Dreams are Real
The places we go in our dreams are actual places. When we dream of loved ones who have died in this life, it's because we're meeting them in the dream worlds--which is where they now live.
"Your dreams," Harold Klemp writes, "are visits to heaven."
The deeper we travel into our inner universe of dreams, the closer we get to our true home, the closer we get to realizing our true nature as Soul, an eternal spark of God.
That's when we realize the most lovely surprise. We're dreaming right now! This world is the dream!
If you're curious about this, I would recommend Klemp's book "The Art of Spiritual Dreaming." It ought to be in your library.
Best wishes on your journey home,
Peter
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Dream FAQ
From: http://www2.angelhaven.com/vl_articles/dreams/view.asp?ID=206
Dream FAQs
By Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Ph.D.
Copyright Visionary Living, Inc.
Registered with the U.S. Copyright Office
Excerpted from Rosemary’s book, Dreamspeak: How To Understand the Messages in Your Dreams, published by Berkley Books
What are the most common dreams?
The most common dreams are flying, falling and losing your teeth. Except for flying dreams, which usually are pleasant, many common dream themes deal symbolically with anxieties and unresolved emotions. Some other common themes are: being nude or partially nude in public; being pursued or attacked by a monster or threatening person; being late and getting lost; losing money and valuables; being unprepared for a test or examination; driving or riding in a car, especially when the road abruptly changes to something unexpected, and missing a train, plane or boat.
Why do dreams communicate in symbols?
Although all of our senses are engaged in dreams, dreams are primarily a visual medium.
Pictures, images and symbols convey far more information that words. They reach us on an intuitive level. We can understand images by making associations with them. What do they remind us of? What emotions to they invoke? How do they fit what is going on in our life?
Do we dream every night?
Scientific research indicates that, with few exceptions, we all dream every night Some people who have suffered trauma to the brain or who have brain illness are known to experience a loss of dreaming. Otherwise, we dream throughout the night, in both rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep.
If I dream every night, why do I not always remember a dream when I wake up?
Some people seem to have a natural ability to remember their dreams in vivid detail. while others struggle to recall them. Stress, food, medication and stimulants can affect sleep patterns, thus potentially disrupting dream time. You can benefit your recall by setting your intention prior to sleep to remember dreams, and by recording whatever you recall, even fragments, as soon as possible upon awakening.
Does everyone dream in color?
Most people – an estimated 75 percent of the adult population – dream in color. A higher percentage of women dream in color than men. It’s not unusual to dream primarily in color and also occasionally have black-and-white dreams.
How long do dreams last?
Most range from a half-minute or so to several minutes in length. Some dreams can run as long as 15 to 20 minutes.
Do men and women dream differently?
Women’s dreams contain more dialogue, social interaction, emotion and detail. Women’s dreams are set indoors more than men’s dreams, which are set more outdoors. Men’s dreams contain more action and more male figures, and less dialogue.
Do dreams change as we age?
Our sleep patterns change as we age. We spend much more time in REM sleep when we are young. Dream recall decreases with age. Our dreams reflect our emotional concerns, which change in different stages of life.
Why do so many dreams seem troublesome rather than happy?
Studies show that about two-thirds of our dreams are unpleasant or negative. Dreams are a source of intuitive guidance for our best interests and healing. They prompt us to act when life gets out of balance. Stresses, anxieties, unfounded fears, self-doubts and repressed feelings all need to be healed. Dreams are helpful in that they bring imbalances to our attention.
Why do some dreams repeat?
Dreams call our attention to something we need to change, and repeat until we do so. Sometimes the very same dream repeats; more often, a theme repeats. Sometimes repeating dreams are nightmarish to the dreamer. Resolving the issue usually brings an end to the repetition.
Are nightmares different from “ordinary dreams”?
A nightmare is any distressing dream, and we all have one from time to time in reaction to stress and anxiety. Some nightmares are caused by psychological problems, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and repressed memories about abuse or negative events. Nightmares related to PTSD, abuse and dissociative disorders are best dealt with in professional therapy.
Do the blind dream?
Blind people dream, but not necessarily with visual imagery. If someone is born blind or sight is lost before age five, visual imagery is absent. Instead dream content includes the other senses, primarily hearing, as well as emotional tones. If sight is lost between ages five and seven, there may be some visual imagery. Visual imagery is retained in dreams if sight is lost after age seven, but gradually decreases with age.
Do animals dream?
The answer to that isn’t known. Animals are observed to have REM sleep, and to twitch and make noises during sleep. Throughout history, human beings have thought animals to dream. The Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Roman historian Pliny believed so, and much later Charles Darwin credited dogs, cats, horses and the “higher animals” with the ability to dream. Recent lab research on young zebra finches showed that the birds exhibited the same brain activity when learning the song of the adult zebra finch as they did during REM sleep, leading to speculation that the birds were dreaming about rehearsing the song.
What is a lucid dream?
A lucid dream involves knowing you’re dreaming while you’re dreaming. In some cases, you can direct the events and outcome of the dream. Lucid dreaming has been linked to enhanced creativity and self-healing. It’s estimated that about 15 percent of the adult population naturally have frequent lucid dreams. Many people can learn to increase their lucid dreaming.
Do we go out-of-body when we dream?
No one knows where consciousness “goes” during sleep and dreaming -- or where it “goes” when we’re awake, either. We understand very little about the nature and functions of consciousness and where it “is.” However, since ancient times dreams have been regarded as a place where human awareness can meet spiritual beings and the dead, as well as have real experiences. Barriers and limitations imposed by the rational mind fall away during sleep, and we are free to travel through time and space. Some dreams can be intensely spiritual in nature – we feel we are in the presence of spiritual beings or the Divine, and in otherworldly places. These can be symbolic images – or, according to ancient wisdom – real events.
How common are psychic dreams?
People probably have more psychic dreams than they realize, simply because they don’t pay attention or discuss them with others. Usually we hear about psychic dreams only when they’re dramatic and involve a distressing or tragic event or death. However, parapsychology studies show that precognitive information about future events is more likely to present itself to us in dreams than in any other fashion. Many people who pay attention to their dreams discover that they have “little” precognitive dreams often. These concern upcoming events, situations and encounters with people. Scientific research shows that information can be transmitted telepathically during dreaming, from a person who is awake to a person who is asleep.
Can people have the same dream at the same time?
Mutual dreaming, in which two or more persons share the same dream or same dream elements, is more common than one might think. We seldom discover this because, again, we don’t pay attention to dreams and discuss them with others. Mutual dreaming is more likely to occur between or among people who have a close bond, either genetic or emotional, but can happen between persons who do not have a strong connection to one another. Mutual dreaming has not been explored much in research. It may have something to tell us about the interconnections of human consciousness.
Do sensory stimuli affect dreams?
Sounds, smells, tactile sensations and bodily functions can work their way into dreams and become part of the dream drama. For example, if you lose your bedcovers during the night, you may dream of being in a snow-covered place and feeling cold. A car alarm going off down the street may become a fire engine in a dream. Falling out of bed can appear in a dream in which you are falling from a great height. Sigmund Freud found that by eating anchovies or highly salted foods prior to sleep, he caused himself to dream that he was drinking water. Sensory stimuli should be taken into account, but the dream should not be dismissed as having no other meaning.
Is it safe to work with dreams?
Dreams deal with our true – and often unexpressed or unacknowledged – emotions, and with material in the subconscious. Anytime we examine what is below the surface, unsettling emotions can result. Sometimes it may be advisable to do dreamwork with a therapist. Lay dreamwork, such as in facilitated groups, is beneficial for many people. The prevailing wisdom about dreams is that they are inherently healing in nature, and that they do not bring forth anything we are not ready to examine.
What does sleepwalking have to do with dreams?
Most ordinary sleepwalkers are not necessarily acting out dreams. Some sleepwalking and other actions during sleep are part of a condition called “REM sleep behavior disorder,” or RBD or RSBD. Sufferers of this condition may be physically active while having vivid dreams.
Can I control my dreams?
Learning how to dream lucidly is one way to direct dreams. Another, more common way – and one used by peoples around the world since ancient times – is to direct dreams through incubation, a process in which we ask dreams to answer a specific question. Incubation techniques are explained in two of my books, Dreamwork for the Soul and Dreamspeak: How to Understand the Messages in Your Dreams. Both books, as well as my Encyclopedia of Dreams: Symbols and Interpretations, will help you learn what your dreams are telling you.
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Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Ph.D., is the author of numerous books on dreams, intuition, spirituality and visionary experience. Visit her website, www.visionaryliving.com.
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Power Dreaming
From: http://www2.angelhaven.com/vl_articles/dreams/view.asp?ID=204
By Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Ph.D.
Copyright Visionary Living, Inc. 2000
Registered with the U.S. Copyright Office
From the introduction to Dreamwork for the Soul, published by Berkley Books, 1998.
My introduction to power dreaming came early in life, while I was in my teens. Perhaps this was due to the psychic thread in my family, which included extrasensory perception, or psi, in dreams. Early on, I saw dreams as a wonderful, extraordinary experience that held great mystery and untapped potential.
I didn't call it "power dreaming" back then. It was a term I applied much later as my dreams unfolded from the symbolic to the paranormal to the otherworldly and mystical. I have devoted myself to the study of dreams throughout my life. I have kept dream journals and done dreamwork in a variety of settings. In addition, I have studied the paranormal, alchemy and the mystical, and have developed my own spiritual path that bridges Western and Eastern philosophies. This study and dreamwork led me to the conclusion that we in the West have lost an important part of the art of dreamwork. We have become disconnected from the dream's Truth. It is essential to regain this connection, if we are to become whole, and if we are to further the evolution of our consciousness.
Our conventional dream wisdom treats the dream as a symbolic mirror of ourselves: everything in a dream represents something about us or inside of us. While that is true, that is only one facet of the dream. What we overlook is the heart of the dream: the dream is a real experience that takes place in another reality. When we enter this reality, this dreamscape, we are able to transcend limitations of the physical world. Our dreams are teaching tools, showing us how to grow and improve. If we dismiss the dream as a fantasy, we miss out on much that it has to teach us. Dreams are the original language of the spiritual path.
The ancients understood this and many cultures around the world preserve this wisdom about the dream. But we in the modern West need to restore it. Without it, we will not be able to fully benefit from riches the dream has to offer.
We need to recognize that dreams move us from beyond the symbolic to experiences of Truth. Dreams are a straight connection to the divine heart of the cosmos. In dreams, we can receive high spiritual guidance, meet otherworldly beings, visit other dimensions, have contact with the dead and explore new frontiers of consciousness. The wisdom and insight we gain from such experiences can be brought back into the material world to apply to life, now.
This is what power dreaming is about: mastery of the dreaming consciousness in order to fulfill our great potential as human beings and as souls. By mastery, I do not necessarily mean control, although it is possible to learn how to direct one's dreams. Mastery is wisdom and understanding, and the knowledge of how to apply them. Our dreams are teaching tools not only for this world, but for realms we have begun to experience.
We keep telling ourselves in the media that we are hungry for spiritual experience and nourishment. Yet one of the greatest spiritual experiences is laid at our doorstep every night when we dream. We keep looking for ways to connect with the Source. Yet every night, we have a "hotline to God."
One night I asked my husband to set the clock radio alarm for the next morning. We are early risers and only use an alarm when we have to get up extra early. When the alarm went off, the very first thing that came over the radio were these words: "Thanks for listening, and may the Lord bless you and keep you." It was a wonderful synchronicity underscoring the divine guidance that comes through dreams. God speaks to us through dreams, and here I was, being thanked for listening!
Not every dream is a "big" dream. Our dreams are busy creatures with a big agenda. Over the years, I began to see three essential levels to dreams: a personal level that relates to everyday life; an archetypal level that uses mythical symbols and carries a bigger message, and a transpersonal level that deals with other realms. As I explain in this book, a dream may involve all three levels, but primarily focus upon one level. We can go through phases where one level will be more prominent than others.
Dreaming for Love and Enlightenment
Dreams do more than help us understand ourselves better. They help to awaken us to our full identity and potential--that we are souls, not egos. When we are awakened, we walk the Path of Truth and Beauty. We are true to the divine laws that govern creation, and we are true to ourselves. We spend our time and our gifts wisely, upon pursuits that further Truth. We know what we are capable of, and what we are not. We know what we are willing to do, and what we are not. We say "yes" with pleasure and "no" with grace. We hear the song of the soul, we craft a vision for our life, and we hold fast to our vision through sun and storm. When we are awakened, we are constantly guided by our dreams and intuition.
When we walk the Path of Truth, we walk the Path of Beauty. The Truth within us radiates forth as the beautiful divine light of Love. The soul that shines resplendent as a diamond light of Truth, Beauty and Love attracts to it the infinite good from the inexhaustible Source.
Do you wish to know love? Your dreams will show you first how to love yourself. Until you have mastered the lessons of self-esteem, self-love and self-empowerment, how can you attract your ideals, accomplish your goals, love anyone else? Self-love is not the same as egotism, though the two are often confused. Self-love is knowing your own worth, your own divinity, your part in the greater whole. Yes! you are important. Yes! you have a valuable role to play. When you recognize your own worth, your innate and unique gifts are released. The currents of divine love flow freely through you. True self-love is humble. When we express our Truth for the sheer beauty of it, we need no superficial reward. The Truth is its own reward.
When you have mastered self-love, your dreams will guide you in loving others. They put relationships under an honest microscope. Too often we fool the ego into thinking things are all right when they are not, but we cannot fool the soul, which speaks through dreams. Do you wish to strengthen your relationships with friends and loved ones? Ask your dreams, and they will tell you.
Do you wish to know enlightenment? Dreams can help you touch the greatest expression of love, the unconditional love that emanates from God. In guiding you through the lessons of love, dreams expand the heart lotus. You can have mystical experiences of this ineffable love in your dreams--unforgettable dreams that will leave you transformed forever.
Do you wish to know prosperity? Is your life a desert rather than an oasis? Do you lack rather than have? If so, you are not following your Truth. Pay attention to your dreams.
In any situation, your dreams will give you what you need to heal, to grow, to improve, to prosper, to love. They will offer to you a wealth of information from the depths of your being, show you the dark pieces of yourself that need to be loved into light, show you the ways you are ready to soar. Dreams are wonderfully responsive--if we seek help from them, they oblige. If you think your dreams make no sense, they do--it's a matter of understanding their language. If you have trouble remembering your dreams, you can improve that as well.
Dreams do not themselves solve problems or create magic--they provide the information, insight and inspiration that we need to do the work. They are messengers, conduits of energy.
A treasure chest lies waiting to be opened each night. Do not delay. Look inside.
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Dreaming a New World into Being
From: http://www2.angelhaven.com/vl_articles/dreams/view.asp?ID=209
By Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Ph.D. with Rita Dwyer
Copyright Visionary Living, Inc. 2002
Registered with the US Copyright Office
We often dream of having a better life or being in a better place. Such dreams seem more like wishes than blueprints for action, but we dream them anyway, in our free time, and create in our imagination an ideal life or world. And then we let the dreams go.
But what if we could actually, literally dream a new world into being? Not through idle wishes and fantasies, but through real dreams that we create and experience during sleep?
It’s not impossible. Human beings have been doing it for centuries. Now, a group of members of the Association for the Study of Dreams (ASD) have launched a dream activism program for the dreaming community. In this post- 9-11 world, it is more important than ever than we join together to use one of the most important tools of our consciousness – dreams – to change the world for the better. Dream activism builds on ancient dream wisdom and experience.
The manifesting power of dreams
Dreams have always been seen as a direct link to the spiritual plane – a hot line to the gods or God. Since ancient times, dreams have been interpreted for messages of divine prophecy. Pro-active dreaming through incubation has been used as a communications link for petitioning divine intervention in healing and problem-solving. People have used dreams to bring specific changes into the physical world.
Today many people use pro-active dreaming for personal affairs, and for creativity and inspiration. Science, invention and the arts boast many individuals who brought something new into the world as a direct result of their dreams.
Anyone who has had a creative dream breakthrough understands that the dreaming mind has a power we do not experience during waking consciousness. It is not fettered by time or space, or self-imposed limitations. It reaches into the subtle plane of the unmanifest potential, where unlimited ideas and inspirations are born. Our dreams are filled with magic and creativity. What’s more, our dreams charge us up with energy for creating what we dream.
Dreams and the collective order
Dreams are part of our soul consciousness. If we accept the idea that everything is interconnected – in accordance with the fundamentals of mystical philosophy – then the consciousness of every individual is connected to other consciousnesses, which forms a collective. Carl Jung was the first to recognize the collective unconscious and its importance in dreamwork, but it is collective consciousness that is important in everyday waking reality. Our thoughts and intent have the power to affect physical events that play out in the world. If enough people are angry, then war, dissension, terrorism are created. If enough people are peaceful and loving, then harmony is created. It’s order versus chaos, depending on the critical mass we create with our thoughts, emotions and intentions.
This view has been put forth by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the chief proponent of Transcendental Meditation (TM), in which a person achieves transcendental consciousness by meditating upon a mantra. According to the Maharishi, if a minimum of the square root of one percent of the world's population collectively did TM, the coherence of their brainwaves would result in a drop of crime, illness, accidents and aggression. The Maharishi International University has tested this hypothesis with large groups of thousands of meditators, with significant results.
In July this year the Maharishi announced he is opening centers for TM meditators to practice on world consciousness in order to cancel war and terrorism. Using the theory of “constructive interference,” the Maharishi hopes that local meditation centers will have a collective psi effect to bring peace and elevation to disturbed world consciousness.
Dreaming can be part of this broad effort, too. Like our thoughts and emotions, our dreams have tremendous creative power to shape the world. We dream not just for and about ourselves, but in a larger “dream pool” as well. If we can use our dreams to influence the course of our personal life, then we can use our dreams collectively to influence the course of global life. Group dreaming toward a common theme, such as peace, also can establish a coherence of brainwaves that in turn could affect the physical environment – perhaps by subtly altering the actions taken by individuals.
Precedence for dream activism has already been established. For example, in 1982 Bill Stimson, then editor of the Dream Network Bulletin, proposed an experiment in global dreaming. On the winter solstice, nine groups in the United States and Europe met to discuss dreams they had been incubating on the topic of a World Dream. Each group selected one representative dream to share with the other groups. Author and ASDer Linda Lane Magallon reports in her book Mutual Dreaming:
The similarity of images in the networking process was impressive. Themes included a recognition of the importance of the era in which they lived, a realization of the choices they faced, and great hope for the future. There were three mentions of animal and intercultural themes; four references to water, five to transformations or new beginnings, and five to flight or upward movement.
It is time once again for dreamworkers around the world to unite, this time in a sustained effort to dream a new and better world into being.
A plan for dream activism
At the annual ASD conference at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, this year, a group of ASDers (see names below) convened for our workshop to develop a plan for dream activism. The core of the plan is a central dream affirmation to be meditated upon and incubated on the same night every month by as many dreamworkers as possible. The affirmation is directed to benefit something on a large scale – the collective good. Its intent is to stimulate thought on a collective level to inspire people with ideas, initiatives and drive to manifest real and positive change in the world.
We discussed many affirmations that were good, such as for peace, for healing, for the end of poverty and hunger, and so on. One thing quickly became clear: while people may generally agree in their desire to help make the world a better place, they want to go about it in different ways. We all have causes to which we feel drawn.
The solution to this proved to be a general “activation” affirmation that would unite many people in dreams toward a common goal – improving conditions in the world – while allowing individuals to emphasize specific priorities.
The dream activism affirmation that we created is:
“Tonight I dream the awakened heart... Today I awaken the dreaming heart.”
In recognition of the impact of the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, we set the night of the 11th every month as the time for dreamworkers everywhere to incubate this affirmation with the focused power of the collective dreaming mind. However, on the first practice the following month, many in the group felt that the night of the 10th is more appropriate, for it allows the healing messages to come forth on the day of the 11th. Dream activists can use either or both nights, as well as any other time that seems appropriate.
The affirmation is used in the following manner. Sometime during the day of the 10th, or prior to sleep that night, the dreamer thinks of a specific goal for the common good that he/she would like to help realize. It may be for freedom, for the relief of hunger, for education, for cessation of war – whatever powerfully moves the dreamer. Intensity of emotion is important in order to create and manifest, so the dreamer must choose something about which he/she has strong feelings.
As an alternative, the dreamer can use the affirmation as a way of receiving a call to a specific action.
Prior to sleep, the dreamer concentrates on the central affirmation, “Tonight I dream the awakened heart,” inviting guidance, inspiration and ideas to be presented in dreams. The following day, dreams are recorded and interpreted with the help of meditation on the second part of the affirmation, “Today I awaken the dreaming heart.”
In this fashion, our dreams – one of our best connections to the spiritual realms and to our own inner wisdom – will show us what we need to do, as individuals and as groups, in order to bring about the harmonious world we envision.
It is important to be open and not have set expectations about results. Major change can take place with many small steps. We may be guided to do small things in our own personal spheres of life. The awakened heart affirmation assumes a faith in spiritual guidance as it needs to be given. In that respect, the affirmation is like a dream prayer.
Don’t be surprised if you dream the affirmation dream a night or two before or after the 10th. The ASD Dream Activism group experienced a range of dreams before and after the actual night of incubation. Dreams are outside of time and space.
The effects of dream activism
For our first effort, the dream activism affirmation stimulated a lot of dreaming among the participants. Some themes that emerged concerned group cooperation, the assertion of people for their rights, renewal and rebirth, identification of global needs, sharing of abundance, the overcoming of fear, funding for peace and the emergence of new projects of a healing nature. Discussion of our dreams in turn stimulated more dreaming.
Rita dreamed of a process called “The Tree of Life”:
I am at a meeting with many others and there is a place where on a table people leave food as if in offerings to others. Much of it is fruit or single portions of finger food, and I pick up a beautiful luscious peach and place money in a container, sort of an honor-system arrangement. We can take what we want and pay what we want, or nothing at all, for what is left is with no expectation of monetary return. It's just left as a gift to the others. Those who have funds to pay leave something for the privilege of eating what is there, and that money in turn is used for those in need in some way in which money is essential. A kind of loop...the process is called The Tree of Life....
Curt Hoffman reported several dreams over several nights, including the following:
I am with a group of esoteric workers, very possibly this group, in a city (possibly NYC). We are discussing ways of alleviating conditions of political repression in various parts of the world. One of our number shows us a political cartoon which they have drawn and had published in a newspaper. It shows four people representing the oppressed rising up and demanding their rights. One is a Tibetan; one is a Chinese peasant in a coolie hat who was displaced by the Three Gorges Dam Project; one is a central Asian peasant displaced by a trans-Asian gas pipeline project, and the fourth is a tall blond American with arms folded over his chest, with a sign around his neck which says, "Victim of Fear, 9/11". There is a strong sense of courage as the group views this scene.
Benefits of dream activism
There are three primary benefits to collective dream activism:
1. Our dreams show us what we as individuals can realistically do to make positive change for the world. The creative process initiated by dreams continues in the intuition and waking consciousness. Changes can include shifts in attitudes and social consciousness; greater identification with, and empathy for, peoples around the planet; and specific ideas for action.
2. Our dreams inspire us to act, and without action there is no manifestation. Dreams also help us feel empowered in a good process.
The following dream reported by Curt occurred on July 1, but has a bearing on dream activism:
I turn on the TV news in my car, at the intersection of I-495 and Route 140 in Franklin, Massachusetts. Evidently, Bush has recently given a speech about the need for funding peace projects in the Middle East. A series of young reporters repeat sections of this speech, alternating male and female, one after another. Bush said that he was so concerned about the prospect of young Americans being sent off to war -- his own sons included -- that he has donated $500,000 of his own money to this cause, and he urged all Americans to do likewise. I react to this with a mix of cynicism and hope: I know that very few Americans, after all, could afford to give that much; but it is an "act of international wonder"!
Curt commented: “It is obvious to me that little knots of people are forming all over the world who are bringing forth a transformed consciousness, getting together in groups to share dreams and other activities, generally leaderless and independent, almost like al-Qaeda cells, with one crucial difference: It is our mission to perpetrate acts of international WONDER!!!”
3. The collective dreaming lifts collective consciousness up to a nobler level, which in turn influences the level of waking consciousness, and shifts more weight toward the positive critical mass, a point at which physical reality shifts in response.
The ASD dream activists quickly saw how the group’s dreams related to their own dreams, and also influenced their dreams. The July 1 dream shared by Curt was an influence on Janice Ryalls’ “awakened heart” dream, which occurred on the night of July 24. “I was thinking about Bush's contribution and request for each of us to give $500,000,” said Janice, who serves as scribe for the dream activist group. “To me the number five is the number for ‘change’ and zeroes are like exclamation marks. So, if it were my dream, I would be realizing that for peace to take place in the Middle East, there has to be major change and we are all invited to be a part of it!” Here are the highlights of Janice’s dream:
I'm with a group of people who are showing President Bush around a house. Bush does not look like Bush – he is taller and more handsome, definitely charismatic. Amongst the people are reporters and others who feel like family. We are now in the basement, which is a family room set up with chairs for everyone to sit in. Three chairs are set up at the head of the room and then there are 3 rows of other chairs along one wall for everyone else.
Everyone there has been asking him question after question during the tour, all politically oriented, which is something he puts up with day in and day out. I have had an opportunity during the tour to speak with him also, but rather than ask him political questions, I have spoken with him more heart to heart as if he were a friend.
I now take a seat at the end of the front row of chairs... [There follows a scene with puppies and baby sea turtles whose hairy spider-like legs look like three stairs from the sides.]
Now I look up to see President Bush looking right at me. He is gesturing for me to come sit right next to him on his right side, which surprises me! I feel honored and accept his invitation.
Once next to him, he looks at me and says, "I've sent peace to three people here and you are one of them.” He has sent the peace to us through his eyes. I feel a lot of healing energy in my heart when he tells me this! He then gestures with his head towards a co-worker of mine intimating that he is one of the others he has sent peace to. He doesn't share with me who the third person is.
In the last part of the dream, Janice shares the Bush dream with Rita. The number three is prominent in it, and Rita says three occurs frequently in her dreams, too.
Become a dream activist
Sigmund Freud’s book Dreams: the Royal Road to the Unconscious guided dreamers of the 20th century into explorations of their own inner spaces through personal dreamwork. In this 21st century, we invite you to join us in new explorations of ways to use our dreams for the collective good. If enough of us unite in consciousness, we can make dramatic changes. The collective is only as powerful, as strong and as good as the contributions made to it by individuals. Whether we unite to create chaos or order – terror or wonder – depends on each one of us.
To participate in the ASD Dream Activism, email asd-dream-activism@yahoogroups. com.
A special thanks goes to Curt Hoffman for assisting with this article, and to the international Medford Dream Activism planning team: Jean Campbell, Cathy Evans, Curt Hoffman, Athena Lou, Holly Paiva, Wendy Pannier, Janice Ryalls, Nancy Truluck, Carol Warner, Craig Webb, Gerda Williams-Kalt, Linda Yates, Rosemary Ellen Guiley and Rita Dwyer.
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Rosemary Ellen Guiley has authored several books on dreams and is a former member of the ASD board of directors. Rita Dwyer is a co-founder of the ASD and served for many years as executive director.
This article was prepared for Dream Time, the quarterly magazine of the ASD. Visit the ASD website at www.asdreams.org. A version of this article was prepared for FATE magazine for Rosemary’s “Gateways” column. Visit the FATE website at www.fatemag.com.
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