Dream Sharing – Awaken the Sacred Dream

Family Dream Sharing; Part of a Wholesome Breakfast

The breakfast table is a wonderful place to start the day and begin the conversation with “ Did you dream last night?” Allowing your children to share their dreams over breakfast, while listening patiently and attentively, gives your child center stage to tell you their life stories as they unfold in dreams each night. It teaches them excellent story telling skills and they may want to color or paint images or keep a dream journal and find themselves to become gifted artists or writers. Dream sharing can become the bridge to bring forth the creative gifts of storyteller, actor, writer and artist, from the imagination and into the waking world. When your child shares their night adventures in dreaming, we never want respond from a place of all-knowing towards its meaning, or marginalize their experience by laughing or saying it was “only just” a dream. Listening is the best gift we can give them, especially for young children.

Older children and adult family members may want to learn the Lightning dreamwork method, pioneered by dream explorer and author, Robert Moss. The dreamer shares their dream in present tense, as if it were happening right now and without adding additional information or analysis. We begin to discover the dream by asking, how did you feel when you woke up from the dream? Then the next step is the reality check, and in it we want to look for clues pointing toward anything that could play out in waking life. Dreaming events before they happen is entirely natural and something we can all do. The next step in the process is determining what you most want to know from the dream. It is at this phase the dream can be passed around to other family members to share their insights on the dream from the perspective of “If this were my dream…” We want to respect the dreamer and the dream, by not presenting ourselves as the expert on another persons’ dream. The last step of the process is to determine an Action Plan. What Action would best honor your dream? The Lightning dreamwork method is a process which should move quickly and take all of 10 minutes. It is a helpful way to begin the day, and share your dreams with loved ones.

Dreaming is fun and children know how to get around in their dreams, they may allow the soul to take flight to find magical realms of exploration. Families can learn to share in these dream explorations together and determine a specific place to meetup in their dreams for a budget friendly family vacation. Family dream sharing may also include reports of dreaming with departed relatives, something which is valued in many cultures across the globe.

Dream Re-Entry is a powerful tool to use in dream work, especially if you feel your dream may be giving you information about a possible future. It allows you to consciously go back inside the dream with a specific intention, to get more information and perhaps help you determine the best action to take. It can also be valuable when scary dreams may come. When my daughter was 4-year-old, she shared a dream with me over breakfast one morning about zombies chasing her through her dreams every night. I suggested to her the next time she had the dream, why not turn around and ask them, “Why are you chasing me?” She did just that the very next night, and the Zombies responded, “We want you to turn us into butterflies.” In the dream, she did just that, and the very scary Zombies who had terrorized her, became beautiful butterflies. What a wonderful experience for anyone to have, to change our fears into beauty and empowerment. Of course things like that can happen, when we share our dreams and learn what action to take.

Super Power Dreamers to the Rescue

The Dark Moon, Dark Dreams group which met on the New Moon, July 11th, was a lively group which gathered on the shores of White Rock lake in Dallas, Texas. The evening began as I unloaded my car in preparation for the group to meet, when two boys of about 11 or 12 began jumping around the area where I intended to set up. The boys were jumping over the area where I had begun creating the altar, and I gently let them know they would have to take their games elsewhere. They said, “Yes Ma’am” and politely left, only to return moments later with several other friends who gathered around and sat on the edge of a wall watching me continue to build the altar.

I proceeded to introduce myself to each of them shaking their hands and began asking them about their favorite kind of dream. One boy smiled and said “I like dreams where I have super powers!” I agreed, saying “Those are my favorite dreams too!” I then asked, “What is your favorite super power?” to which he responded, “I like flying dreams!” Everyone agreed as we continued around in our game of dream sharing. I invited the boys to stay for the remainder of our group but they were about to leave in a few minutes. I invited to them join us for our next group on the Full Moon if they would like to learn how to do all kinds of amazing things in their dreams. Perhaps I will see them again at our circle, or possibly traversing the dreamscape!

Our scheduled group began to arrive and once the ethics for dreamsharing were discussed we could create a safe space for sharing by prefacing any feedback with “if this were my dream”. This gives both the dreamer and the dream the proper listening and response, rather than any one person becoming the expert on any one else’s dream. The dreams shared by group members brought a deep discussion about the subject of healing dreams and dreaming with the departed. It was the perfect preface to the planned shared group dream excursion to do a conscious dream journey for the purpose of healing the oceans in response to the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The discussion with the energetic group of young boys about dreaming super powers also seemed a fitting preface to the dream excursion we were about to embark on together!

I explained to the group the intention for our conscious dream journey aided by the sound of the drum, and gave the conditions for returning once the journey was concluded. I told a story of a recent visit to an artist’s studio who was creating a large beautiful painting of a mother Manatee and her baby. As I watched her work on the painting in her studio, I told her that I often dream of Manatees and how worried I am about their welfare being in the midst of the oil spill in the Gulf. My new artist friend told me that was why she was painting the Manatees because she was worried about their safety, and also because her husband was there in the Gulf helping to clean up the oil spill. She pleaded with me to send positive vibrations and mediations of healing for the creatures in the ocean. I told her I had recently incubated a dream intention to find a way to solve the oil leak in the Gulf. I dreamt of being taken deep down into the bottom of the Ocean by a blue whale where I was dropped off to stand on a cluster of huge quartz crystals from whence the sound of beautiful celestial sounding music began to emanate. I believe the Whale was showing me the solution seemed to lie in sending out a powerful vibration of healing for the ocean and its creatures. It was from this dream experience that I asked the circle of moon dreamers to embark on a conscious dream journey for the purpose of healing the ocean and stopping the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

The dreamers each brought back powerful experiences of connecting with power animals and ocean creatures who guided them in healing the ocean. One woman worked with the elements in her dream to bring about healing through the forces of nature with a tornado which caused a whirlpool causing the centrifugal force to move the oil downward back into the earth. Another dreamer also worked with the ocean but was aware of healing needed all around the world and worked on sending out energy through the earth energy grid with the assistance of 4 different power animals from each direction to bring healing to the areas most in need. Another dreamer brought through a powerful diamond energy through her crown and heart chakras sending out healing energy to the ocean. She also spoke of hearing a powerful sound during the dream excursion and wanted to send out the sound she heard but was concerned of disturbing the other dreamers. A group member suggested we end the group with the call of our collective voices to honor the call heard by her fellow dreamer. We all turned and sent out loudly our collective inner voice which wanted to be sent. In response, a group of geese nearby who had gathered at the lake shore sent out their loud calls to us. A fitting conclusion to this lively circle of dreamers. The headline news today of the Deep Water Horizon Oil leakage being temporarily stopped and capped on July 14th, brings a wonderful affirmation for the efforts of this circle of conscious dreamers. If you would like to participate in growing a dream community join us by the lake on the full moon Sunday, July 25th for the next gathering of Moon Beams and Moon Dreams at the Stone Circle at White Rock Lake.

Valley Reed is a certified dream teacher and leads dream groups and classes for both young people and adults on Dreaming at Chrysalis Healing Arts in Dallas, Texas. For class descriptions and workshop registration information visit www.chrysalishealingarts.org

Respecting the dreamer and the dream

In the tradition of many indigenous peoples dream sharing is central to the survival and renewal of the tribe. Sharing dreams with another is a sacred space, and should be approached with honor and respect for the dreamer and the dream.

When sharing dreams either in a group, or with another individual, it is important to remember that the dreamer knows most closely what the real message the dream is trying to relay.

The process of sharing dreams may reveal new insights and energy into the dream but it must be offered in an atmosphere of respect. Dream dictionaries and dream interpretors don’t have more insight into the language of the your dreams than you. When you share your dream with someone be sure they don’t try to tell you what your dream means as if they were the expert on your life. This dissempowers both you and the potential your dream has for you.

Dreams can offer many levels of meaning, and keeping a dream journal provides more opportunity to return to your dream time and again for deeper exploration. It is not so much how many dreams that you catch that are important when keeping a dream journal, it is what you do with the material that make up your dream archives. In sharing the dreams that you catch with another individual you create an opportunity to honor the dream, and also honor yourself as a dreamer, as well as those whom you choose to share your dream. Dream sharing is in the ancient tradition of story telling and it is how bards, sages, and healers, passed on wisdom to their people. This sharing process binds us together with wisdom and the connection of community. We have to often relied on books to inform us of our past and our future when we have this wonderful resource of unlimited creative intelligence that can be shared with one another. In the current modern culture of science and intellect, the act of dream sharing and story telling has become a dying art and the fabric of our culture has become dull and frayed. The current culture in America is bound in a dark cult of war, violence, materialism and racism based on fear and ignorance.

Dreamers are being called to create a new way of living and creating a culture of peace. We must return to the ways of a dreaming culture so that our creative intelligence will once again be in service to life and living instead of the motives of profit, death, and destruction. Many of our brightest creative minds are in the service of militant aims in developing ever more lethal and diabolical weapons while the world faces global environmental problems, hunger and poverty, and widespread disease.

Dream sharing strengthens our connection to the web of life. We are interdependant and interwoven in this web of life and the dreams that we catch will help us find our place in this magical tapestry of life.

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