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.
Valley Reed © 2013
Awaken the Sacred Dream 