Lightning Dreamwork – Awaken the Sacred Dream

Dreams as Gateways of Sacred Activism

We all dream, and dreams have the potential to bring us together. Active Dreaming was pioneered by Robert Moss as a synthesis of modern dream work and ancient shamanic methods of conscious dreaming. A key process is the Lightning Dream Sharing method, a quick way of sharing dreams and focusing the energy of dreams in an intentional way to reveal helpful information and potential actions. This approach to dream sharing is done in a way that respects the dreamer and the dream, where the only expert on the dream is the dreamer themselves, and helpful feedback is offered from the perspective of “if this were my dream”.

“Sacred Activism” was a term coined by Andrew Harvey as a way to cultivate compassionate action inspired by leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. who engaged non-violent direct action and dialogue in confronting the violence of racism with a vision of building a loving community through “Agape”. Mahatma Gandhi promulgated the homespun movement as a source of non-violent resistance to break the stronghold of Colonial Britain in India. Both of these peaceful movements of social change were rooted in reclaiming who we are, with a collective vision of what we could become together. Today many of us are activated and busy fighting against the tide of injustice that is intent to turn back the clocks on social change efforts won through the struggles of many who came before us. If ever there was a need to bring forth a vision for change it is now and it is up to us to put our attentions there together to help grow this vision and take peaceful actions for the future.

Perhaps part of the trouble we see in modern Western society today, is that we have lost touch with our dreams as a culture. This is where the practice of Active Dreaming can come into play, when we learn how to remember our dreams and share them with others, we are helping to grow a dreaming community. Modern dream work approaches such as Dream Incubation and Dream Re-Entry are key practices of Active Dreaming. These two approaches offer ways to consciously direct your intentions for dreaming and re-entering a dream to gain information directly from the dream itself. There are many things you can learn to do inside your dreams and Active Dreaming is a practice to help you delve more deeply into your dream life and recover your dreaming potentials.

Learning to live and act consciously in our life takes practice, and Active Dreaming is a way to recover authentic connections to who we are, and discover what we truly desire in life. Dreams have the potential to connect us to something more, beyond the everyday waking mind and limited vision of the individual. We may find ourselves awakening to the sacred dream, collective vision, and eternal energy which connects us all. In dreams, we may explore profound realms of experience to discover the beauty and magic that exists inside each of us.

Active Dreaming allows us to not only awaken this sacred collective vision, but can show us how to dream together consciously. Shamanic conscious group dream journeys, guided by the sound of the drum, provide an ancient technology which is highly effective at allowing one to enter into a conscious dream state. This core practice of Active Dreaming, allows dreamers to come together in a mutual dreaming experience to bring back a collective vision in as full detail as possible. We can then take individual Action to grow this collective dream and help bring it into the waking world. This is how dreams become gateways of Sacred Activism, when we can journey consciously into these deeper realms of soul and spirit, and act upon it in some significant way on behalf of the wholeness of self, family, community and planet.

Valley Reed is an Active Dream Teacher, and Peace Activist Leader in Dallas, Texas.

Visit www.chrysalishealingarts.org for more information and calendar of events.

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.

It’s Only Just a Dream

It’s Only Just a Dream….how many of us have heard this seemingly harmless phrase after sharing a dream with someone at some point in our lives? I have heard stories from others who tell of their “Just a Dream” experiences, often in childhood, and what followed was a lack of respect for the dreamer and the dream, leaving a scar and broken trust. But what you will see in my story is a tale of caution, where labeling a dream as “Just a Dream” could spell the difference between life and death.

Back in the mid 80’s I worked for a Commercial Real Estate Developer in Downtown Dallas, Texas during the Savings & Loan Crisis, which caused many companies to go bankrupt. The company I worked for was no exception, and so I also became a casualty of the economic crisis and suddenly found myself out of a job. I was young with limited work experience and found it difficult to find work. The only job I could find was to work as a rose girl trolling through bars in the evenings selling roses to amorous couples, or some guy hoping to get lucky with that pretty girl.

One night before I was scheduled to work as a “rose girl”, I had an unusual dream that changed my life.

Belle Starr Rose Girl Shot Dead

I see myself dressed in my rose girl uniform in a red jacket, black shorts and fishnet nose, and I am walking around Belle Star, a popular country and western bar, carrying my rose basket. I walk slowly around the bar and it is crowded. I make my rounds through the place and head back towards the front, as I do a man bursts through the door and begins shooting. I see myself hold my neck with one hand as I fall to the ground in slow motion and the roses spilling out everywhere. I have been shot in the neck, and am lying dead on the floor surrounded by a pool of blood with roses spread all around me. EOD.

I awake from this dream terrified, my body is shaking and I know I have just seen my own death. I shared the dream, fearing for my life, with my now ex-husband, who tells me frankly, “Oh it is just a dream,……..you have to go to work we need the money.” I was almost persuaded by his goading and pressure that I needed to go to work, but I was still very afraid, and so I called into work to tell them I was sick and would not be coming in. They were very upset with me, and told me they had given me the very best route of clubs to work that night and I would make alot of money. They told me what clubs they had scheduled me to work and at what time, and Belle Star was one of the clubs on that list. They also told me if I didn’t come to work and called in sick they would have to fire me. I didn’t want to lose my job and so I somehow mustered the courage to get myself dressed for work and drove in that direction. While driving down the highway, I saw a really bad car accident that had just happened. The car was totaled and I could somehow sense that someone had died in that car wreck. My hands began to shake on the steering wheel, and I began to feel the same sensation I experienced in the dream about seeing my own death. I could not physically force myself to drive to work after that, I was too shaken by the whole experience, and my body knew the real danger I was heading toward. I turned around and drove home instead.

My then husband at the time, was very angry with me, and yelled at me for being irresponsible by not going to work. My employer was not pleased with me either and fired me for not showing up for my shift. I was feeling pretty low about the whole situation. The next day however, on the front page of the newspaper, was a story about a man who had gone into a popular country western bar called Belle Starr and began shooting, and two people were shot. http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1987_443477/man-dressed-in-black-shoots-2-in-dallas-club.html

I was astounded, that could have been me! I felt I had been touched by grace somehow, and that for some reason I was given information in a dream which saved my life. Clearly there was more to dreaming than I had previously been lead to believe. Never again would I look at any dream as “just a dream”.

My life changed after that day and I made a determination to honor my dreams from that day forward. I began to look more deeply into the messages my dreams had for me, and I started writing my dreams down in journals. I soon realized by keeping a dream journal, that many dreams I recorded had content which connected to events in waking life. They were not as dramatic as the rose girl dream, but just normal everyday occurrences would also appear in my dreams. I discovered that deja vu experiences I had often had, were a result of having dreamt it before, rather than lived it before. I determined that dreams are a place where we can create our life and often give us glimpses of what may come. I also began to have out of body experiences, and once found myself hovering above my body connected to my physical body by a luminous cord of fuchsia colored light which lit up the entire room in that hue. I felt the strong loving energy of the light which enveloped the room, and was confused about why I was looking at my physical body asleep in bed as I was hovering above. I wondered how this could happen, and suddenly found myself slammed back into my body and abruptly woke up. I was having what is known as an “out of body experience”, but at the time I was unfamiliar with this, and so I began to explore lucid dreaming and astral travel. I learned that I was not confined to my physical body but could travel in my night time excursions beyond the physical.

These experiences were a turning point in my life, which set me on an exploration of consciousness, dreaming and shamanism. I have recorded my dreams now for over 25 years and studied many aspects and approaches to dreaming. The approach that I value most is Active Dreaming, a synthesis of modern day dream work with ancient shamanic dream practices. Active Dreaming was developed through the pioneering work of Robert Moss and it is through his dream teacher training and depth workshops over the years that I have joined the ranks of dream teachers around the world who are helping to create a dream sharing community once again. I offer classes and workshops on Active Dreaming where we explore the many ways dreams provide guidance and healing as we travel our life path and beyond. Dreams have the ability to lead us out of danger and onto a path of heart and soul. All we have to do to start on this path is dream, and share our dreams in a way that offers respect for the dreamer and the dream. The lightning method of dream sharing is an excellent way to share dreams in a way begins with the felt sense of the dreamer upon waking, followed by a reality check, for clues of a possible future which may play out in our dreams. The process asks “What do you most want to know from the dream” as an important touch stone to work from and then moves to “What action do you want to take?” This process is a quick method of dream sharing that points to the important aspects to work from when discovering your dreams. Dreaming the future does not mean your waking life must play out the same way. My story exemplifies how it is possible to change the outcome of a dream, if appropriate action is taken. Conversely, if a dream is showing us our heart’s desire, we have only to gather our courage and act.

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