33 Ways to work with your Dreams: #31-#33

Y’all this is the final post in 33 Ways to work with your Dreams.

I want to just say thank you so very much for all of the feedback and all of the shares. This has been fun for me and I hope enlightening for you. Some of you are where I was on my journey into dream work a few years ago and this list is what I could’ve used back then.

Today we’ll cover all 3 final ways to work with your dreams. But know that this is not a conclusive list, it is just a start. As you work with your dreams more and more, you’ll discover your own methods and those of others in the field of dream work. And I hope, Sweet reader, that you’ll consider reaching out to me and sharing what you uncover.

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#31- Work with a dream professional

Someone who specializes in the field of dream work is going to be well-versed in many of the ways I’ve listed in this blog series and in many more I have not listed. Any dream professional will be able to listen to your dream and to help you unpack the layers it contains. One word of caution though, if you come across a dream worker who tells you what your dream means outright, go find another dream professional. Y’all, no one can tell you what your dream means for you. None of us do that. What we do is go along with you on the journey as you unpack a dream for yourself and delight in the discovery alongside you. If you have any questions about how to find a dream professional, please reach out to me, tell me a little bit about where you are and what you’re looking for in a dream coach (or therapist, psychologist, spiritual director, life coach, whatever) and I’ll be very happy to help you find someone.

And, of course, please click the link if you’re interested in setting up a dream coaching session with me (Your investment is $30). There is no package deal, you just make an appointment as needed. Click here to learn more about my dream coaching service.

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#32- Perform a ritual to integrate the dream

When you finally uncover the core of a dream’s message for you. Consider making some gesture in your waking life to acknowledge the wisdom that has been sent to you from your dreaming life. Performing a ritual does not have to be elaborate, and it does not have to be public. It can be a private, brief ceremony that is totally made up. The reason this is one of my suggested ways to work with your dream is that it will help you integrate the dream imagery into waking life and so it can help you digest or internalize the inner work you have done on your psyche. Dream work is inner work because it helps move us towards wholeness when we consciously understand what a dream is showing us.

For example, I might dream of being lost in a house and chased by a stranger and then in the dream a mouse runs out and trips the stranger so that I manage to get away. And then in doing the dream work (using any combination of the 33 suggested ways in this blog series), I might realize that the stranger represents the stress of my job chasing me all during the day and the mouse represents my child who interrupts my day long enough to help me release the stress from work when I come home.

To implement method #32, I might decide to make a gesture of gratitude to my child when I come home from work and see him approach. Maybe I say, “How’s my favorite mouse?” or maybe I say as I leave work I say to myself, “I’d better scurry home the mouse is waiting” or maybe I prepare a snack of cheese for myself so that during work, when I take a break I am reminded of the dream’s message for me.

By bringing some aspect of the dream into a ritual in my waking life, I am accepting and integrating the lesson I received from it. The ritual can be anything that suits you and your dream. It just ought to be something that occurs outside of your mind (in waking life). This method, by the way, was derived from Robert A. Johnson’s book, Inner Work.

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#33- Let it go and just wait for the next one; messages repeat themselves in different dreams anyway!

Ah, what a relief to know that you don’t HAVE to catch a dream when it happens and you don’t have to spend hours applying 33 ways to work a single dream! Sweet reader, you don’t actually have to work your dreams at all. Ever! And while I do, of course, advocate strongly for doing dream work in your life; I also recognize that we are showered with dreams for our entire lifetime and that if you let a dream (or several) slip your mind, it’s no big deal. Dreams carry messages we need to hear and they will repeat those messages in different dreams time and again until we have worked through that thing that has been needing our attention. They won’t stop just because you’re not paying attention. So, the final suggestion I have for you if you can’t seem to make heads or tails of a particular dream’s messages is to just Let It Go, Sweet reader, let it go. It will be just fine.

 

Ok, Lovelies, that’s it. Those are my suggested 33 ways to work with your dreams. Let’s keep the conversation going, though. I’m here and I am interested in what’s on your mind. What else should we discuss? What else to you want to know about? What else have you always wondered? What dreamy questions do you have? Let’s go get a refill of coffee or tea or a little snack plate and keep chatting, ok?

I’ll write again soon!

~Pam

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33 Ways to work with your Dreams: #30

#30 in the series 33 Ways to work with your Dreams is one I rarely ever actually use. But I know many other excellent dream workers who use this one frequently with amazing results.

#30- Isolate the parts of speech.

If I dream about a bird, that may tell me one thing. But if I dream about a blue, angry, stubborn bird, that adds a completely new dimension to my understanding of the symbol of ‘bird’. The more thorough your dream recall, the more quickly and clearly the dream messages can be excavated.

Breaking apart a dream based on parts of speech may lead to some startling discoveries.

To use this method of isolating the parts of speech, write (or type) the dream out in its entirety. Then on a separate piece of paper, write headings at the top of columns- Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb and so on. Then as you read over your dream one sentence at a time, list the parts of speech in the proper column.

And finally, study the parts of speech list you’ve created. Does any of it remind you of something going on in waking life currently? Does any of the combination of words spark your memory of some event from your past? Is any of the terminology something that seems odd or out of place?

This type of inquiry can allow your logical mind, your left-brained thinking, play a more prominent role in the mostly creative, right-brained world of working with dreams.

Y’all let me know if this works for you. I know a few writer friends who find this way of working with dreams particularly juicy and productive!

I look forward to hearing from you in the comments, or on social media. I welcome your questions and if you want me to work with your dream, I offer email dream interpretations and private one-to-one dream coaching sessions!

 

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33 Ways to work with your Dreams: #29

I only have 5 remaining Ways to share with you in 33 Ways to work with your Dreams and I hope you will keep tuning in as we finish up our summer adventure, Sweet reader. Today, we cover #29.

#29 – Engage in prayer/meditation

Dreams, prayers and meditation all exist in your interior world. Dreams come to us out of our unconscious mind. They bubble up out of our own depths. Dreams are influenced by and entangled with all of our mental activity, our fantasies, our deepest desires and fears and all of the clutter we take in within our lifetime.

The same can be said for prayer and meditation. They are also influenced by and entangled with all of our mental activity, our deepest desires and fears, and all of the clutter we take in within our lifetime.

So one way to work with your dreams is to spend time in prayer or in meditation about the dream imagery. They both (dreams & prayer/meditation) exist in the same interior land and so they speak the same language.

Merging the two might be an opportunity to pull out some deeper truth about the dream that you hadn’t seen before.

Sweet Reader, it’s nice to see you here. I look forward to hearing from you in the comments, or on social media. I welcome your questions and if you want me to work with your dream, I offer email dream interpretations and private one-to-one dream coaching sessions.Save

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33 Ways to work with your Dreams: #28

Today’s item is #28 in the series 33 Ways to work with your Dreams.

#28- Look for the movement of the Divine.

Finding God in all things is at the core of Ignatian Spirituality and is rooted in our growing awareness that God can found in every one, in every place and in everything. When we learn to pay more attention to God, we become more thankful and reverent, and through this we become more devoted to God, more deeply in love with our Creator.

Loyola Press (Ignatian Spirituality)

God is in all things. The spirit that permeates our world also permeates our dream world. One way to work with a dream is to ask the question, “Where is the movement of God in this dream?” This very powerful dream question was taught to me by Bob Haden, author of Unopened Letter from God and founder of the Haden Institute.

It is a profoundly deep but simple question that honestly can be applied to all dreams. In my opinion, it brings one very quickly into the contemplative mind set of wonder and curiosity. Try it and see how it guides you.

Unpacking a dream can be superficial sometimes. We like to know that a red cardinal means new birth or that dreaming of flying means success in waking life. We like simple answers that point us in simple directions and that lead to shallow, easy to follow adventures.

But asking yourself, “Where is the movement of the Divine in this dream?” can lead to more meaningful dialogue and discoveries about your dream and might just set you on an adventure, a pilgrimage, of a lifetime.

Sweet Reader, I look forward to hearing from you in the comments, or on social media. I welcome your questions and if you want me to work with your dream, I offer email dream interpretations and private one-to-one dream coaching sessions.

 

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33 Ways to work with your Dreams: #27

After a short break (for summer travel), I’m back to finish our last week of 33 Ways to work with your Dreams.

#27 – Look for the yin/yang energy

Yin/Yang energy is based on the theory of the two alternating energies of life in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Now, let me set the record at the outset of this post, I am not anywhere close to any kind of expert on Chinese medicine. I know only a tiny bit about the topic, only enough to tell you to seek out information elsewhere if you’re interested in learning more about it. In fact, it’s highly likely that you, Sweet reader, know much more on the subject of Yin & Yang than I. If so, please leave some of your own insight in the comments section of this post so others can benefit from a wider breadth of knowledge than just what I offer here.

In the very briefest of terms, yin and yang energy are the opposing and complementary forces which are in a continual flow towards balancing and re-balancing each other. I found a very helpful website that contains this explanation:

Opposite yet Complementary Energies

Everything contains Yin and Yang. They are two opposite yet complementary energies. What does this really mean? Although they are totally different—opposite—in their individual qualities and nature, they are interdependent. Yin and Yang cannot exist without the other; they are never separate. For example, night and day form a Yin-Yang pair. (Night is Yin and day is Yang.) Night looks and is very different than day, yet it is impossible to have one without the other. Both create a totality, a complete whole.

This is from TCMworld.org.

So in dreams, you can look for the opposing yet complimentary forces which are driving the movement of the dream forward. In other words, what is the force behind the action in the dream? If you explore that question and maybe read a little more about the symbols and attributes of yin and those of yang, you will gain deeper insight into a dream’s meaning and core purpose for coming to you.

Sweet Readers, thanks for your patience while I took a summer hiatus for a little while before returning to our series. For the rest of the series, I will be posting one a day until we have finished all 33 ways to work with your dreams. There are, of course, many other approaches beyond 33 but I hope that by following this series you have a broader grasp on how flexible and layered dreams can be and also how rewarding it is to discover an AHA! while doing dream work. Thank you for being here and I’ll see you tomorrow!

I look forward to hearing from you in the comments, or on social media. I welcome your questions and if you want me to work with your dream, I offer email dream interpretations and private one-to-one dream coaching sessions.

 

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33 Ways to work with your Dreams: #26

Today’s #26 in 33 Ways to work with your Dreams is actually the first thing I did when I began working with my dreams more than 10 years ago.

#26- Buddy up.

We all need a friend in this world, especially when it comes to telling our dreams! Here’s a not-so-secret fact: not everyone wants to hear your dream. And since many of the dream strategies I’ve suggested in this series have to do with discussing the dream, you’re going to need someone out there to listen to all of your chatter. You may even need them quite often if you’re a prolific dreamer.

I was lucky because when I first became interested in working with my own dreams, my sister also became interested right along with me. She and I would call each other up (sometimes more than once a day) and swap dream stories. Having a dream buddy was so very helpful as I began working more deeply with my dreams and uncovering surprising (and sometimes emotional) truths.

Doing the inner work of paying attention to your dreams can launch you into unexpected realizations and lead to sudden leaps in spiritual and personal growth. Buddying up with a trusted friend who can bare witness to and affirm your new emerging self is critical to giving you the confidence to stay on the path of dream work.

If you need a buddy, but don’t know where to find one, try attending a dream group in your area or seeking out a dream professional. You might also check out social media groups or dream-related organizations like the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Local Meetups might also be another way to get plugged into local, like-minded dreamers with whom you may form personal friendships. For me, finding ways to be in community over the years has led to many lasting friendships and I now have dream buddies I can call on all across the nation.

Sweet Readers, I hope you’re enjoying this post series. I look forward to hearing from you in the comments, or on social media. I welcome your questions and if you want me to work with your dream, I offer email dream interpretations and private one-to-one dream coaching sessions!

 

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33 Ways to work with your Dreams: #24 &…

We are talking about #24 and #25 today in the series 33 Ways to work with your Dreams.

#24 – Tell the dream in the present tense.

Most of the time we tell a dream in past tense because that is when it occurred. By re-positioning your mind to go back into the dream as it was happening, in the present, you might open up new understandings or experience new levels of emotions or details of the dream which you could not recall before. This is the first step in what is known as Gestalt Theory. You can learn more about that in this very concise and informative post on the website SocialWork.Career

#25- Tell the story of the dream from a different perspective.

This is another extension of using Gestalt Theory on dreams. Telling the story of a dream from the perspective of a different character in the dream is a way to personify other aspects of yourself that you normally don’t identify with. For example, if you dream of a shadowed figure chasing you through a maze of rooms, try retelling the dream from the persona of the shadowed figure. How would he/she tell the story of what happened in the dream? When you do this, you should use the first-person present tense (ex: I am running after someone but can’t catch up, and so on).

Sweet Readers, I hope you’re enjoying this post series. I look forward to hearing from you in the comments, or on social media. I welcome your questions and if you want me to work with your dream, I offer email dream interpretations and private one-to-one dream coaching sessions!

 

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