03/22/14

Dreamweavers – Dream Interpretation Information

(Scroll to bottom of article to see websites with more information on Dreams)

 

Dreamweavers

Learn to Interpret Your Dreams

by Melissa Stratton

A myth is a public dream. A dream is a private myth” ~ Joseph Campbell

 

Dreams have been recognized throughout humanity’s existence as having significance. In earlier times dreams were considered prophetic. The dreams of important people in society from kings to clan leaders were analyzed by priest or shaman for their messages. Many tribal cultures such as the Iroquois and other Native American tribes had dream societies and considered dreams to be significant contributions to their art and culture.

 

Our modern Western concept of dream life basically began with psychologist Sigmund Freud in the early 1900’s. Since Freud’s time, psychologists have continued to study dreams and dream analysis is widely utilized in modern psychoanalysis. Beginning in the 1950’s, behavioral scientists began studying dreams from a research basis – how many times a night a person dreams, and what happens to a person when they are kept from dreaming for example. From this research we now know that everyone dreams several times a night. Most people average 3 to 5 dreams a night – whether they remember their dreams is a different story!

 

Today, there is an abundance of dream research and written material on dreams from professional publications, to new age type books, to popular tabloid “what your dreams mean” dictionaries, and on-line dream analysis sites. In spite of all this research and information since Freud’s time, there has not been much progress in the general public’s understanding of dreams. Many still believe dreams are basically caused by “too much pepperoni pizza”, or are simply emotional debris – frightening, bizarre or sexual in nature. This attitude is gradually changing. Popular Movies like Matrix, Inception and others are instilling broader concepts into the collective mind, and more and more people are beginning to claim their dreamtime and place it in the context of their entire life’s fabric. We spend one third of our life in sleep, and much of that sleep time is dreamtime.

 

Personally, I have been actively working/playing with my dreams and keeping dream journals for over 25 years, and have read too many books on dreams to remember them all. I cannot imagine living life without my dreams for guidance and inspiration. I fully believe that dreams and dreamtime are an integral part of our complete life process. It is only our entrenched material perspective that has divorced us from integrating our dream life with waking life. My intent with DreamWeavers is to help you learn to discover your own dream territory, and claim its vast beauty to enhance your waking life. In essence, to learn that dream life and waking life are woven together in a seamless whole. I hope with these techniques you can be well on your way to understanding the wealth of meaning in your own dreams, as well as your family’s and friends.

 

I agree with the philosopher Bertrand Russell when he said, “I do not believe I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove it.” After all, what we call “waking life” may be what our dreaming self calls “dreaming”.

 

 

Dream Categories

 

Basically dreams can be placed into 4 different categories: biological processing, emotional/psychological processing, astral and communal or mass mind communication. Although all dream states can be combinations of all of these categories, each category has its particular “signature” and feeling state. With understanding and practice you can learn to differentiate between them. The first 2 categories are much more commonly recalled and recognized as typical “dreams”. Here is a brief description of each:

 

Biological – the physical body releasing information to the unconscious self, which if necessary is made into a strong enough form, such as a nightmare, to attract the attention of your conscious self. For example, if you are coming down with an illness, you may dream of crabs boiling furiously in a pot of water. Or if you are taking medication which is harmful to your body, you might dream of a battle with soldiers fighting.

 

Emotional/psychological – the subconscious mind digesting and attempting to integrate and process the events of the day (and of earlier life incidents as they relate to present events). For example, you have just started a new job. That night you have a dream where you are piloting a plane and you take off expertly, but when the plane begins to flounder you realize you don’t know what to do next. This could reflect your emotional state around the fact that although you got the job, you are concerned you may not have all the skills necessary to do it well.

 

Astral (or “Spirit Body”) – technically these “dreams” are not dreams at all, but are a symbolic recollection of being at the astral level, sometimes know as “out of body”. This sort of dream can easily be associated with the first two categories, and in fact, they can cross-relate. In other words, their symbolic content can give you information related to your physical and emotional condition. In this type of dream you can receive precognitive information; you visit people you know – relatives, friends, co-workers, even people you do not know in waking life. In these dreams you may take classes, teach classes, do healing work, and are worked upon in healing sessions. You might confront astral projections of all sorts from angelic to demonic, and travel into vast space. You also may just chat with a friend you haven’t seen in a while, meet someone from the past, or even someone who has passed on. These dreams seem much more “real” and vivid, as if you had been there in person, which in a way is true!

 

Communal/Mass mind communication – all of us on the planet participate in creating the reality in which we live. In these types of dreams you are in communication with this mass consciousness and decide together with others which course of events we will choose to be our consciously accepted “reality”. These dreams tend to be more obscure and less personally symbolic. Often these dream images are recalled as geometrical shapes, cosmic sounds, and vast indecipherable images creating feelings of awe. This type of dream is not remembered as frequently (if at all).

 

Multi-layering in Dreams – Another thing to keep in mind, is the multi-layering of dream types and dream imagery. For example in the biological category of crabs boiling in a pot, it certainly can mean you are coming down with an illness and you may even have a fever (boiling) that is working to kill the germs causing the illness. When this dream is considered from a psychological perspective, the same image could be telling you how you tend to avoid uncomfortable situations and hide like a crab inside your shell – but now you are paying for it! Even further, taking a look at your emotions, you may realize you are planning a family vacation to the beach where you always catch and cook crabs, although you have always felt squeamish about boiling them alive. In fact, if you thought about it further, visiting your family always brings up all the ways in which their values make you boiling mad! It is always beneficial to consider dream images in this multi-layered way. By following this process, you won’t miss out on a less than obvious meaning.

 

Techniques to Help You Remember Your Dreams

 


1. Keep a dream journal

 The intention of writing or recording your dreams has been proven to help you remember your dreams better. Keep pen and paper, or recorder by your bedside to further reinforce your intention.

2. Reinforcement

 Each night as you drift into sleep, remind yourself to remember your dreams. You can even say “I’m going to remember my dreams.” out loud to yourself. Just this simple act further strengthens your resolve and deepens your intention, and eventually it becomes true.

3. Share your dreams

The act of sharing your dreams – whether it be with a family member, good friend, or a dream group – further reinforces your interest in your dream world. And you have the added benefit of gaining other people’s insight.

4. Drink a lot of water before going to bed

 Sounds silly, but when you wake up in the middle of the night, it i easier to recall your dreams!

 

Interpretation Techniques

 


1. Gestalt

 This is where you consider that every character in your dream is actually symbolic of some part of yourself. So if you dream about your husband or boyfriend for example, it can represent your inner masculine nature. If you dream about an old high school friend or relationship, consider what that person or situation represented to you then, and how this is being played out now in your own life now.

2.  Symbolic discovery

 This is a technique where you explore significant symbols in your dream, and try to discover what they mean for you personally. Symbols have bigger, archetypal meanings, but they also mean something to you based on your own life history.

Snakes for example are associated with danger and evil knowledge, sexuality, transformation etc. But if you love snakes and have one as a pet, then snakes for you personally could mean something entirely different if they show up in your dream.

3. Emotional – Feeling sensations

Note your feelings around everything in your dream – smells, colors, unusual images, animals, shapes etc. For example you might see a beautiful flower in your dream, but its smell may repel you. Or you could come across a strange insect-like creature, but are drawn toward it and find it attractive. Your feelings are often a major key to what the image represents for you.

4. Cultural context

In this technique you consider a dream image/symbol in the context of how it is perceived by your culture. Transportation for example: a car is your personal vehicle, essential in our culture if we are able to get anywhere independently. A bus is public transportation that involves other people – a driver, passengers etc. Boats are primarily pleasure vehicles, and so on.


5. Wordplay

 Dissecting words for their complete meaning is one of the most effective dream interpretation tools I have used. For example, let’s say the actor/director Woody Allen appears in your dream. After you have considered the above techniques, you could then take apart the actual words and syllables in his name. So Woody might sound like “would he”, and Allen could be “all in”. So your dream symbol of the name Woody Allen could be a way of asking yourself “wood he be willing to give his all in…”.

Another example is bus which can sound like “be us”. If you dream about a bus, you could be playing with the idea of committing to someone – what would it be like to be us” in a public way. When you pull apart words in this way, often their meaning becomes immediately obvious.

 
6. This Dream Means…

 This technique is one which I had a hard time believing would work, but to my surprise works amazingly well. You write down your dream as you usually would, then simply draw a line at the end and write “This dream means…” and wait with pen in hand to see what comes up. Obviously it helps if you are in  centered, un-distracted sate. Try it, you may surprise yourself!

 Here are some sites with more background and cutting edge information on dreams and why we dream:

Brain’s Waste Disposal System More Active During Sleep

Dream Interpretation and History of Dream Theory

Dream Interpretation Offers Insight – WebMD

The Power and Purpose of Dreams

The Art of Creative Sleep – Stephen King

The Mind of a Lucid Dreamer

To Dream In Different Cultures – NYTimes

Types of Dreams

What do Your Dreams Mean

 

Sites on dream research and resources for further study:

Dreams Foundation

Dream Research Institute – UK

Edgar Casey Foundation – Dreams and Dream Interpretation

Induction of Self-Awareness in Dreams – electrical stimulation of brain creates lucid dreaming

The Dream Tree

Interesting Dream Events:

A Precognitive Dream Made £56 Million for Charity

Larry Page co-founded Google from a Dream

Monster.com’s founder Jeff Taylor got his idea for Monster in a dream

Michal Karcz conjures up the alternate universes while snoozing then transforms his dreams into reality

 

 

 

 

03/19/14

Spring Equinox 2014

Ace of Rainbows

Ace of Rainbows

The Spring Equinox is on March 20, 2014 at 12:47p EDT and 4:57p UT. The Spring Equinox (Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere) is the reset button for the Zodiac wheel. It is the moment when the Sun enters Aries the first sign of the zodiac, a fierce fire sign ruled by the planet of war Mars. The symbol for Aries is the Ram with sturdy, tough horns ready to butt through any barrier in its way.  Aries is raw, passionate and runs on instinct. A fitting sign for the energies of Spring as new seeds aggressively push their way through the soil to greet the waiting Sun.

The Farmer’s Almanac always has fun and interesting information on the Equinox and other seasonal markers and so does EarthSky

As I prepared to write this article I pulled a card from one of my favorite Tarot decks – the Osho Zen deck and got the Ace of Rainbows “Maturity” pictured above.  Aces are  numerologically connected to the number 1 so it was perfect to pick for this first moment of the new zodiac year.  The commentary accompanying the card reflects lovely  synchronicity as well. It says, “This figure stands alone, silent and yet alert. The inner being is filled with flowers that carry the quality of springtime and regenerate wherever he goes. This inner flowering and the wholeness he feels affords the possibility of unlimited movement…his joy and maturity cannot be diminished by externals.

The chart for the Equinox is the birth chart for this new season, and the Ace of Rainbows sheds light on the Equinox chart too.  As always the Sun is at 0 degrees Aries and this year Mars the ruler of Aries is in the opposite sign of Libra (at 25*) and is currently retrograde too. To have the ruler of the chart moving in reverse makes a telling statement. Venus rules Libra and is the planet of love, peace and harmony – the counterpart to Mars. Libra tames and refines the the testy nature of Aries but also adds confusion. Aries is the pioneer, never doubting, forging ahead to the new frontier. With Mars retro in vacillating Libra, instead of forward motion the inclination is to hesitate. Which direction to go, will the correct choice be made?

Adding to this indecisive quality in the Equinox chart is communicator Mercury conjunct nebulous Neptune and not far away from centaur Chiron all in watery Pisces where creativity and right brain activity is accentuated, but concepts have to ping up from the bottom before they can be translated into clear, linear communication the left brain can understand.  The Equinox Moon in mutual water sign Scorpio brings intensity to deep emotional journeys which means the public mood is more interested in what they feel versus annoying facts.  Structural Saturn is also in deep Scorpio waters and moves retrograde which adds to an atmosphere of strong emotional tides washing over secure foundations.

Huge, expansive Jupiter moves direct again in the most emotional water sign of all – Cancer. This adds even further waves of emotion crashing on the shores of the Equinox chart.  Jupiter reaches out closely to both the Moon and Chiron and calls out to Mercury, Neptune and Saturn as well. This formation recreates the Grand Water Trine featured strongly since Summer Solstice of 2013.  This cosmic water fall has the capacity to heal at levels never reached before,  or it can help throw the biggest pity party and longest victim parade possible.

Venus travels in airy, aloof Aquarius above it all except when she isn’t.  She forms a tense square to the Scorpio Moon so in the midst of messy temperamental drama her usually sweet and social nature goes out the cosmic door exclaiming that everyone is nuts and she wants no part of it! Or worse strategically contemplates how to take advantage of the situation for her own advantage. Not extremely helpful. Meanwhile penetrating Pluto and wild eyed Uranus continue their respective journeys in Capricorn and Aries and along with Jupiter form the cardinal cross hanging in the heavens for so long. This cross begs for decisive action, but the mushy Equinox energies are not likely to provide it unless (and it’s a big unless!) the higher elements of consciousness, spiritual connection, with love and respect for all can transcend.  (I can hear cynical Venus in Aquarius, saying fat chance of that!)

To sum it all up, at collective levels there is a lot of mushy energy around which leads to confusion and lack of linear clarity – the Malaysian disappearing jet for example.  The mystery of what happened to flight 370 deepens and deepens. Are they on the Lost island? Maybe, who knows. This fuzzy energy can easily be taken advantage of by those who are clear in their needs and demands.  Does Vladimir Putin ring a bell here? Putin came up in the Autumn Equinox 2013 article too, in connection with behind the scenes influence on Syria. It remains to be seen what will happen with the situation in the Ukraine but Putin has certainly grabbed the upper hand while the US and NATO spin about on the waves.  Another bell ringer for this energy is Syrian President Assad who has not wavered in the ruthless death and destruction of his own citizens going on for 3 years while the rest of the world rings its hands helpless to stop the brutality.  When Mars retrogrades in Libra, diplomacy back steps too.

At up close and personal levels, lets go back to the Ace of Rainbows for insight. As the old phrase goes, “The situation is desperate as usual”.  Throughout history when have there not been wars and rumors of war? When have peace and prosperity covered the globe? When have enlightened people governed for the good of all? I am an eternal optimist, and my fervent belief is we will reach these higher levels, and the only way to get there is not from the top down, but from the bottom up. That means it’s up to you!

So in the midst of mushy, emotional dramas being played out in the world, in your community, in your work place and in relationships with family and those closest to you – you can be the Ace of Rainbows. You can reflect your own inner flowering, wholeness, joy and maturity which cannot be diminished by externals. Use the raw courage, fierce intuition and faith in self that Aries brings. Stand strong with the powerful emotions of Scorpio, add the fulsome healing love of Cancer and the blessed spiritual understanding of Pisces. Remember to maintain Libra balance and soar up to the 10,000 foot perspective of Aquarius and nothing external can diminish your strength and you will be a rainbow blessing all you meet.  Here are some beautiful rainbows to inspire you!