger, calling on the dream images of his fellows if necessary, but fighting by himself until they arrive. In bad dreams the Senoi believe real friends will never attack the dreamer or refuse to help. If any dream character who looks like a friend is hostile or uncooperative in a dream, he is only wearing the mask of a friend. If the dreamer attacks and kills the hostile dream character, the spirit or essence of this dream character will always emerge as a servant or ally. Dream characters are bad only as long as one is afraid and retreats from them, and will continue to seem bad and fearful as long as one refuses to come to grips with them.

According to the Senoi, pleasurable dreams, such as of flying or sexual love, should be continued until they arrive at a resolution which, on awakening, leaves one with something of beauty or use to the group. For example, one should arrive somewhere when he flies, meet the beings there, hear their music, see their designs, their dances, and learn their useful knowledge. Sexual dreams should always move through orgasm, and the dreamer should then demand from his dream lover the poem, the song, the dance, the useful knowledge which will express the beauty of his spiritual lover the group. If this is done, no dream man or woman can take the love which belongs to human beings. If the dream character demanding love looks like a brother or sister, with whom love would be abnormal or incestuous in reality, one need have no fear of expressing love in the dream, since these dream beings are not, in fact, brother or sister, but have only chosen these taboo images as a disguise.

Such dream beings are only facets of one's own spiritual or psychic makeup, disguised as brother or sister, and useless until they are reclaimed or possessed through the free expression of love in the dream universe. If the dreamer demands and receives from his love partners a contribution which he can express to the group on awakening, he cannot express or receive too much love in dreams. A rich love life in dreams indicates the favour of the beings of the spiritual or emotional universe. If the dreamer injures the dream images of his fellows or refuses to cooperate with them in dreams, he should go out of his way to express friendship and cooperation on awakening, since hostile dream characters can only use the image of people for whom his good will is running low. If the image of a friend hurts him in a dream, the friend should be advised of the fact, so he can repair his damaged or negative dream image in social intercourse.

Among the Senoi one accumulates good will for people because they encourage on every hand the free exercise and expression of that which is most basically himself, either directly or indirectly, through the acceptance of the dream process. At the same time, the child is told that he must refuse to settle with the denizens of the dream world unless they make some contribution which is socially meaningful and constructive as determined by social consensus on awakening. Thus his dream reorganization is guided in a way which makes his adult aggressive action socially constructive. Among the Senoi where the authority tells the child that every dream force and character is real and important, and in essence permanent, that it can and must be outfaced, subdued, and forced to make a socially meaningful contribution, the wisdom of the body operating in sleep, seems in fact to reorganize the accumulating experience of the child in such a way that the natural tendency of the higher nervous system to perpetuate unpleasant experiences is first neutralized and then reversed.

The data on the dream life of the various Senoi age groups would indicate that dreaming can and does become the deepest type of creative thought. Observing the lives of the Senoi it some anthropologists suggested that modern civilization may be sick because people have sloughed off, or failed to develop, half their power to think. Perhaps the most important half.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Celebrity Dream

Reese Witherspoon's Dream

Actress and Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon suffers from a recurring nightmare in which she finds herself drowning after watching her mother rescue several children.

The actress, who admits she has a fear of water, often wakes up in a panic after dreaming she is drowning.

She told Elle Magazine, "I have those dreams where you're drowning and nobody's helping you and people are just standing on the bank watching you drown? (It's) not really funny.
"I remember three occasions where my mother dove into a pool to save a child that was drowning... Watching children by the pool, I have nightmares."

A brief interpretation of this dream might suggest that Reese feels emotionally neglected by her mother, or a mother figure since water often represents the emotions (or spirituality) in dreams. However, drowning can suggest a feeling of being in over your head, or unable to breath or feeling overwhelmed. Because Ms. Witherspoon admits she has a fear of water, this dream may come when she is feeling emotionally insecure or uncertain and is in need of some nurturing and reassurance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Reader's Dream

I chose not to analyze a dream here in this issue because I am including a couple of special articles in celebration of Halloween. However, feel free to continue to submit your dreams for interpretation. I love receiving my readers' dream reports.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dream Reveals Wife's Killer

Rod Spraggins says it came to him in a dream that his political opponent was an alleged wife-killer.

More than five years ago, Rod Spraggins made a sensational charge at a candidate forum, publicly accusing a political opponent of murder with nothing to back up the allegation except, it turns out, a vision.

Now police say Spraggins was right.

Barry Waites, Spraggins' opponent in the 2000 race for Lanett City Council, was arrested this week on murder charges in the 1998 slaying of his wife, who was found dead in their split-level home in this sleepy town of 8,000 along the Georgia line.

In 2000, Spraggins, a bail bondsman, stunned a crowd of 100 when he accused Waites of killing his wife and dared the man to sue him for slander if he was wrong.

Waites was not at the forum, never responded publicly to the accusation and never sued.

In an otherwordly turn to the saga Friday, Spraggins disclosed that he never had any evidence to make the accusation and that it was based entirely on Mrs. Waites' appearing to him in a series of dreams.

"She started appearing to me within the first weeks of her death," said Spraggins, adding that the dreams prompted him to enter the City Council race for the sole purpose of making the accusation.

Both he and Waites lost their bids for the City Council amid the controversy, but Spraggins said he got what he wanted in the end.

"I hate it for his family. ... I hate it for Charlotte's family. But I'm glad justice is finally going to be served," he said in a telephone interview.

Waites, 58, was arrested Thursday at a clothing store he runs with his current wife. He was jailed on $150,000 bail. It was not immediately known whether he had hired a lawyer.

Police Chief Ron Docimo would not comment on exactly what led to the arrest, saying only that it was a "culmination of years of following up on leads and tips."

Waites was serving as interim mayor when 49-year-old Charlotte Waites was found strangled and with a blow to the head.

The victim's brother, Gene Brown, said police told him within a week of the slaying that Waites was the prime suspect.

Brown said that the couple had numerous financial problems during their 28-year marriage and that he believes an argument over money resulted in her death.

In 2002, Waites was sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty in an ethics case that was uncovered during an investigation of his wife's killing. He admitted taking money from a National Guard armory where he worked.

Brown credited Spraggins with keeping up public pressure on police to solve the murder case.

"Rod had it pegged from the beginning," Brown said. "I had doubts about his methods. But he's got guts."

SOURCE: CNN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dream of Organ Donor

One of the strangest cases in the history of dream research is described in the documentary, The Secret World of Dreams. It describes the amazing story of a woman named Claire Sylvia. She was a professional dancer with several modern dance companies. As the years passed, Claire's health began to deteriorate. Claire Sylvia had to undergo a heart and lung transplant.

Soon after the transplant, she began having strange and incredibly vivid dreams about a young man she didn't recognize. Eventually, Claire realized that the young man in her dreams was the eighteen-year-old organ donor whose heart and lungs resided in her chest. Through her continuing dream contacts with her donor, she learned a lot about him including his name. She then decided to do the research to find out if this "heavenly" information was correct. Her research proved that it was indeed correct. Claire then met the young man's grieving family and shared with them the amazing story of her contact with him from the Other Side through her dreams. The following is the detailed account of her story in her own words:

It was getting more difficult for me to walk upstairs. I was getting out of breath on the dance floor which was unusual for me. Every day I was able to do less and less. I was going downhill very quickly.

Claire was suffering from primary pulmonary hypertension, a deadly disease. Her only hope for survival was a heart and lung transplant.

"My mother was basically dying," says Amara, "She prepared herself for death and she was preparing me for her death. She labored to get up in the morning to go to the bathroom. Her breathing was labored and I was afraid every morning whether she would be alive or not."

Then Claire's bizarre dreams began to unfold.

I started to have a series of dreams. One dream was that I had the transplant and I had to drink four glasses of milk a day. At the time I questioned this, I said:

"I wonder what this means? Where does this four glasses of milk come in at? I don't understand what this means."

And there was no explanation so I just let it go. I lived each day with a thought and a prayer that I would live till the next day and that I would live to see my daughter graduate from high school which was about a year away.

Finally, Claire's prayers were answered.

The phone rang and it was the transplant coordinator. She very calmly said, "We officially got permission to do heart and lung transplants and we have a donor for you today."

I was speechless. All I could say was, "Oh my God. Oh my God!"

Within hours, Claire was rushed into surgery. After a delicate three-hour operation, Claire awoke.

I knew that I would have to take an anti-rejection drug, cyclosporine. They injected a certain amount of this liquid into two little cups of milk. Then at night, I repeated this same process. I realized that these were the four cups of milk a day in my dream.

At first I didn't accept it, I kept saying, "I must have gotten this information from someplace."

I kept checking around and nobody told me. Then I thought, "This is bizarre. I don't know why and I still don't."

When Claire returned home, another sequence of unexplained occurrences began. Her taste in food changed dramatically.

I had a thought one day, "Why am I cutting up green peppers and putting them into my food?"

I used to hate them and I picked them out. Several weeks after the transplant, they told me I could drive by myself. I got in my car and was driving around and I had this yen to find a Kentucky Fried Chicken place to have chicken nuggets. This was something I just normally don't ordinarily do.

Just when Claire thought her life couldn't get any stranger - it did - in another mysterious dream.

I'm in an open field and it's very light. It's daytime and I'm in a playful relationship with a young man whom I see clearly. He is tall, has sandy coloured hair and his name is "Tim L". I come back and say goodbye to him and as we approach each other, we kiss, and as we kiss, I feel as if I inhale him into me. It's like taking this enormous breath. And I know that he will be with me together forever. But it also seemed that this man in my dreams, whom I knew as Tim, must be my donor.

I was very curious to find out who my donor was because of all the things that were happening to me and because of the dreams I was having – and the feeling of living with his presence.

Claire became convinced that her donor was trying to communicate with her. She contacted the hospital but they informed her that donor records were confidential. When all hope seemed lost, her friend, Fred Stern, called to tell her of a message he received in his own dream.

"I had a clear image of a dream," says Fred Stern, "that we had gone to the basement of the public library and had seen in the Portland newspaper a story on either the third or fourth page several days before her operation. A story about the boy who was killed and whom she had gotten her heart from."

Claire and Stern made arrangements to meet at the local library.

I met Fred at the public library and we looked at the papers the week preceding my transplant. Sure enough, the day before my transplant, as was in his dream, the obituary of a young man who was killed in a motorcycle accident. He was 18 years old. His name was Tim L. as it was in my dream. It felt like my heart stopped beating for a moment. I was standing up and I remember getting kind of weak all over. My knees went a little weak. It was a shock.

"It was almost like magic," says Fred Stern, "like some sense of knowing. It is just wonderful to be a part of it – this unfolding."

It turned out that Tim L. had died in a motorcycle accident shortly before Claire's life saving surgery.

I was shocked because now it became more real. Now I had all the information. I had the family's name. I had details. This person really existed.

Wanting to know more about her donor, Claire wrote to Tim's family and made arrangements to meet them.

"I was very excited," says Tim's sister, Lee Ann, "and the whole family was very excited to meet Claire. It was like meeting my brother all over again for the very first time – seeing him alive again. Claire was very warm towards us. She was loving. She was loving like Tim was."

There was so much feeling that it was absolutely exhausting.

It was then that Claire told Tim's family about her dream.

Tim's sister replied, "My first reaction to Claire's dream was one of disbelief. I really didn't believe it until she just started describing things about my brother – like how he was tall and wiry. She described him almost to a T. She was getting the information from her dream. She described how Tim was loving and that he came to her and wanted to be a friend. I just kind of felt that, "Yeah, that's what Tim would do.""

Claire stated, "When I met the family, I was trying to corroborate some of the things that had been happening to me. I asked them if he happened to like green peppers and they said:

"Oh, yes, he used to love green peppers. He'd fry them up with cabasa."

"They told me his favourite food was chicken nuggets and that he had apparently just bought them before he died because they had to pull them out of his motorcycle jacket when they found him. When they told me that I said, "Oh my God!""

Tim's sister Jackie stated, "Why would she have a dream about her donor unless God was trying to tell her in a way who we were and trying to make it easier for her to get to us so she could see that there was good out of everything she went through."

All the images that have come to me since the transplant are, in and of themselves, having to do with this new part of me.

source unknown

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reader Comments

No Comments

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Editor

If you have any questions, or would like to submit a dream for publication and interpretation, visit our contact page and send us an email. We'll do our very best to address your questions or concerns or analyze your dreams as soon as possible.

If you have a comment, good or bad, regarding TNT, we'd love to hear from you. Reader feedback is the only way we'll know if we're providing what our readers want.

Dream Well !

Terry