Dreams are nature’s guidance personalized for each individual. Dreaming is our primary connection to the source of being. It is continuous inner guidance that recalibrates our attitudes every single night—even if we don’t recall any of our multiple nightly dreams. Dreams are “real experiences” within the psyche which really do change us… just as our outer experiences change us. People who are kept from dreaming deteriorate... so Dreaming must help us even while we sleep!  People who choose to learn from their dreams can further their own growth and are enriched by "interior guidance" or "self-direction." Dreamwork is picking the fruit of an advanced knowing that appears in every dream. Dream Wisdom applies to you and to me and to Everyone.

Whoever makes us, makes our dreams. Modern culture obstructs many of our connections with outer nature, of which we are a part...  and with our inner nature, too. Fortunately, our dreams are a Hot Line to Wholeness and Health that keep us in touch, no matter what. Dreams have provided guidance to people in every culture and in every era. Truly Universal, dreams are a cornerstone of all science, of all religions, and of all art forms. Did you know that the periodic table of elements found in every science lab appeared to its author in a dream? As did both Jesus and the Buddha. 
Our waking world is marinated in dream soup.

1. We imagine that dreams are meaningless.   
Dreams are actually the greatest buried treasure in our life! All dreams are filmed live and in person inside us. They reveal the objective facts of our subjective interior. And they do not know how to lie. Every dream comes to Help us, Heal us, Teach us, Free us, Prepare us and Inspire us. You can unearth major treasures of self-discovery, if you are willing to dig down into your dreams. That so few people benefit from one of the greatest human gifts—the guiding connection with our source--is a tragic blind spot in our culture. In truth, dreams contain so many layers of dense meaning that they may appear nonsensical at first. If we believe that there is no meaning in our dreams, we may never even look. Most people get stuck at this cultural roadblock and never move beyond. If you’re reading this, you are on your way to correcting the #1 obstruction.

2. We don’t even remember our dreams (after spending all night with them!)  
So we don’t have anything to learn from. The intention to recall dreams is the key here and many tricks and techniques can help. Like putting pencil and paper near the bed and affirming that ‘I will write down and pay attention to my dreams’. Next, imagine yourself writing down a dream that you have remembered. This expectation and the intention to recall dreams is a message to the unconscious. Be sure to record and appreciate any detail or fragment you get. Reading about dreams may also stimulate dream recall, and many studies show that taking B complex vitamins helps most people recall dreams.

3. We try to EXPLAIN rather than explore our dreams.   
EXPLANATORY DREAMWORK is when someone outside your skin tells you what your dream means. This rudimentary, authority-centered style of dreamwork has its place and can be a powerful source of insights. Like reading the Cliff Notes in place of the great literature, it is better than missing the story completely. But anyone who did not witness the dream firsthand is at risk of intruding on the primary bond between the dreamer and her own dream and hence the dreamer and the Source of her being. It’s a risky business, assigning external meanings to someone else’s interior. Explaining someone’s dream to them is rather like me telling you how a peach tastes in your mouth.

4. We try to explain rather than EXPLORE our dreams.  
EXPLORATORY DREAMWORK invites both dreamer and helpers to remain in a receptive, inquiring mode until they hear the voice of their own soul… until they clearly experience the direct perception of their own felt truth. Exploratory Dreamwork includes an intellectual search. It also requires an intuitive connection between the ego and the soul (or conscious and unconscious) that finally begins to reveal layer after layer of directly felt insights. So it's helpful to: actively study the dream symbols, ask questions, re-enter the dream, collect associations, feel the emotions and body responses being activated. Listen for the memories being reawakened, study the story line, play with the words and images, research concepts and word histories, interpret the typos and puns and sentence breaks, and actively wonder about each symbol in a receptive, curious manner... until multiple layers of felt-truth emerge naturally from within. In dreams we meet ourselves.  In dreams we practice ourselves. Marinate your dreams in curiosity and they become a megaphone for the still, small voice within.

5. We don’t know Who we are talking to!   
When working with dreams, we are engaged in conversation with whoever made us. Sometimes known as God… or the factory we came from. Or whatever concept of your source that YOU are supposed to be inserting whenever i say ‘soul’ or ‘God’ or ‘the unconscious’, since i can’t give this whole list each time! (Remember our deal?) If we don’t realize that dreams are a communication from the very source of being… we may expect them to operate just like we do and hence will underestimate them at every turn. For example, we might rationally assume that dreams cannot have access to the whole of the past or present, and certainly not from the future. We would be wrong.  Sometimes dead wrong, since dreams often save lives. An attitude of modesty, reverence, and devotion helps a great deal.  And it comes naturally once we realize that in every dream we are communing with the Mystery of Existence itself.

6. We assume that other people are fundamentally separate from us.  
This is clearly true at the physical level. But dreams bring to us separate individuals, a universal consciousness in which everyone is related at deep levels. In dream groups, every dream talks to every person, revealing the amazing similarities and links that no one could have guessed. This recognition that we are separate selves at one level but not at our core is intrinsic to the continual mystical rediscovery (in every religion) that All are ultimately One! It is a presupposition of Buddhism and is the essence of the Hindu greeting “Namaste” meaning: the Divine in me greets the Divine in you. In Joyous Cosmology, Alan Watts wrote: “Realize we are and always have been One. Acknowledge the master illusion whereby we appear to be separate.” Dreams correct our waking illusion of separateness and to a point:  EVERYBODY’S DREAM IS EVERYBODY’S DREAM.

7. We assume that dreams cannot predict the future.   
This is largely true for an ego, but not at all for a dream. If you regularly review your dreams you will begin to see a consistent thread of prophetic content. I have now seen hundreds of dreams that have made clear and literal predictions. This fact forced me as a scientist to rethink my model of the universe. After the Sept 11, 2001 Twin Towers attack in New York, for example, the next 5 dreams that were prescheduled to be worked on, all dealt with this huge mass event. All of them were dreamed long before the events happened. One of them a year in advance. Three of these dreams were already in the process of being worked on and the section of the dream that ‘happened to be next’ was the passage perfectly timed to correspond with these outer events, and the meaning was unmistakable. Some years ago, a young woman came to me in great distress having dreamed on the night before the death of Princess Diana that she saw her get into a car and be chased across town by another carload of people and into a long tunnel. In this dream, the princess’ car exited the tunnel and crashed into a clock tower… which was set to the very minute the princess was going to die 24 hours later. “What does this mean, doctor?” she asked me. “First,” i said “it means that the world doesn’t work like they taught you in school, and second that you have been chosen by fate to experience that fact in a way you will never forget. Next you get to begin the search to find out why this lesson is just what you need.”

8. We imagine that dead people are actually dead.  
This presumption makes us misunderstand every dream visit they make… causing many ungrateful dead. The departed may appear as symbols in a dream as do living persons… but dreams are also a primary meeting ground for the bereaved and the deceased. A vast majority of modern Americans now report credible contacts with their departed loved ones, in which support, reassurance, and useful guidance is received. When we lose someone close, the contact continues. Jung wrote “Death ends a life, but not necessarily a relationship.” In my experience, death improves most people. Without their ego wounds and human burdens, people lighten up considerably. Many ‘bad parents’ return in dreams and visions and intuitions to make up for their limitations in life. What a shame to throw this gift away just because you were born in a culture that has no model for communion with the departed. (Don’t look a gift ghost in the mouth.) Edgar Cayce felt such visits were a sign of real devotion by deceased relatives who have other things they could be doing, and that we owe these dream visitors extra attention and gratitude.

9. We presume that dead people stay dead...

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